To succeed at the highest level of any sport, especially in the NBA, sometimes a tough authority figure can be helpful and brutal honesty can be illuminating and refreshing.

Whether that honesty comes from a veteran teammate or a a member of the coaching staff, it's just as important for players to respond to what they're hearing and for some, they respond even better when they're told something straight.

The atmosphere in the sporting world as a whole may be feeling a shift, at least in the public eye, away from this kind of coaching style, but it's still alive and well behind closed door for many, the distinction lies in what players and coaches bring that same energy to their media obligations as well. 

Denver Nuggets head coach David Adelman toes the line between careful, analytical delivery and frank honesty better than most. He doesn't shy away from criticizing his players at times and he's typically open about the flaws he sees in the game at any given time. 

Based on the results, it's clearly an approach that works.

The Nuggets are the fourth-seed in the competitive Western Conference despite a season marred by injuries to a number of crucial players and even though they have a wealth of talent with players like Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, it still takes a steady hand from the head coach to guide that kind of ship.

The accountability that Adelman demands from his players can even be a welcome wake-up call or a jolt in the right direction for someone who might be coming out of the gate slower than they need to be. 

"You like coaches like that. You don't want coaches to beat around the bush," Bruce  Brown said after the Nuggets' blowout of the Celtics (via Nuggets). "I respond really well like that. Some games, if I come out slow, I need him to get on my a** a little bit so I can wake up. I think as a team, we like it."

Adelman is in a unique position as far as head coaches go in the modern NBA. While he was a state champion high school player, he did not have an extensive college career and he never played in the NBA. Instead, Adelman has been a career coach.

He comes from a coaching family as his father Rick Adelman was a NBA player and longtime head coach, most recently with the Minnesota Timberwolves until he retired in 2014. 

Not only did David Adelman grow up in that environment, he's coached at the NBA level since 2011 as an assistant coach for the Timberwolves, Orlando Magic and Denver Nuggets before being awarded the Nuggets' interim head coaching job in the 2024-25 season and later securing the position full-time.

The result of all that experience is that Adelman not only has a great understanding of how basketball works at the technical level, he has plenty of experiencing voicing his opinion to players and considering Brown's opinion of Adelman's style, it's clearly working for him.