On the morning of April 9, the Nuggets suddenly announced that they had learned about the hiring of head coach Mike Malone.

As soon as the news came out, the entire NBA circle was instantly blown up. Many people were puzzled as to why the Nuggets made a hasty decision to change the head coach with three games left in the regular season. The current NBA head coaches lined up to speak out, and the general meaning was basically the same - "Since Malone can be fired, can we still keep our jobs?"

After all, looking back at the past 10 years, Malone is one of the most successful head coaches in the NBA. Since joining the Nuggets in 2015, Malone has used his outstanding leadership skills to not only establish authority in the locker room and win the respect of the industry, but also conquer the hearts of many Denver fans.

It is no exaggeration to say that it was Malone who built the Nuggets' championship system from scratch and helped the Nuggets win their first championship in team history. It was Malone who personally discovered all the talents of Jokic, a second-round pick, and gradually trained him to become one of the strongest players in the NBA and a historical superstar. It was also Malone who selected Murray, Porter Jr., Gordon and other high-quality puzzle pieces that were underestimated by the outside world around Jokic.

If there was no Malone, the Nuggets would probably fall into another parallel universe with no ambition, and it is highly likely that they would not become the top championship team in the league.

However, all these achievements were shattered by a dismissal order from the Nuggets' top management. Although Malone has done so much for the team in 10 years, even though he has led the team to a total of 471 regular season wins (creating a team record) and a high winning rate of 56.4%, these have not become a reason for decision makers to be soft-hearted...

Puzzled, shocked, annoyed, anyone with the above emotions on the issue of Malone's dismissal is completely understandable. However, after a short impulse, a careful analysis of this matter reveals that the breakup between the Nuggets and Malone has actually been foreshadowed.

As early as the beginning of this season, the Nuggets had fallen into a losing streak. But at that time, when the Nuggets were facing a serious crisis, Jokic, as the core, stood up and showed a strong state that he had never had in his career so far. He almost relied on his own strength to break the old and establish the new, and led the team to turn danger into safety. But who would have thought that after barely surviving all the twists and turns in the season, entering the last half month of the regular season, new troubles came again.

Before today, the Nuggets had suffered 4 consecutive losses. Originally, they were able to keep pace with the Lakers in the standings, and there was still a great hope to compete for the third place in the West. But after the losing streak, the Nuggets' prospects for "fighting for the third place" gradually dimmed. What's worse, the pace of the Warriors, Clippers, and Timberwolves behind them is still approaching. If they are not careful, the Nuggets may even fall out of the top six, and at the end of the regular season, they will have to fight for tickets through the play-offs.

Against the backdrop of four consecutive losses, some small details in the game further pulled the already sensitive and tense nerves of the Nuggets' top management.

In the double overtime battle with the Timberwolves on April 2, Jokic's exaggerated output of 61 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists always kept the team's hope of defeating the Nemesis Team, but his extreme performance, which almost exhausted his last bit of strength throughout the game, was ruined by Westbrook's super low-level, brainless layup miss and three-point foul.

On April 3, the Nuggets played against the Spurs back-to-back. The Nuggets naively thought that they could easily win by resting Coach Yo and the starting lineup, but unexpectedly, the result of the game made them clowns again.

Next, the Nuggets continued to rush in the direction of losing control. They lost to the Warriors and the Pacers. Coach Yo still gave his all, but even as strong as he was, he could not stop the Nuggets from declining. In the game against the Warriors on April 5, after being substituted, Coach Yo angrily cursed in front of the broadcast camera, and his red face and the picture of his out-of-control emotions were probably the last straw that broke the camel's back in the relationship within the Nuggets...

So, as the scapegoat for the four consecutive losses, Malone suddenly left at a special time when the regular season entered the countdown, becoming the third head coach to be fired in the middle of the season after Mike Brown and Jenkins. But unlike the Kings and Grizzlies who only chose to let the coach take the blame, the Nuggets' top management was more resolute. In addition to firing Malone, they also cleared out the other party who created the conflict - the team's general manager Calvin Booth...

Compared to the regret for Malone's dismissal, the outside world almost unanimously criticized Booth. Booth was lucky to sit in the general manager's seat in the Nuggets' championship season, but in the following two years, his various operations were completely contrary to the Nuggets supporters' hope of long-term championship and dynasty building.

Booth just wanted to blindly cater to the boss and save money for the team. He naively thought that with such a strong base like Jokic, it would be no problem for the Nuggets to save money in other positions and replace some cheaper players. It was also in line with this logic that champions such as Pope, Bruce Brown, Reggie Jackson and Jeff Green left one after another. In addition, Booth also spent a lot of time on the draft. Every year he was in office, he spared no effort to insert some newcomers into the team's roster according to his own judgment.

But in reality, the Nuggets' practice of letting go of important pieces of the puzzle has gradually shaken the team's championship foundation and has also lowered the team's combat effectiveness year by year, especially on the defensive end. So far this season, the Nuggets have lost the sixth most points in the league. As for the rookies selected by Booth, none of them caught Malone's eye, and Malone repeatedly ruthlessly rejected the "proposal" of the boss to give newcomers more opportunities. As a result, the contradictions gradually intensified with the accumulation of these bits and pieces, and finally led to a lose-lose outcome...