Heartbreaking news: Will Hardy, the Utah Jazz coach, was fired for the following reasons:.
Coach Mike Budenholzer guided the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA title just two years prior. The Bucks had not won a championship since 1971. With the Bucks, only two coaches have ever taken home a championship.
This month, the Bucks fired him because they were so appreciative.
The Phoenix Suns were defeated by Budenholzer’s Bucks in the NBA Finals, despite Monty Williams leading them there just two years prior. Williams won Coach of the Year last year after leading the Suns to a league-high 64 victories. The Suns finished their fourth consecutive losing season the year before Williams was hired as coach, winning a league-worst 19 games. Following his team’s second consecutive loss in the conference semifinals, Williams was fired on Saturday.
You won’t be surprised to hear that NBA coaches have a shorter shelf life than guacamole. even superior ones.
Budenholzer handled it with grace. He sent a letter of gratitude to the team and Milwaukee.
He wrote, “The entire Bucks organization and the city of Milwaukee welcomed us and treated us like members of their own family.”
Then they were expelled from the family because they didn’t.
One thing is certain as the NBA playoffs move on to the championship finals: the coaches. They will not last long, even if they win a championship. They’re merely buying time to avoid being fired in the future.
What have you done for us lately in the NBA?
The rest was history when the Bucks were eliminated from the playoffs in this year’s first round. Budenholzer lost his job. He held five division titles and a 271-120 win-lost record. He was 46–26 during his worst season. He was the best player in the NBA in his final season, going 58-24 with a 70.7 winning percentage.
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Should fans also engage in “load management,” what would happen to the NBA?
A coach who won a championship just under two years ago might not have expected this outcome, but perhaps he should have. Out of the last four coaches to win an NBA championship, three have been fired. The only other survivor is Steve Kerr, who has led the Warriors to six NBA Finals in eight years and won four of them. It’s becoming harder to fire him.
After the pandemic shortened the 2020 season, Frank Vogel guided the Lakers to the championship. Two years later, after a 33-49 season, he was fired. In the past six years, he has lost his job three times (he was also fired as head coach by Orlando and Indianapolis).
In his first season as head coach in 2019, Nick Nurse led the Toronto Raptors to victory. After the team finished 41–41 and missed the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, he was fired four years later. With the Raptors, he had a 227–163 win–lost record.
As the saying goes, coaches are hired to be fired. For the first time in 46 years, no coach was fired during the 2017 season. Nine teams changed coaches in the 2017–18 season as the league made up for it.
Seven teams (the Cavaliers leading the list with seven), followed by the Lakers and Kings (six each), Hornets, Timberwolves, Knicks, and Magic (five each), made five or more coaching changes between 2010 and 2022 (13 seasons). Eight teams changed their coaches four times.
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This native Utahn may soon return as an NBA head coach candidate.
NBA coaches work there for three to four years on average. The two coaches with the longest tenures in history, Lenny Wilkens (32) and Don Nelson (31) coached for several teams. Gregg Popovich has spent 27 years as the Spurs’ coach. For 23 years, Jerry Sloan was the Jazz’s coach.
The late Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller used to say that firing a coach would reflect poorly on his ability to hire quality staff, so he made good hiring decisions and gave the coach ample time to do his job. For the nearly thirty years that he managed the team, he only had two coaches: Sloan and Frank Layden, who voluntarily resigned due to burnout.
In the NBA, such longevity is practically unheard of. Some head coaches are fired before their bench is even warm. Earl Watson was let go by the Suns after just three games of the 2017–18 campaign. Watson revealed to reporter Ben Bolch that, prior to the 2017–18 season beginning, he had received a two-week notice of termination during training camp. He becomes one of roughly six coaches who have coached for 50 games or less. Jerry Tarkanian coached in the NBA for twenty games.
Doc Rivers appeared to be the next coaching casualty as of Sunday night. Rivers has now coached a Game 7 loss ten times, more than any other coach in NBA history. His 76ers lost to the Boston Celtics.
NBA executives either have horrible hiring procedures in place or act too quickly and impatiently.
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Monday, May 1, 2023, in Denver, during the first half of Game 2 of an NBA second-round playoff series, is when Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams is seen. After the Suns’ second consecutive round loss in the NBA playoffs, the team made the decision to part ways with the well-liked and productive Suns coach.Zalubowski, David, Associated Press
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Utah was able to enter after Houston left the door open in overtime, but the Jazz lost.
