Ranking NBA Head Coaches Most Likely to Be Fired After 2023-24 Season
While you can find a few icy thrones around the Association, most NBA coaches sit atop a hot seat to some degree.
The temperature might feel hotter for some than others, but in this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately profession, the flames can erupt at any time.
Three different coaches were already fired during the 2023-24 regular season: Adrian Griffin, Wes Unseld Jr. and Jacque Vaughn. A fourth skipper, Steve Clifford, has announced plans to step down upon the campaign's completion.
And that just might be the tip of the iceberg given what could happen among the coaching ranks this summer. Speaking of which, we're to here to identify—and subjectively rank—the five coaches likeliest to be fired after this season.
5. Billy Donovan, Chicago Bulls
1 of 5
This is Billy Donovan's fourth season in the Windy City. The Chicago Bulls, a team so dead-set on competing that they've ignored external calls to demolish this roster for years, have won fewer games (154) than they've lost (160) while booking just a single playoff trip that ended only five games after it began.
Even if one could argue this low-ceiling roster wasn't built for much better than this, it should still disappoint the front office.
Chicago's front office has maintained a full-fledged commitment to this roster, so one would assume—or, at the very least, hope—that expectations are higher than play-in participation and maybe a quick first-round cameo.
Nearly three calendar years have passed since Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas declared, "We will not settle for mediocrity here." If Donovan hasn't delivered more than mediocrity since, shouldn't that make his coaching chair at least warm to the touch?
That feels logical enough to include him in this ranking, despite Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times describing his job as "100 percent safe." If the Bulls keep telling us the playoffs are the goal and then keep falling short of that aim, at some point, that has to matter.
4. Darvin Ham, Los Angeles Lakers
2 of 5
The championship-or-bust scale used to evaluate LeBron James-led teams leaves zero margin for error. Just ask James' previous skipper with the Purple and Gold, Frank Vogel, who delivered a title run in 2020 and was ousted from his gig less than two years later.
That's the kind of pressure cooker in which Darvin Ham resides. So, despite overseeing a conference finals push last season and now having his team heat up at the right time, he can't feel totally confident he'll stick around much longer.
Remember, it was only in January that Shams Charania and Jovan Buha of The Athletic relayed hearing from "six sources" that there was a "deepening disconnect" between the 50-year-old and his players that was "raising questions about the head coach's standing."
The Lakers have obviously looked better since, but that shows how quickly things can change in this profession. If L.A. fizzles out in the first round or even worse can't make it out of the play-in tournament, Ham could wind up back on the chopping block.
The Lakers have had a solid season, but that's a disappointment when the expectation is to be special. And it's not like the coach can blame the injury bug, since Anthony Davis has a chance to set a career high in games played, while James has made his most appearances since hitting Hollywood in 2018.
A deep playoff push could spare Ham from this discussion, but an early exit might move him front and center of it.
3. Doc Rivers, Milwaukee Bucks
3 of 5
Would it be wild for the Bucks to dismiss Doc Rivers after only hiring him in January? Sure. But would it be any more surprising than Milwaukee ousting his predecessor, Adrian Griffin, after a 30-13 start? Not at all.
At least the Bucks were winning with Griffin (albeit with a 22nd-ranked defense that clearly wasn't going to hold up during the playoffs). Under Rivers, though, they're playing sub-.500 basketball (15-17) and enduring a four-game losing streak featuring defeats to the lottery-bound trio of the Washington Wizards, Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors, all of whom have dropped more than 65 percent of their games this season.
"We're a great team. We have great players. We have a great organization, great staff, great management, great ownership, great fans..." veteran guard Pat Connaughton told reporters. "... But I think it's been a while since I've seen excitement, I've seen joy, I've seen smiles."
That quote isn't a direct indictment on Rivers, but it still sends a pretty big "yikes" toward the skipper. Milwaukee isn't merely fading at the worst possible time, it's clearly getting bogged down by all the losing.
If the Bucks can't get out of this funk, someone will likely take the fall for it.
Why wouldn't it be Rivers? His win rate is worse than those of the Bucks' last two coaches (Griffin and Mike Budenholzer), and both of them were ousted over failures less than this.
2. Chauncey Billups, Portland Trail Blazers
4 of 5
Chauncey Billups grabbed Portland's coaching reins in June 2021. Since his hiring, the Trail Blazers have posted the league's fourth-worst winning percentage at a paltry .335.
Now, personnel plays a factor in that record, but Portland's roster hasn't quite been gutted the way other bottom-feeders' have. Billups shared two seasons with Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkić. He is spending this latest one alongside established contributors such as Jerami Grant, Malcolm Brogdon, Deandre Ayton and Anfernee Simons.
Being good was always going to be a grind with any of these groups, but they weren't intended to be brutally bad. Yet, that's essentially what they've been for the duration of Billups' tenure. Last season was their most competitive with him as head coach, and they lost nearly 60 percent of their games while being outscored on average by 4.0 points per 100 possessions.
This losing might be tolerable to a degree if the 47-year-old was building some massive success stories on the player-development front, but that hasn't happened.
Simons has come the closest, but his name bounced around in trade rumors last summer, so Portland may not even view him as a building block. Shaedon Sharpe showed flashes as a rookie, but he had a frustrating sophomore season, and his injury issues weren't solely to blame. Scoot Henderson arrived with ample hype as last summer's No. 3 pick, but he's shooting just 38.5 percent overall and 31.7 percent from range while not putting much distance between his averages in assists (5.1) and turnovers (3.3).
During Billups' tenure, the Blazers have sometimes chased wins and other times stressed development. He hasn't proved the right coach for either scenario.
1. Monty Williams, Detroit Pistons
5 of 5
Not even a full calendar year has passed since the Pistons gave Monty Williams a record-setting contract. It just feels like an eternity given how grim everything has been since.
That historic pay date preceded a historic losing streak, and the competitiveness has hardly perked up since. While that's an indictment of this roster (and the front office that assembled it), Williams' fingerprints are evident on these failures, too.
His rotations have baffled regular observers. He'll go deep into his bench and trot out all-reserve units that are routinely run off the floor. Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, the team's top two playmakers, have been mostly healthy this season, and Detroit has still run more than 1,500 possessions without either one, losing them by a disastrous 13.8 points per 100 possessions.
"Staggering the two guards has been a frequent topic this season," Omari Sankofa II noted for the Detroit Free Press, "and remains a potential solution to the second unit's woes, at least offensively."
Williams has struggled to get a grasp of this roster and how to utilize it, which is worrisome for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the fact that several of these young players are ostensibly intended to guide Detroit out of its rebuild.
If the 52-year-old can't pull the right strings with Cunningham, Ivey, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren now, why should Detroit's decision-makers expect that to change in the future?
Maybe they don't. Yahoo Sports' Jake Fischer recently reported there is "ongoing speculation among rival front offices about a potential change atop Detroit's organizational chart following the Pistons' strugglesome campaign."
While Fischer added there is "no expectation" Williams "would be open to any buyout," Detroit could still opt to cut its financial losses and focus on finding someone who can take this team to more promising places than Williams has.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference, Cleaning the Glass and NBA.com and current through games played on Monday.
Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on X, @ZachBuckleyNBA.
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