The NBA coaching carousel is a ruthless and ever-turning whirlwind, constantly chewing up basketball's most accomplished minds and spitting them out without bias. Sometimes, it doesn't even need a strong argument before engulfing its next victim. Former Denver Nuggets head coach and champion Michael Malone can now attest to that firsthand.
Barely a week after the Memphis Grizzlies shockingly fired Head Coach Taylor Jenkins seemingly out of nowhere, Malone is now joining him on the NBA coach unemployment list. Like the Jenkins dismissal, this move was completely unexpected and raised eyebrows across the basketball world. Malone was the fourth-longest-tenured head coach in the league and won it all with Denver just two seasons ago.
The way these dominos have started to fall in these past few weeks has to have nearly every play-caller in the NBA wondering about their own job security, as well as every team reconsidering their coaching situation. Willie Green and the New Orleans Pelicans shouldn't be exceptions, and they could very well be the next franchise to add to the daunting NBA coaching carousel.
Head Coach Willie Green can't feel safe with all of these big names now in need of work
There's some good news for Willie Green, at least. The New Orleans Pelicans do not have the same motivations as the Memphis Grizzlies and the Denver Nuggets when they fired their previous respective coaches. Both of those teams dismissed their former head coaches in hopes of salvaging the remainder of their season and possibly inspiring a miraculous run in the playoffs.
Reportedly, the Grizzlies had been essentially pushing Jenkins out since last offseason, when they got rid of his staff. Throughout this campaign, they pressured him to veer his offense away from Ja Morant and to a more motion-focused and ball-movement-defined approach. When he shifted the offense back into Ja's hands, it became the straw on the camel's back for Memphis General Manager Zach Kleiman.
We're sure to get a more detailed breakdown of what caused the schism between the Denver Nuggets, Michael Malone, and their former GM Calvin Booth, who was also fired, but the writing's been on the wall for a while now. Malone had hinted in his interviews that he was losing the team, and this latest four-game losing streak, despite Nikola Jokic's individual dominance, was the final nail in the coffin. In one swift move, the Nuggets got rid of both their roster's architect and the man tasked with bringing that vision to life. Denver will now be hoping that interim Head Coach David Adelman can catch lightning in a bottle this postseason.
The Pelicans don't have that problem. They know exactly where they'll be once the playoffs begin: watching from home. So, Willie Green doesn't have to worry about the possibility that he might be fired in these last days of the regular season as a sacrificial lamb to light a fire under his players. However, that doesn't mean he won't end up as an offering to the basketball gods eventually. And now with Michael Malone joining an already stacked list of available and experienced former coaches, Green can't be feeling too good about his future in New Orleans.