While the Jazz, Spurs, Cavs, and Pistons fight for the title, all is not calm in the rest of the NBA world. The fallout from Tuesday’s lottery is the most obvious example, as basketball fans in the Northwest still are pinching themselves over their good fortune.

But under the radar, some important long-term moves are being made. Lost in the playoff-and-draft shuffle is the fact that nearly a quarter of the league’s teams are changing out coaches this summer, and so today I want to spend some time going over the playing field.

The field keeps changing though. The latest opening came about yesterday in Orlando, where Brian Hill’s long-rumored ouster finally became a reality. However, the Magic may have unwittingly made their chances of finding a qualified successor much harder with their ham-handed handling of Hill’s dismissal. The Magic insisted all year he’d be back, until suddenly after the season team president Bob Vander Weide said that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Once undermined so publicly, it’s all but impossible to bring a coach back, and indeed Hill won’t be. And given that this is the second time Orlando fired Hill in a manner that was something less than classy, future candidates will think twice before putting up with the neuroses of Orlando’s ownership group.

Nonetheless, expect the Magic to make the perfunctory calls to Florida coach Billy Donovan. But he isn’t going to leave Gainesville unless he’s offered a job that gives him a good chance for immediate success, and I’m not sure the Magic qualify. Not in their current dysfunctional situation, anyway.

One guy who might be willing to put up with Orlando, however, is Stan Van Gundy. Van Gundy pulled himself out of contention for the Indiana job opening yesterday, but said he did want to get back into coaching. Connecting the dots here isn’t hard — Van Gundy lives in Miami and has said on multiple occasions he’d prefer to be close to his family; he won’t get any closer than Orlando unless he orders a hit on Pat Riley or Havana gets an expansion team.

Speaking of la familia Van Gundy, the Rockets were another team that did an abrupt about face recently. After a disappointing first-round playoff loss to the Jazz, the Rockets and Jeff Van Gundy went through some tortured hand-wringing before deciding to part ways last week.

All this seemed strange since Van Gundy nearly won Coach of the Year honors for guiding the Rockets to a 52-win season despite prolonged absences from Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. But ownership wanted to play a more uptempo, offensive style, and Van Gundy is a veritable dinosaur in today’s small-ball era.

That said, it may be a case of “watch what you wish for.” Van Gundy’s methods, though ugly, have always been extremely effective — Houston was no. 3 in the NBA in Defensive Efficiency (my measure of points allowed per 100 possessions) this year.

Fortunately, the Rockets nabbed the best candidate available to replace him — former Portland and Sacramento boss Rick Adelman. Wrongly lampooned for his teams’ inability to beat Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal in the playoffs (as though other coaches were), Adelman is one of the most underrated coaches in the game’s history.

He doesn’t do neurotic “coach things” all the time like Larry Brown or, to a lesser extent, Van Gundy — he just finds his eight best guys in October and lets them play. With two of those eight being Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, and a chance to rejuvenate the disgruntled Bonzi Wells (who had a big year for him in Sacramento), Adelman should thrive again.

Also, yesterday, the Charlotte Bobcats hired Mavericks assistant Sam Vincent as their new head coach, ending a search that involved every known candidate in the universe. The rumor all winter had been that Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell would be leaving for Charlotte, but the Raptors surprised many by stepping up with a strong offer to keep the Coach of the Year. That was Vincent’s first break; his second and third are that expectations in Charlotte remain low, and that his new team is better than a lot of people realize.

Meanwhile, the Pacers, Grizzlies, and Kings are three of the four wild cards left in this summer’s coaching hunt. Only Indiana’s is considered a plum job, however, and even that reputation may be fading in light of the Pacers’ yearend struggles.

The fourth wild card is Seattle, where the Sonics’ move up to no.2 in the draft lottery suddenly makes their open coaching job much more appetizing. Newly appointed team president Lenny Wilkens is being secretive about his hiring process, but with his newfound lottery luck, Wilkens may be tempted to swing for the fences and go for the likes of Donovan, ex-Pacers coach Rick Carlisle … or, dare I say it, Larry Brown. Just imagine, the last two Knicks coaches running a franchise together.

It would just be the latest twist in a crazy summer in the NBA coaching ranks — one that’s gone largely unnoticed because of all the playoff drama, but one that will have huge ramifications by the time next season tips off.

jhollinger@nysun.com