NBA Denver Nuggets

Denver Nuggets Have Limited Options To Replace Brian Shaw

Fresh Videos

By @courtzierk

USA TODAY Sports - (David Banks)

David Banks – USA TODAY Sports

When the halftime buzzer sounded Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center, smoldering choruses of boos rang down from the smattering of fans that were in attendance that evening. The 84 points that appeared on the guest side of the scoreboard was the highest number of points given up by the Denver Nuggets in a half since 1990.

Those of you with any familiarity or history with the Nuggets will remember that team, which finished the year with 20 total wins, was led by a man entrenched in the bowels of infamy in Denver history, Paul Westhead. That particular team gave up an historically bad 130.77 points that season, including 107 points at half to the Phoenix Suns, the only game that eclipses the embarrassment of the loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

The final buzzer may have ended the agony for the players and the fans, but it marked the beginning of the speculation around Brian Shaw’s future as head coach. As Shaw walked off the court, he was subjected to visceral verbal attacks laced with profanity and unfounded hatred. On Twitter the reaction was extreme and primarily consisted of calls to bring back George Karl. The generally accepted speculation was that Shaw was going to be out of a job as soon as this morning but most certainly by All-Star break.

I understand all of these reactions, except for the primal hate spewed in Shaw’s direction. The players looked disinterested and lackluster. The offensive sets continued to be non-existent. The defense looked strong for about five minutes, until a hint of adversity was introduced and then things fell historically apart. Arron Afflalo didn’t play a single minute in the second half, and at one point he wasn’t even seen on the bench. This immediately resurrected memories of Shaw’s struggles with veteran point guard Andre Miller last season. This is the type of loss that initiates change.

There is no doubt that appears to be the direction this team is headed in, but in reality, the options to replace Shaw, even on an interim basis, are extremely limited. Lester Conner is the most experienced assistant coach, with 16 years of NBA assistant coaching under his belt. Melvin Hunt is clearly one of the players’ favorites, but his NBA experience is also limited to a variety of assistant coaching gigs. Patrick Mutombo is clearly not ready for the responsibility, as he is entering his first season as an assistant after serving a few years as a player development coordinator for the Nuggets.

In terms of coaches available to potentially replace Shaw long term, if that’s what actually comes to pass, the options are also extremely limited, at least as it relates to who would actually consider the job.

George Karl, of course, is still available, but after his acrimonious and forced departure, it is highly unlikely he would consider coming back. Alvin Gentry is out there, but while he has extensive head coaching experience, it was generally with undesirable results. Mark Jackson is also available, but considering his trouble meshing with the Golden State Warriors‘ front office, it is unlikely that the Nuggets’ brass would want to subject themselves to this potentially explosive situation. Jeff Van Gundy’s name always comes up, but he would most certainly want a higher profile job, with a chance at a championship, if he were to consider returning.

The bottom line is there just aren’t a whole lot of options out there. It is easy to say the Nuggets would be better off without Shaw running things, and there may actually be some truth to that, but with every criticism there should be an equally adamant proposed solution.

It could be that the Nuggets roll the dice with Hunt for the rest of the season and ramp up their search in the summer. Or, perhaps even more likely, the Nuggets just stay the course for a while with Shaw, regardless of how miserable it becomes. An interim coach with zero head coaching experience might be able to handle the task for a fraction of the season, but to throw him to the wolves right now, with the majority of the season still in front of this team, could be counterproductive.

Time will tell, but Nuggets fans should brace themselves for a long ride.

Court Zierk is a Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourtZierk, “Like”him on Facebook or add him on Google.

Share Tweet
Trending Now on