In a candid, conversational interview, former NBA players Draymond Green and Baron Davis discuss the Denver Nuggets' decision to fire head coach Michael Malone after a championship run. Green defends Malone, describing him as a hard‑nosed leader whose demanding voice was essential to winning, and argues that fans and management grew tired of that voice, leading to the dismissal. Both discuss how the team’s fatigue, loss of key roster pieces (Bruce Brown, KCP, bench depth, Reggie Jackson) and the difficulty of replacing championship‑level talent contributed to the decline. They reject the narrative that Russell Westbrook’s salary or presence caused the firing, calling it a scapegoat. The conversation expands to broader themes of team chemistry, the importance of “glue” players and non‑playing personnel for locker‑room vibe, and the challenges of rebuilding a championship core through the draft versus free‑agency signings. Throughout, Green emphasizes that pushing players is necessary for sustained success, even if it leads to temporary resentment, and highlights the nuanced balance between leadership, roster composition, and maintaining a winning culture.
Chapters
The firing of Coach Mike Malone. What was your reaction to it?
I had a few different reactions. Number one, Coach Mo is my guy. I love Coach Mo. I text Josh Cronkie before, many years ago. And I text Josh and it was around the time where they were kind of like, you could tell they was starting to turn that corner but not quite there yet, looking to turn the corner. And around that time it was like noise, like, do Denver continue forward with Mike Malone? And they had a quick playoff exit, I think. And I text Josh and I said, don't be fooled by the noise. I think Mike Malone is your guy. Like, I think y'all got y'all guy. And sure enough, they end up winning a championship with their guy. And so my hunch was right. When I look at him being fired though, You hear the reports of like people tired of his voice, they're tired of his hard coaching, these types of things. I'm sorry to say, but unfortunately that's why people don't win. Because you get tired of hearing the voice that led you to being a winner.
Mm.
I will say, as someone who could be the voice that people get tired of at times, that's helping lead you to winning, I get why you can get tired of it.
You're not used to it.
I totally understand. It ain't even that you're not used to it, it's that one thing that I know as a leader is I know people probably get tired of my voice at times. I'm not surprised that you get tired of my voice. Quite frankly, I don't give a shit whether you get tired of my voice or not because I know what it takes to lead to winning. And so to hear people say, coming out like, "Oh yeah, they were getting tired of Mike Malone's hard style." Like, it makes complete sense to me.
Yeah.
It makes complete sense to me. Like, people, but even aside from being a player, BD, people get tired of being pushed. That's what it is. People get tired of being pushed, which is why, People don't win over and over and over again, which is why only a select few of people win, because people get tired of being pushed. And so I heard that and it made complete sense to me. You know, another thing I heard that bothered me is people trying to put it on Russell Westbrook. Stop it.
Oh yeah, y'all need to stop the cap. That's crazy, cap.
Russell Westbrook make $3 million a year.
That's crazy, cap.
You gonna tell me anything to do with a coach is the man that make 3— if they, if Russell Westbrook a problem, they $3 million they pay him, they can send him home, pay, go home. We don't even want you around here. The, like, to, to try to make this about Russell Westbrook.
No, that's not—
It's insane to me.
Man, that's crazy. I, I, I think the whole thing with Denver is they just got fatigued. Right, you won a championship.
For sure.
You start eating the food. You start tasting more food as you were cooking. So now you start removing some of your ingredients, meaning Bruce Brown, right? You start removing some of the KCP, you start removing and let go some key ingredients. And it's hard to replace that in the draft and groom that in young people and then try and get that in free agency. What is missing is always going to be the main subject.
Yeah.
And you can see last year they got fatigued, right? They're just getting fatigued.
Yeah.
And so the run that they went on to win the championship was a crazy run. But when you play, what coach was pushing you every day, right? When the Warriors, when y'all was winning, you know how to motivate yourself. Your voice may be annoying or dudes may get pissed off at times, but when you winning, you know you need that. Now for a coach, you gotta understand there's a time to push these dudes, how to push these dudes, where are we pushing to, right? Because when you talking about your voice, as a coach and you keep pushing, you keep pushing, at some point your player's gonna be like, yo, I had enough, I know what I'm doing.
