David Adelman took the Denver Nuggets to the brink of the Western Conference Finals in his spell as interim head coach, and he has duly been rewarded for that success.
The Nuggets confirmed on Thursday that the interim tag had been removed for Adelman, naming him the 13th head coach in franchise history.
Adelman took over as interim coach after the Nuggets after they made the surprising decision to part company with Michael Malone with three games remaining in the regular season.
Denver won all of those remaining games under Adelman’s stewardship. The Nuggets entered the playoffs as the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and subsequently beat the Los Angeles Clippers in seven games in the first round.
The Nuggets took the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in the Conference Semifinals, but a 125-93 defeat to the No. 1 seed brought their season to an end.
But team president Josh Kroenke saw enough from Adelman, an assistant to Malone for eight seasons, to give him a shot working with Nikola Jokic and Co. over the course of a full campaign.
All in on Adelman pic.twitter.com/Ekfq61sPDi
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) May 22, 2025
“Part of the thinking of making the change [to part with Malone] when we made it was to give David a chance,” Kroenke said at an end-of-season press conference.
“He’s grown with the group and he understands their tendencies as players. I think equally important right now … is he knows them as people, what makes them tick.
“And I think bringing in somebody from the outside — while I was very open-minded to it initially — I saw the cohesiveness of the relationships on the human side. I think that’s a big factor in where we’re heading with this group now and getting the most out of them.”
The Nuggets do not have a pick in next month’s NBA Draft, meaning their avenues to add depth to the roster for Adelman will be limited.
But with the Nuggets boasting a strong core of three-time MVP Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon, Adelman is in an excellent position to oversee success in his first full season at the helm.