Extending Coach Michael Malone’s Contract, The Denver Nuggets Double Down On Continuity And Patience

In the current era of the Denver Nuggets, continuity, patience and loyalty have been three of the most important and valued philosophical foundations upon which both their roster and the organization itself have been built and developed.

And with the Nuggets’ recent announcement that they extended head coach Michael Malone on a multi-year contract, they clearly signaled that they have no intention of deviating from this formula which they largely credit for the team’s success in recent years.

Denver reached the multi-year deal with Malone last week, as first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski,, doubling down on the premium they’ve placed on organizational continuity and stability, and reaffirming their belief in the man who just weeks earlier became only the third Nuggets coach to win over 300 games with the team, joining Doug Moe and George Karl on that pedestal.

In his first pre-game press conference after the extension news broke, Malone shouted out “a huge thank you to Stan and Josh Kroenke,” explaining that “it’s so empowering when you have ownership continue to believe in you.”

“Obviously seven years in one place is a lifetime in this business,” added Malone, who in his seventh year at Denver’s helm is currently the fifth-longest tenured head coach in the NBA. “And to know that we have work to do and we’ll be here for a while longer is just really, really exciting for me and the family.”

With a multi-year extension on his current contract, which extends to through the 2022-23 season, Malone is now secured to be on the job at least to the end of the 2024-25 season, if not longer (as is standard practice for Denver, the terms of his contract were not released).

For the Nuggets, the move echoes how they similarly extended both president of basketball operations Tim Connelly and his entire front office staff three years ago. At the time, the Washington Wizards had been heavily courting Connelly, a native of nearby Baltimore, and it appeared that Denver could be perilously close to losing yet another high-level executive, as had happened with Connelly’s predecessor Masai Ujiri.

But by all appearances, all of Connelly, Malone and – importantly – the Kroenke ownership family are in synergistic agreement on sticking together to see through to a successful conclusion the team-building and team culture-building project they’ve constructed from the ground up, with a roster led by their own draftees in reigning MVP Nikola Jokic, and his fellow maximum contract teammates Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.

“You can easily point to the on-court success that Michael has brought and the improvements the team has made each year under his watch,” Stan Kroenke said of Malone, “and you can also point to the selfless, hard-working culture that has developed and grown during his tenure.”

“We look forward to Coach Malone continuing on the sidelines as we all work toward our goal of bringing an NBA Championship to the city of Denver,” Kroenke continued.

For his part, Malone credits much of both the Nuggets’ and his own success, as well as the “selfless, hard-working culture” Kroenke describes, to Nikola Jokic both a player and person, and to the relationship they’ve cultivated.

“I’m not getting an extension without Nikola Jokic and all he means to this team,” Malone emphasized in his presser. “I’m not naïve. This is a players’ league. And the relationship that I have with Nikola has a lot to do with the success that we’ve had.”

All the intertwined themes which serve as the pillars of Denver’s culture – continuity, selflessness, loyalty, patience, relationships – have been ever-present throughout the tenures of Malone, Connelly and Jokic, both as goals in shaping the organization and as a fountainhead for the team’s years-long upward trajectory of success.

In the Nuggets’ first four seasons with Malone as head coach, they improved every year on their winning record, and in all three of their most recent seasons they reached the second round or further in the playoffs, achievements which Malone largely credits to Jokic both embracing and becoming a generating engine for Denver’s team culture.

“When you have your best player, who also happens to be in my humble opinion, the best player in the NBA, willing to buy in, and commit, to be coached, and not be sensitive when he’s held accountable, all those types of things, that once again kind of sets the tone for everyone else in the locker room,” Malone explained.

While the timing of Malone’s extension may have raised some eyebrows – why extend him before he demonstrates how deep of a playoff run he can make this season? – it makes more sense in the context of the Nuggets’ organizational culture, and the priorities that have guided their decision-making processes for seasons on end. “We don’t skip steps” is a longstanding team mantra which emphasizes the value of principles like patience and continuity not only for building a positive team culture, but for the impact that has on producing winning results.

An ostensibly lame duck coach, which Malone would have been next season without an extension, always carries the danger of undermining organizational stability. And the doubts and fears about the future which can arise from contract uncertainty can likewise serve as significant distractions which potentially could negatively impact team success.

When Malone speaks of the trust and patience the Nuggets have had when him, he often invokes the final game of the 2017-18 season in which Denver lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves and were thus eliminated from the playoffs. Many NBA teams would have fired a head coach under those circumstances, but from players to the front office to Malone and his coaching staff, the Nuggets, and specifically the Kroenkes, believed in what they were building, and re-committed to giving them a chance to grow towards greater success. And the wisdom of that decision is perhaps best exemplified by Denver reaching the 2020 Western Conference Finals just two years later.

After getting his 300th Nuggets win against the Sacramento Kings, the team that fired him prior to his becoming Denver’s head coach, Malone reflected on the challenge of coaching in the NBA and the value of the Nuggets buying all the way in on their core principles.

“This is a tough business,” he explained. “I got fired in my first job. I’ve seen my father get fired.”

“So I’m just thankful to be in an organization that values family, culture. And to have ownership continue to believe in me means the world to me and my family, so here’s to 300 more.”

And while it’s a long road to 300 more wins, considering the consistency of the Nuggets’ ideological approach of continuity and patience in recent years, and the extent to which they believe it produces not only the highest-quality team culture but also winning results, Michael Malone just might get there.