5 NBA Coaches Who Don't Deserve Another Season
Job security is either a myth or a scarcity for NBA coaches.
When even entrenched skippers find themselves second-guessed, you know no one is truly safe in this profession.
That said, the exit doors sit significantly closer to some than others. That's why the coaching carousel spins in a state of perpetual motion. Even when there hasn't been a recent firing, it always feels like one could be sitting just around the corner.
And that corner is almost certainly here now, with the curtains having all but dropped on the 2025-26 NBA campaign. So, let's dig into why these five coaches shouldn't plan on running it back with their teams next season.
Doug Christie, Sacramento Kings
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In a season defined by such egregious tanking that it forced the league to go hunting for anti-tanking solutions, the Kings have unintentionally emerged as one of the biggest losers.
This wasn't by design. Sacramento's roster is relatively ancient, but its lack of success stemmed from injury issues to wretched execution on both ends.
The Kings were just investigated for tanking and avoided any sanctions because the league found they were simply incompetent. Which totally checks out, since even the little winning they've done this season has been ill-timed. If their post-deadline play denies them a top-four pick, it'll only add to their laundry list of self-inflicted wounds.
Sacramento, the NBA model of instability, halfway committed to Christie last offseason but hardly locked him into the long-term plans. He technically signed a three-year deal, but the first two seasons featured a below-average salary (approximately $2 million annually, per The Athletic's Sam Amick) and the third carried a team option.
It's like the Kings sensed this wouldn't work even as they signed themselves up for it. And that hunch was right. It isn't working. They looked dreadful before injuries ripped apart their roster, and back in December, Andscape's Marc J. Spears brought word of "disconnect between some veteran Kings players and Christie and his coaching staff."
A clean break and fresh start seems best for everyone involved. Running back this monstrosity would be inexplicable even by Sacramento's standards.
Brian Keefe, Washington Wizards
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This doesn't feel entirely fair to Keefe, because it isn't. He was tasked with a tricky job when made interim coach midway through the 2023-24 season and full-time coach in May 2024, and he has seemingly delivered what the Wizards wanted: a mountain of losses and a decent number of developmental gains.
The problem is the job description is changing. Washington no longer needs a tank commander. Between the trade-season pickups of Anthony Davis and Trae Young, plus the arrival of a new blue-chip prospect (very possibly the highest-regarded member of the young core immediately), there are expectations now and a hope they'll be realized right away.
"We're already talking about the playoffs, how different it will be," third-year swingman Bilal Coulibaly told reporters earlier this season. "... We've never been there, so we don't know what it looks like. But we can't wait."
If that eagerness and hope for acceleration is felt across the franchise, the Wizards might need confidence in their coach's ability to win games. Keefe hasn't shown that—at all. Washington's design obviously impacted this, but the point still stands: Among coaches with at least 100 appearances, Keefe's career .214 winning percentage is second-worst all-time.
Would he hold any sway with veterans he has barely (if at all) coached? Would the players respond to all of the goalpost moving he'd be forced to implement? Does the organization trust him to handle a job he really hasn't worked? That just feels like too many questions for a club that clearly hopes it's on the cusp of finding some big-picture, fortune-changing answers.
Jamahl Mosley, Orlando Magic
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There is, at least in theory, a scenario in which Mosley could save his job this postseason. If he somehow gets this group to at least the conference semis, maybe he'll be back in the same sideline seat next season.
But if he's as close to the chopping block as he appears—the Magic were reportedly weighing Micahel Malone as a possible replacement before he took the North Carolina job, per ClutchPoints' Brett Siegel—what would be the point of delaying the inevitable?
Orlando unloaded a mountain of assets last summer to land Desmond Bane, correct its offensive deficiencies and make a major push up the Eastern Conference pecking order. This has been a tough, injury-impacted, tire-spinning season instead, with the Magic looking improved on offense but also a lot worse on defense and arguably no better overall. Or at least no closer to contending.
Injuries have certainly been a factor, and this roster could clearly use more shooting, but Mosley hasn't exactly held a coaching clinic. After his team found itself on the wrong end of a 31-0 scoring run as part of a 52-point loss, he blamed a lack of preparation. Effort and energy have been common concerns. Same goes for his in-game adjustments, or lack thereof:
It's just hard to shake the feeling that this relationship, which has spanned five seasons and featured two first-round exits, has run its course. A new voice seems needed to help this club reach the heights it envisioned when paying such a premium for Bane last summer and effectively positioning him as the missing piece.
Nick Nurse, Philadelphia 76ers
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Is it Nurse's fault that Philadelphia just might be cursed? Probably not, although a team with this many injury issues feels like it's playing with fire by leaning so heavily on its starters.
And it certainly doesn't look great when the Sixers seemingly decide they can't find a useful role for Jared McCain, only to watch him immediately return to form upon a deadline deal to the Oklahoma City Thunder (a better and deeper team).
The bigger worry for Nurse, though, is the organization's level of investment in this core and the lack of success it has produced. Even if it's unclear how much of this falls under his control, he's still holding a sub-.500 record and awaiting his first series win.
Basketball is a results-driven business, as you've heard a time or twenty, and the results just aren't there. Even when this group operated at full-strength, things weren't looking great. During the 360 minutes Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Paul George and VJ Edgecombe shared the floor this season, the Sixers were outscored by 1.1 points per 100 possessions.
Nurse is a smart coach with a strong resume, but his last postseason series win came with the 2019-20 Toronto Raptors. Even if the Sixers understand why they aren't winning, changes start to feel inevitable when expectations are never met.
Doc Rivers, Milwaukee Bucks
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The NBA is always up for surprises, but it would be legitimately shocking to see Rivers back with the Bucks next season. If they don't fire him, he might just opt for retirment, as he sounded awful close to the exits when recently pressed about his coaching future:
Either Rivers has had enough, or he's been around long enough to read the bolded and underlined writing on the wall. Milwaukee needs a makeover in the worst kind of way, and he'd be a truly baffling pick to stick around to oversee it.
Remember, the Bucks were supposed to be making their final pitch to appease Giannis Antetokounmpo this season. That's why they ate $113 million last summer to stretch the remainder of Damian Lillard's deal and then immediately threw $107 million at Myles Turner (who, by the way, is setting or approaching career-worsts in an absurd amount of stat categories).
Well, the relationship with Antetokounmpo has (predictably?) grown "toxic," leaving an offseason split seeming more like a when than an if. And Rivers reportedly hasn't helped that environment with "a number of instances that rubbed large parts of the locker room the wrong way and continued the theme of a seasonlong disconnect between Rivers and the players," per ESPN's Shams Charania.
Rivers' divorce from Milwaukee seems even more cemented than Antetokounmpo's. Rivers hasn't been the right fit for this core, and he'd be an awful pick to oversee the overhauled, youth-driven roster the Bucks will be employing sooner rather than later.
