Former 10-time All-Star and Class of 2025 Hall of Fame combo forward Carmelo Anthony is the latest big name to weigh in on the league’s recent swath of stunning head coach firings.
Not even two years removed from helping the franchise capture its first-ever NBA title, now-former Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone was relieved of his duties with just four regular season games remaining, per ESPN’s Shams Charania. General manager Calvin Booth was also let go.
Reporting for NBA Today on arguably the most shocking in-season coach firing in league history with Nuggets dismissing Michael Malone – and players left surprised when informed: pic.twitter.com/kcR1MqAQBX
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 8, 2025
Denver had been on a four-game losing skid, although all the team’s second-best player, Jamal Murray, had been on the shelf for all of those games. Under interim head coach David Adelman, the Nuggets have gone 1-0. Denver is currently the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference, sporting a 48-32 record. The team has a decent shot at securing its third straight 50-win season and homecourt advantage in the playoffs with two games left on its slate.
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Across his 10 seasons with Denver, Malone boasted a 471-327 overall regular season record, and a 44-36 playoff record. He had brought Denver to the last six playoffs, and they’re locked into a seventh consecutive postseason berth this year.
Just 11 days prior, the Memphis Grizzlies fired former head coach Taylor Jenkins, while on a four-game slide of their own. Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman replaced Jenkins with Tuomas Iisalo on an interim basis. Memphis has gone just 3-4 under Iisalo thus far.
“I’m not trying to absolve myself of anything.”
Zach Kleiman said he fired Taylor Jenkins now because urgency is a principle of the organization. Taking responsibility for coaching and roster construction pic.twitter.com/NK6WvC5iTw
— Avery Braxton (@Brax_Avery) March 29, 2025
The Grizzlies were also at least already on track to make the postseason before the team let Jenkins go. Jenkins had coached the team to a pair of 50-win seasons and three playoff appearances during his five finished seasons in charge.
Carmelo Anthony speaks with media during the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Press Conference before the Final Four game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at the Alamodome on April 05, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas.
Alex Slitz/Getty Images
At 47-33, Memphis occupies the No. 7 seed in the West with two games left to play. The club has gone 4-6 in its last 10 contests, and has looked shaky for months — especially on defense.
During a recent episode of his podcast “7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony and Kid Mero,” the six-time All-NBA honoree called out both these surprising firings.
“Why the f— are you paying these coaches that much money and are willing to just say, ‘Go and we’ll pay y’all.’ No, If I’m paying you for four years, you’re staying four years, I don’t give a f— what the record is,” Anthony said. “I’m not wasting $75 million on a coach like that. To coach two years, and get rid of them, and now I got to pay you.”
Malone had inked a two-year extension early into the 2023-24 season. The new deal was only set to kick in starting next season, 2025-26, and per Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico was set to pay Malone $12 million annually. As Anthony notes, Malone will still draw that salary, albeit now away from the franchise.
Jenkins had inked a multi-year contract extension with Memphis during the 2022 offseason, although the exact length and price of the deal are not known.
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“No, you’re going to coach whether we’re great or whether we’re a–,” Anthony continued. “You’re going to coach until your contract is over with. I don’t give a f— what no fans say, no media, you’re going to coach your contract out.”
Anthony then went on to pitch a bold proposal for how the league could potentially combat all these strange firings of coaches under contract, especially good ones.
“That’s why I say the coaches salary should be part of the overall salary cap because if you add that to the overall salary cap, these teams would be reluctant to let these coaches go like that,” Anthony said.
In addition to Anthony’s proposal, perhaps there could be some cap relief or further incentive to keep coaches with a certain win percentage after at least a majority of regular season games (i.e. 42 or more) gainfully employed.
The Grizzlies were 44-29 at the time of Jenkins’ firing, a .603 win percentage. Denver, meanwhile, was 47-32, a .595 win rate when Malone was canned. That success level, plus the limited window for these postseason-bound teams to acclimate to new leadership in the locker room, was what made the Jenkins and Malone decisions particularly shocking. Maybe the Malone percentage (equivalent to a 49-win season over the course of a full 82-game slate) could be the floor rate for this hypothetical cap break.
Across 1260 career regular season games in 19 seasons, the 6-foot-7 pro logged averages of 22.5 points on .447/.355/.814 shooting splits, 6.2 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.0 steals and 0.5 blocks. He made the playoffs in 13 of those seasons, including one Western Conference Finals berth while with the Nuggets under then-head coach George Karl.
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