Coaching firings '08/'09 (PJ/Jordan/Mitchell/Wittman/Cheeks/Theus/Iavaroni/Porter)

[Glenn]

Sources: Thunder fire Carlesimo
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
7 hours, 19 minutes ago

After losing 12 of 13 games to start the season, P.J. Carlesimo has been fired as Oklahoma City Thunder coach, sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Assistant Scott Brooks will take over as the interim coach beginning with Saturday night’s game against the Hornets in New Orleans.

The final indignity for Carlesimo was a mortifying 105-80 loss to the Hornets on Friday night in Oklahoma City. General manager Sam Presti informed Carlesimo of the decision before the team boarded the flight to Louisiana.

Before the feeble start to this season, Carlesimo was 20-62 a season ago in Seattle. As the assistant GM in San Antonio, Presti had worked with Carlesimo, an aide on Gregg Popovich’s coaching staff. Presti and owner Clay Bennett considered firing him over the summer, but allowed Carlesimo a chance to salvage a second chance. With a roster gutted of veterans, this was a difficult job from the start.

After building a reputation as an unrepentant screamer in his first two NBA jobs in Portland and Golden State, Carlesimo sold himself as reformed with a five-year stay on Popovich’s staff. He insisted that he learned the art of developing relationships with players under the four-time champion Spurs coach, but several sources insisted that he reverted back to the strident ways that precipitated the Latrell Sprewell attack in 1999.

In parts of eight seasons as an NBA coach with Portland, Golden State and Seattle-Oklahoma City, Carlesimo had a 204-296 record.

[Tahoe]

The Thunder definately suck, but I'm not sure how much of it is Carlisimo's sucking.

[RegicideGreg]

Their starting lineup consists of Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Earl Watson, Johan Petro, and Nick Collison. Only Durant is really starter quality in my mind. Collison and Green show occasional bright spots and i'm sure glenn feels that Earl Watson is a bonifide pg stud. Their bench outside of Wilcox is crap. They have no center on this team. They basically just shift between Petro and Swift neither of which have much more than lead feet and height to offer.

[Glenn]

Earl Watson is a premier backup PG.

[Glenn]

Wizards fire Jordan, make Tapscott interim coach

29 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP)—Eddie Jordan was fired as coach of the Washington Wizards on Monday after opening the season 1-10 without injured starters Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood.

Ed Tapscott, the Wizards’ director of player development, will replace Jordan on an interim basis, running his first practice as the team’s new head coach Monday morning, a team spokesman said.

The firing was first reported by the Washington Post on its Web site.

Jordan was in his sixth season with the Wizards and led the team to the playoffs each of the past four. In September, shortly before the start of training camp, the Wizards picked up a one-year option to keep him under contract through the 2009-10 season.

He leaves as the Eastern Conference’s longest-tenured coach and No. 3 in the NBA behind Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz and Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs.

[Glenn]

COACHES ON THE HOT SEAT

WITH

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/play...hp?cl=10768129

[Fool]

Glenn thinks firing Jordan was a terrible move because NBA execs hired him. He also thinks this Hopscotch guy will be great because he was an NBA exec.

[Glenn]

Glenn thinks firing Jordan was a terrible move because NBA execs hired him. He also thinks this Hopscotch guy will be great because he was an NBA exec.

If only he had some WNBA success on his resume.

You really want to carry this through a bunch of threads?

You do, don't you?

[Fool]

Why not, the Pistons suck right now.

Yeah, if he had some NBA championships and experience creating teams out of nothing and making them perennial championships he's be such a joke. But as the guy developed all those Washington diamonds in the rough, he's proven.

[Glenn]

The Wizards had Eddie Jordan passing out turkeys to the needy yesterday morning for several hours.

Then they whacked him in the afternoon.