What did Mike Malone have to say about the Nuggets’ preseason trading?

The Denver Nuggets have been through happier, less stressful times. The Colorado franchise, which won the first NBA championship in its history in 2023, suffered the disappointment of being eliminated in the Conference semifinals last year, also losing the seventh and final game at the Mile High, where the spectacular altitude did not prevent the victory of the young and beardless Timberwolves.

A setback, or at the very least an embarrassment for a team that had a hard time in the first round against the Lakers (a deceptive 4-1 with a total difference of 8 points in the entire series), in a very close tie in which each of the games could have gone either way.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope later acknowledged that he felt they should have lost that series. One that took its toll on the physicality of the then reigning champion, with it being leaked that Nikola Jokic had finished the season very tired and ended up exhausted against the Wolves.

Comings and going in Denver

After that, the Nuggets have been immersed in a summer in which they have done nothing. Zero. After winning the ring in 2023, they lost two very important players - Jeff Green and Bruce Brown, while in the current market, they have let Caldwell-Pope escape to join the Magic. The roster is increasingly short, a symptom that already had consequences in the last playoffs, and the ineffectiveness of the management, which has remained motionless, casts many doubts on the future of a team that started last season as one of the main favorites and faces the next in a sea full of uncertainty. Nikola Jokic remains the standard-bearer, coming off his third MVP and is currently the best player in the world (along with Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and little else), but he has fewer and fewer players around him to develop his infinite talent.

There’s also Jamal Murray, another player that no one knows whether to trust. He scored 35 points in Game 7 against the Wolves, but his inconsistency and defensive ability have been evident. And he’s also coming off a very poor Olympic Games with Canada: 5.7 points, 33% in field goals and 10% in three-pointers. Far from his best physical form, with his insides very damaged and still showing symptoms of that rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee from 2021, an injury that has prevented many players from ever being the same.

It seems that the point guard is stumbling around, with very big absences and flashes of talent (like the two game-winning shots against the Lakers in the first round) that are not enough to maintain what would have been one of the best duos in history. Nobody knows if the quality of the playmaker will return to what it was. But, even if it does, it is possible that it will not be enough to compete for the ring. At least, with the favorites’ tag that they enjoyed in 2023.

The rest of the roster is filled with familiar faces: the most important and who were essential in winning the ring are Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter (who made all the three-pointers against the Lakers and missed them all against the Wolves). A roster that is getting shorter and shorter, with hardly any rotation (Payton Watson, Christian Braun...), which forces Jokic to play a lot of minutes and the team to pray when the Serbian sits on the bench.

And with the only acquisition of Russell Westbrook, that star who comes and goes, who searches and tries, but who goes from one team to another without benefiting anyone although it is not always his fault. A complicated panorama if we take into account that the Western Conference is more open than ever and that the Nuggets (it already happened to them last year) are forced to fight until the end to get a good classification for the playoffs and the home court advantage in the first round. Wear and tear and more wear and tear. That cannot go on forever.

Mike Malone, not happy

Another of those who follows is the coach, a Mike Malone who faces his 10th season on the bench... and who is not very happy with the situation. Various US media have reported that the board and the coach cannot look each other in the eye and that the few changes that the Nuggets have been subjected to have caused Malone to be angry. No wonder - nobody knows to what extent he has been consulted or what pieces he has requested.

The only thing that has been leaked is that the signing of Westbrook was a special request from Jokic himself and that the board, immersed like everyone else in the era of empowered players, has been forced to give in to the request of the Serbian. Although the feeling from outside is that they have not put up too much resistance, neither to the signing of Russ nor to the loss of Caldwell-Pope. And they have not put much interest in bringing other players to the club either.

That’s the current state of play at the Nuggets. With fewer and fewer players in a bid to clinch another ring while the Wolves maintain a competitive block, the Mavericks get Klay Thompson and the Thunder form a squad that can opt for absolutely everything they set out to do.

With Jokic finishing every campaign tired, Jamal Murray generating more doubts than certainties and Russell Westbrook in the team with everything that can mean. With the strongest direct rivals, the most unpredictable West and them weaker.

With the memory of the 2023 ring, that golden symphony in the Rockies that allowed the first ring of a franchise born in the ABA, but with a near future that can’t even live on dreams. And with Mike Malone, that peculiar coach with a modus operandi that goes from the press conference to the court, facing the board. They have everything. And everywhere. Bad thing.

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