The dust has finally settled, and eight teams will enter the 2023-24 season with a different head coach from the one they had at the start of the 2022-23 campaign. That turnover, which accounts for more than a quarter of the league, produced some major casualties. Rivers, who ranks ninth all-time in wins, moves into the broadcasting booth after coaching for 24 consecutive seasons. Budenholzer, who recently led the Milwaukee Bucks to the 2021 title, will not be on the sidelines as a coach or assistant for the first time in more than 25 years.
But it’s not all bad news for the teaching profession. Frank Vogel and Quin Snyder returned to the game, with the Phoenix Suns and Atlanta Hawks, respectively, while the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich and Williams, now with the Detroit Pistons, earned lucrative contracts during the offseason. The 2022 hiring cycle also produced some real gems: Mike Brown led the Sacramento Kings to the playoffs for the first time since 2006, Darvin Ham led the Los Angeles Lakers to the Western Conference finals, and Will Hardy won over the Utah Jazz. .
Due to the high number of recent changes, the next 12 months should not be too busy when it comes to job turnover. Still, these five coaches enter this fall’s season feeling the heat.
Jason Kidd, Dallas Mavericks: It’s as simple as this: Luka Doncic missed the playoffs in 2023, and that won’t happen again. The Mavericks expressed their desperation to make a winner out of their 24-year-old franchise player by trading Kyrie Irving, and they confirmed it when they agreed to re-sign the mercurial guard to a three-year, $126 million contract today. summer. It doesn’t matter that Doncic and Irving don’t mesh well together, or that Dallas’ remade front line still doesn’t look up to snuff.
Kidd’s reputation was in a different place after he guided Dallas to the 2022 Western Conference finals, but last year’s stinker in the lottery turned that achievement into a distant memory. If Doncic defies Dallas and asks for a trade, he could shake up the NBA like LeBron James did in 2010 and Kevin Durant did in 2016. That puts Kidd in a big bind: He needs to improve Dallas’ defense in th -25 ranking and get Doncic and Irving to make each other better. Or else.
Billy Donovan, Chicago Bulls: Being stuck in the middle can be a dangerous place for a coach. Just ask McMillan and Nurse, who lost their jobs after the Hawks and Raptors compiled a 41-41 record last year. The 40-42 Bulls were there with them: Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic made for an expensive and bad “Medium 3,” and Lonzo Ball’s ongoing knee problems killed any us aka hope from a 2022 playoff appearance.
Although Donovan signed a contract extension before the 2022-23 season, rumors swirled about his job almost immediately due to Chicago’s slow start. No significant changes this summer: Ball remains intact, Vucevic was re-signed to a three-year, $60 million contract, and backup guard Jevon Carter is the biggest addition to a quiet offseason. Destroying the star trio is unlikely to bring a handsome trade return, so Donovan is positioned as an easy scapegoat if the Bulls’ flawed formula does not produce better results.
Chris Finch, Minnesota Timberwolves: Minnesota’s salary numbers are growing: three years and $130 million for Rudy Gobert, five years and more than $250 million for Karl-Anthony Towns and a new five-year extension worth $260 million for Anthony Edwards. Together, the misfit trio combined for the 23rd-ranked offense, 42 regular-season wins and one face-saving victory in a first-round series loss to the Denver Nuggets. After raising expectations with their all-in trade for Gobert, the Timberwolves have a strong case to be considered the NBA’s biggest disappointment last season.
Finch has his hands full on both sides of his difficult “Twin Towers” pairing: Gobert is enduring a down year, and Towns has missed more than 50 games due to injury. Minnesota owners did their coach no favors this summer by running back the same core, and Finch’s hopes of leading a playoff winner will rely heavily on another breakthrough season from Edwards, who starred for USA Basketball during the FIBA World Cup run. If not, it’s time for the bosses to start looking for someone to blame for their spending sprees.
Steve Clifford, Charlotte Hornets: Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson or Popovich can’t save last year’s Hornets; Franchise guard LaMelo Ball played less than half the season due to injury, Miles Bridges missed the entire year due to a domestic violence incident, and PJ Washington was the only player to record more than 70 points. display. In other words, Charlotte came through with its 30th-ranked offense and 27 wins to be honest, and at least it landed the 2023 No. 2 pick Brandon Miller to ease the pain.
Michael Jordan, who hired Clifford to coach the Hornets in 2013 and 2022, sold his majority stake in the franchise to a pair of investors this summer. The transfer of ownership did not immediately create many changes, but Charlotte is ripe for an overhaul because it has not made the playoffs in the last seven seasons. Pairing a dynamic young ballhandler like Ball with an old-school, defensive-minded coach probably doesn’t bode well for either party, and Clifford has little long-term security as he enters the second year of a three-year contract.
Chauncey Billups, Portland Trail Blazers: Sorry Billups if his head hurts. When the longtime floor general signed to coach Portland in 2021, he inherited a perennial playoff team led by veteran guards Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. Everything was lost in a flash: General Manager Neil Olshey was fired, Lillard missed all but 29 games due to injury, and McCollum was traded in Billups’ first year. Last season wasn’t much better: Billups managed the NBA’s 28th-ranked defense, the struggling Blazers entered an absolute tank at the bottom, and Lillard requested a trade in July.
While the Blazers took promising rookie Scoot Henderson with the third pick in June’s draft, Billups now finds himself looking at a long-term rebuild with some bankable players he can use. Ugly losses have damaged the team’s culture over the past two seasons, and Billups, in his first head coaching career, will have to push hard against all the negative momentum. National expectations will be further reduced if Lillard is traded, but Portland’s young players will need to show some signs of improvement to retain its fan base. A coach can only live for so many seasons that effectively ends in February.