10 NBA coaches on the hot seat: Cavaliers' Lue, Knicks' Hornacek feeling the heat
Jason Kidd was on the hottest seat in the NBA, but he just got fired. Who might be next?
•
10 min read
Jason Kidd being fired was surprising. It's not because he had been a fantastic coach for the Bucks. Far from it actually. There was a constant feeling that Milwaukee was underachieving, and Kidd's stubbornness wasn't helping things. The defense was a disaster. He made strange clutch-time decisions. It was time to move on from him.
However, Kidd getting the ax seemed like a decision that was going to happen at the end of a season. A mid-season coach firing in January probably won't fix the Bucks' problems. Scheme changes are necessary to fix what's wrong with them, but that sort of move tends to happen over the offseason.
Yet, Milwaukee still decided that now was the time to move on, which continues an interesting trend this season: When teams feel it's time to move on from a coach, they don't waste time and wait. The Suns fired Earl Watson three games into the season. The Grizzlies fired David Fizadale in November. Kidd was fired a little past the halfway point of the season. This is an immediate swing in the opposite direction of last season when every coach in the NBA kept their job.
With teams more willing to pull the trigger on a firing, conversations about hot seats become more interesting. Which coaches are starting to feel some warmth, and which ones are on fire?
Pants on fire
Jeff Hornacek, Knicks
The Knicks aren't good. This isn't surprising. Their roster, while not completely the same, is still very similar to the one that went 31-51 in Carmelo Anthony's final season in New York. The Knicks have one truly great player in Kristaps Porzingis, and even then he's young and flawed. They have some decent role players, but nobody that pushes them over an edge.
Yet despite all this, Jeff Hornacek has still managed to under perform with the team he's been given. The Knicks aren't just bad. They play a style that is counter intuitive to what they have. They are in a constant battle with Minnesota for the least amount of 3-pointers taken per game. They shoot long twos like there's no tomorrow despite having stretch players and big men that would thrive in the extra spacing.
Hornacek doesn't have the excuse of being forced to run Phil Jackson's beloved Triangle this season. The Knicks are archaic and they need to move on. Hornacek is a Jackson hire and it's not the least bit uncommon for new management to go find its own guy. What's odd is that he seemed like a coach with so much promise during his early days in Phoenix. Maybe he can re-capture that, but it will need to be somewhere else.
Dave Joerger, Kings
The Kings are a complete and absolute disaster. They've already admitted they're going to stick to playing young guys for the rest of the season. They're actively seeking a deal for disgruntled point guard George Hill. Nobody really expected them to be good, but somehow they've managed to fall below even the lowest of expectations.
It's honestly a shock that the Kings don't have the worst record in the NBA, because they are the league's worst team in both offense and defense. Nobody loses by a larger point differential than Sacramento. The Kings are one of the NBA's slowest and worst shooting teams. The only redeemable factors are their young players are kind of fun, but do any of them feel like they're actually improving on a nightly basis?
Sometimes it's as simple as the team is too bad to keep the coach. It has to be frustrating for Kings fans to see yet another coach get fired, when all they really want in life is stability, but this is a pairing that is likely going to come to an end soon.
It's getting hot
Tyronn Lue, Cavaliers
It feels like there's a permanent state of warmth on the seat of whoever is coaching LeBron James, but Tyronn Lue felt pretty safe after he won a title in 2016. Of course, that was before Kyre Irving requested a trade, the defense became a dumpster fire and Kevin Love got called out in the team's locker room meeting. The Cavs are a disaster.
The question is how much of this falls on Lue. Is he going to be the fall guy for the Cavs reaching this point, or is he just a bystander to an inevitable implosion? In some ways he's done the most he possibly can with a roster of players that make defense optional. On the other hand, it is one of the roles of a coach to keep a team focused and together. Some of the blame has to fall on Lue at this point.
The Cavs have shown in the past that, if they feel it necessary, they'll fire a coach in the middle of a winning season. However, Lue's case feels different. His seat is definitely warm, but it's hard to gauge just how warm it is. This could really come down to James. If he expresses unhappiness with Lue, and the Cavs are unsure about him, that might be all they need to make a move.
Doc Rivers, Clippers
This one is difficult, because Doc Rivers is an accomplished coach that the Clippers specifically wanted to bring in. However, as time has gone on, Rivers' role with the team has diminished. His front-office duties have been relinquished and coaching exclusively. The results? Actually not that bad.
The Clippers have hung around .500 this season with a team that's been beyond injured and they play some surprisingly good basketball at times. However, that's not where preseason expectations were set for Rivers and the Clippers. This was supposed to be a playoff team and right now the Clippers are barely outside looking in.
Rivers' seat isn't on fire, but he's not in a great position. Expectations are arguably too high for him, but he's also been around too long. Coaches that stay with the same organization for a long time eventually have fatigue set in. This could be a fatigue moment for Rivers and Los Angeles.
Michael Malone, Nuggets
The Nuggets need to make the playoffs. That's the expectation for them at this point. They have a young (but good) roster with players that fit well together. They're beyond the point of growing in losing seasons. This is a team that needs to take a step forward, and expectations to push them forward have been put on coach Michael Malone.
