NBA coaches falling like flies

By BRIAN MAHONEY

The season isn’t half over and already six coaches have been fired.

Every year, at least a handful of NBA coaches wind up unemployed through some combination of bad play and bad luck. This season, there has to be another reason.

Inflated expectations? The recession? A revolt against the coaching profession? Not even halfway through the season, NBA coaches have as weak hold as ever on their jobs.

“I said to somebody, I think there’s a coup out there,” Houston coach Rick Adelman said.

Adelman was smiling, but this is no laughing matter for his profession. Six coaches were fired before Christmas, 20 percent of the league’s total and the most at this point in a season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Nine teams changed coaches in the 2004-05 season, a record that could be in jeopardy.

“I just wish I could be in the meeting with the owner when that GM who is firing them is guaranteeing, ‘We’re going to be better by making this change,’ because I don’t see it ever getting that much better,” Denver coach George Karl said.

Oklahoma City got the pink slips rolling by dismissing P.J. Carlesimo after a 1-12 start, then posted the same record in Scott Brooks’ first 13 games. Injury-plagued Washington (Eddie Jordan) and Sacramento (Reggie Theus) also made changes. So did Toronto (Sam Mitchell), Philadelphia (Maurice Cheeks) and Minnesota (Randy Wittman), teams that expected to be much better than they are.

Coaches always say they’re hired expecting to be fired — but not this much, this soon.

“It’s pretty consistent the way they’re going about it. Once you start going in the other direction, there’s no miracle trades,” Adelman said. “The classic line I’ve seen a couple of times is, ‘Everybody’s accountable.’ I’ve seen general managers say that, or personnel people. But everybody’s still there but the coach.

“So not everybody is accountable. Even though that’s a nice statement to say, I don’t think that’s the truth. When you’re a coach in this league, you know that’s something that can happen at any time.”

Adelman notes that young coaches often get started with bad jobs. Theus, for example, saw Mike Bibby and Ron Artest traded during his one-plus season by a Kings team that is on the decline after Adelman had it near the top of the league earlier this decade.

Karl said some of the problem is the false hopes teams have after summertime moves. The 76ers signed Elton Brand and the Raptors acquired Jermaine O’Neal, and both teams were widely picked to finish in the top half of the Eastern Conference. However, neither club gave its coach much time to get the new changes working — even though Philadelphia started slowly last season before Cheeks led a second-half surge into the playoffs.

“Most of those teams were expecting to be substantially better than they’re performing,” Karl said. But predictions by writers and team officials are often made before anyone sees how a team jells — or doesn’t.

“Everybody thinks they’re going to win a championship in the summer,” Karl said.

Jerry Sloan has spent 21 seasons in Utah and enjoys unparalleled security in a league where, according to Elias, there have been 224 coaching changes. He believes the troubling economic times could play a role, with teams desperate to try anything to hold fans who might look elsewhere for entertainment.

The Sixers can’t fill their building in a sports-crazed city. The Kings no longer sell out, not long after they enjoyed perhaps the NBA’s best home-court advantage.

“You can blame it on anything that you want. That might have something to do with it,” Sloan said. “People don’t come to watch your games. I think that’s happened a few times over the years where people are not there, they figure try somebody else and see if they come watch a game.”