{"id":63334,"date":"2025-05-29T07:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T07:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/63334\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T07:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T07:27:09","slug":"nuggets-david-adelman-plans-style-changes-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/63334\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ David Adelman Plans Style Changes Next Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Adelman talked about changes in philosophy and style of play at an introductory news conference Wednesday to officially make him the Nuggets\u2018 permanent head coach, writes Pat Graham of The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adelman held the job on an interim basis after taking over when Michael Malone was fired<\/a> on April 8 with three games left in the regular season. Adelman led the team to a first-round victory over the Clippers before dropping a seven-game series to the Thunder in the second round.<\/p>\n

Players responded positively to the increased input they were able to provide under Adelman, along with the lifting of tensions that occurred with the dismissal of Malone and general manager Calvin Booth.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to next season, Adelman said he wants the team to get in \u201cbetter shape\u201d and he\u2019s planning to expand the rotation beyond what Malone normally utilized. He\u2019s looking at a slower style of play to maximize the skills of star center Nikola Jokic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get back to being an execution-based team,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cIf that takes away some of our pace numbers, or whatever the analytics want to say, I think that\u2019s OK if it wins you a game in May, as opposed to playing a game in December. The majority of the time, if you want to win big, you\u2019ve got to play slow. You\u2019ve got to be efficient. You\u2019ve got to be clean. So that will be things we\u2019ll talk about throughout the summer, going to training camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham points out that it won\u2019t be easy to add talent to the roster because the Nuggets don\u2019t own any picks in next month\u2019s draft. Any significant trade would likely have to break up the current starting five, so the best avenue toward improvement will be progress from young players Julian Strawther<\/a>, Peyton Watson<\/a>, Jalen Pickett<\/a> and DaRon Holmes<\/a>, who missed his entire rookie season after suffering an Achilles tear in a Summer League game.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from Denver:<\/p>\n

Between the reduced pace and Adelman\u2019s desire for \u201ca premium on shot-making,\u201d Russell Westbrook<\/a> shouldn\u2019t be part of the team next season, contends Troy Renck of The Denver Post<\/a>. Westbrook holds a $3.47MM player option, and Renck says the best outcome would be for him to decline it and join a team like Brooklyn that\u2019s looking for a big name. Renck suggests using the mid-level exception to sign free agent Tyus Jones<\/a>, who would provide a steadier option as backup point guard.
\nTeam president Josh Kroenke wants a better relationship between his coach and GM this time, so Adelman will have at least a small role in filling that position, according to Bennett Durando of The Denver Post<\/a>. \u201cDA will come into that process at some point. \u2026 But I think the input will be relatively minimal, because what I\u2019ll be looking for is cohesion between those two (roles),\u201d Kroenke said. \u201cAnd I think that once we decide on that, I think I\u2019ll have a lot of comfort on how they work together.\u201d Kroenke added that he has \u201cno news on that front\u201d when asked about hiring an outside firm to identify potential GM candidates. He also praised interim GM Ben Tenzer for the way he\u2019s handled the role since Booth was fired.
\nAdelman needs to send a strong message to Jamal Murray<\/a> about coming to camp in shape and being at his best when the season starts, states Sean Keeler of The Denver Post<\/a>. Murray\u2019s four-year, $207.8MM extension will take effect next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Adelman talked about changes in philosophy and style of play at an introductory news conference Wednesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,7552,2288,250,1361,762,3787,763,1146,254,6279],"class_list":{"0":"post-63334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ben-tenzer","10":"tag-daron-holmes","11":"tag-david-adelman","12":"tag-jalen-pickett","13":"tag-jamal-murray","14":"tag-josh-kroenke","15":"tag-julian-strawther","16":"tag-peyton-watson","17":"tag-russell-westbrook","18":"tag-tyus-jones"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114589941395849584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}