NBA coach hot seat: With Luke Walton fired, Frank Vogel, Dwane Casey, Stephen Silas could be next

It was almost inevitable that Luke Walton was fired. The Sacramento Kings have missed the playoffs 15 years in a row and are now their 11th coach in that span. Monte McNair didn’t hire Walton, but he oversaw many of Walton’s failures both tactically and in his dressing room. He is obvious First NBA coach to be fired of the 2021-22 season.

There is not a clear second. Of the other nine teams currently out of the ring, six have coaches in their first two seasons, and two of the others have coaches who have won championships for their current owners. There have been no significant reports of a particular coach being in danger, nor have there been any obvious situations where his top basketball coach and executive was not a good fit. We can all predict who will be the first coach fired because he deserves to be fired based on what has happened over the years. The next coach fired will lose his job because of what happened this season, and it’s still so new that it’s impossible to make any firm predictions.

Even if we can’t figure out exactly who will be next, we can at least speculate on who’s under pressure. Three coaches stand out as the obvious hot seat choice when Walton has been fired.

Casey fits the traditional archetype of a trainer in the hot seat. Detroit is currently in its third season as a lottery team that has won exactly 20 games in consecutive seasons. He was not hired by top basketball executive Troy Weaver, and while he extended his contract during the season to get him through to the 2023-24 season, the extension adds just a year to his contract. his. These are factors that often work against coaches, and Casey’s chair will probably therefore be a little hotter than he would have liked, but there is a very clear separation between the two coaches. the top member on this list and the arena. Casey, for now, is just at the top of the next floor.

Casey may lose, but that’s the expectation in Detroit. The Pistons made a calculated decision to rebuild. So far, returns are promising. Detroit is developing a number of young players who look like future startups. That’s more important than immediate results, and even if an incorrect one-year extension causes a vote of confidence, Casey can still negotiate a staggering $7 million annual salary when he joined the Pistons in part because he was leaving Coach of the Year Campaign in Toronto. Few teams would be willing to pay that salary to hire a new coach during rebuilding, but the Pistons have a reputation for providing happy service that has a particularly tight-lipped ability. They are paying more than $40 million this season for players who are not currently on their roster.

Ultimately, the Pistons will have to start winning. We’re not all close to that point yet, so Casey might have NBAthird hot seat, that says more about his peers’ job security than his own. In fact, the next two coaches are in significantly more danger.

The 2021-22 Rockets are, by far, seriously competing for the title of worst team in NBA history. A 1-15 record gives them a win rate of 6.3. For an entire season, the worst win percentage in league history was 10.6, going to the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats (7-59). Missiles will probably catch them, but that’s not an achievement. Their minus 10.5 net rating is any second worst NBA team have produced since those Bobcats, with just last season Thunder topped them off at minus-10.6.

It goes without saying that anyone coaching such a poorly performing team is at risk. Seven of the nine worst teams in NBA history changed coaches the following season, but Silas, on paper, looks a bit like Brett Brown. No coach in NBA history has retained their job with a worse record than Brown’s 10-72 record in the 2015-16 season, but he has the advantage of a rebuilding process. extended period in which his team made no effort to win in the short term. terms. Silas could argue that neither can the Rockets. After all, nearly 35% of its payroll is currently sitting at home. John Wall will probably make the Rockets even better. But Houston hasn’t shied away from aggressive winning moves right now like Philadelphia has done. It paid Daniel Theis $35 million this season and Christian Wood $41 million in the end. Eric Gordon still playing real minutes. Rocket wants to go bad. They probably don’t want to get this bad, and the fact that they can give them pause about Silas as their long-term leader.

Silas was only in the second year of his four-year contract, but it’s worth noting that one of the last people for the job when he was hired was John Lucas II. He is currently an assistant to Silas staff. That gives Houston another coach they like already in the building, and the advantage of firing Silas mid-season is that it will give the Rockets a chance to try out Lucas in actual games.

Time is Silas’s best friend right now. Winning won’t be a major priority in Houston for many years, so there’s no immediate reason to pay the two coaches unless the Rockets really feel that Silas is hindering their growth. their young players. That doesn’t seem to be the case yet. There’s no telling how long the Rockets will be able to endure this historic loss, but when losing is the plan, coaches tend to hold out a lot before losing their jobs.

Less than a decade ago, the Los Angeles Lakers fired Mike Brown just five games during the 2012-13 season. This is not a patient franchise. They have gone through three full-time coaches since then, and although their fourth, Frank Vogel, has won the championship, the franchise has yet to express its confidence in him. The original deal he signed in Los Angeles lasted only three seasons. It was not renewed immediately after the 2020 championship. Instead, he renewed for the 2021 season, but The report indicates that he only has one new season on his contract. That means his contract will expire after next season. This is notable compared to Casey, whose original deal was 5 years longer than Vogel even when renewals were added.

Vogel wasn’t the first choice to coach the Lakers when he was hired in 2019. Ty Lue was, but unlike Vogel, he’s not willing to accept a three-year contract. It worked because the Vogel lineup was launched. With some strong defenders in every position, he can build a competitive team around the kind of elite defense for which he is famous in Indiana. Most of those defenders have gone, however, and Vogel is clearly struggling to adjust to a squad designed to win attacks in attack.

Those struggles are most evident in his rotations. DeAndre Jordan started 11 of the Lakers’ 18 games, but his presence severely knocked the floor for a team that used a no-shooter, Russell Westbrook, behind. Vogel has frequently played Westbrook’s non-shooting duo and Rajon Rondo together this season despite often being outmatched in their minutes. He didn’t make Westbrook wobble and LeBron James as often as most coaches, and that happened in Friday’s loss to Boston when his three best ballers at James, Westbrook and Talen Horton-Tucker somehow they were all on the bench at the same time in an ugly amount of time.

Vogel doesn’t have anything close to an optimal roster to work with, but he does have a talented one. Even while James was nursing an injury, a team with Westbrook and Anthony Davis shouldn’t be just .500 after 18 matches with most lottery opponents. The Lakers are 24th in defensive rating so far this season, and Vogel’s defense has slipped from 1st to 20th this season. This season has passed in the worst possible way for the Lakers.

That’s not to say they won’t turn things around. LeBron’s 2010-11 Miami Heat start 9-8 and his 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers is 19-20. Both made it to the Finals… but both faced coaching turmoil. James is said to have lobbied for Pat Riley to take over the Heat during those early struggles, and David Blatt ultimately lost his job to Lue in 2016. Coaches tend to be blamed when teams. James was in trouble. Just ask Walton who just coach Kings because he couldn’t cut it with James in Los Angeles.

Vogel has proven he can do it. He won an incredible championship. But the Lakers have had messy breakups with both Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. This is not an organization that will sit on its laurels. If the Lakers believe Vogel isn’t the coach to lead them to the 2022 championship, the 2020 championship won’t save him.