NBA Coaches on the Verge of Losing Their Job by Season's End
Not every NBA head coach wears an ax-proof suit.
A lot has changed since we last discussed which head honchos were fighting for their jobs. Brian Shaw is out for the Denver Nuggets, George Karl is in for the Sacramento Kings, the Orlando Magic fired Jacque Vaughn, and Lionel Hollins' suit, as it turns out, is ax-proof.
Don't confuse these developments for closure. There is still much to discuss.
A select few coaches remain—or are now just sitting—on hot seats, trying to ensure they have a job next season. Certain situations are the product of rumors. Others are the speculative offshoot of poor team performances. Some clipboard-wielders are even here because they're battling technicalities.
Whatever the reason, their future appears to be in flux, their jobs unsafe. And so, they're here, appearing in order of increasing profile.
These coaches will now form an orderly queue and march toward the Judgment Day scaffold, all while knowing that they'll remain on this list unless things change.
Honorable Mention: Scott Brooks, Oklahoma City Thunder
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Scott Brooks has dwelled among the hottest of media-manufactured seats over the last two seasons. His offense is uninventive and rotations perpetually puzzling. Some would even argue that he still has a job only because Serge Ibaka, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant have succumbed to the injury bug at crucial points in each of the last three seasons.
When "What else is he supposed to do?" is one of the strongest arguments in favor of your continued presence, it's hardly flattering. At the same time, what is Brooks supposed to do?
His three best players have appeared in just 27 games together this season. That the Oklahoma City Thunder remain in the playoff hunt at all is nothing short of a small miracle (aka Russell Westbrook).
Brooks deserves credit for the way he's managed his players through this injury landslide. Dion Waiters is attacking the rim more, and Enes Kanter is not just back to operating in the post. He's passing. That's more of a monstrous miracle.
What puts Brooks here is a potential need for change. The Thunder have not cleared the championship hump with a dynastic core, and their head coach has been at it for eight years now.
Capped out and clearly aware of Durant's upcoming free agency in 2016, the Thunder may feel compelled to change something, anything, ahead of next season. That, in turn, means Brooks' seat may be getting warmer.
James Borrego, Orlando Magic
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James Borrego's job isn't safe.
The Magic have shown little improvement under their interim head coach, who immediately replaced the departed Jacque Vaughn. Their offense has improved only slightly, they're still a defensive dumpster fire, and they continue to play at insufferably slow speeds.
Bad losses are starting to pile up as well. They've dropped 11 of their last 14 contests, many of which included late-game collapses and complete meltdowns.
"These kind of losses scream for the Magic to hire an experienced hand," writes the Orlando Sentinel's Brian Schmitz. "These kind of losses don’t help James Borrego make a case."
No kidding. Borrego is already at a disadvantage because of that interim label (see: Tyrone Corbin in Sacramento), so a failure to enact real change will likely be his death knell.
This Magic team has plenty of talent, after all. It's like the lottery version of last season's Golden State Warriors, waiting for the right head honcho to put all of its promising pieces together—to implement a faster-paced system that plays to the quickness of Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Nikola Vucevic and Tobias Harris.
Clearly, Borrego is not that coach, paving the way for Orlando to hold an extensive successor search this summer.
Melvin Hunt, Denver Nuggets
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Nuggets interim head coach Melvin Hunt is kind-of-sort-of an honorable mention. And while you might tire of hearing that this is a compliment, it really is a compliment.
Few would have given Hunt even a puncher's chance of sticking beyond this season after he replaced Brian Shaw. The Nuggets were a categorical disaster, drawing the ire of not only writers and self-proclaimed experts, but also actual players.
Hunt has the Nuggets rallying now. So much so, they've had to bench key contributors just to (unofficially) bolster their lottery odds. They are playing faster, running smaller, spacing-friendly lineups and look more engaged. The results of this cultural overhaul are unlike anything anyone could have predicted:
| 33.9 | 100.2 | 24 | 105.3 | 25 | -5.1 | 25 | |
| 58.3 | 104.7 | 10 | 101.4 | 11 | 3.2 | 5 |
So, why is Hunt here at all? Ahem:
"As an organization, we have all been impressed with the job Melvin has done thus far," Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly told The Denver Post's Benjamin Hochman. "When the season concludes, he will be one of the candidates as we begin an exhaustive search to find a head coach."
Exhaustive head-coaching searches seldom bode well for interim sideline stalkers. Hunt assumed control nearly three-quarters of the way through the season and doesn't have the clout other candidates will inevitably hold.
Anything he does, then, will be tainted by the small sample size under which he's done it. Though unfair, such is life as an NBA head coach—a career in which Hunt has a future, be it in Denver or elsewhere.
