Remember the NBA`s 2020 Orlando bubble? It wasn`t that long ago, right? Less than five years have passed. Most of the important players are still in the league. Some of the contending teams are still somewhat together. It`s definitely still considered the current era of NBA basketball.
However, the NBA coaching scene is very different now. Of the 22 head coaches in the bubble, only Erik Spoelstra still has the same job. Of the eight teams that didn`t make the bubble, only Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr remain as head coaches. These three coaches have won 11 championships combined.
But lately, even championships aren`t enough to keep coaches safe in an increasingly impatient league. The Toronto Raptors fired Nick Nurse, who won the NBA championship in 2019, just four years after his victory. Today, that seems like a long time. Frank Vogel won a title in 2020 and was fired in 2022. Mike Budenholzer won in 2021 and was fired in 2023. Michael Malone won a championship in 2023, and recently, he was also let go by the Denver Nuggets.
This isn`t just a “championship curse.” Three of the 16 playoff teams from last season fired their head coaches afterwards. The Milwaukee Bucks, another playoff team, fired their coach during the season. Adrian Griffin started his coaching job with a 30-13 record but was unexpectedly fired mid-season. Before Malone, the most surprising change this season was when the Memphis Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins just two weeks ago. At the time, he had a 44-29 record and had led the team to the No. 2 seed in the previous two full, healthy seasons.
This is the new trend in the NBA. As soon as a team faces a challenge, no matter past successes, the quick reaction is to change coaches. But when a trend like this becomes common, it`s usually because it has worked for some teams. However, if you look at most of the teams that have made these coaching changes, many have either stayed the same or gotten worse.
Of course, there are success stories. The Lakers probably don`t regret replacing Darvin Ham with JJ Redick, for example, but even then, they had to first make the questionable decision to replace Frank Vogel with Ham. Most teams in this situation aren`t so lucky.
Consider the Bucks. They fired Mike Budenholzer after a 58-win season. Griffin was on track for a 57-win season when he was fired, but problems were clear before then. His players reportedly asked him to bring back Budenholzer`s defensive strategies because the more aggressive tactics he used in Toronto didn`t fit the team. The decline was so obvious that Milwaukee felt they needed to make a change in January. It`s debatable if the change worked. Doc Rivers, as Griffin`s replacement, finished last season with a 17-19 record. This season, they are projected to win between 45 and 48 games.
The Kings won 48 games when Brown was named Coach of the Year. The next year, with a less healthy team, they won 46 games. However, the Western Conference became more competitive, dropping Sacramento from the No. 3 seed to No. 9. Ownership was unhappy with this drop, and Brown was almost not given an extension. After a 13-18 start, mostly due to bad luck in close games, Brown was fired. His replacement, Doug Christie, has a better 26-22 record this season. But the Kings played better basketball under Brown. In his 31 games, they had a +1.6 net rating. In Christie`s 48 games so far, their point difference is zero. They are playing worse but getting luckier results.
Neither of these coaching changes happened in isolation. Both were accompanied by major roster changes. The Bucks after Budenholzer also traded Jrue Holiday for Damian Lillard. The Kings lost De`Aaron Fox partly because of how they handled the Brown situation. This is common in the modern NBA, making it hard to compare new coaches to old ones since they rarely work with the same teams.
The Phoenix Suns are a good example, as they`ve changed coaches so often that they show both sides of the issue. In 2023, they fired Monty Williams after a second-round playoff exit. Including the 2023 trade deadline, Vogel had a almost completely different roster than Williams. Even if you don`t consider the trade deadline, only three of the nine players who played at least 100 playoff minutes under Williams returned to play for Vogel. This coaching change clearly didn`t work. Vogel`s Suns were swept in the first round of the playoffs.
So, they replaced Vogel with Budenholzer. There were some minor roster changes, notably adding Tyus Jones and Ryan Dunn. However, seven of the nine Suns players who played at least 600 minutes in 2024 were on the opening night roster in 2025. Again, things got worse. The Suns could be eliminated from the Play-In Tournament on Thursday. There`s a good chance that Budenholzer will also be fired after all this. That would mean the Suns would be hiring their fourth coach in four years.
When a team might have four coaches in four years, is the problem really the coaches, or the team itself? Think about some of these rushed firings. Often, they can be traced back to mistakes made by the front office. Take Vogel`s time with the Lakers. He won a championship in his first season. In his second, he managed to create the No. 1 ranked defense in the NBA, even with LeBron James and Anthony Davis playing only 81 games combined. One year later, he was fired.
What happened in that year? The Lakers traded all their depth for Russell Westbrook. Many people have been blamed for the Westbrook trade. One thing we can say for sure now is that it wasn`t Vogel`s idea. He was fired largely because he couldn`t fix the problems created by others. This is surprisingly common with recent coach firings. Malone`s firing in Denver is similar. He wanted to keep winning with experienced veteran players in supporting roles. Calvin Booth, however, wanted him to play the younger players he had drafted, so he removed Malone`s veterans. Of course, the team got worse when the roster became weaker. This is a basic idea.
But modern teams struggle with this. There`s an unspoken idea that a team`s progress should always be upwards and consistent. If a trade doesn`t improve the team as much as the front office hoped, the problem is seen as the coach who had to adjust, not the front office who made the trade. If a first-round playoff exit isn`t followed by a second-round appearance the next year, the season is considered a failure. If one championship doesn`t lead to more championships, the coach is seen as a failure.
This is an almost impossible standard. There`s only one championship trophy each year, and the only secure coaches we talked about earlier are the only active coaches who have won it multiple times. Winning multiple championships today is harder than when they did it. We`ve had six different champions in the last six years. The league has intentionally moved away from dynasties. This can`t be the only way for coaches to have job security anymore.
Imagine how modern standards might have affected some past coaches. Would Spoelstra have survived Miami`s 9-8 start with LeBron James if it happened in 2025 instead of 2010? Would Popovich have stayed as San Antonio`s coach after a 17-47 season after replacing Bob Hill today? How many great coaches might not have become legends under different circumstances? How many coaches are losing that chance today?
This isn`t to say teams should never fire coaches. Sometimes it`s necessary, and sometimes it`s obvious quickly. Griffin`s weaknesses were clear from the start. The Lakers players stopped listening to Ham months before he was fired. There`s no single solution. Every situation is different. Teams need to understand this. They need to look at the whole situation and ask themselves if the coach is really the problem, or just the easiest person to blame.
Jasper Hawthorne