The Denver Nuggets announced on Tuesday that head coach Brian Shaw has been fired. David West and plenty of others feel that Shaw was not given a fair shot.
West, who worked with Shaw when Shaw was an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers, said the Nuggets had no chance of winning with the lack of maturity on their roster.
“That’s bulls–t,” West said of Shaw’s firing, per Pacers reporter Scott Agness. “No grownups on the roster. You can’t win without grownups.”
The move certainly was not a surprise, as the Nuggets have lost six straight games and have just two wins in their last 21. It has become fairly obvious in recent weeks that Shaw has lost his locker room, with the best example being the way Denver broke a team huddle during a game over the weekend.
Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly, who recently said that Ty Lawson and several other members of the team need to grow up, thanked Shaw for the work he has done over the past two seasons.
“I want to sincerely thank Brian for his time with our organization,” Connelly said in a statement. “You won’t find a better guy than Brian and he is one of the brightest basketball minds I’ve ever been around. Unfortunately things didn’t go as we hoped, but we know with his basketball acumen that he has a very bright future ahead of him.”
West has a point, but the results simply weren’t there. Controlling players who are defiant and immature is part of a head coach’s job. Shaw has not shown an ability to do that.
