Spoelstra: 'Disturbing' to see so many head coaches fired
The ongoing NBA coaching carousel isn't sitting right with Erik Spoelstra.
Prior to his Miami Heat's Game 1 win over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, Spoelstra lamented the number of head coaches dismissed in recent weeks, including former Philadelphia 76ers bench boss Doc Rivers.
"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."
Six teams are currently slated to begin next season with a different face behind the bench: the 76ers, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors, Milwaukee Bucks, and Phoenix Suns, although Detroit opted to move Dwane Casey to a front-office role instead of firing him. The Rockets have already hired Ime Udoka, who'd been suspended for the 2022-23 season by the Boston Celtics.
Meanwhile, Toronto, Milwaukee, and Phoenix are still searching for replacements for Nick Nurse, Mike Budenholzer, and Monty Williams, respectively. Those coaches had been with their respective clubs for several years; Nurse and Budenholzer led the Raptors and Bucks to the NBA title. All three have also won the Coach of the Year award.
The rash of firings even left longtime head coach Steve Kerr, a four-time champion on the bench, unsettled after his Golden State Warriors were eliminated from the playoffs.
"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, who's been in charge in Miami since April 2008, believes teams should restructure their roster rather than dismiss an established bench boss.
"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."