Denver Post Nuggets beat writer Bennett Durando opens up the Nuggets Mailbag periodically throughout the season — and now the offseason. You can submit a Nuggets- or NBA-related question here.
Is Adelman the right guy for the job? And the team? I don’t think so.
— Sam C, via email
The team seems to be a collection of disparate personalities. … Was Michael Malone the secret to the team’s success? He seemed uniquely tuned in to how to handle these very different players’ needs for guidance (until the conflict with Calvin Booth eclipsed that). Adelman seems more like a passionless technician who can’t or won’t work on meshing the team’s personalities. The team’s lack of in-game fire compared to peak Malone has me wondering.
— Casey, Denver
I’ve heard this sentiment a lot recently, and I find it a little misguided. Last week, I came across the video of Jamal Murray’s 2024 playoff buzzer-beaters to beat the Lakers. It’s one of the most memorable games I’ve covered on the Nuggets beat (top three at minimum?), so of course I was instantly reeled in by the highlight. My eyes wandered to Denver’s bench, studying the reactions as Murray released the shot and fell into his teammates. Perhaps the most animated of all is the bald guy with the clipboard who jumps for joy and punches the air.
Evidence of Adelman’s emotion is pretty easy to find unless you willfully ignore it. Players have said on the record that he can be startlingly direct with them, that he wields an intensity but reserves it for behind the scenes. “I probably seem pretty calm, but I am kind of psychotic sometimes,” he said himself in March, before the calmness became a popular criticism.
From my point of view as The Media, accusing Adelman of being passionless or unable to motivate his players just because he’s usually a more stoic sideline presence and a less fiery postgame quote than his predecessor is unfair to the position he’s in.
Michael Malone lost the locker room largely because his fire-and-brimstone approach to the job grated on players. That’s not to discount his coaching chops or his accomplishments in Denver — his name will be in the rafters someday, and rightfully so — but it’s just the reality of how his tenure ended. When he blasted his team’s effort at press conferences, it might’ve felt satisfying to fans watching on TV who felt the same way. But to many players, it sparked frustration, not inspiration. Adelman took over the job with that needle to thread. By nature, he’s certainly a cooler head than Malone to begin with, but he also had to be a little reticent about calling players out publicly.
He did criticize the Nuggets for their effort two or three times this season — he wasn’t completely unwilling to do so — but he was conservative with those bullets. By firing fewer of them, the times he did felt more revealing, from my perspective as the person who was often eliciting postgame comments from him.
For the most part, he prioritized substance over style in his messaging. He didn’t shy away from the obvious when someone played poorly. He didn’t pretend Jamal Murray shot 80% from the field in a game if he shot 20%. He just didn’t discuss it with any bluster. He was matter-of-fact without being harsh on his players. His approach to media actually reminded me of Jared Bednar, whom I covered briefly on the Avalanche beat.
By no means am I saying Adelman is above criticism. Part of a head coach’s job is to be accountable for the team’s failures, and this Nuggets season unquestionably ended in failure. He’s earned praise over the years for being one of the masterminds behind a great offense; that means he must also be willing to accept blame when that offense sputters. He understands that. In his end-of-season presser last week, he pointed out that the Nuggets allowed Minnesota to guard their two-man game straight-up too much throughout the series, 2-on-2 with Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, reducing Denver’s shot quality. Role players didn’t get as many open looks. Nikola Jokic and Murray didn’t sufficiently bring weaker defenders into the action. That’s part execution, part coaching. Jokic, Murray and Adelman needed to be better.
But I think there’s a difference between criticizing him for that and ridiculing him for his measured approach, which was a key reason his employers hired him and a reason his employees advocated for him last summer. Arguably, the most important aspect of being an NBA head coach today is managing personalities in a locker room with a payroll exceeding $200 million. You need your players to think highly of you. As of now, the two most important people in the building do. And that’s more important than the court of public opinion.
Based on last year’s moves during the offseason, what letter grade would you have given our front office at the time? What is our dynamic duo/power of friendship front office’s letter grade potential this offseason?
