The first day was arguably the happiest for then-Nuggets hire Brian Shaw in what turned out to be a roller coaster tenure in with the Nuggets. (Photo By John Leyba/The Denver Post)
So what went wrong?
Nuggets president Josh Kroenke had ambitious plans for the post-George Karl era, when he hired a bright-eyed assistant, Brian Shaw, to be the team’s latest head coach in 2013. Those plans included a vision of deep playoff marches under a coach who would tweak the equation enough to be more successful in the playoffs after many years of first round exits.
Only, Shaw never got to the playoffs.
And on top of that the foundation unraveled under him in a tumultuous time in Denver, eventually leading to his firing a mere 616 days into his tenure.
What happened that Kroenke didn’t anticipate?
“The thing I thought was the most surprising is I thought communication was going to be one of our strong points between our staff and our players, and it turned out to be that it wasn’t one of our strong points,” he said. “Communication from coaching staff to players was something that I thought was lacking.
“When I say communication, I mean that on a couple of different levels: Getting the point across of what is truly expected of the group. How it was delivered, how certain concepts and points of emphasis of what we’re trying to accomplish as a group were brought to the group and then translated by the group. Obviously we weren’t all on the same page.”
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
