Denver Nuggets: The Underwhelming Coaching Search Continues

Since the start of the 2014-15 season, a grand total of six NBA head coaches have been fired. Mike Malone, Jacque Vaughn, Brian Shaw, Scott Brooks, Monty Williams and Tom Thibodeau were all shown the door. Now that Fred Hoiberg and Alvin Gentry have been scooped up, the Denver Nuggets are the only team in the league that still has a head coaching vacancy.

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After firing Shaw at the beginning of March, assistant Melvin Hunt took over as the interim head coach. The Nuggets’ vacancy was once littered with more promising names, including the recently hired Gentry. Now the search seems to have narrowed down to the likes of Mike D’Antoni.

To be fair, D’Antoni’s name has been mentioned from the start. To be even more fair, D’Antoni isn’t a bad coach in the right situation, and his name has been somewhat unfairly dragged through the mud. But nobody in Denver should be feeling particularly confident about the direction this franchise is heading in considering the current crop of candidates.

As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports yesterday, the Nuggets have formally met with D’Antoni to discuss the head coaching position, making him the first official candidate to be seriously considered for the job. According to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, Mike Woodson could be the next candidate to interview for the position.

Woj also mentions that Michael Malone has had conversations with Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly and could be another interviewee.

UPDATE: ESPN’s Marc Stein reports that the Nuggets have indeed interviewed Mike Malone.

But from the perspective of a Nuggets’ fan, is it wrong to feel underwhelmed by what’s left now that every other team already has their man?

George Karl hasn’t solved the Sacramento Kings, but most Nuggets fans are wistfully looking back on their time under Furious George and missing him and his first round playoff exits, especially after the Brian Shaw era.

Billy Donovan and Fred Hoiberg will be rookie coaches unproven at the professional level, but they’ve seen plenty of success in college and we all know they understand the game of basketball.

Alvin Gentry has proven himself as a valuable assistant to the Golden State Warriors (in the NBA Finals) and as the head coach of a Phoenix Suns team that went to the Western Conference Finals in 2010. In fact, Gentry is one of only two coaches in NBA history to sweep Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan in a playoff series.

As for Scott Skiles, the jury is still out on him with such a young core. But he’s had experience at this level before and at the very least, he’s a feel-good hire as a former player for the Orlando Magic.

The Nuggets, meanwhile, seem to be choosing between D’Antoni, Woodson and Malone.

Woodson had one good season with the New York Knicks, but nobody would call him a sexy hire and with this jumbled roster, he’s hardly the guy you want to call to help Denver rise from the ashes.

Malone has proven himself capable of putting a competent defense on the floor — even with underwhelming personnel at his disposal — and he never should’ve been fired by the Kings in the first place. But the most success he saw in his limited time with the Kings was a 12-5 start to the 2014-15 season — hardly a large enough sample size for Malone to be considered the right hire.

That leaves us with D’Antoni, who theoretically fits with the Nuggets’ up-tempo, run-and-gun playing style. But his two most recent jobs, with the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, were both undeniable failures, begging the question: Can D’Antoni win without a star-studded roster or an MVP-caliber point guard that suits his playing style?

D’Antoni revolutionized NBA offense forever with Steve Nash and the Seven Seconds Or Less Suns, but that was seven years ago now, and that team had bunch of talented players, dangerous shooters and a roster that was good enough to win a championship.

In Denver, he’ll find no such luxury. Given his 188-254 record and .425 winning percentage since his time with the Suns, D’Antoni hasn’t been capable of winning without a roster tailor-fitted to his playing style. Could the Nuggets be the right roster for him?

The best I can do in the form of optimism is say that it’s a remote possibility. It was only two seasons ago that Karl’s up-tempo system had the Nuggets at 55 wins and the third seed in the Western Conference, after all. But that team was a lot deeper, well-balanced and had an in-his-prime Danilo Gallinari.

This Nuggets team is not quite as attractive from a personnel standpoint, and it’s nowhere near as optimistic these days. Ty Lawson has been misused and misunderstood when people expect him to lead as Denver’s best player, but he’s also fallen well short of expectations off the court and many have speculated that the Nuggets could trade him soon.

If Connelly hires D’Antoni, the Nuggets will have to keep Lawson, since he’d be best suited to run that kind of high-flying offense. Kenneth Faried would be one beneficiary from an uptick in tempo and Denver would probably be a lot more competitive than they were the last two seasons if they started getting out in transition again.

But D’Antoni hasn’t done a great job creating something out of nothing with jumbled rosters, and the Nuggets have a ton of movable parts that may not be around by the end of the 2015-16 season. It’s hard to say he’s the right man for this long-term rebuilding process.

Interim coach Melvin Hunt is still in serious consideration for the job, but D’Antoni is easily the highest profile candidate available…other than Tom Thibodeau, that is.

Unfortunately, Thibs hasn’t been mentioned at all in regards to the Nuggets’ opening and would probably rather sit the 2015-16 season on the sidelines than coach such a mismanaged group of individuals.

Even as an unemployed head coach, a leader of Thibodeau’s caliber might be above this job.

A defensive coach is the right idea for a rebuilding team, but until the Nuggets take a definitive step in any direction on that front, management might cling to those offense-heavy tendencies just to put a semi-competent team on the floor.

All in all, the roster is the biggest problem for the Denver Nuggets. It doesn’t matter who is brought in for the 2015-16 season, because unless there are major personnel changes over the summer, this team will once again struggle to win games no matter who’s at the helm.

But as of right now, Mike D’Antoni, Melvin Hunt, Michael Malone and Mike Woodson are the best candidates for this team’s head coaching vacancy. It’s only natural not to feel particularly inspired by that.

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