Michael Malone’s had quite the past few months. He was confident and boisterous throughout pressers while his Denver Nuggets rollicked to a 16-4 playoff record en route to the franchise’s first NBA championship. As the organization, its fans and the city of Denver celebrated the title days removed from a Game 5 Finals closeout victory, Malone enjoyed many, many alcoholic beverages during the parade and continued his outspoken ways, which included trolling LeBron James and declaring this Nuggets core would win another title at some point. Less than a week later, he commemorated the championship by getting a tattoo of Denver’s retro ABA logo, Maxie the Miner, on his shoulder.
Amid Denver’s title run, it dispatched the Los Angeles Lakers 4-0 in the Western Conference Finals, which prompted Vic Lombardi of Altitude Sports to call Malone “the Lakers’ daddy” while introducing him to the podium for a speech during the victory parade.
"He came into this world as the son of a coach, but in these playoffs, he became the Lakers daddy!"@VicLombardi while talking about Michael Malone at the Nuggets championship rally 😂pic.twitter.com/h28iR5kLHq
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) June 15, 2023
This week, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham appeared on Chris Haynes and Marc Stein’s podcast, “#thisleague UNCUT,” where Ham seemingly made light of those comments and hinted at some possible revenge next season.
“Mike Malone did a lot of celebrating,” Haynes said.
“Oh, wow, you bring up Money Mike. The Lakers’ daddy, right? That’s what they call him, the Lakers’ daddy?,” Ham said. “God bless his soul. This sh*t ain’t over. God bless his soul.”
Both the Nuggets and Lakers project to be heavyweights in a crowded Western Conference in 2023-24, so those matchups should be pretty entertaining. Perhaps, we’re treated to another playoff battle as well to see what Ham exactly meant when he said “this sh*t ain’t over.”
