Malone started with the Nuggets in 2015, leading the team to the playoffs for six consecutive seasons since 2018. He signed a multi-year extension with the team in 2023; he will be owed $25 million in a buyout. Booth became the GM of the team in 2020 and was on an expiring contract, so he will get no buyout.
Since both men were fired, the NBA world has erupted with rumors that the two were in such constant conflict that Nuggets staffers felt like they had to pick sides, according to multiple reports.
The Kroenke family, which owns the Nuggets, decided not to pick a side, letting both men go.
“While the timing of this decision is unfortunate, as Coach Malone helped build the foundation of our now championship-level program, it is a necessary step to allow us to compete at the highest level right now," Nuggets president Josh Kroenke says in a statement.
According to the Denver Post, the team was very close to renewing Booth’s contract earlier this season before Booth rejected the Kroenkes’ offer.
So what went wrong between Booth and Malone that left them both jobless?
Winning a Championship Didn't Bridge the Gap Between Malone and Booth
It appears that while Tim Connelly was the president of basketball operations, the pair got along. And after Connelly left in 2022, Booth and Malone were still on the same page about signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and drafting Christian Braun, both of whom played a key part in the 2023 championship win.However, according to ESPN insider Shams Charania, Malone was on the hot seat during the 2023 season with the owners planning to move on from Malone after the year closed out. Once the Nuggets won the title, they changed their minds — for less than two seasons.
A few reports say there were some issues between Booth and Malone before the championship win. According to the Denver Post, the tension between Booth and Malone heightened after that season; they had different ideas on how to transform the single trophy into a dynasty. Malone reportedly preferred to sign veteran players, while Booth wanted to try to replicate the success with Braun by drafting young, inexpensive players to surround star Nikola Jokić.
Those differences led “to a culture in which ‘coaches don’t trust the front office and front office (employees) don’t trust the coaches,’” one source told the Denver Post.
Booth’s idea was designed to work within an NBA system that punishes teams with expensive rosters.
“The concept was good, but Booth left himself no outs,” Matt Moore of the Action Network writes. “He signed second-rounders Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson to multi-year guaranteed deals. He signed Zeke Nnaji to a $12 million per extension that would make him the fifth-highest-paid Nugget this season, banking on his ability to be a tradeable asset as a young prospect on an affordable deal.”
In non-basketball-speak: Booth put a lot of money in places that weren’t solid bets and did so in a way that the money could not be recovered. Malone reportedly objected heavily to Booth’s strategy, choosing to give Pickett, Tyson and Nnaji limited minutes.
Oddly, Booth seemed to agree that the roster wasn’t as strong as it could be, telling media at the start of the season that there were only “nine real guys” on the team.
How Jalen Pickett Became a Flashpoint in the Fight
Still, Booth believed his talent evaluation was superior to Malone’s and that the young players would develop if given the chance. Booth especially believed in Pickett, according to Denver Sports and the Denver Post, with Mile High Sports even reporting Booth tried to get Malone to play Pickett over Reggie Jackson last season (despite Booth being the one to sign Jackson to a new contract). Booth and Pickett both graduated from Penn State.Instead of Pickett, Malone played Collin Gillespie last season and Russell Westbrook this season when point guard Jamal Murray was hurt. Booth added Westbrook because Jokić wanted another veteran point guard on the roster, both to play over Pickett and for when Murray wouldn’t be available, according to Mile High Sports.
Westbrook has been great at times and lost the Nuggets games at other times. Reports indicate that Booth became extremely frustrated over the course of the season when Malone continued to use Westbrook instead of Pickett to close games.
Lately, Pickett appears to have found a groove. But the case of Nnaji is even more mysterious, and was allegedly another major point of contention between Booth and Malone. In the 2023 offseason, Nnaji signed a four-year, $32-million deal with the team despite Nnaji playing almost no role in the championship season. “The playing or not-playing of Nnaji became a flashpoint for Booth and Malone,” Denver Sports reports. “To this day, Nnaji struggles to get on the floor. …Saying Nnaji has negative value on the trade market is kind and his existence prevented the Nuggets from several deals since.”
The Nuggets, under Booth’s direction, made no moves that impacted the NBA roster at either of the last two trade deadlines.
Though Booth and Malone already disliked each other after the Nuggets’ early exit from the playoffs in 2024, it seems the 2024 offseason made the situation even worse.
2024 Offseason Escalated the Lack of Trust Between Booth and Malone
“In the offseason, Booth was given full autonomy to explore a variety of different moves by ownership,” Mile High Sports says. “It was supposed to be a collaborative effort among the organization but Booth made the majority of decisions by himself without consulting most of the Denver brain trust, including Malone.”The Kroenkes were on the same page as Booth on letting Caldwell-Pope walk; according to Mile High Sports, Malone was not — and was upset the team did not try to retain the veteran player.
In the same offseason, Booth traded Reggie Jackson to the Charlotte Hornets along with three second-round picks after Jackson chose to exercise the player option on the deal Booth had given him the previous year. One of the picks the Nuggets gave up to convince Charlotte to take Jackson helped the Sacramento Kings acquire center Jonas Valanciunas later in the season.
Perhaps the Kroenkes decided to move on from Booth in fear that a similar trade situation with Dario Saric could occur in the 2025 offseason. Before this season, Booth signed Saric to a deal with a player option for next season and then failed to trade Saric at the deadline, leaving Saric taking up a roster spot (and $11 million) without making any impact on the court.
Along with fighting about the roster, Booth and Malone fought over personnel. According to DNVR, Booth hired a shooting coach, Mike Penberthy, without consulting Malone. Malone was upset, telling Booth that he was in charge of hiring coaches. Players had to schedule time off-site to work with Penberthy as Malone did not trust him, DNVR reports.
Malone, who is known for the toughness of his teams, began regularly lamenting the Nuggets' lack of defensive effort after games, even going as far as to say the team wasn’t watching film — which is typically a key part of a team’s preparation throughout the season. As the Denver Dig, a basketball blog, reports, players were frustrated with the coaching plan on defense.
According to the Denver Post, the Kroenkes had decided to move on from Booth and Malone after the season ended — then abruptly fired both on April 8 after a four-game losing streak prompted the owners to act right away.
In the first game of the post-Malone era, the Nuggets beat the Sacramento Kings on April 9, stopping the losing streak in its tracks. Afterward, Jokić told ESPN that while he had many great times with Malone, basketball is a business. He seemed to agree with Josh Kroenke’s idea that the team’s best chance at making a playoff run was to shake things up.
“Josh got the response that he wanted,” Jokić said. “People say we are vulnerable but the beast is always most dangerous when they’re vulnerable so maybe he woke up the beast.”