— Madalynn, Denver
Without literally grading them, I essentially gave Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace an “A” last summer. They managed to simultaneously improve the depth of the roster and decrease the payroll — a balancing act that satisfied their fans, their star player and their bosses in the owner’s suite.
In hindsight, there are a few decisions that sting. They had to part with an unprotected first-round pick to swap Michael Porter Jr.’s controversial contract for Cam Johnson’s more modest salary. That’s an asset they’d like to have now, even if Johnson ultimately outperformed Porter in recent playoff games.
The Jonas Valanciunas, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown acquisitions were successful in the regular season but disappointing against Minnesota. Valanciunas, in particular, was out of the rotation for most of the series — but it’s not like Tenzer and Wallace were kicking themselves, wishing they had kept Dario Saric as they watched Game 4 fall apart.
The Nuggets also swayed Russell Westbrook into declining his player option by telling him he wasn’t wanted back for a second season. That decision looks bad on paper now, especially when athleticism and ball-handling have been pinpointed as 2026 offseason priorities. But I still feel inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, because efficient ball-handling is what they really need. Westbrook’s recklessness was costly last year. His turnover rate caused a lot of headaches internally.
Choosing to keep Spencer Jones for a second season on a two-way contract ended up being a huge win. The Nuggets should want to make sure they keep him in restricted free agency this summer.
And speaking of restricted free agency, the obvious winner for most regrettable decision one year later was choosing Christian Braun’s extension over Peyton Watson’s. It seemed like a self-explanatory decision at the time. Now Braun is coming off his worst season, and Watson is coming off his best.
It will be much more difficult for Tenzer and Wallace to earn an “A” this year. The payroll restraints are far more inhibitive, and the most likely outcome — as I see it — is that Denver will tip off the 2026-27 season with a noticeably worse roster than the 2025-26 team.
Who can you see leaving the Nuggets roster in the offseason?
— Ed, Auburn, New York
Apologies for the temporary cop-out answer, Ed, but I’m planning to write a more in-depth answer to this exact question soon. (That’s right, it’s a shameless plug for another story that is yet to be written.) Without going into detail on my reasoning, my educated guess is that Denver loses Cam Johnson and one other top-six player.
Which season-ending loss to Minnesota was worse: 2024 Game 7 (blowing a 20-point lead at home) or 2026 Game 6 (no Ant, Donte or Ayo)?
— Lucas, via email
Perfect way to wrap this up: with the most self-loathing question of the day. We appreciate your vulnerability, Lucas. We’ve all been there as sports fans at one time or another.
My take is 2024. After Denver was eliminated a couple of weeks ago, I wrote: “The 2024 loss stung because the Nuggets knew they were good enough to win the championship. The 2026 loss stings because they were jolted awake to the unforeseen reality that they weren’t good enough.”
The former is going to be more painful to reckon with over time, I think. If the Nuggets end up winning only one championship with Jokic, there are two critical moments that Coloradans will look back on as the tragic what-ifs. First will be Murray’s ACL injury, which sidelined him for the 2021 and 2022 playoffs, neither of which ended with a particularly dominant, convincing champion (Milwaukee and Golden State). Second will be that second-round Game 7 in 2024.
Obviously, there’s no telling what would have happened next. But the Nuggets won a franchise-record 57 games that season with the same starting five that won the title. They ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating, which feels impossible to imagine now. They would’ve been clear favorites to beat the fifth-seeded Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. And in the NBA Finals, they would’ve faced an elite Boston team that had lost to them twice in the regular season. At minimum, I think NBA fans missed out on a potential classic series, regardless of who would’ve won.
This year, the Nuggets dug their grave on the last night of the regular season, whether they care to admit it or not. They weren’t going to knock out Minnesota, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and New York consecutively. Especially after they fell behind 2-1 to the Wolves in a series they needed to end quickly. Losing to such a depleted team might be more embarrassing, but decades from now, it won’t be as haunting.