But who's the player in they locker room, BD, that's doing that? Jokic don't talk much, like Jamal Murray don't talk much. So who's the player on that team that's doing that though? Or does the coach have to do it because they don't have a player?
So you got Russell Westbrook, right? I think they fired the GM and they fired the coach —because they weaken the batter, bro.
What I'm saying, you got Russell Westbrook who's that type of player, but I already know the type of vibe he gonna come in on because that team won a championship before. Russ gonna come in like, "All right, maybe I'm gonna take a backseat here. I'm not gonna do that there. I'm not the main guy here." And so although you could get that demeanor from Russell Westbrook, you're only gonna get doses of it because somewhere there's probably a little self-consciousness of like, They won a championship before. I ain't gonna come in and press too much, you know? And so you may have to—
They just not your roster.
They not the same team. But that's what happens when you start plucking key pieces to championships away.
Exactly, exactly.
Like you just said, and trying to do it in the draft. Like that's a very tough thing to do. To say that the GM was mad that, Russell Westbrook's playing over Jalen Pickett, like—
That's crazy. That's what happens, right? That's ridiculous. Yeah, but that's, stuff like that start happen, happening because everybody wants to experiment, right? Everybody got an opinion. You've weakened the foundation by letting your key ingredients go. The Warriors was smart about, man, we gonna hold the whole thing together and add maybe one or two guys in free agency, get a draft, and then they, you know who they're for a year, you know who you need to build a foundation. You got a bad mix of veteran guys and young guys.
Mm-hmm.
And you have nothing in the middle that those veteran free agents that you needed and needed to keep and sign, you didn't have them as your glue. So you really missing the glue. So when you look at Russ, Russ is a glue person, but he's not a glue person, right? He's a complimentary piece and he's added value, right, to a team. But where do you fit if you not a glue guy? 'Cause with the young dudes, they play a different style than the way Joker wanna play, or how Aaron Gordon, Joker, and Porter, how all those dudes, Jamal Murray work together. They need KCP in that position. Then you need Russ coming in, working with the young dudes. So everybody is out of predicament. And that's why you fired a GM. That's why I think the coach got fired because you can't be experimenting and trying to win the championship because you came off a championship 2 years ago. So, you know, it's like trying to find an identity with no identity. But that's, I also think that's why Joker is having a hell of a year.
Because the team isn't as strong?
Because the team isn't as strong. He has to do more? He has to do a lot more. Whereas before, Michael Porter can beat you, Aaron Gordon can beat you. Now those are nights. They have a hot night, but Even Jamal Murray, like, as talented as he is, it's almost like, I mean, and he has been getting injured, but he ain't, he has not taken it to that next echelon of where his talent was supposed to go, what we saw in the finals. And that's because you lost your key ingredients.
It's hard to lose key ingredients on championship team and think you can just replace 'em. It don't work like that, that's for sure. But a lot of people also spoke about like Reggie Jackson being like, they lost a lot. They lost pretty much their entire bench.
You lose—
From a championship team.
But don't you think that's your personality too? Right? 'Cause you played on all these championship teams. A lot of these dudes, would you say like, man, I need, that's my guy. I need him even though he don't play. The personality, right?
Sometimes you keep a guy, you keep guys around —and they may not play at all. Like, literally could be 14th, 15th man, and you tell 'em Bob, like, or Mike now, like, yo, no, we need to keep that guy.
Yeah.
Like, we just need that guy on the team, like, for the vibe, for something they bring. It ain't always about what this guy gonna give us in those minutes. Like, and by the way, it's the NBA, everybody can play. So it ain't like we saying keep somebody who should be, playing somewhere else. Like they, it's an NBA player, but we need you to keep this guy for this reason. Like that, like it ain't always just about basketball. The makeup of that team, the vibes, like we go to dinners and like keep the vibe right amongst the team. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
It could be like, yo, in the locker room, this dude always make us laugh and we be needing that when you down like, It could be anything. It ain't just always that in those couple spots, it ain't just always about necessarily the production on the court.
