“Nobody is safe in this business. I know it well “. After the new elimination of the Sixers in the semi-finals of the conference, Doc Rivers knows that he can take the door in the next days, or the next weeks. As have already been in recent times Nick Nurse, yet champion in 2019 with the Raptors, Mike Budenholzer, champion in 2021 with the Bucks, or Monty Williams, finalist in 2021 with the Suns…
“Just look at the last two weeks” explains the Philadelphia coach. “Bud (Mike Budenholzer) won 69.3% of his games in Milwaukee and won a title two years ago, and he’s out of work. Monty, to me, changed the whole (Phoenix) franchise. Forget the coaching part. Monty changed the whole franchise. This franchise was everyone’s laughingstock, and because they’re getting kicked out… I don’t know what he was supposed to do. They made a trade that I think will be a good trade in the long run, but probably not in the short run, and Monty was held accountable for that. »
In office since 2008, only Gregg Popovich doing better, Erik Spoelstra regrets all these dismissals.
“I am thinking above all of the great experienced coaches who have already lost their jobs”explained the Miami coach ahead of the Eastern Conference Finals. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. »
Erik Spoelstra: “To see experienced coaches getting fired, coaches who have proven themselves, is simply amazing. It’s really worrying.”
In place since 2015 in Denver, Mike Malone is fatalistic.
“I understand this business. If you want a safe profession, coaching is probably not the one to go into. I should have been a television journalist” he laughs.
The lack of continuity, even among the best teams, is thus glaring. As the Associated Press notes, of the last nine coaches to have taken a franchise to the NBA Finals, only two (Steve Kerr and Erik Spoelstra) are still in place. For the Heat coach, this is logically a problem.
“It takes a lot of time and energy to restart something”he explains of the ups and downs that all clubs experience. “I think that’s part of the reason why we’ve been able to reinvent ourselves so many times over and over again. We’re not recreating a new culture, we’re not trying to teach everyone something so that all of a sudden, two years later, someone else has to do the exact same thing. . Seeing experienced coaches get fired, proven coaches, is just amazing. It is really worrying”.
