"Maybe He Woke Up The Beast" - Perhaps The Nuggets Actually Don't Need A Coach Since You Can Apparently Just Have Nikola Jokic Draw Up Plays Instead

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The Denver Nuggets shocked the NBA world the other day where out of nowhere they decided to fire both their head coach and GM just days ahead of the playoffs and with the Nuggets still in contention for homecourt in at least the first round. Even with their little mini-skid as of late, that's generally not something you see a team do, especially when that coach had just won the franchise's only title 2 seasons prior. 

Since the news, we're starting to get leaks about how everyone hated the fact that Malone gave Russell Westbrook special treatment and how Jokic was maybe getting frustrated with how things were going, and whenever this stuff happens, I do think you have to take the "reports" with a grain of salt. There's usually some agenda pushing that tends to come with this stuff, but what matters more is what the Nuggets now do moving forward.

When this news first broke, it was sort of a joke that the Nuggets should just let Nikola Jokic be the coach. He does everything else for the Nuggets, so how hard could coaching be? Bill Russell won back to back titles doing it in the 60s, Jokic is clearly a basketball genius, so you could certainly do worse in terms of options to lead the team. I will say, interim head coach David Adelman did some interesting things last night in the Nuggets win over the Kings, most notably benching Russell Westbrook in favor of Jalen Pickett, who had a breakout game down the streth, so that's definitely something to monitor the rest of the way.

But we also saw Jokic take matters into his own hands when it came to coaching/play design

This about as vintage of a "fine, I'll do this myself" moment as you can find. Jokic already does everything on the floor anyway, he finished last night with another 20/12/11/4 triple double, so what's adding some coaching responsibilities to his plate? At the end of the day, the Nuggets are really just Jokic merchants, so whatever he decides the team should do on any given possession is what they should do. We all love to joke that Jokic doesn't give a shit about the NBA or basketball in general, but that's not really the case. He just hates the bullshit. When it comes to competition and solely the basketball stuff, he not only cares, he's a savant. 

I actually don't hate the move from the Nuggets. If part of the issue with Malone was that guys were starting to tune him out and he couldn't get them to respond to his coaching, well who on that team would ever tune out Jokic? Guess what, if Jokic decides he doesn't want you to be a Nugget anymore, you won't be. He is the final boss. So if he tells you to do something on the court, you bet your ass the players are going to respond because they know who holds all the power in that organization. 

Perhaps this is what Jokic meant when after the game he talked about how a beast has been awoken

Is that beast the first quasi-player/coach in the league since Russell? Sure Adelman may have the "title" of interim coach, but when it comes down to it, Jokic runs the show. He calls the plays, he runs the timeouts, he makes all the decisions. What other option do the Nuggets have at this point? It seemed to work last night, so you may as well go for it.

It was also pretty interesting hearing his side of the story when it came to the firing. I think we all assumed that Jokic had to bless the decision, given how important he is for the franchise, but according to him, it didn't really work that way

Given the fact that Jokic has never ever shown a sign of being the type of superstar to demand a coach be fired or anything along those lines, I tend to believe him here. If we're being honest, this is how things should be run if you're going to make a decision like this. Whenever players get involved in decisions, they tend to almost never work out well. At the same time, you can't make a move like this without giving Jokic some sorts of a heads up about it before it gets made public. That's just a baseline level of respect that needs to exist in an organization between ownership and their franchise all time great player. Communication is key. 

It's not as if Jokic was going to be able to change anything if the Kroenke's had made their decision already, and if you put any stock into the reports that he was growing frustrated, then his answer here makes sense. He got the heads up that this decision was made, he said OK fine whatever, and here we are. I'm sure there are some details around that conversation that we'd all love to hear, like did he agree with it? Did he push back? Did he fight for Malone to keep his job? We'll probably never know, and even if he did those things, it's not like it ultimately made a difference.

How this all unfolds in the playoffs is going to be fascinating to watch, given that we're in pretty uncharted territory here. The team talked about how they hoped this would provide a spark for a team currently in a funk, and for at least one night, that looked to be the case. But what happens when it comes time to deal with a playoff series? If Jamal Murray isn't healthy, will it even matter? 

I'm a firm believer in as long as you have Nikola Jokic you have a chance in any basketball game/series, but I never considered having Coach Jokic as well. If there's some new type of beast that has now been activated, that certainly makes things a little more interesting as we head to the postseason.