It doesn’t take much to see why Washington’s Randy Wittman is the guy many see as the coach on the hottest seat.
His team is 2-6 but with playoff aspirations. His star player is writing “playoffs” on his shoes every game (and shooting 37.9 percent). His team’s owner Ted Leonsis has talked playoffs a lot and said injuries are not an excuse. Leonsis has been a loyal and patient owner, but at some point that is going to end because he wants to win, too. On top of it all the Wizards’ veteran players are frustrated with the younger ones.
That’s a recipe for getting canned early in the season, and the oddsmakers at Bovda get that. They set these odds for the first coach to get fired.
Randy Wittman (WAS) 2/1
Tyrone Corbin (UTA) 9/4
Monty Williams (NO) 7/2
Jason Kidd (BRK) 13/2
Dwane Casey (TOR) 13/2
Mike Woodson (NY) 15/2
Mike D’Antoni (LAL) 12/1
Terry Stotts (POR) 12/1
Corbin leads a team that has gone young and wants to see development out of Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, Gordon Hayward and eventually Trey Burke (once he gets his finger healthy). If those players aren’t developing like the Jazz front office wants they could make a change, but this tends to be a very patient and loyal organization.
Monty Williams has higher expectations with the Pelicans and they are off to a 3-6 start, but expect that organization to be patient. Williams has had some success in the past and was given a radical roster overhaul, he’ll get time to show he can make this group work.
Kidd? Management hired him without experience, for them to let him go is to admit their own mistake. And when was the last time you saw a GM own up to a mistake like that?
Woodson? I’d rather predict the mood of my tween daughter at any given moment than what James Dolan will do next. Who knows what happens here.
Casey is the guy I would have second on this list. He was not hired by the current GM so he needs to get wins and prove he can make this roster work in Toronto. That said, the Raptors are 4-5 and looked better than that record, Casey will get a little time to make it work.