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.

And with Arenas once again on injured reserve, along with the amalgam of other health problems on the team, the load seems too much for Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler to bear. Someone had to be held accountable for the extremely poor start, and Jordan became the scapegoat. I’d say anther season or two, and the Wizards will be in rebuilding mode unless they can pull off a free agency upset in 2010.

Of all the coaches on the list, Cheeks seemingly had the easiest job. With the stellar play of Andre Miller, and the continued development of Andre Iguodala and Thaddeus Young, the addition of Elton Brand seemed to be the piece of the puzzle that would’ve sent Philly to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The team’s play this season has been mostly lackluster and downright lethargic at worst. Also, Brand has been subpar with averages of 15.9 points and 9.8 rebounds; his career averages are 20.1 points and 10.2 rebounds.

Despite this, Cheeks was expected to pilot this team to a winning season and to a favorable playoff seed. At 9-14, the 76ers still had time to get it together, but team president Ed Stefanski felt that the team needed a jolt. Stefanski wanted to see more of the up-tempo/running style that Philly used to get into the last years playoffs and when Cheeks didn’t consistently deliver, it was Cheeks who was run out of town.

That leaves us with Reggie Theus. This was a disaster waiting to happen. Theus had no NBA coaching experience whatsoever; however, he did lead the Kings to a 38-44 record last season, which in many ways was considered to be a success.

But after a 6-18 start to this season, and rumors of Theus being late to practice and to the team bus, the lineups full of power forwards, the personality conflicts with players, and all the empty seats at the usually sold out Arco Arena, the Maloof brothers were ready to show Theus the door.

Of course, we all know that this franchise will be playing out of Las Vegas by 2015-2018 or at the first opportunity. Any takers?

Each of the circumstances surrounding these coaches were different. And while I don’t believe that race played an active role in any of these situations, it almost always plays a passive one.

Black head coaches, especially at the higher levels of sports, have lower margins of error and are usually given less time to succeed if they are given an opportunity at all.

Just this week, the University of Auburn hires (white) Gene Chizik (whose only head coaching job was for the Iowa State Cyclones, whom he led to a 5-19 record over the course of two years) instead of (black) Turner Gill, who turned the Buffalo Bulls from a team with a 2-10 record into winners with a record of 7-5 this season and culminated that effort by upsetting the highly favored then-No. 12 Ball State Cardinals in the MAC championship game.

I digress. I’m not saying that these coaches were fired because they were black. But I’m not going to say that they would’ve been fired had they been white. I don’t believe that this kind of equality exists yet. Four out of the first six head coaches to be fired this year are black. Is this a coincidence? Is this bias? I think its a little of both. 

So what do you think?