The Denver Nuggets surprised many around the league by firing former championship-winning head coach Michael Malone with less than a week left in the regular season. One of those not taken aback was Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson.
“Yeah, I’m not surprised anymore,” Atkinson said before his team took on the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night. “I don’t know if I’ve become cynical, jaded. I’ve been part of it, so maybe that’s why.”
It’s easy to see where Atkinson is coming from given recent events. The Memphis Grizzlies just fired Taylor Jenkins just over a week ago, despite being the number two seed at the time of the firing.
This is just the current environment of the NBA, and more broadly, professional sports.
“The average tenure for a coach, you know, NBA coach, it’s not very long,” Atkinson said. “Premier League, it’s not very long. So I hate to see it, because I know there’s families involved, you know. That’s what I think of first. … But in terms of trying to understand it or explain it, and the timing of it? I don’t know. But it doesn’t surprise me anymore.”
Even though the timing is odd, we don’t necessarily know all that went into this decision being made. Those are two things that Bulls head coach Billy Donovan highlighted when he was asked about Malone’s dismissal pregame.
“I think the biggest thing, with three games left to play, no disrespect to anybody on [Denver’s] staff or organization, [Malone has] taken them to a championship,” Donovan said. “He knows the group probably better than anybody. I think when you end up talking about some of this stuff, when you don’t have all of the details of what’s going on that’s probably kept in house, it’s maybe hard to speculate.”
Being a head coach is like being a public-facing middle manager. You’re the bridge between ownership, the front office, and then down to the players. The job is to keep everyone on the same page to succeed while also being the organization’s voice to the media and, by extension, the fans.
The head coach’s inability to keep all of those parties on the same page can often lead to the firing. That isn’t even taking into account the X’s and O’s of it all.
“It’s complicated,” Atkinson said. “Ownership, front office, that’s all got to align, and sometimes it just doesn’t align. [I’m] not saying who’s right, who’s wrong. [When] you have non-alignment in that chain, stuff’s gonna happen.”
You don’t get into being an NBA head coach because of the job stability. There are only a few Greg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, and Steve Kerr in the league, and their equity has all been built with multiple championships.
“I’ve just become almost immune to it (being surprised about coaching changes),” Atkinson said. “I know it’s just part of the job. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen to pretty much everybody.”
