As the Toronto Raptors season wound down it seemed Masai Ujiri had a decision to make—and it had to do with Dwane Casey. The general consensus is that he’s already made it, and I’d argue he made it last year when he gave Casey a three-year extension.
In my time around Ujiri I’ve observed him to be patient and pragmatic. In other words, he’s bucking the trend among his NBA GM brethren. Around the league it seems like expectations for coaches have become unreachable for all but a handful of guys in immediate title-contending situations, and that bench bosses with winning records are more vulnerable than ever.
We’ve seen recent examples of this with Monty Williams and Scott Brooks each getting the axe. This season Williams led the New Orleans Pelicans to a 45-37 record and their first playoff spot since 2011, all with Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson missing a total of 98 games.
Meanwhile, Brooks’s Oklahoma City Thunder finished one game out of their sixth straight post-season appearance despite the fact that Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook missed 53 and 15 games, respectively. (Durant even said he should be Coach of the Year.)
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The trend of scape-goating winning coaches who haven’t delivered titles goes back further than this year, and the results have been mixed.
Are the Nuggets or Magic better off after parting ways with George Karl and Stan Van Gundy?
The Bulls are no question better under Tom Thibodeau than they were under Vinny Del Negro, but now even Thibodeau’s safety in Chicago has long been rumoured to be in question.
People point to Steve Kerr taking over for Marc Jackson as being the magic elixir that invigorated the Warriors, but Jackson’s organizational issues were more social than they were coaching-related. And even if the conventional wisdom is right, the outlier shouldn’t affect future behavior.
The last four active coaches to win championships are Gregg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, Rick Carlisle and Doc Rivers. They’ve combined for nine titles and 13 finals appearances, and management wisely stuck it out with each of them even when things looked bleak.
Some of it is luck, of course. With Doc at the helm, the Celtics missed out on Greg Oden in the draft lottery but won out by having Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett waive their no-trade clauses.
Now, a few years later Doc Rivers has one championship under his belt and 75 career playoff wins; and Oden is out of the NBA. Point being: you have to allow time for these things to play out.
This is not by default an endorsement of Casey. He is a self-proclaimed defensive coach but in Toronto his teams have yet to be close to dominant defensively. He prides himself on player development and yet his two young starters have shown only incremental improvement, if any at all.
I’m not convinced Casey is the man to lead the Raptors to a title. And given Ujiri’s noncommittal stance at the year-end press availability (“everyone will be evaluated”) it sounds like neither is he.
I am convinced, however, that the way this season ended does not provide enough data to make that decision. The truth is, Casey was coaching a squad featuring injury-laden top-end talent, and the total talent level of the roster wasn’t anywhere near with the top teams in the league. What were the realistic expectations?
The answers to coaching questions aren’t black or white—they’re grey. And it’s in the grey where GMs earn their money, discerning which numbers are fool’s gold and which are golden nuggets.
Simply firing a coach who you recently thought was a good one hasn’t proven successful over time. It’s too simple. It’s too lazy. And it’s not Masai Ujiri.