Malone has had some bumps along the way, such as dealing with star Paul Millsap sidelined with a wrist injury. However, the Nuggets also have a tendency to lose to bad teams that have no business beating them. In January alone, the lowly Kings, Suns and Hawks -- sporting a combined record of 45-97 -- have all beaten the Nuggets, with two of their losses coming in Denver. That just can't happen for a team that wants to make the playoffs.
If the Nuggets (24-23) make the playoffs, Malone's job is likely safe. They were in pretty solid playoff positioning earlier in the season, and Millsap's return might get them back to that point. For now, though, it wouldn't be a surprise if Malone's seat was starting to heat up a bit.
Feeling some heat
Fred Hoiberg, Bulls
This is someone whose seat's actually been getting less hot as the season has gone on. Fred Hoiberg entered this season with the Bulls in what many felt was going to be his last with the team. His tenure had largely been unsuccessful, and he didn't seem to get along well with previous Bulls stars and now he had a roster built to fail. And early on, that's exactly what it did.
However, after a 3-20 start, the Bulls have turned it around. They've gone from complete train wreck to not just a solid team, but a competitive and fun one. Chicago is a legitimately entertaining team to watch at this point and yet it's still 18-30 on the season. The Bulls being fun, and surprising from what they were, does not make them good.
Hoiberg has done an excellent job turning his team's season around, but he's not out of the woods yet. His seat temperature could kick right back up if Chicago plummets back to Earth at any point. There is also the never predictable Chicago front office. With a new roster, it could be looking to find a new coach along with it to complete the Bulls' transition to a new era.
Steve Clifford, Hornets
This one feels unlikely, but the Hornets are in a weird spot. They entered the season with expectations of making the playoffs. They're well under .500 and appear on track to have their second straight disappointing season. This would also be the third time Clifford has missed the playoffs in his five seasons in Charlotte.
On the other hand, Clifford is frequently given rosters that shouldn't be able to meet the expectations set for him. He gets the most out of ordinary rosters. It's no coincidence that his best season as a coach happens to be the year he had a really good bench.
However, expectations override previous success for coaches, and Charlotte has an uncertain future in front of it. Clifford's gotten the most out of his rosters, but in a vacuum it's easy to point out that his teams have failed to meet expectations a handful of times. As surprising as it sounds, his seat has to be at least a smidgen warm right now.
Frank Vogel, Magic
Frank Vogel is a victim of what he's been given more than his actual coaching. In his first season with the Magic, he was given a plethora of big men and had to try and put them all together. In his second season, working with a new front office, he's been given a large group of veterans and underachieving youth to try and make something worthwhile in a mulligan season. After an 8-4 start, the Magic don't have much to show as they own a rough 14-33 record.
No matter what people think, and the consensus from Vogel's time in Indiana is that he's at least an average-to-good coach, he needs to win games. His seat is inevitably warm from the losing alone. This is also not the front office that hired him.
All of this said, can the Magic really blame Vogel for failing with rosters that were never good enough to succeed? It wouldn't be a surprise if the new front office decided to get its own coach in there and move forward, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of appeal with this job right now.
Cool and comfy ... for now
Brett Brown, 76ers
Brett Brown doesn't deserve to be fired. He's stuck through "The Process" the entire way and deserves the right to at least finish it. Firing him now, when the 76ers are finally starting to get good, would not be proper justice for him. That said, Bryan Colangelo did not hire Brown. He's never fired him, because he didn't have reason to, but expectations have changed.
Philadelphia is finally starting to win. It had a rough patch in December, but its January has been strong enough to put the 76ers above .500. Joel Embiid has been incredible, when healthy, all season long. Brown has coached them to the third-best defense in the NBA.
Yet, there is still a feeling that Brown's job isn't safe. Let's say Embiid goes down for the season again and Philadelphia tail spins to miss the playoffs. This front office is ready to win now and this isn't the coach it hired. The Sixers are surging at the right time, but if something were to trip them up that might be all Philly needs to bring in a new coach. There's a small bit of warmth in this seat.
Terry Stotts, Trail Blazers
Terry Stotts has been to the playoffs in every season but one -- his first -- as the Trail Blazers coach. He's coached multiple All-Star teams and got the most out of the roster given to him. So why is he on this list? Because change is potentially coming for the Blazers.
Portland has a superstar player in Damian Liillard. It has a fantastic guy next to him in CJ McCollum. Jusuf Nurkic was great when he initially arrived in Portland. Stotts has done just about everything he can with this playoff team, which might be seen as a ceiling on him as a coach.
There's always that one team that believes they should be getting farther than where they're currently at. The Blazers are making the playoffs, but they aren't consistently clearing the bar they keep raising. Eventually, that coach is removed in hopes that the next one can take the team to the next level. This doesn't mean that's Stotts' fate. If there's any warmth in his seat, it's a very small amount, but the Blazers are in the middle of an average season. They want to be more than that.
