Budenholzer dismissal punctuates volatile nature of NBA coaching gig

LOS ANGELES— Steve Kerr isn’t the only coach working these playoffs, but he does feel like a man on an island.

With the dismissal of Mike Budenholzer a few days ago by the Bucks, Kerr is the only coach of the last four champions still employed. It says plenty about the demands of the profession, the fickle patience of team leadership and the whims of superstar players whose voices resonate loudly and powerfully within organizations.

As Kerr and the Warriors prepare for Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal with the Lakers, he’s looking around the frat house and wondering where everyone went.

“We all know what we get into when we get into this business,” he said, trying to apply some reasoning.

Budenholzer was preceded out the door by Nick Nurse, who coincidently beat Kerr and the Warriors in the 2019 NBA Finals. And Frank Vogel, coach of the 2020 champion Lakers, was gone just two years later. That’s an astonishingly short rope, even by coaching standards.

Taking it a step further: Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra are the only active coaches still with the teams they led to titles (Ty Lue was gone from the Cavs a few years after the historic 2016 title). In those instances, though, Pop and Spoelstra own multiple titles, and their organizations aren’t trigger happy historically.

Whenever a member of the frat gets fired and fellow coaches express disappointment or confusion, take those sentiments for what they’re worth. That’s because every coach gets hired only when somebody gets fired, sometimes questionably so. Kerr is no different; he replaced Mark Jackson in 2014 and the coaching switch wasn’t without some noise. Jackson had decent support in the locker room and helped pull the Warriors from basketball darkness that lasted much of two decades. Meanwhile, Kerr had never been a head coach before.

And interestingly enough, Jackson hasn’t returned to the bench ever since, although he does enjoy the best seat in the house as a TV analyst (and his network job doesn’t depend on who wins or loses).

Job security is all about expectations, not necessarily among fans and media, but organizations. Some teams will understandably set the bar high and demand their coaches not only make the playoffs, but travel deep into spring. There are plenty of reasons for that, first among them is talent, and especially if those championship contenders are led by an MVP candidate.

In the case of Nurse, the Raptors lost their centerpiece when Kawhi Leonard bailed on Toronto as a free agent just weeks after the title. Toronto never found a capable replacement for Kawhi, and while the Raptors still had a potential 50-win team, and Pascal Siakam did develop into an All-NBA player, they never reached June again under Nurse.

The demands in Toronto weren’t win-or-else for Nurse, but there was some dysfunction and dissension. Ultimately the departure of Nurse was, to a good degree, mutual for both sides. As Jeff Van Gundy once said about the perils of the profession, “If they don’t get you on record, they’ll get you on relationships.”

Vogel was bounced primarily because of strategic reasons. The Lakers’ defense — which was a strength initially in Vogel’s time in LA — crumbled, and his failure to fix it (fair or not) was blamed more than injuries to Anthony Davis and LeBron James.

Then there’s Budenholzer and the elephant in the room when it comes to championship coaches: franchise players.

It was bad enough when Budenholzer had serious lapses in the top-seeded Bucks’ first-round loss to the Heat. Not calling timeout once Miami went ahead in the final seconds of regulation in the elimination game, or having 7-foot Brook Lopez on the floor to protect the rim on Jimmy Butler’s dramatic layup off an inbounds pass, was just shy of coaching malpractice. Bud was on the hot seat just for that.

But then, the decisive shove was applied by Giannis Antetokounmpo — not necessarily intentionally — after that loss when asked about the decision to keep Jrue Holiday on Butler.

“Out of respect, you’ve got to let the coach make that adjustment,” Antetokounmpo said. “At the end of the day, I wish I could’ve guarded him more.”

In that sense, championship coaches are no different than the other 29. Security, to a large degree,  depends on whether the coach is on the same page with the franchise player.  Those players carry more weight than ever before, mainly because of their salaries and obvious worth to the club. But — and this is becoming increasingly apparent — those franchises are also petrified of losing those players either through a trade demand or through free agency. Teams must keep them happy in a sport where one great player can make all the difference.

The only notably exception was when LeBron James, early in his tenure with Spoelstra, expressed unhappiness internally. But Pat Riley, the team president, made it very clear: He wasn’t taking over the coaching reigns again (not like when he replaced Stan Van Gundy years earlier once Shaquille O’Neal grumbled) and Spoelstra was going nowhere.

But, back to Kerr and Budenholzer.

“My first response is not necessarily shock, it’s more disappointment because Bud is a fantastic coach,” Kerr said. “He just won a championship and has been wildly successful in his coaching career. But this is the business we’re in. Three of the last four championship coaches have been fired. And it just happens quickly. I mean, there are expectations every year for every team … so high and only one team can win. It’s sad news for the coaching profession, but we all believe Bud deserved a lot better. But we also, as I said, are aware that this is a job we chose.”

Well, that raises a question: When and how will Kerr’s time expire with the Warriors? Will a four-time champion leave on his own, or get the tap on the shoulder?

He enjoys strong support both from above and also within the locker room. But again, as it was just demonstrated in Toronto and Milwaukee, coaching life comes at you quick.

Should the Warriors win a second-straight title next month and a fifth under Kerr, it’s hard to imagine Kerr failing to enjoy the same coaching lifespan as Popovich. Also, as long as Stephen Curry is in his prime, Kerr will likely continue to coach; not many have willingly left players of that magnitude.

But sometimes players need a fresh voice, or at least that’s the excuse given by management when expectations aren’t met.

And Kerr might decide to leave while on top, well before things go wrong with the Warriors. He could move into the front office — he was GM of the Suns prior to becoming Warriors coach — if Bob Myers, the current GM, leaves this summer (his contract is up). That would be a career shift similar to Brad Stevens going from coach to GM in Boston when Danny Ainge by mutual decision left the Celtics two years ago.

Also, just by coincidence, Budenholzer’s top assistant in Milwaukee’s championship year was Darvin Ham, now coach of the Lakers. This is Ham’s first season with the Lakers, which began turbulently; the Lakers at one point were 13th in the West. Had they not turned around their season in February and made the playoffs, would Ham enter next season on the hot seat — if he actually made it to a second season?

Such is the life of a coach, even those with contenders, where the stopwatch constantly ticks. Those jobs are coveted — who doesn’t want to coach LeBron and Anthony Davis and Curry and Giannis? — but there’s fine print on those contracts.

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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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