After an identical report surfaced in August from one other outlet, Zach Lowe of ESPN mentioned on his podcast this week (hat tip to RealGM) that there are “rumblings” that Michael Malone and the Nuggets entrance workplace aren’t seeing eye to eye “to a level even uncommon for the NBA.”
This offseason, the Nuggets misplaced Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to free company one yr after dropping key function gamers in Jeff Inexperienced and Bruce Brown. Common supervisor Calvin Sales space has focused younger gamers to develop to attempt to offset the losses of those veterans, however they haven’t been one-to-one replacements.
As famous by RealGM, Sales space’s contract expires after the 2024/25 season whereas Malone’s runs by way of ’26/27. It’s not precisely clear to what diploma Malone and the entrance workplace aren’t clicking, however Denver took a step again after profitable the title in 2023 they usually don’t have a transparent substitute for what Caldwell-Pope dropped at the desk as one of many premier 3-and-D role-players within the league.
For what it’s price, Sales space didn’t precisely put any rumors to relaxation together with his feedback in Could.
“We’ve talked about this lots upstairs,” Sales space mentioned in Could. “The overall supervisor, entrance workplace job oftentimes is to ensure the long-term view is one thing that we’re happy with. And Coach Malone’s down there within the trenches attempting to win each evening. And plenty of instances, these issues are aligned, however typically they ebb and movement away from one another.”
We have now extra from the Northwest Division:
