Adelman passes ‘crash first test’ — now the fun begins

When the Denver Nuggets took the interim tag off his title as head coach, it was a “surreal” moment for David Adelman

Updated 7/25/2025 11:40 PM, 7/31/2025 3:20 PM

David Adelman is calling from central Oregon, site of the Adelman family’s vacation home. David’s family — wife Jenny, son L.J., 11, and daughter Lennan, 9 — have been there for more than a week. David has had to fly back to and forth between Bend and Denver a couple of times.

“Stuff to do,” he says.

That’s the way it is for an NBA head coach in his first full season, trying to get everything organized before the offseason vanishes.

Adelman got a trial run at the end of last season, when Michael Malone was fired near the end of his 10th season at the helm of the Denver Nuggets. Adelman replaced his boss on an interim basis for the final three games of the regular season, won them all, then had the reins for a playoff run that included seven-game series with the L.A. Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Nuggets ousted the Clippers in the first round, then fell to the eventual NBA champion Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals. Season over.

Four days later, Denver owner Josh Kroenke announced that Adelman would be back as head coach on a permanent basis. After 14 seasons as an NBA assistant coach, after interviewing for but being passed over for several head jobs throughout the league, a first seat was finally his.

“Surreal,” Adelman says. “It was a deep-breath moment. It immediately makes you feel nostalgic about where you have been. To be given the reins to coach the team, I don’t take that lightly.”

Strange circumstances led to Malone’s ouster and Adelman’s promotion from lead assistant to the head job.

Malone was two years removed from Denver’s 2023 NBA championship and was in his eighth straight winning season, with a career 471-327 record with the Nuggets.

But there was friction between Malone and general manager Calvin Booth, causing an unsettling internal situation within the team that Kroenke identified as a major problem. The Nuggets were 47-32 but had gone 11-13 since the All-Star break when Malone and Booth were both fired.

Adelman, 44, was caught off guard.

“I was completely shocked,” says the son of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman. “The season hadn’t gone great to that point. We had struggled a little bit. But I woke up that morning and had zero idea of what was about to happen. If anything happened, I figured it would be after the season. It was a whirlwind of emotions, for sure.”

Adelman was a loyal first lieutenant for Malone, having worked as an assistant in Denver since 2017. David considers Malone a mentor.

“I owe him so much for the amount of responsibility he gave me, for being able to watch him work daily with the staff and the players,” Adelman says. “He let me grow and gave me more responsibilities as the years went by. We are talking about one of the best coaches in the world. I was blessed to have the opportunity to work underneath him.”

I ask Adelman if he felt any mixed emotions when he took over for Malone.

“Yeah,” he says. “You feel it, and at the same time, you are responsible to all these people who are looking at you to take it over.

“It hit me harder when it was all over, just to know it affected him and his family. Being loyal to him for all those years, there is a bond there through all these experiences we went through, good and bad. It was a heavy feeling.”

Adelman stepped into a bit of a hornet’s nest. The Nuggets needed to win all three of the regular-season games to gain fourth seed in the West and homecourt advantage in the first round.

“Those were like playoff games,” he says, and they won them all.

First up were the No. 5 seed Clippers, who finished the regular season with the same record as Denver at 50-32. The Clippers, led by Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Ivica Zubac and Norman Powell, came in the hottest team in the league, having won eight in a row and 18 of the last 21 outings.

“It was an interesting matchup,” Adelman says. “We were going through so much emotionally that we used it as a mechanism to find some rhythm. The Clippers were coming in on this high. It was such a high level of basketball — the intensity, the high number of veteran players, all these high-IQ guys on both sides. It was a heavyweight matchup, and we survived it.”

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Oklahoma City finished the regular season with a league-best 68-14 record, a 16-game margin over second-seeded Houston in the West and a 12.9 average per-game point differential, largest in NBA history.

“We wanted that opportunity to play OKC,” Adelman says. “We understood they were the standard for the (regular) season. But we had been the standard for a long time. So it was, ‘Let’s see how this all goes.’ It didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but we gave extreme mental effort to both of those series, just to survive and give ourselves a chance.”

The Nuggets made the Thunder sweat. Denver was up 2-1 in the best-of-seven series and held fourth-quarter leads in the next two games — by eight points in Game 4 and 11 points in Game 5.

“Winning one of those would have given us a chance to finish the series in Game 6 at home,” Adelman says. “Both times, our hands were on the game but the lead slipped through. We played an incredible Game 6 (a 119-97 win), but we were pretty gassed that last game.”

In Game 7, OKC trailed 26-21 after one quarter but took control in the second period and won going away, 125-93.

“Our real opportunity was to win (either Game 4 or 5) and finish the series before we had to go back (to OKC for Game 7),” Adelman says.

It was an exhausting experience in his first taste of the playoffs as a head coach.

“It was weird,” Adelman says. “We only played two rounds, but it felt like it lasted four months.”

I have known David since he was a pint-sized rug rat, serving as ballboy for his father’s Trail Blazer teams of the 1990s. During that time, did he ever think the day would come when he would follow Rick into the NBA head coaching ranks?

“No,” he says. “When I got the high school job (at Portland’s Lincoln High early in his career), I didn’t think that was going to happen, either.”

But he embraces the opportunity.

“Being a head coach encompasses a lot of different social avenues, like teaching and friendship and brotherhood,” he says. “At the highest level, there are only 30 jobs. It’s an honor. I have seen so many good coaches never get the chance to do it. It doesn’t mean it is going to go well — it is just a chance to do it. I am lucky we have a good team.”

Terms of Adelman’s contract weren’t announced, and he will confirm only that he has a multi-year deal. Malone’s contract called him to make $12 million last season, fifth-highest in the league. Adelman’s salary is likely not near that figure, but suffice it to say, he is being well-compensated.

It didn’t hurt that Nuggets stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray went out of their way to endorse Adelman’s candidacy as head coach. Both have been with Adelman during his entire time in Denver.

Adelman believes the Nuggets will be “in the mix” to claim the NBA’s Western Conference title in 2025-26, his first full season as head coach

“You develop relationships over time, and those relationships become beyond basketball,” he says. “There are so many conversations, a lot of trust, and some arguments and disagreements. You’ve gone through the whole spectrum of what the job is in a relationship with those guys.

“It was cool to see those guys step up. They could have just said nothing. It is easier to do that. I try to stay away from the quotes and the media to keep my own mental health, but I heard from other people what they said about me. It meant a lot.”

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It had been 14 years since Adelman had served as a head coach, and that was at the high school level. There was little correlation to the rigors of an NBA job.

On the court, Adelman had been Malone’s “offensive coordinator,” in charge of the Nuggets’ offense that had ranked among the league’s top 10 every season — and usually among the top five — since he joined the staff in 2017.

“I loved (being head coach), because I also got to do the other side of the ball,” he says. “When you have one role with the team, you try to master that as best you can and stay out of the way of the people doing the other side. When you get to take over, it is different. You are the final say about both sides of the ball.”

There were plenty of nuances to the job. Learning how and when to call timeouts, for one. Adelman was getting a tutorial on the fly. The playoffs were his thesis.

“You work at it and prepare for it, but when you get into a Game 7, that is where you learn,” he says. “You learn how to do it correctly and learn from the mistakes you have made. Self-assessment is big when it comes to this stuff.”

Then there is the off-court stuff, including media responsibilities. Assistant coaches rarely do a lot of interviews. Head coaches are besieged with requests.

“I got the crash first test,” Adelman says with a laugh. “It is media on steroids in the playoffs. In the regular season, it is a couple of things a game, but nothing like the playoffs, where you are talking to multiple people from all sides of it — radio, TV, mainstream press and so on.

“It doesn’t bother me. You have to be respectful. They have a job to do. They are asking questions to report something to the rest of the world who loves the sport. If I complain about that, I shouldn’t have the job.”

Once he was hired full-time, Adelman began to put together a coaching staff.

“You have a greater respect for what other people’s careers are going through,” he says. “You realize the magnitude of it all. You become an outlet for so many people who are looking for a job. That was new for me.

“As an assistant, the season would end and you would have responsibilities for the coach you worked for. As a first-year head coach, it was about creating a new staff. You are also more a part of the free agency stuff. Being part of the team-building and staff-building process was completely new.”

Mind you, Adelman isn’t complaining.

“Responsibility is what you want as a coach,” he says. “You want the responsibility to make decisions, to try to move things in the right direction and be one of the major voices in it all.”

Adelman has reassembled his coaching staff, letting four coaches go, including Ryan Saunders and Popeye Jones. Adelman hired a pair of 14-year playing veterans to serve as his top two assistants — Jared Dudley and J.J. Barea. Dudley had been an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks; Barea was head coach in the Puerto Rican Pro League the last two years. Adelman also hired Rodney Billups, who was let go in Portland in 2024 after serving two seasons as an assistant to his older brother, Chauncey Billups.

“I like the guys we brought back, too — younger guys who are trying to earn their stripes and are ready for more responsibility,” Adelman says. “You want to make sure it all flows together with your own voice, which we really have had in Denver for all these years. Trying to replicate that with new energy is a challenge, but we have the right people.”

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Kroenke hired what amounts to a two-headed general manager. Ben Tenzer is the new executive vice president/basketball operations. Jon Wallace is executive vice president/player personnel. Both have experience in lesser positions with the Nuggets, Tenzer beginning in 2013.

“It is a unique situation,” Adelman says. “They are on equal ground as far as making personnel decisions. They get along really well. They have been great to communicate with, which is more than half the battle. You make more solid decisions when you have multiple voices who have an idea what is going on, not just somebody trying to power trip.”

The Nuggets had no draft picks this year, so Tenzer, Wallace and Adelman focused on trades and the free-agent market, primarily to add depth to what was a thin bench last season. They picked up three players to that cause — veteran center Jonas Valanciunas and free-agent guards Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown.

The 6-11, 260-pound Valanciunas, 33 and about to enter his 14th NBA season, was a starter throughout his career until last season, which he split between Sacramento and Washington. The Lithuanian lug, who was acquired from the Kings for little-used forward Dario Saric, will serve as a backup to Jokic next season.

“Getting ‘V’ was huge,” Adelman says. “You can play through him, and you are in a different ballpark as far as what kind of players you can go get around him. His skillset is unique, so it allows you to broaden your range of who you can bring in to be impactful.”

Shooting was an issue for the Nuggets in the playoffs, so Hardaway — a .361 career 3-point shooter who has averaged in double figures scoring in all but one of his 12 NBA seasons — will help there. Brown, a key reserve on Denver’s 2023 title team who had spent time with the Pacers, Raptors and Pelicans since then, is a versatile player who can provide help on both sides of the ball.

Denver’s biggest trade was a swap of small forwards, sending Michael Porter Jr. to New Jersey, along with a future first-round draft pick, for Cameron Johnson. Porter was a five-year starter and a stalwart in Denver, but Johnson averaged a career-high 18.8 points and shot .390 from 3-point range with the Nets last season.

“Losing Michael is tough, but we got shooting back for him,” Adelman says. “Cam is a really good player who can shoot at an extremely high level. It should be good for both teams. I think they both needed a change of scenery.”

Denver’s projected starting lineup for next season now features Johnson and Aaron Gordon at forward, Jokic at center and Murray and Christian Braun at guard. Off the bench come Valanciunas, Brown, Hardaway Jr. and young swing men Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther. It is a young team, with Jokic the oldest starter at 30, but an experienced group, too.

“It was a successful summer for us,” Adelman says. “We added some good pieces, but it’s not a video game. You have to make sure it flows well together. I am excited for the scrimmages when we get back together (in September). They are going to be really competitive.

“It is an open competition for these guys. It has to be new all the way. It can’t just be, ‘This is what we did last year.’ You have to come in and earn it. That’s the best way to get better quickly. I told all the guys that it is important that they come back in shape. You gotta be ready to go with the shortened preseason. That is the expectation, which will lead us in a good direction to have a good start to the season.”

Kroenke didn’t hire Adelman with the idea of just making the playoffs. A deep run is what everyone in the organization is hoping for, including the man in the first seat.

“It is nice to say you will be in the mix, and I think we will be if we stay healthy,” he says. “Having a chance to win it is fun to say, but it is about incremental growth through a whole season. The season itself is a unique thing, and you have to have these little periods of growth. As you come into the season, everybody has hope. As things start to break, there can be injuries and trades and chemistry problems.”

A year ago, there were eight teams in the West with 48 regular-season wins or more. Each of those teams should be in contention for the playoffs again in 2026. Then you have Dallas, which should be much improved, and young teams such as Portland and San Antonio that could be capable of a run at the postseason.

“I know we have said it in previous years, but I don’t remember a conference as stacked as the West looks for next season,” Adelman says. “We know the challenge, but the guys will come prepared. That is why we do this.”

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