Nuggets should play fast in Denver, so history says hiring Mike Malone makes no sense

— -- A little more than two seasons after firing reigning NBA Coach of the Year George Karl, the Denver Nuggets still seem to be wrestling with the question of how to build a winning team in Denver. And their latest choice as coach, Mike Malone, seems to suggest they've chosen a different path than conventional wisdom would lead them down.

Malone, last seen getting fired in December despite leading the Sacramento Kings to their best start in more than a decade, is certainly deserving of a second chance. But his track record during his season-plus at the helm of the Kings doesn't seem to match what has historically been most successful for the Nuggets at altitude.

Pushing the pace in Denver

Because of their unique home-court advantage, the Nuggets have traditionally played faster than other NBA teams. Just three times since joining the league as part of its merger with the ABA in 1976-77 has Denver's rate of possessions per 48 minutes been slower than NBA average. Meanwhile, the Nuggets have led the league in pace 11 times and ranked in the top three more than half of their NBA seasons (21 out of 39).

Looking at the team's winning percentage against pace reveals that while Denver's best teams have played at a variety of different paces, the worst Nuggets NBA squads have -- with the notable and extreme exception of the record-setting 1990-91 season with Paul Westhead as coach -- almost exclusively been slow-paced teams.

On average, Denver teams that have played at a pace at least five percent faster than league average have won 51.9 percent of their games. Nuggets teams between 2.5 and five percent faster than league average have been slightly better, winning 52.9 percent of the time. But the slowest Denver teams, those within 2.5 percent of league average, have won just 41.2 percent of their games.

There's a danger here of confusing cause and effect. The Nuggets probably were most likely to slow things down to mitigate the talent differential when they had weaker rosters. The 2002-03 Denver team that went 17-65 didn't struggle because it played slow, but because it had perhaps the worst guard rotation in modern NBA history. Given the talent on that pre- Carmelo Anthony roster, 17 wins actually was impressive.

One way to factor out talent level is to look at how Nuggets teams have performed at home versus on the road.

Now it is clear that pace is associated with Denver having a bigger home-court advantage. The teams that played at least five percent faster than league average have been 11.9 points per game better at home than on the road, as compared to a 9.5 PPG home-court advantage for slower Nuggets teams. (Historically, home-court advantage for all NBA teams has been about seven PPG. Denver's is consistently higher because of the effects of altitude.)

Playing better at home isn't unambiguously positive either. The three Nuggets teams with the largest home/road splits were Doug Moe's last three Denver teams, which all played at least 16 points per game better at home. The 1988-89 team, the most extreme, outscored opponents by 10.6 PPG at home (similar to this season's Golden State Warriors overall) but were outscored by 7.2 PPG on the road (similar to this season's Los Angeles Lakers). That translated to one playoff series win in three seasons, and the only Karl team to win a playoff series (the 2008-09 Nuggets) had a relatively small home-court edge by Denver standards (7.5 PPG).

After eight first-round exits in nine seasons under Karl, the Nuggets appear to have concluded the only way to maintain their success in the postseason is to build a stronger defensive team that relies less on transition basketball. That's what Malone figures to bring to Denver.

Malone's résumé

Because he was fired so quickly in Sacramento, we've got limited data to work with as far as Malone's head coaching tendencies. But his 2013-14 team played at a pace slightly faster than league average. The Kings ranked 14th in pace, down from seventh the season before under Keith Smart. Correspondingly, they improved at the defensive end (from 29th to 23rd in defensive rating) while declining offensively (from 13th to 20th).

Those changes essentially all reversed themselves after Malone's midseason dismissal. At the time he was fired, Sacramento ranked 16th in pace and 19th in defensive rating, which would have been the Kings' best finish on defense since 2005-06. During the remainder of the season, under interim coach Tyrone Corbin and then Karl, Sacramento played at the league's fourth-fastest pace ... but ranked 29th in defense.

As this season's Warriors have conclusively proven, it's possible to play quickly and defend at a high level. Still, Golden State's combination is historic precisely because of the difficulty doing so. One or the other might have to give for Malone with the Nuggets.

Much as when Denver hired Brian Shaw, it seems to me the organization continues chasing a way to win in the playoffs without considering the need to get there first. The roster Malone inherits is nowhere near as talented as the ones Karl coached to the playoffs nine years in a row, and Malone hasn't yet shown the same ability to manage a roster longer on depth than elite talent as Karl did.

Perhaps the Nuggets are taking a longer-term view than I'm crediting them with, and perhaps Malone will prove more adaptable in terms of pace than he showed with the Kings. Malone has proven a capable coach, and I would have endorsed his hiring by a team in need of a defensive upgrade like the New Orleans Pelicans. But the right coach is a matter of fit as much as ability, and I don't think Malone makes sense in Denver.