That there is no man named Zeljko Obradovic, nothing could be truer than the popular remark in basketball circles that there are two types of coaches - those who have been replaced and those who will be replaced. They also say that every real coach always has a suitcase packed, just in case he gets a new job or gets fired from his current job.
Michael Malone, the current coach of the Denver Nuggets and Nikola Jokić, he didn't have a packed suitcase. Not because he's too big a coaching name, and certainly not because everyone was happy with his work - because many weren't - but he probably had no idea that the franchise he'd led to the only NBA championship in history would fire him with three games left in the regular season.
This is not the only change that has been made within the Denver Nuggets organization, whose owner Stan Kroenke also fired general manager Calvin Booth, but it is a sensational one that can certainly be discussed.
Will the Nuggets gain anything at all by trading him, in the short and long term? Was Michael Malone the problem at all?
Problems and disagreements
Many basketball analysts see two basic problems in the structure of the Nuggets, which did not allow the team, which was the NBA champion just two years ago, to continue with the expected dominance.
The first is the disagreement between the coach and the general manager, whose relationship was so bad that, according to insiders, they hardly even communicated. General manager Calvin Booth has repeatedly mentioned the Nuggets' desire and need to turn to young players, and he criticized coach Malone for trusting far more veterans of questionable contribution, such as Reggie Jackson, DeAndre Jordan or, this season, Russell Westbrook.
Honestly, Booth himself hasn't excelled at making good decisions through draft picks, trades and free agent signings. Christian Brown is someone who has proven to be an excellent pick, while other youngsters like Peyton Watson or Julian Strother are quite sporadic and unreliable, if we are talking about contributing to a team whose ambition is to win an NBA ring.
What many criticize But is the fact that Nikola Jokić, the best player in the world for years, still did not have an "all-star" teammate in his career. Of nearly five thousand players who have paraded through the NBA throughout its history, Nikola Jokić is the only one who played over 700 games, without having a teammate who appeared in the duel of the best players in the world or was selected in the league's best five.
The Denver Nuggets decided to keep the nucleus of a championship team, giving huge contracts to Jamal Murray, Michael Porter and Aaron Gordon, players with huge qualities but also big injury questions. The nominally strongest five of the Nuggets, with Jokic and Brown in addition to the aforementioned three players, appeared together in only 24 games this season. More often than the case with other teams fighting for the top, one of the Nuggets' point guards can be seen sitting by the bench and watching the game in civilian clothes.
The contracts given to these injury-prone players make their contracts extremely unpopular with other teams, who are not interested in potential trades with Denver. This significantly narrows the options a general manager has in terms of team building, but the problem in Calvin Booth's case is that he failed to maximize the potential that comes with playing alongside the best – and possibly the most selfish – player on the planet, Nikola Jokic.
It is simply incredible how the Nuggets failed to attract more serious players among free agents or veterans who are ready to play for the minimum, and who decide to do so in order to find themselves in a situation to fight for an NBA ring.
A team that has Nikola Jokić at his peak is a team that will fight for the title - or one signing away from that. Why and how it was not used to strengthen the team and prepare for playoff battles, the owners of the franchise probably asked themselves, before they decided to hand over the resignation to the general manager and the coach of the team.
Responsibility of the owner and the unreal Jokić
However, the greatest responsibility lies precisely with the owner, Stan Kroenke, who also owns numerous other sports teams such as the London Arsenal, the St. Louis Rams and the Colorado Avalanche. As a team owner with the best player in the sport at their disposal, they had to be smarter about the Nuggets' top picks, but also be willing to spend a few dollars more.
It is not polite to look into someone else's wallet and finances, but sports teams should be guided by the ambition to maximize potential and do everything to bring the team closer to the ultimate goal, which is always the championship title. In American sports, unless you have the smartest executives and the best coach - which the Nuggets absolutely did not have - it is preferable to splurge for a few dollars more, possibly pay the luxury tax, in order to make Nikola Jokic's life at least a little easier.
It is simply impossible to play better than the way Jokic is playing this season. Why he will most likely not win the MVP award - which would be his fourth, which would place him in the select company of Abdul-Jabbar, Jordan, LeBron, Russell and Chamberlain - is a separate topic, but it is also closely related to the final position of the Denver Nuggets after the end of the regular season.
