Like father, like son. He is entering the lion’s den of the family business.
“He had three games to change something, and I think he changed the energy. I think the guys were woken up a little bit. The guys had more energy. He made us believe in something, and we played good, you know? We played a seven-game series with probably the best team in the NBA, and we had opportunity. We had chances. So, I think he did a really good job.”
That was three-time MVP and the best player in basketball, Nikola Jokic, lending support and praising the job David Adelman did as the interim coach of the Denver Nuggets, a thought shared by other veterans as well as young players such as Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray, with many of them saying they hoped he would get the job full-time. You can guess what comes next.
“We’re going to move forward with David Adelman as our head coach,” Josh Kroenke, the Nuggets vice chairman and interim president of basketball operations, (after general manager Calvin Booth was relieved of his duties) said to open his end-of-season press conference. The two sides have agreed to terms.
Kroenke said he originally planned to start looking for candidates outside the fabric of the organization for the next coach, but as he observed how the team bonded together and played through the postseason, he realized he had the guy he wanted already in house.
Embed from Getty ImagesAdelman was thrown into a difficult position, becoming head coach with only three games left in the season when Kroenke fired coach Michael Malone and Booth, a duo that had disagreed for years, casting a dark cloud over the organization. Kroenke hoped the firing would give the team a boost of energy and propel the team out of its slump and it seemed to do just that as they went a perfect 3-0 in the rest of the regular season, then entering the playoffs beating the Los Angeles Clippers in a thrilling seven-game series, then pushed the first place Oklahoma City Thunder seven games before falling short last Sunday.
Adelman was not afraid and held his own in making adjustments with two of the better coaches when it comes to drawing up plays in the league in Tyronn Lue and last year’s Coach of the Year Mark Daigneault. He also won over the trust of the players on the roster, as they told Bennett Durando at the Denver Post.
“I love DA,” Aaron Gordon said. “I hope he’s here next year. I hope he’s our coach. I hope he gets an entire training camp and a whole offseason.”
“I’m hoping he gets that job,” added Michael Porter Jr. “I think he’s a great, personable coach.”
Adelman, who has been around the game his entire life, is the son of coaching legend Rick Adelman, and got his first NBA job as a player development specialist in Minnesota under his father. After his father retired, the younger Adelman was an assistant coach in Orlando with the Magic before being hired by the Nuggets and working his way up to being a lead assistant under Malone.
Adelman had interviewed for multiple NBA head coaching jobs before this one fell in his lap, but he took full advantage of it and gets to keep the gig.
