Jason McIntyre (39:30)
Boy, dude. Never a dull moment in the NBA. Breaking news. The Denver Nuggets, who won the NBA championship in 2023, have fired their head coach, Michael Malone, and their GM Calvin Booth. Ladies and gentlemen, the playoffs start in like 10 days in the NBA. What is happening now? I was scurrying during the break to get some information. It's so weird because I think yesterday I alluded to Denver being a bit of a mess, and this morning I saw that Jamal Murray's hurt. And the way Michael Malone is talking lately, he's just talking kind of wild. But that has historically been his M.O. he's a queens guy, grew up in the Northeast. He's a tough talker. He's a little combative. Do you remember when the Lakers beat Denver? One game in that series in the playoffs and he came back and, oh, the Lakers won one game. He's just basically, you guys are talking trash about us. I can't believe it. We're going to destroy them, he said. Like, put it in your pipe and smoke it. He was really just aggressive and this is his nature. And there are reports I'm reading that maybe he was kind of sort of losing the locker room in Denver again. He is a mouthy individual. There's nothing wrong with that. As a coach, you know that that can work for so long. But when you're not winning. The staff here found some numbers for Jokic in April. Okay, this is real. He's averaging 45 points, 12 boards and 10 assists in the month of April. They're oh, and three. Like, how are you not winning in crunch time? They were looking at being the 3 seed. They could potentially fall to the 6, 7, 8, maybe into the plan. They don't have any wins with Jokic putting up huge stats. Now, obviously the Jamal Murray injury and Jamal Murray always seems to be hurt. That's kind of damaging. You do have who I believe is the best player in the league, who I would have as MVP in Nikola Jokic putting up historic rate numbers. But it just doesn't seem to be working now early in the season and Murray hasn't played in the last two weeks because he's, he's so banged up and obviously that hurts. You know, Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook. That's not a backcourt that scares anybody. But one of the interesting things about Denver is that Malone historically doesn't like playing young guys. They don't always know how to play. There's a steep learning curve. You got to deal with a lot of dumb turnovers and bad shots. He likes to lean on veterans. So the GM of the Nuggets gave this big fat contract to Zeke Najee, who was one of these combine warriors, one of these workout dudes who's like, measurements through the roof, checks all the boxes. He gets on the court, he can't play. And the GM still gives him a big extension, which was a blunder. They paid Michael Porter Jr. I don't know that he could guard half the guys in my men's basketball league. I like Aaron Gordon a lot. I think he's a good piece. I think Jokic is obviously a superstar. I didn't like the Russell Westbrook move, but it speaks to Malone having influence on the gm. Hey, man, go get me a veteran who's going to try hard and hustle. Michael Malone loves a good try hard, but the narrative of Denver trying hard is not there because they're not stopping anybody now. So you got mpj, doesn't play defense. Russ is a bit of a train wreck and out of control. Jokic is dominating but looking around like, where's my help? And Jamal Murray's in street clothes again. So Denver is slip sliding badly in the West. And as the staff pointed out to me, Taylor Jenkins was fired by Memphis last week. They were in the top five in the West. And Ryan, who, you know, a longtime producer, he was actually my first radio show producer when I had a weekend show, said something smart. He's like, you know what it kind of sort of feels like. These teams don't think they can compete to win a title this year, so they're getting ahead of the coaching cycle for this summer. Hey, man, we ain't going to win. Let's just see if the assistant can be promoted. Let's see what he can do. If we could change some of the voices in the locker room. And let's think about the summer. So Memphis fires their coach two weeks before the playoffs. Denver fires their coach a week before the playoffs. The problem is Malone just won a title. He's the winningest coach in franchise history. He's been there for 10 years, and you fire him a week before the playoffs. Now the staff is sending me some good stuff here. According to Ramona Shelburne the situation in Denver is been tense and pressurized since the beginning of the year. Malone and Booth had big ideas and strong wills. Both are now gone. Again. This was a weird mix in the locker room. Apparently Booth and Malone didn't really like each other and get along. They did not talk and they spoke behind each other's backs. That's toxic, man. When are we going to start reading about are the Denver Nuggets wasting Jokic's prime? I mean, that's probably got to come next. Now, I did see one of my buddies who's a huge Knicks fan. I mean, the body's not even cold in Denver and Knicks fans are like, can we get Michael Malone for Tibbs? Can we, can we do that trade? Can we run up, move off Tibs? Tibbs, by the way, in New York, is running his players into the ground. I think for like the top 30 players, minutes wise are on the Knicks. And you know what's going to happen when they get to the playoffs? They're going to be broken. Same thing happened to Tibbs in Chicago. Could Michael Malone, who instantly is going to vault to the top of every wish list around the league. Hey, man, I would not be surprised if there's NBA teams right now looking, do we love our guy? Should we go after Michael Malone? I mean, I don't know that the Phoenix Suns would do it, but remember they ran off Frank Vogel, who I saw at an event a couple weeks ago. Very nice guy. Does watch the Herd shout out to Frank. They fired him after one year. Well, Budenholzer comes in, he beefs with Kevin Durant. The videos are out there now. Katie has downplayed it, but with the Suns move off another coach two one and dones and bring in Michael Malone. I don't know. It's possible, but oh, my gosh, Alex, any. I know it's, it's just breaking and we're trying to get, get our bearings here, but it's just kind of fascinating. Fire. You could coach 10 days before the playoffs.