Monty Williams, New Orleans Pelicans
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Food for thought: If the New Orleans Pelicans miss the playoffs, they will have failed. They will not be whiffing on an unexpected bonus. They will have failed.
That's the standard for a team conspicuously mortgaging its future on the present. The Pelicans gave up a first-round pick for Omer Asik, who will be a free agent this summer. They sacrificed ample cap space to sign Tyreke Evans. They gave up Nerlens Noel to get Jrue Holiday.
Those moves all reek of attempts to accelerate a rebuild. And while the injury gods have been no friend of the Pelicans—Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Anthony Davis, Evans and Holiday are approaching 90 combined absences for the season—the ax could still fall on head coach Monty Williams.
Firing him isn't a no-brainer. His value to New Orleans extends well beyond the hardwood. He's isn't just a mentor of players. Given his relationship with Davis and Anderson, he's a mentor of men, a fatherly figure who prioritizes off-court well-beings over basketball.
Basketball eventually takes precedence, though. The Pelicans have one of the league's seven-worst defenses, and their offense, while hovering around top-10 territory, is uninspiring and lacks sufficient ball movement.
It doesn't help that they're nothing without Davis, either. Their net rating when he's on the bench is worse than that of the Los Angeles Lakers. It isn't Williams, then, who is indispensable. It's Davis. And with his star already testing the boundaries of history, the lingering absence of a playoff berth could soon leave Williams looking for work.
Randy Wittman, Washington Wizards
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If the Magic are the lottery rendition of last season's Warriors, this year's Washington Wizards are the closest thing to last season's actual Warriors.
After starting off 22-8, the Wizards have since gone 18-23, basically falling out of contention for one of the Eastern Conference's top four playoff seeds. During this time, their offense has been truly terrible, checking in at 22nd on the efficiency scale. It's been even worse since Feb. 1, dropping to 27th.
Randy Wittman's crew hit rock bottom against the Warriors on March 23. Never mind that they lost by 31 points. It took them nearly 11 minutes to record their first field goal in the third quarter. Stephen Curry (nine points) managed to outscore them on his own (eight).
"We just turned up a little," Marreese Speights told CSN Washington's Ben Standig afterward. "We knew if we hit them, if we got a couple stops they would start arguing with each other and quit. We went out there with a good mindset in the second half and we did it."
Uh-oh.
Outside perception of this kind reflects poorly on Wittman, who signed an extension last June, more than anyone. The Wizards are usually a strong defensive unit, but their offense is broken relative to the firepower on hand. There's no way a team that employs John Wall, Bradley Beal, Paul Pierce, Nene and Marcin Gortat should struggle to score.
Instead of registering as a believable title contender, the Wizards now inhabit that gray area between pretender and complete failure. Like the Warriors of last season, they have enough talent to compete. And like the Warriors of last season, they don't seem to be doing enough with that talent.
And, well, we all know how Golden State's situation played out: Mark Jackson was shown the door. Barring a Cinderella postseason run, Wittman seems well on his way to meeting a similar maker.
Tom Thibodeau, Chicago Bulls
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Yes, we should all feel dirty pondering the fate of a coach looking for his fifth playoff berth in five tries. But that's the nature of the relationship between Tom Thibodeau and the Chicago Bulls. Nothing about it is clean.
Rumors find their way into the social stratosphere far too often for a team that, when healthy, projects as a legitimate championship contender. Only the Bulls aren't healthy. Joakim Noah, Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson have all missed substantial time, and Derrick Rose is still out.
Normally, this is where the coach in question is lauded for navigating a labyrinth of would-be debilitating setbacks. But Thibodeau has a knack for weathering these storms at the expense of the healthy, running his available players ragged to account for the loss of production.
Through his five seasons (including this one) at the wheel, the Bulls have had someone rank in the top two of minutes per game four times.
(Cuts to Luol Deng and Butler nodding silently, yet violently.)
Winning at any available cost looks good in the standings, but in this case, it's made for an exceedingly public, albeit anonymously sourced, battle between two opposing wills. Scoop Jackson has more for ESPN.com:
"Because at this point it just is what it is. The two sides have their beliefs, which are understandable, but they have allowed their private, destructive nonsense to find a home in our public discord. They've simply grown apart and are diametrically opposed. They both know it is time to go their separate ways because more important than proving the other wrong is the determination to prove oneself right.
"
Put another way: There's something here. Irrespective of how this season ends, Thibodeau and the Bulls will be one of the hottest breakup candidates. The latest from ESPN.com's Marc Stein already has Chicago eyeing Iowa State's Fred Hoiberg as a possible replacement.
There's smoke, so there's fire.
*Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com and are accurate leading into games on March 24 unless otherwise cited.
