MINNEAPOLIS — There’s no such thing as job security in European basketball, as Nikola Jokic describes it. Not for coaches, not for players, not for anyone crazy enough to venture into a competitive industry where passions run hot.
“Definitely if we were in Serbia,” he said after the Nuggets’ season-ending loss on Thursday night to the Timberwolves, “we would all get fired.”
He made the quip in response to a question about what changes are needed in Denver this offseason. His joke was coupled with a deflection: It’s not his decision, the three-time MVP claimed, even though Nuggets brass runs practically every major decision by him.
Yet when the topic of coach David Adelman came up, Jokic did offer up a staunch opinion.
“It was nothing (to do with him),” he said, insisting that criticism of Adelman is unfair. “It’s not his fault that we could not rebound. It’s not his fault that we could not catch the ball very well. So there is nothing to blame to David Adelman. It was all us.”
Adelman’s first regular season at the helm was characterized by resilience. The Nuggets won 54 games despite a litany of injuries.
His first playoff run ended in disaster — a first-round exit at the hands of the rival Timberwolves, who finished the series without their starting backcourt available. It was the first time in four years that Denver failed to win a playoff series.
Jokic and his co-star, Jamal Murray, both defended Adelman after the shocking season-ending loss, as hot-seat chatter began to inevitably circulate about the rookie head coach. Adelman has worked for the Nuggets since 2017.
“He is amazing,” Murray said. “He is still getting his feet wet with all the adjustments and injuries, and managing emotions and all that stuff. It’s a hard job. You have a lot of different personalities you have to think about, and game-time decisions. Possession by possession. It was a great season for all that we went through. I just wish I could’ve done better for my team tonight.”
Jokic and Murray both took the blame after a 110-98 Game 6 loss. Adelman also took accountability for Murray’s poor performance and the series’ overall result.
“I’m the head coach,” he said. “I take responsibility for things that didn’t go well here.”
Adelman, 44, took over as interim head coach last April when Denver fired Michael Malone with three games left in the regular season. The Nuggets reached the second round of the playoffs and took first-place Oklahoma City to seven games. The Thunder advanced to win their first NBA title.
The Nuggets felt like they salvaged a season that had been spinning out of control when Malone and ex-general manager Calvin Booth lost their jobs. Adelman was promoted to the full-time gig. A new front office was assembled around him. Denver was lauded for its offseason moves, which supplied more depth to help Adelman navigate the regular season.
But in the playoffs, the Nuggets succumbed to a Minnesota team missing Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo as it closed out two of its four wins.
“Complete disappointment,” Adelman said. “We went into the series with belief we could win. I felt really good about the build-up to Game 1. And after Game 1, you felt good about the way we started Game 2. And obviously, that fell apart. But it’s hard to look at the whole thing in its totality right now, because right now, it just sucks. … For it to end like this is extremely disappointing.”
Adelman highlighted overall day-to-day team management when asked about lessons from his first year as an NBA head coach.
“I think I learned something every week, every month,” he said. “I’ll be honest. You learn how to coach in different ways, dealing with different things. That goes not with just the basketball. But with the players daily. The film sessions. How you schedule things. And I know that’s not basketball related, but it really does matter when it comes to winning, flow, formula, routine for players. There’s things that I thought went really well and other things that I have to reconsider. And in these jobs, in any of these jobs, if you’re not trying to get better, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”
