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The five current Head Coaches who have won more than 1 playoff round on average per appearance are Pop, Kerr, Brooks (barely), Spoelstra and Nurse. Nurse and Kerr have the highest averages.

Several others are right at 1 including Stevens, Vogel and Budenholzer. Other big names are below.

Good fortune in players is a big part of this.

Unless Heat surge (with trades or otherwise), one might argue the most important coaching advantage is with the Raptors. One could argue otherwise because his data is just 1 year and he is now without Kawhi and / or because others have more experience and average performance may not be a fully satisfactory measure.

If anyone beats Bucks, the opposing Coach will probably be a big actual factor and almost certainly would get a lot of the credit after the fact.


Least prominent / proven coaches among main contenders are probably Brett Brown and Michael Malone.

Among veteran coaches, the most prominent names for future jobs are probably Lue &Joerger. And maybe Prunty.

Kidd and Stan Van Grundy are out there if you want but I am not putting them in top tier.

Assistant Coaches and possibly someone from Europe are other talent pools but less proven.

I'd say 10 Coaches at risk on being ousted this summer. Not sure how many will be. I'd make the change in at least 7 cases.

Probably at least 6 changes will be made. Might surprise and see more.

Atkinson back to the Hawks? Possible.

Is Bickerstaff going to speed a recovery? I doubt it. But it starts with the roster. Seems unlikely Altman admits many of his numerous mistakes and achieves better than neutral changes from them soon. But we'll see.

With the extended break, it would be easier to transition to another coach now, for also-ran teams. Time for testing.

Alvin Gentry has 4 winning seasons in 17 opportunities. He was 3-6 and then given 8 more seasons, in which he went 1-7. Is he still the Pelicans coach at start of next season? Probably.

Biggest minute lineup (without Redick) was fabulous in way way way too few minutes then 4 of the next 5 negative in much shorter minutes.

Only 11 of 20 most used pairs positive. Almost all the negative ones had Ball, Redick and / or Ingram. The trio was 2nd worst of 10 most used and 3rd worst of top 20 at about -6pts / 100p. Are they still going to use it? Of course. This run out and next season. Though he did cut the min. / gm. modestly late in this season. Not enough.

Spoelstra beats Budenholzer as possibility was discussed 9 months ago.

McMillan, Gentry and Brown gone for playoff disappointments. Donovan gone for that and / or other reasons.


Lue? Doesn't seem like he is going to get Sixers job. Looking at record you can see championship first season and 2 more finals but the last two were 4-0 and 4-1 exits and then saw the exit of LeBron. Regular season defense nosedived from elite to bottom third to dead last when he got / took early exit. Would the Sixers' defense hold up under him? Why would the Pelicans defense improve? Did he do a good job with young players in Cleveland? Not many but not a lot of development to praise.

10 continuing coaches might be in jeopardy next season / following off season.

Why isn't Maurice Cheeks ever mentioned as a head coach candidate?

The 9 years of coaching without a playoff series win? The downward trajectory of his teams regular season wins, including 6 straight years under .500? Being 64 years old?

So coaching a bad team makes you a bad coach, I guess.
Fired in year 4 in Portland with a 22-33 record, his replacement went 5-22.
First year in Detroit -- 21-29 wasn't good enough, so they found a guy who would go 8-24.

Getting to playoffs 3 times in the 6 years he was still there at season's end, each of his teams was a major underdog.
The Blazers did take the #1 seed Mavs to 7 games in 2003.

Yes, quality of team matters. But none of the 3 teams he took over got better his first season and tended to get generally worse.

None of the last 100 NBA coaches got more seasons than Cheeks without eventually winning a series.

If a team wants to consider him, they can.