The Nuggets have reached an agreement with David Adelman on a deal that will remove the interim tag from his title and make him the team’s permanent head coach, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link). Nuggets vice chairman Josh Kroenke confirmed the news at his end-of-season press conference on Thursday afternoon, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (Twitter link).
Adelman, who had been an assistant under Michael Malone, was promoted to the top job late in the season following Denver’s dismissal of Malone. The team was impressed with his work during the final week of the regular season and in the first two rounds of the playoffs and has opted to retain him rather than launching a full-fledged search for Malone’s replacement, Charania notes (via Twitter).
After spending nearly a decade as a high school coach from 2002-11, Adelman was hired by the Timberwolves in 2011 as a player development coach under his father Rick Adelman. The younger Adelman remained in Minnesota for five seasons, beyond his father’s retirement in 2014, then was hired by the Magic as an assistant for the 2016/17 season. He moved on to Denver a year later and had been an assistant on Malone’s staff for nearly eight full seasons before his promotion in April.
Adelman led the Nuggets to a 3-0 record to close the regular season, clinching a guaranteed playoff spot, then won his first postseason series as a head coach in a grueling seven-game matchup with the Clippers. Denver subsequently battled the 68-win Thunder to a Game 7 in the second round of the playoffs before being eliminated on Sunday.
Nuggets star Nikola Jokic became more vocal about instructing his teammates on the court after Malone was fired, leading to a perception that he was the one actually coaching the team. However, as Durando recently detailed in a Denver Post story, Adelman has, by all accounts, earned the respect of his players, who advocated for him to return next season. Adelman has said he encourages his players to communicate with each other and doesn’t care how it’s viewed by the public.
“More of it, please,” he said. “Not a bunch of guys going and sitting on the bench, waiting for me to tell them something. Talk to each other. We can figure it out as a group.”
Kroenke told reporters today that he was initially open to looking outside the organization for a new head coach, but really liked the way that Adelman connected to the Nuggets’ core players. Adelman will be given the opportunity to hire his own coaching staff, with many of Denver’s current assistants on expiring contracts, Kroenke added (Twitter links via Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette).
The next step for Denver this offseason will be to sort out the front office situation, since general manager Calvin Booth was let go at the same time Malone was fired. While there have been rumblings that interim GM Ben Tenzer could hang onto the job, Kroenke said on Thursday that the team will take more time to make a final decision on that front.
Adelman is the third NBA head coach so far this offseason to have his interim tag removed and get the full-time job, joining Doug Christie of the Kings and Tuomas Iisalo of the Grizzlies. Mitch Johnson of the Spurs could also be included in that group, though his situation was a little different since Gregg Popovich was on a health-related leave of absence before deciding to call it a career after the season ended.
Arthur Hill contributed to this story.