After the team fired former head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth with just three games left in the NBA regular season, Adelman took over with support of the players. Adelman was an assistant coach with the Nuggets dating back to 2017 and grew up around the league as his father, Rick, was a longtime NBA coach.
After Adelman took over, the Nuggets won their last three games of the season, defeated the Los Angeles Clippers in a playoff series and took the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in the Western Conference Semifinals.
When team governor Josh Kroenke announced the decision on May 22, he said Adleman went "above and beyond" in the playoffs and the team did not want to let Adelman's talents slip through their fingers.
"He’s been on the radar for the rest of the league for a number of years as a potential head coach," Kroenke said.
Though Nuggets star Nikola Jokić insisted the decision was above his pay grade, Kroenke said he considered
Jokić's opinion in the decision.
After the Game 7 loss to the Thunder, Jokić was among the Nuggets players to praise Adelman, saying he believed Adelman helped the team wake up and believe in something. Starters Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon also endorsed Adelman at that time.
"I hope he’s here next year," Gordon said. "I hope he’s our coach. I hope he gets an entire training camp, and a whole offseason and a whole training camp to figure out his philosophy.”
After rumors that Malone's fights with Booth had caused tension in the locker room, it seems the Kroenkes wanted to go with a pick that the players enjoyed.
Nuggets Nation seems generally pleased so far, with fans chiming in on social media to express excitement.
"Nearly beat the 68 win thunder with 3 healthy starters," user @BoBOGoldenGod wrote on X. "The players must like him and he must have gotten Jokić's approval."
Other Nugs fans on X agreed.
"Adelman clearly the best candidate than some previous old head who has been fired three times already," wrote user @will_d_jones.
Those who were displeased didn't cite problems with Adelmanm but felt the team should have conducted a coaching search.
"The choice in David Adelman seems rushed," @theKyleSeeley wrote. "It’s the cheap and easy way out for ownership. They should have done an exhaustive search for the next head coach. Jokic deserves that. Adelman has been under Malone since 2017. Nothing against him, but when you have the best player in the world in his prime, you have to get the best possible coach you can get."
On the r/denvernuggets subreddit, fans generally seemed excited about the decision.
"I’m perfectly fine with this frankly," user Shenanigans80h wrote. "He did well given the circumstances. He was a massive part of a staff that already won a title. The more important decision will be who we get at GM."
That sentiment was shared by other Redditors, with others commenting that they believe Adelman did the best he could with the roster constraints created by Booth, and urging the Kroenkes to conduct an extensive search for the GM candidate.
"Please do a good GM search and don’t just hire the cheapest internal candidate," user masonb423 said.
Kroenke said the team would take more time to hire a GM in the offseason during his May 22 comments.
Check out more reactions here:
Contrarian here, I think hiring Adelman before a GM is fine to good because the players like him and respect him and that’s honestly what’s most important about that job.
— new choof (@pausechoof) May 22, 2025
I haven’t thought deeply about Adelman yet, but doing this before hiring a GM is a horrible decision in my opinion https://t.co/Cbaf9mT2gA
— Ethical Hoops🏆 (only takes Ws) (@EthicalHoopz) May 22, 2025
Congats to Adelman he deserved it now make sure you nail a GM that understands connections and the importance of vets
— Guin (@yoitsguin) May 22, 2025
don’t necessarily hate that adelman’s back, but i think it’s extraordinarily stupid that they’re just handing him the job without interviewing other candidates. this is too big of a decision to just base it off of a few weeks of lucky play.
— arsh (@dunkerjatt) May 22, 2025
Honestly Coach Adelman did a good job. I didn’t even think Nuggets would make it to conference semi finals but they did.
— GameDayPeruth (@PeruthVanessa2) May 22, 2025
Let’s see how it will go
I am in favor of Adelman being the coach. These playoffs he displayed an adaptability to the personnel, varying coverages defensively which made the team less predictable, and put the responsibility on the players to figure out issues on the floor https://t.co/tC7deykA0W
— CT (@CTFazio24) May 22, 2025
Adelman wasn't my first choice as head coach but guys seemed to rally around him. Im hopeful Nuggets look to add to the coaching staff because our team defense, has been borderline embarrassing for years now. New defensive coaches couldn't hurt.
— Enthusiast of House Targaryen🇮🇹🇺🇸 (@NathanJ5072) May 22, 2025
