Strike 1: The dust has settled at Ball Arena, and the Denver Nuggets as an organization can now step back and evaluate their options while preparing for a first round playoff series with the Los Angeles Clippers. No time to waste as ownership works to identify the good, the bad and the ugly, and react accordingly.

Team president and governor Josh Kroenke said as much at an end of season media gathering while addressing the recent terminations of head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth. He acknowledged that the timing was odd, but then again there’s never a perfect time when a housecleaning is needed.

The current mission now is two-fold: Find a way to win a seven-game series against a Clippers team that’s on the rise – while employing an interim head coach and general manager – while also assessing what changes and perhaps bold moves will need to be made in order to get back to the top of the Western Conference in the near future, while you still have the services of the world’s best basketball player in his prime.

To start with, the Nuggets ownership needs to shake loose from their Colorado Rockies-like tendency to continually promote from within. Along with interim head coach David Adelman, Kroenke has also promoted former organizational intern Ben Tenzer as the interim GM. Tenzer has been with the Nuggets for more than a decade and was most recently the vice president of basketball operations.

Tenzer has a nice resumé, but he’s exactly what Denver does NOT need as their next full time GM. Denver needs a fresh set of eyes, attached to someone from outside the organization.

Since the Kroenke family took over operations of the Nuggets in 2000, the team has had six general managers. They inherited former Nugget great and NBA Hall of Famer Dan Issel, who was let go after the 2001 season. Their first hire was former Nugget standout player Kiki Vandeweghe, who replaced his former teammate and ran the club until the end of the 2006 season.

It wasn’t until after Kiki that the still new Nuggets ownership finally looked outside the organization and brought in veteran NBA exec Mark Warkentien to run things. He won NBA executive of the year for the 2008-2009 season before he was replaced by Masai Ujiri, who had been with Denver before taking an assistant GM gig with Toronto. In 2010 Masai returned to the Mile High to take the lead job, which he held for three seasons before returning to Toronto as the GM of the Raptors. Ujiri also won the league’s executive of the year award in 2013.

When Ujiri left town for the second time, Kroenke again stayed in house and elevated Tim Connelly to the GM’s seat. Connelly ran things at Ball Arena until he left for Minnesota after the 2022 season, having pretty much built the core that won Denver’s first NBA title in 2023. Once again, rather than looking outside the organization, Nuggets ownership elevated Calvin Booth to the GM’s job after Connelly left.

While there’s certainly a lot of good in maintaining continuity, at this point, after Booth’s tenure as GM proved to be one of diminishing returns, Denver needs a new and uncolored evaluation of the roster, so it’s time to put aside the promoting from within thing.

A fresh perspective should also include an evaluation of ownership’s love affair with Michael Porter Jr. It’s obvious that the Nuggets aren’t getting “max” production from a guy they’re paying a max contract. A new GM needs to point this out and be able to make MPJ the centerpiece of an important trade.

The lack of quality depth on this roster is glaring. All you had to do was watch “garbage time” during the Nuggets regular season finale against Houston to see how much deeper other teams are than the Nuggets. The “young guys” on the Denver bench were badly outplayed – again – and continue to display the dearth of above average NBA talent that has plagued the Nuggets bench for the past two seasons.

A new GM brought in from the outside will not only be able to hire the best possible new head coach (and maybe that’s Adelman and maybe it’s not) but will also be able to be honest about what Denver needs to do to be able to provide a better supporting cast for Nikola Jokic.

It’s not going to be an easy job. But someone – who hasn’t been here and whose opinions haven’t been shaped by the Nuggets recent past – has to do it.