The Best Denver Nuggets Coaches Of All Time

Ranker NBA
Updated September 15, 2023 702 votes 141 voters
Over 100 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of The Best Denver Nuggets Coaches Of All Time

Who are the best Denver Nuggets coaches of all time? In their time as an NBA franchise, the Denver Nuggets have gone through many different head coaches, all with different personalities and coaching styles. With that said, who is the best Denver Nuggets coach of all time? Which Nuggets head coaches do you love?

Doug Moe is the Nuggets all-time leader in regular season games won with 432. He also has the most playoff wins with 61. Second to Moe, George Karl has the next most regular season wins with 432. Karl would lead the Nuggets to the Western Conference finals in 2009.

Vote up the best Denver Nuggets head coaches of all time, and help us decide who are the best Denver head coaches ever.

Ranked by
  • Doug Moe
    1

    Doug Moe

    60 votes

    1980–1990    

    Douglas Edwin Moe (born September 21, 1938) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. As a head coach with the Denver Nuggets in the National Basketball Association (NBA), he was named the NBA Coach of the Year in 1988.
  • George Karl
    2

    George Karl

    73 votes

    2004–2013

    George Matthew Karl (born May 12, 1951) is an American former professional basketball coach and former player. He is one of 9 coaches in NBA history to have won 1,000 NBA games, though he never won a championship.
  • Michael Malone
    3

    2015 -

    Michael Malone (born 1971) is an American professional basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Denver Nuggets in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
  • Larry Brown
    4

    Larry Brown

    48 votes

    1974–1979    

    Lawrence Harvey Brown (born September 14, 1940) is a former American basketball coach and player who was most recently the head coach for Auxilium Torino of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) and EuroCup Basketball. Brown is the only coach in basketball history to win both an NCAA national championship (Kansas Jayhawks, 1988) and an NBA title (Detroit Pistons, 2004). He has a 1,275-965 lifetime professional coaching record in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) and is the only coach in NBA history to lead eight teams to the playoffs. He also won an ABA championship as a player with the Oakland Oaks in the 1968–69 season, and an Olympic Gold Medal in 1964. He is also the only person ever to coach two NBA franchises in the same season (Spurs and Clippers during the 1991–92 NBA season). Before coaching, Brown played collegiately at the University of North Carolina and professionally in the ABA. Brown was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach on September 27, 2002. Although widely considered one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, he has developed a reputation for constantly looking for better coaching opportunities and frequently switching teams or programs before the expiration of his contract.
  • Dan Issel
    5

    Dan Issel

    40 votes

    1992–1995, 1999–2001    

    Daniel Paul Issel (born October 25, 1948) is an American retired Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame professional basketball player and coach. An outstanding collegian at the University of Kentucky, he was twice named an All-American en route to a still school record 25.7 points per game. The American Basketball Association Rookie of the Year in 1971, he was a six-time ABA All-Star and one-time NBA All-Star. A prolific scorer, Issel remains the all-time leading scorer at the University of Kentucky and second all-time for the NBA's Denver Nuggets and the American Basketball Association itself. Upon his retirement from the NBA in 1985, only Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Julius Erving had scored more professional points.
  • Mike D'Antoni
    6

    1998–1999    

    Michael Andrew D'Antoni (born May 8, 1951) is an American-Italian professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach of the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). While head coach of the Phoenix Suns, he won NBA Coach of the Year honors for the 2004–05 NBA season after the Suns posted 33 more wins than the previous season. He coached the New York Knicks starting in 2008 before resigning in 2012. He was hired by the Lakers seven games into the 2012–13 season. On June 1, 2016, D'Antoni was named head coach of the Rockets, and he received his second NBA Coach of the Year award for the 2016–17 season. D'Antoni, who holds American and Italian dual citizenship, is known for favoring a fast-paced, offense-oriented system.