Who’s up subsequent?
It’s the query at the least 5 NBA groups are going to must reply within the coming weeks because the league’s championship hunt nears its finish.
The Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons every went in a special path with their head coaches this offseason, with a number of of these groups pivoting regardless of current success from the sidelines.
What they do subsequent might make or break their odds at success this upcoming season. Here’s a peek into every crew’s teaching hunt forward of the reshuffle this summer time.
<u>PISTONS</u>
Former coach: Dwane Casey (promoted to entrance workplace)
Goal: Develop younger gamers
The Pistons are one of many youngest groups within the NBA, and proudly owning each the fifth and thirty first picks within the June 22 NBA Draft, they mission to get youthful.
That makes former UConn head coach Kevin Ollie an ideal prospect for the job — and Ollie has reportedly superior to the second spherical of interviews for the Pistons job.
Ollie most lately served as head coach at Overtime Elite, an Atlanta-based basketball league for elite prospects between the ages of 16 and 20. As a six-year head coach at Connecticut, Ollie coached the Huskies to a nationwide championship in 2014.
<u>BUCKS</u>
Former coach: Mike Budenholzer (fired after first-round exit)
Goal: Win a championship
The Bucks want some backbone, and the place higher to get it from than the very crew that simply embarrassed them within the first spherical.
It’s the leg up Chris Quinn, a longtime Miami Heat assistant, has on the competitors in search of to interchange Budenholzer (who gained a title in Milwaukee after the 2020-21 season). The Bucks canned him unceremoniously after a first-round playoff exit regardless of proudly owning the league’s finest regular-season file this season.
The largest attract in prying Quinn from Erik Spoelstra’s teaching employees is his potential skill to duplicate what the Heat are doing in South Beach. If the Bucks can inject some Heat tradition into their franchise, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s crew instantly turns into that rather more formidable.
Mark Jackson, one other revered participant’s coach who helped develop Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, can also be in play right here. What’s clear is that elite X’s and O’s might solely get this Bucks crew thus far.
<u>76ERS</u>
Former coach: Doc Rivers (fired after blowing 3-2 result in Celtics)
Goal: Win a championship
The Sixers can’t depend on James Harden to ship when it issues, and particularly with reviews suggesting the ground common could return to the Houston Rockets sooner moderately than later, Philadelphia’s points prolong additional than simply the sidelines.
Elite play-calling, nevertheless, can compensate for chilly capturing, and it’s an space Doc Rivers has struggled most within the playoffs. Former Raptors head coach Nick Nurse is taken into account among the best basketball minds on the planet.
And after watching him remodel the Raptors right into a championship-contender in a single day after the Kawhi Leonard acquisition, one’s thoughts can run amok with the myriad methods Nurse might maximize Joel Embiid on each ends of the ground.
Nurse’s groups have had a set ceiling — first-round exit — ever since Leonard left to move west to L.A., however the common consensus is he’s a championship-caliber coach awaiting championship-caliber items.
The Sixers have that — although their roster will doubtless want some restructuring this offseason.
<u>SUNS</u>
Former coach: Monty Williams (fired after second-round exit)
Goal: Win a championship
If the Suns can pull it off, luring Tyronn Lue away from the Clippers is their finest guess, for plenty of causes.
It’s a foul string of well being, not Lue, liable for the Clippers’ incapacity to make the journey to the NBA Finals throughout his time in Los Angeles. He is without doubt one of the most revered gamers’ coaches in all of basketball, proving it by main the Cleveland Cavaliers to an NBA title in 2016 regardless of taking the job midseason.
The Suns have two of one of the best scorers in all of basketball — Kevin Durant and Devin Booker — and there’s even a state of affairs the place Phoenix provides Kyrie Irving to the combo if the crew is able to transfer previous senescent flooring common Chris Paul.
Lue is a confirmed grasp of managing egos and has been a famous person whisperer in every of his two head-coaching stops.
Prying him away, nevertheless, would doubtless take draft capital, which the Suns don’t have — at the least not but — after buying and selling 5 picks and two starters to land Durant from the Nets.
<u>RAPTORS</u>
Former coach: Nick Nurse (fired)
Goal: Develop Scottie Barnes into an All-Star
Of the 67 gamers to common 30 or extra minutes and seem in at the least 66 video games this season, 2022 Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes ranked forty first in Player Impact Estimate, a metric that gauges a participant’s all-around contributions throughout his minutes on the ground.
Priority No. 1 for Toronto’s subsequent head coach after parting methods with the championship-winning Nurse on the finish of this season is to maximise Barnes’ skills because the fourth-overall decide within the 2021 NBA Draft.
The gifted, two-way wing who beat Cleveland’s Evan Mobley for Rookie honors has plateaued, if not regressed.
After successful the league’s prime rookie award, Barnes completed his second season averaging the identical variety of factors per recreation (15.3) yr over yr. He dipped two share factors as a three-point shooter, 4 share factors from the sphere total, and though he elevated his assists to a tick underneath 5 per recreation, he usually disappeared in his minutes on the ground.
That makes former Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson the right man for the Raptors job. Atkinson picked up a repute as a draft prospect whisperer throughout his four-year stint in Brooklyn, with proof in breakout seasons for D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen.
The Nets fired Atkinson when going all-in round Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving within the 2020 offseason, however the ex-head coach has since gained a championship as one in every of Steve Kerr’s assistant coaches with the Golden State Warriors.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com