The NBA coaching carousel figures to be extremely active this offseason as three teams have coaching vacancies to fill already and many more are expected to open in the near future.
The Suns, Grizzlies, and Bucks made midseason changes and will have to decide whether to move forward with their interim hires or find a new head coach. All indications are that the Knicks and Magic will likewise make coaching changes, even if Jeff Hornacek is mounting a campaign to save his job in New York, which would run the total to five teams looking for new coaches.
Detroit will have conversations with Stan Van Gundy about his future with the Pistons soon, which could create another opening (as well as a front office position), and in the Western Conference, Los Angeles could see some coaching shakeups. The Lakers were, at one time at least, reportedly considered looking at replacing Luke Walton with David Fizdale in an effort to help their upcoming courtship with LeBron James. After their strong close to the season, who knows if that is still a possibility or not.
For the Clippers, they have an interesting decision regarding Doc Rivers and whether they want to move on as they enter a potential rebuilding phase. According to Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report, there is growing buzz around the league from other executives that the two sides will part ways soon.
The buzz around the league—not from inside the Clippers camp, but among executives from other teams observing the situation—is that Rivers and the Clippers are indeed heading for a divorce sooner than later.
Rivers has one year remaining on his deal in L.A. and with the Magic and Knicks expected to have interest in him, he may see this as a good time to get out when there are more opportunities to pick from should the Clippers be unwilling to commit to him long term. We know Rivers isn’t a huge fan of rebuilding, but that also makes his status so fascinating.
It’s not as if New York or Orlando would be ready to compete in year one for Doc — the only opening like that is in Milwaukee — so he’d have to really want a return back East to be the one to orchestrate a change.
