NBA's Pre-Christmas Coaching Vacancies: Coincidence or Biased?

Once I had managed to crawl back into my skin after watching my Hawks get bumped once again by a more experienced, more consistent Celtics team, my mind turned to the recent head-coaching vacancies around the NBA.

Let’s take a look at the list real quick:

P.J. Carlesimo- Oklahoma City

Randy Wittman- Minnesota Timberwolves

Sam Mitchell- Toronto Raptors

Maurice Cheeks- Philadelphia 76ers

Eddie Jordan- Washington Wizards

Reggie Theus- Sacremento Kings

Now, I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t help but notice that four out of those six head coaches are black. This led me to a few questions: What roll, if any, did race play in these firings? And are black head coaches under more pressure to succeed than their mostly white counterparts? Or is this just a coincidence?

It would be a pretty daunting task to prove that any one of these firings was purely ethnic in nature. As of this morning, these six teams have a combined records of 38-112, or a win percentage of 34 percent. Horrible.

And of these six teams, only the Raptors and the 76ers have managed double digits in wins. So it’s completely understandable that each of these men found themselves in the proverbial hot seat early on.

Mitchell’s firing proves that the Coach of the Year Award is utterly meaningless. After taking that trophy home for the 2006-2007 season, he’s rewarded this year with a pink slip.

But Mitchell’s days were numbered as soon as Bryan Colangelo was hired away from Phoenix to be the Raptors GM. Mitchell’s coaching philosophies don’t really fit into the Euro-style that Colangelo is trying to implement.

And besides that, most GM’s prefer to bring in their own head coach. Mitchell appears to be more of a victim of circumstance than anything.

Eddie Jordan had the daunting task to trying to take the Wizards to the next level with a gimpy Gilbert Arenas. Agent Zero’s injuries aside, Washington was still able to consistently get into the playoffs but couldn’t seem to get past the first round or LeBron James.

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