Who's next? Three coaches and GM's on the hot seat

In the wake of Cavaliers General Manager Chris Grant and Pistons head coach Mo Cheeks being fired over the last week, and with this weekend's All-Star break providing an opportunity for organizations to change directions, NBA observers have begun to wonder who might be next.

On that note, here are three coaches and three GM's whose jobs are on the line between now and April:

Coaches

Mike Woodson - Knicks
Woodson has been on the hot seat all season after James Dolan reportedly and ridiculously declared that he expected a championship from this obviously flawed Knicks roster, but he's somehow survived a 9-21 start to the season, a 20-31 record overall to date and a number of job-threatening losses along the way.

Nonetheless, the latest rumors have Woodson being let go sometime around the All-Star break or trade deadline after 'losing the locker room,' and when you consider that New York's first 10 games after the break all come either on the road or against a winning team, he's the prime candidate to be the next NBA coach or GM to lose his job.

Mike Brown - Cavaliers
The firing of Grant was likely only the beginning of Dan Gilbert's teardown of a mess in which Gilbert himself is at least partly to blame, and unless Brown can somehow salvage the Cavs' season over the next two months with an unlikely run to a playoff berth, he'll likely join Grant in the unemployed department.

Brown will have four years and $16 million remaining on his contract after this season after signing a ridiculous five-year, $20 million deal to return to Cleveland last off-season, and that amount of money owed to him alone might make Gilbert think long and hard about making another coaching change. But even if it only takes about 35-37 wins to get into the Eastern Conference playoff race, the Cavs would still have to grab 17-19 wins out of their final 31 games.

Considering that they've won just 18 of 51 games to this point and are four games out of eighth with multiple teams in between to leapfrog, that task seems almost impossible.

Jason Kidd - Nets
The aging Nets have had to deal with their fair share of injuries, and then some, Mikhail Prokhorov has reportedly maintained support of Kidd through Brooklyn's struggles and the Nets seemed to have turned things around with a 10-1 start to the New Year, but the team's situation is looking ominous once more.

Losers of four of their last seven since a disastrous last minute collapse against the Raptors, the Nets currently sit at 23-26 and seventh in the Eastern Conference, three games behind third-place, Atlantic Division-leading Toronto but only two games clear of ninth-place and the lottery, where the Nets won't even have a pick.

Kidd being fired mid-season still seems unlikely, but the next few weeks could very well make or break the first-year coach. After a home date versus the Bobcats tomorrow night, who are tied with the Pistons for eighth (and ninth) in the East, the Nets will embark on a seven-game post-break road trip through Chicago, Utah, Golden State, L.A. (Lakers), Portland, Denver and Milwaukee.

If the team can survive that stretch and continue to build on it, Kidd should be safe. But if the Nets implode on the road and come back home out of a playoff spot in March, Prokhorov's patience will surely begin wearing thin.

General Managers

Joe Dumars - Pistons
Many words have already been written about the gross mismanagement of the Pistons under Dumars' watch, and at this point the only thing seemingly keeping him in charge is his place in Detroit basketball lore.

Thanks to the presence of Andre Drummond and maximum cap space this summer, the organization can still sell hope, and if they can turn Greg Monroe's upcoming restricted free agency into additional assets to pair with a Drummond/Smith frontcourt - with Smith at his better suited power forward position - there really might be a bright future here.

But the fact remains that Dumars has been ridiculously reckless the last two times Detroit has had financial flexibility and that the team likely won't have a first round pick this year thanks to Dumars' attempt to rid himself of an old mistake from one of those instances (The Pistons traded a future first when they sent Ben Gordon to Charlotte). The best thing for the organization would be if owner Tom Gores decides Dumars can no longer be trusted, and that possibility seems as likely as ever.

John Hammond - Bucks
The difference between the league-worst Bucks and other tanking teams like the 76ers, Magic and Jazz, is that whether they'll admit it or not, those other teams are bad by design. Tanking was always part of the plan this season in Philadelphia, Orlando and Utah.

The Bucks, on the other hand, are in the hands of an owner (Herb Kohl) who prefers chasing playoff spots - no matter how fruitless they might be - over lottery positioning, and the team genuinely expected to compete for one of the Eastern Conference's final postseason berths in 2013-14. So while he'll gladly take what is now looking like a certain top-four or top-five pick in a loaded draft class (remember teams can only fall a maximum of three spots from their lottery slot) to go with some cap flexibility this summer, Kohl also surely sees the club's 9-42 record and surefire 60-plus-loss season as unacceptable.

And with that, he may decide that another executive should get the chance to do something with said top pick and cap space.

Billy King - Nets
On one hand you can look at the fact that King inherited a 70-loss team when he took control of the Nets in July, 2010 and turned them into a 49-win team by Year Three on the job before turning them into what most considered a legit championship contender heading into Year Four. On the other hand, you must also consider that over those four years, King has constructed an old, creaky, disappointing roster without any draft picks or future assets to usher them into a brighter future.

The Nets are the only team in the league with a payroll above $100 million ($101,707,098 to be exact), their only three under-25 players are Mason Plumlee, Tyshawn Taylor and Marquis Teague, they aren't slated to have cap space until 2016 and they don't have their own first round pick again until 2019.

Seriously, read that paragraph again. That future situation would be concerning enough for a contending team with legitimate title hopes right now, let alone for a 23-26 team that is currently as close to ninth place as they are to a top-four seed.