A team led by this kind of Jokić would have to be in one of the first two places in their conference, and the final balance should be close to, or even over 60 wins. Instead, the Nuggets will fight hard to get a direct place in the playoffs, and now it is already clear that they will not achieve more than 50 victories in the regular part of the season.
Asking something more from the guy from Sombor than the current performance – 29.8 points, 12.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists – would be immoral, inhuman and abnormal. With him on the field, Denver is better than the rival by 10, and without him worse by 8.7 points per hundred possessions. Denver scores 125.4 points with Jokić in the game, and without him a whole 21 points less per hundred offensive possessions.
Statistics, advanced statistics, but also the eye test tell us that the problem is not in Nikola Jokić, moreover, Nikola Jokić masked numerous problems of the Denver Nuggets and maximally prolonged the dismissals of people who already had to be replaced. A spectrum of decisions in the last few years has kept the team away from the championship title, and the owners have finally said enough is enough.
Cruel timing for dismissal
The basic question is not whether the resignations had to be served, but - did they have to be delivered right now? Just three games into the regular season, this is the "latest" firing of an NBA coach since 1981.
In this case, not just any coach, but the coach who just a few years ago brought the franchise its only title in history. In addition, to a coach whose team at that moment had a score of 47-32, with a very real chance of finishing in one of the first four positions, which would give them the home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
However, it has been clear for some time that the Nuggets are playing below expectations, and the last straw came in the form of four consecutive losses, which threatened Denver's chances of fighting for one of the higher positions. Coach Malone has been very critical of his players in press conferences on a couple of occasions, questioning their energy and desire.
Truth be told, few other coaches have dealt with as many injuries, but the Denver Nuggets really haven't looked like one of the NBA title favorites this season, which should be the case when you have a player averaging a triple-double.
In the previously mentioned series of four games, Nikola Jokić averaged 45 points, over 12 rebounds and 10 assists, shot 62% from the field, and 45% for three-pointers, and despite all that, his team did not record a single victory.
When it comes to that, then other problems start to stand out, such as the relationship between the coach and the general manager, the unfavorable contracts of the team's manager, the lack of picks in the upcoming draft elections, and the union paid for all of this by the two quarreling "heroes" of our story - Malone and Booth.
Booth will need a lot of luck and connections to land a similar job in the future, while Michael Malone should land a new job very quickly. He leaves the Denver Nuggets as the coach who won the only championship title and achieved the most victories in the history of the franchise, and also as the coach who recorded the most victories in the NBA in the previous five years (252).
In the end, or in the beginning, Mike Malone will be remembered as someone who recognized the future best player in the world in Nikola Jokić.
What's next for the Nuggets?
One thing is certain, and that is that the position of coach and general manager of the team where Nikola Jokić plays will be extremely sought after. It is expected that the Denver Nuggets will have the opportunity to choose between several top candidates for both positions.
As the first name mentioned, Bob Myers, the architect of the championship Golden State Warriors, emerged. He is currently working as a TV analyst, and there is no doubt that he already has several ideas on how to maximize the potential of Nikola Jokić, like Steph Curry once did.
Apart from him, two experts who made decisions in the Nuggets before Calvin Booth, and who are highly respected in NBA circles, are mentioned for the vacant position of general manager.
In question are Masai Ujiri, who built the Toronto Raptors championship team with Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol, as well as his former heir Tim Connelly, who is most responsible for the arrival of Aaron Gordon in the ranks of the Nuggets.
After leaving Denver, Tim Connelly managed to lift the traditionally sad Minnesota Timberwolves, who reached the finals of the Western Conference last season, after knocking out Nikola Jokic and his teammates in an unforgettable series.
When it comes to the head coaching position, there are currently two college basketball coaches being mentioned, Nate Oates and Dan Hurley. Harley is of particular interest, as he won two NCAA titles in the past three seasons with the University of Connecticut, and was about to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers last summer.
However, it is to be expected that the Kroenke family, which owns the Denver Nuggets, will do the job properly this time. He will leave alone David Adelman, the son of the famous Rick, the coach of our Sacramento Kings, to prepare the team for the upcoming playoff battles and try to present himself as the future of the franchise.
He has the knowledge, he has a good connection with Jokić and his teammates, and we should not ignore the fact that he is the son of the man who, as a coach, achieved the tenth highest number of victories in the NBA.
It would be nice if the Kroenke family asked Nikola Jokić for his opinion, because he absolutely deserved it with his games, but also with his loyalty to the franchise that has never before had the best basketball player in the world.
