The NBA has seen a series of head coaches being fired after not living up to expectations.
The 2023 NBA Playoffs played a big role in some head coach firings despite their prior successes.
Even before that, the Toronto Raptors fired Nick Nurse, and after the first and second rounds of the postseason, Mike Budenholzer, Monty Williams, and Doc Rivers were let go by their respective teams.
All these firings raised eyebrows around the NBA, and many people criticized teams for making these decisions.
Gilbert Arenas recently touched on this, telling JJ Redick that the teams’ front offices are simply making cowardly moves to not own their failures.
“Now you’re talking about championship coaches being fired one, two years [later], we’re talking about coaches of the year that are fired a year later… Who’s gonna replace this? Who’s replacing what this person’s done? The resumé of these coaches that you’re firing? You think someone’s gonna come in and do it better than they did? I just think it’s just cowardness from the general managers trying to blame the chef for not cooking up the gourmet meal when you picked all the items.”
The retired guard stated that no matter how successful they were in the past two seasons, teams will find an excuse to fire them.
Nick Nurse won the NBA championship in 2019; Mike Budenholzer did the same in 2021; Monty Williams was back-to-back Coach of the Year while Doc Rivers has a lot of experience and also won the 2008 NBA championship.
These decisions raised a lot of eyebrows around the league.
It’s still true that whoever comes next will have big shoes to fill, which seems to be the case this offseason.
Fortunately, these coaches will have plenty of suitors for their services this summer, and they could even replace each other in swapping franchises.
Still, this doesn’t change the fact that coaches are seemingly used as scapegoats when things don’t go as expected.
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