NBA Coaches Forced To Sit on the Hot Seat
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Looking for a career where you can make millions of dollars at a time working temp assignments? I’ve got just the job for you: NBA head coach. We’re not even one month into the season and already one member (Memphis’s Hubie Brown) of America’s least stable profession has called it quits.
Take a look around the league and see who was coaching the same team when this century started. Only four men – Dallas’s Don Nelson, Sacramento’s Rick Adelman, Minnesota’s Flip Saunders, and Utah’s Jerry Sloan – pass the test. Meanwhile, tenures in the Eastern Conference have the life span of a caterpillar. The East turned over its entire coaching roster in the past 18 months, and only five of the 15 coaches have been with the same team for more than a year. Overall, half the league’s 30 coaches were hired since the start of last season.
Given that so many have been working for such a short time, you might expect that most are currently living through a grace period. Not so fast. While nobody expects the kind of purge we saw a year ago, several coaches are still on the hot seat and could find themselves on the street by the All-Star break if things don’t improve. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few guys whose seats are considerably warmer than room temperature:
GETTING BALMY
Terry Porter, Milwaukee He did a great job in his first season at the helm a year ago, guiding Milwaukee to an unexpected playoff berth. But with Brian Skinner’s departure depleting the frontcourt and T.J. Ford’s injury slowing a team that’s at its best in transition, the Bucks are just 4-7 this season. After last year’s success, Porter’s job is safe unless the wheels really start to come off, but the situation warrants monitoring.
Byron Scott, New Orleans Scott hasn’t had Baron Davis or Rodney Rogers since week one, and now must cope with the absence of All-Star center Jamaal Magloire (dislocated finger) for the next three months. While the Hornets understood that this could be a trying season because of their move to the Western Conference, I don’t think they envisioned a 1-12 start. If Davis can’t come back soon and ignite the troops, the former Nets coach’s stay on the bayou will be brief.
Mike Montgomery, Golden State
This one’s tricky, because even though the Warriors made an obvious mistake in hiring Montgomery, it may take some time before they fess up to it. For starters, he’s making a lot of money and will be owed a check whether he’s coaching or not. Second, it’s hardly reassuring for new general manager Chris Mullin to sack Montgomery just months after hiring him.
That said, the Warriors are 3-10 and look nothing like the team that Eric Musselman had contending for the playoffs the past two seasons. If the losses pile up and Mullin gets frustrated enough, change is certainly possible.
HOT TO THE TOUCH
Maurice Cheeks, Portland Cheeks quietly has become one of the league’s veteran coaches, despite rumors cropping up about his job security every year at this time. The Blazers are playing reasonably well at 7-6 but they brought in a new general manager since Cheeks was hired, which always portends extreme danger for the incumbent coach. Cheeks’s teams have improved after the All-Star break in each of his three seasons in the Rose City, so his challenge will be to hang on to his job until the team can make its patented late-season push.
Scott Skiles, Chicago General Manager John Paxson supposedly has Skiles’s back, but one has to come to grips with the fact that the Bulls absolutely, positively stink, and Skiles may be a reason why. The Bulls’ game plan has been to develop their young players, especially big men Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry, but under Skiles the duo has made less progress than an RV in quicksand. Add in some bizarre lineup moves – like using the hulking Andres Nocioni as a shooting guard to begin the year – and Paxson may need to pull the plug if the losing continues.
Jeff Van Gundy, Houston Van Gundy is more likely to step down, as he did in New York, than to be pushed out the door. He’s done a great job picking up the Rockets’ defense in his year-plus in Houston, but the offense has been horrible and Houston is mired at 6-9. With Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, it wasn’t supposed to be this way, but both are producing well below their career norms and nobody in the supporting cast has stepped up. It’s not Van Gundy’s fault that Juwan Howard and Maurice Taylor are dueling to see which Michigan product can be the more colossal disappointment, but Van Gundy’s imprint can be seen on other moves – signing Charlie Ward, for instance – that haven’t worked out.
ON FIRE
Jeff Bzdelik, Denver His record says he should keep his job. His contract says he won’t. Bzdelik has a one year, lame-duck deal that the Nuggets refused to extend despite last season’s surprise playoff appearance. Management is upset that Bzdelik hasn’t found enough minutes for young players like Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Rodney White, who are the future building blocks of the franchise. A rocky start to this year had Bzdelik in further jeopardy, but the Nuggets have stabilized for the moment at 8-6. Should they drop under .500 again, Bzdelik is likely to be the one to take the fall.
Lenny Wilkens, New York Like I need to tell you this. The Knicks have been solid, if unspectacular thus far, and Lenny’s work with the young players has once again been a huge asset. But it’s anybody’s guess what happens once the ‘Bockers suffer their first multi-game losing streak.
Impatient GM Isiah Thomas already forced Wilkens to put right-hand man Dick Helm’s head on the chopping block – after the Knicks lost their first game! Absolutely nobody will be surprised if Lenny’s is next, making his chair the hottest seat in the league. The real question isn’t whether Lenny goes, but if Isiah decides to coach the team himself or hires somebody else to do it.