In a surprising move, the Denver Nuggets have fired their head coach Micheal Malone along with their general manager Calvin Booth with only 5 games left in the season. The Nuggets are one of the best teams in the NBA with them sitting at the 3rd seed in the Western Conference with a playoff berth in play. This makes this even more surprising and there were no signs of bad blood between both parties.
Some reputable sources that are close to the Nuggets said that there was some tension brewing between Mike Malone and Calvin Booth. The main reason for their tension was a brewing disagreement on what players each person wanted to sign. This mainly occurred when, in the offseason, the Nuggets signed veteran forward Dario Saric to a one year and about 6 million dollar deal. Saric was way past his prime at this point and he has massively underperformed this season. There were also disagreements on the amount of minutes that some players were playing.
The firing of Mike Malone by the Nuggets, with three games remaining in the regular season, ties the record for the latest coaching change in NBA history, matching the Atlanta Hawks firing their coach Hubie Brown in 1981. The owner of the Nuggets said that the reason for firing Mike Malone and Calvin Booth was to make the players mentally stronger to get them ready for the playoffs. Undoubtedly, this is definitely the most shocking coach firing in NBA history.
