Remembering Brendan Malone (1935-2023)
Brendan Malone spent nearly 30 years patrolling NBA sidelines as both an assistant and head coach. An integral part of the championship 'Bad Boy' Pistons teams, Malone was also the first head coach of the expansion Toronto Raptors.
Brendan Malone, father of Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone and a driving force behind the Detroit Pistons “Bad Boys” defenses in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, has died at age 88.
A Nuggets representative told The Associated Press on Tuesday that a family member confirmed his death.
“It is with tremendous sadness that we share the passing of longtime NBA coach Brendan Malone, who holds a special place amongst the organization and will be a Denver Nugget forever,” the team wrote on social media.
It was during his time as Chuck Daly’s assistant in Detroit from 1988-95 that the elder Malone championed “The Jordan Rules,” a set of defensive principles designed to curtail Michael Jordan’s offensive prowess.
Although Jordan eventually found ways for the Bulls to surpass the Pistons, the strategy helped Detroit eliminate Chicago in the Eastern Conference Finals on the way to a pair of NBA titles in 1989 and ’90.
Shortly after Michael Malone led the Nuggets to their first NBA championship last summer, the National Basketball Coaches Association awarded the elder Malone the 2023 Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award.
— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) October 10, 2023
“I want to thank the National Basketball Coaches Association for this award,” Malone said then. “Tex Winter was a man I got to know and respect. I also want to thank all of the head coaches that I enjoyed working with during my 29-year career in the NBA, in particular Hubie Brown who brought me into the league; Chuck Daly and our two championships; the Van Gundys, Stan and Jeff, and Don Chaney. Lastly, I want to thank my wife Maureen and our six children for sharing my journey.”
Malone began his coaching career in 1967 at Power Memorial Academy in New York City and served as an assistant coach at Fordham, Yale and Syracuse in the 1970s before becoming coach of Rhode Island in 1984. In 1986, he was recruited by then-New York Knicks coach Hubie Brown to work as an assistant, which kickstarted his NBA career.
After two seasons with the Knicks, he was an assistant to Hall of Famer Chuck Daly with the Pistons from 1988-95. During that span, the Pistons went to three NBA Finals and won two NBA titles. He served as the first coach in Raptors history in 1995-96, going 21-61 in his one season there.
He returned to the Knicks as an assistant coach from 1996-2000, reaching the NBA Finals in his last season there. After that, he was an assistant coach for the Pacers (2000-03), the Knicks (2003-04), the Cavs (2004-05 and was interim coach for 18 games, going 8-10) and the Magic (2007-12) before two more seasons in Detroit (2014-15).
In 27 seasons of NBA coaching, teams that Malone coached went to the playoffs twenty times, to the Conference Finals seven times, and to the NBA Finals four times, winning the title twice. His teams compiled a 1,165-1,001 record (.538).
Michael Malone said during the Finals against Miami that his father tried to dissuade him from getting into coaching as a career. “He had lived it with six kids, and he understood the pitfalls of that job,” Malone said. “I was just too dumb and stubborn to listen to him.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
