Josh Kroenke asked himself ‘am I crazy’ and said Monday that neither Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone nor general manager Calvin Booth ‘deserved’ to be fired.
So why did he do it?
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The Nuggets vice chairman spoke with reporters about the controversial decisions in a news conference on Monday, days ahead of Denver’s playoff series against the Los Angeles Clippers.
“It was an incredibly tough decision for us for a lot of levels,” Kroenke said. “I think at the very end of the day it was a very tough decision because of the amount of respect that I personally have and that we as an organization have for what those gentlemen did for us while they were here. …
“To be frank, neither of them deserved it. And so for that, I apologize. From my position as a leader in the organization, I needed to be better at different points in time.”
The Nuggets fired Malone and Booth last Tuesday in a decision that was stunning on multiple levels. Malone was in his 10th season with the Nuggets as the most successful head coach in franchise history and the only one to lead them to an NBA championship.
His dismissal would have been surprising at any time. But the timing of his firing — with three games remaining in the regular season and a week before the playoffs — made it even more so. Kroenke acknowledged the reception to the decisions on Monday.
“Trust me, I went through all that,” Kroenke said, per the Denver Post. “I’m like, ‘Am I crazy?’ So I fully understand what you guys were probably thinking in the moment.”
Josh Kroenke asked himself ‘am I crazy’ and said Monday that neither Malone nor Booth ‘deserved’ to be fired. So why did he do it? (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
It was an open secret that Malone and Booth did not get along. That factor is widely believed to have played a significant role in Kroenke’s decision to dismiss them both in spite of the team’s trajectory toward a seventh consecutive playoff berth that netted the No. 4 seed in the West and home-court advantage in the first round.
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Kroenke alluded on Monday to tension behind the scenes playing a factor in his decision.
“I can see certain trends behind the scenes with the group,” Kroenke said. “And those were worrisome.”
Kroenke also said that he’d been thinking of making the moves since November and that he’d previously come close to pulling the trigger on two occasions — amid an 8-6 start near Thanksgiving and during the All-Star break in February.
“I was really feeling like things weren’t headed in the right direction,” Kroenke said of Denver’s early-season start.
Kroenke said that he backed off of firing them at the All-Star break with the Nuggets in the midst of an eight-game winning streak that it extended to nine after the break.
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“What would be crazier?” Kroenke asked. “Me doing what I did last week or doing it on an eight-game win streak?”
Kroenke ultimately decided to dismiss Malone and Booth amid a four-game losing streak as Denver was losing ground in a tightly packed Western Conference playoff race.
The Nuggets won their last three games after the dismissals. They’ll play their next game on Saturday in Game 1 of their playoff series against the Clippers.