Kings: Mike Malone Caught in Denver Purgatory

Michael Malone, the abruptly dismissed former head coach of the Sacramento Kings, is mining some interesting territory for what could be his next job.

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As has been reported for the last several days, the link between the coaching candidate and the Denver Nuggets is continuing to strengthen, with the team formally interviewing Malone on June 3, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein. Since then, the Nuggets have decided to bring him back for a second round of discussion sometime this week.

What is not surprising is that Malone is so recently interviewing after having been ousted in the middle of a season, but that he is interviewing with the team that has a legacy of run-and-gun play, fast-and-loose pace, and a reputation for eschewing defensive intensity.

Malone, on the other hand, made his name as a careful steward of defense, a man interested in showcasing a healthy offense by backing it up on the other end. His healthy resume prior to nabbing the Kings head coaching job included stops as an assistant with the Knicks, the Cavaliers (during what we shall call the First LeBron’s Age), the New Orleans Hornets, and Golden State.

From the earliest of these experiences, we can glean some of what drove Malone to his style of play: his time in New York saw him work under Jeff Van Gundy — the same Jeff Van Gundy who mentored one Tom Thibodeau. Inclinations Malone may have have had prior to that likely came from his father, who served as an assistant on Chuck Daly’s Pistons staff.

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These inputs, however, were not enough to create an exciting enough output for Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro and former team advisor Chris Mullin, who pushed owner Vivek Ranadive to change horses mid-stream rather than judge Malone’s promising season at its end.

During his time with the Kings, Malone pursued a Kings vision based on solidity, a controlled pace, and the ability to clog the paint on defense, while vacuuming rebounds. With Malone’s style clashing with the front office, he was fired just prior to Christmas (lovely timing), and the Kings’ progress was stifled for the long slog that was the 2014-15 regular season.

Though there were ambitions to retain the defensive stylings under interim head coach Tyrone Corbin, the team’s lack of genuine defensive talent, and abundance of injuries, kept them from salvaging much from the wreckage.

As the Kings front office looked to move to a faster tempo of play (ironically, like the Nuggets and Golden State), they opted to go after former Nuggets coach George Karl, who consistently led his Denver squads to the playoffs, eventually earning NBA Coach of the Year honors in 2013 (before being — irony abounds — abruptly fired by his front office overseers).

The Kings bringing in someone to speed up play is not terribly surprising. At this point, the move to bring Karl in seems like an attempt at creating a team which can at least be entertaining and fun during the regular season, ultimately nudging their way into the Western conference’s playoff discussion.

Jul 1, 2013; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings general manager Pete D Alessandro during a press conference at the Sleep Train Arena press room. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

An important caveat to this idea – the interesting juxtaposition of Malone’s style and the Nuggets’ previous iterations seems now completely quashed, given that Kings GM Pete D’Alessandro is now moving on to become a front office presence in (lo and behold) Denver.

Whether or not Malone’s interview is immediately canceled remains to be seen, but they may indeed to through with their arrangement to humor a man whose career is at a crossroads.

What would be more surprising than the repeated intersection of Malone’s and D’Alessandro’s paths, however, is the Nuggets bringing in someone who would transform the franchise of Doug Moe, Paul Westhead, and George Karl into a more buttoned-down and responsible defensive force.

The Nuggets have been known historically for their ability to keep their opponents winded from sucking in the thin local air, racing up and down the hardwood to contend with a relentlessly rapid Denver offense.

Moving to a system based on smothering opponents would be a big sea change, and would provide some extra dramatic tension to Kings-Nuggets matchups: which of these scorned men can outmatch the other – with his own one-time team?

Unfortunately, Pete D’Alessandro’s arrival in the Mile High City would probably render that chapter of the Western Conference soap opera obsolete.

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Kings: Mike Malone Caught in Denver Purgatory

By John von Volkli | Jun 11, 2015

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