Normally, winning the NBA championship gives a head coach a type of job security that allows him to keep his job even if his team flames out early in the playoffs afterward.
But apparently, that isn’t true anymore.
On Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks fired Mike Bidenholzer after they fell apart in the first round to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat just two years after winning it all.
He joins Nick Nurse and Frank Vogel as championship-winning coaches who were given a pink slip shortly after bringing their team the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
All fired 🤯 pic.twitter.com/4qSo7SO1wx
— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) May 4, 2023
Nurse was fired recently after his Toronto Raptors lost in the play-in tournament to the Chicago Bulls.
Toronto won the title in 2019, and they lost in the second round of the playoffs the following year and in the first round last season.
Granted, they lost superstar Kawhi Leonard in free agency in the summer of 2019, but they have still possessed a very solid roster that is full of depth ever since.
Vogel, in his first season at the helm of the Los Angeles Lakers, guided them to the world championship just three years ago.
They fell in the first round in 2021 after an injury to Anthony Davis, but they failed to reach the play-in tournament last season despite the presence of Davis, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook.
Job security is very hard to come by in the NBA, and it seems that perhaps the only coaches that won’t be fired no matter what are the Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat, and San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
All three have won multiple championships, yet they have had seasons where their teams missed the playoffs, and yet they weren’t even in danger of losing their jobs.
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