Denver Nuggets: Did Ownership Mess Up Shaw’s Firing?

When former Denver Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw was fired Tuesday afternoon, the Nuggets had lost 19 of their last 21 games. The team was still on an 10-game home losing streak, the third-longest home losing streak in franchise history. And The team’s two “franchise players,” Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried, were both playing well below what we know they are capable of.

But yet, the Denver media thinks the Nuggets decision to fire the unpopular coach was simply poor timing.

Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post claimed the Nuggets, “botched the no-brainer firing of coach Brian Shaw.” Paul Klee of the Colorado Springs Gazette claimed that, “The Nuggets did Shaw a favor when they fired him at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.”

Everyone pointed out that Shaw won less games in his two seasons (56) than the Nuggets did in the single season before they hired him (57), and everyone was saying it was a mistake the Nuggets didn’t wait until the end of the season to fire Shaw.

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Yes, the Nuggets could have done a better job in firing Shaw from the public relations perspective. Throwing interim head coach Melvin Hunt into the press room before anyone else following the announcement definitely wasn’t smart. Not having “team president” Josh Kroenke around the locker room or in the press room certainly didn’t look good.

But from a basketball and organizational perspective, it was absolutely the right time to fire Brian Shaw.

Shaw had completely lost the locker room when the pink slip was handed down. Ty Lawson skipped practice without telling anyone, Kenneth Faried looked more like a kitten than a Manimal because of his lack of interest on the floor. Even rookie Jusuf Nurkic looked at the coach and shrugged him off when Shaw asked him why he handed the ball to Markieff Morris.

We all know about the “six weeks” chant.

General manager Tim Connelly pointed out that it wasn’t just the losing that led to the coach’s dismissal, saying “It was a culmination of a ton of things. Given our recent lack of success, we thought it was time to be proactive.”

Most in the media are saying it would have been more proactive for the Nuggets to just keep Shaw around. Keep Shaw around so they could keep getting embarrassed, like they did in the 104-82 home loss against Utah last week, because that would lead to more ping-pong balls and a better draft pick.

However, the damage to the Nuggets record has already been done. The Nuggets are 17 games under .500, and have the seventh-worst record in the NBA. With 13 of their final 21 games against teams who are above .500 (and most of those being Western Conference playoff teams), the Nuggets aren’t magically going to climb back into a record that kills their chances in the lottery.

Plus, for those of us who still watch the games, it’s absolutely amazing to see the team play with heart again. Under Melvin Hunt the Nuggets have beat Milwaukee at home and Minnesota on the road, it’s the first two-game winning streak since Jan. 14, and it feels great. Why not give Hunt a real shot to show his coaching prowess for the franchise?

Why not have Kenneth Faried and Ty Lawson actually work to improve themselves in these last few games? With Hunt, Faried has already shown flashes of the player who earned that fat contract, as he’s grabbed 14 rebounds in consecutive games for the first time since Jan. 23.

The Nuggets still have more than a month of basketball left, and instead of losing by 20 to Utah in front of paying fans, it’s time for the Nuggets to build some confidence over these remaining games.

Shaw’s “early” firing will help the Nuggets finish 2015 with some positivity, which in turn can help draw in free agents, and it’ll make sure that our newest lottery pick comes to town knowing the worst is behind the Nuggets.

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