Erik Spoelstra: ‘Disturbing’ to see so many head coaches fired
The NBA has seen quite the flash of coaches firings in the last few years, including the axing of former Suns coach Monty Williams, 76ers head man Doc Rivers and Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer this year. Frankly, this sequence is odd, and Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra thinks the same. He says it seems almost “disturbing.”
Prior to Miami’s Game 1 win against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, Spoelstra commented on the abundance of coaches being fired.
“It’s disturbing,” Spoelstra said, according to NESN’s Gayle Troiani. “Doc’s a Hall of Famer. That’s what (Heat general manager Andy Elisburg) always says, too; you get past the first round, there’s gonna be some really good teams.
“Great players, great organizations, great coaching staffs – they’re going to lose just by the nature of this beast. There’s only so many teams that can advance. It’s just a really hard thing to do.”
Currently, five teams have a vacancy in the head coaching position. Those teams are the Phoenix Suns, Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons and Toronto Raptors. The Houston Rockets previously fired their coach, but added Ime Udoka as their bench boss.
Spoelstra is not the only head coach who has spoken out on the coaching changes. Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr became unsettled with the firings after the Warriors were eliminated from the postseason.
“I love coaching the Warriors … but I’m also in the NBA,” he told reporters Tuesday, courtesy of The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. “All you have to do is look at your phone every day and see the next Hall of Fame coach that’s fired. It’s insane – I’ve never seen the league like this.
“So, I’m under no illusions that I have a lifetime job here, or something like that. But I love what I do and I hope to be coaching here for a long time. But you never know how things work out, so we’ll see.”
Spoelstra is clearly not a fan of the firings. He thinks that teams should edit their rosters rather than fire their coaches when one thing goes wrong. One example of this is Stephen Silas of the Houston Rockets. The Rockets axed Silas after three seasons with the team, a tenure which saw him receive no leaders, veterans or really any star players on the Rockets.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said Wednesday. “When you have a proven guy, you have an opportunity to start again without revamping the whole culture and everything. It takes so much time and energy to restart something.”
(All quotes are from theScore.)
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