Oh boy: Recalling the worst NBA coaching hires of all-time

NBA front offices hire coaches with the idea that they’ll deploy brilliant strategies that will make executives look good. Optimism is key at the start of any relationship, but there have been some colossal head coaching disappointments over the years. We’ll take a look at coaches and situations that turned ugly pretty quickly. All statistics are sourced from Basketball Reference.

We don’t have to look too far back in the history books to find an example of a partnership that was a catastrophe from the start. The Pistons hired Williams ahead of the 2023-2024 campaign with the notion that the veteran coach would be able to get Detroit back to respectability. The exact opposite took place.

Instead, the Pistons set the NBA record for consecutive losses, dropping 28 straight contests at one point. It was especially embarrassing because Detroit gave Williams the largest coaching contract in NBA history to that point, a $78.5 million deal, according to CNN. Williams lasted just one season, as the organization fired him after the tumultuous season.

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Brown is one of the great coaches in basketball history, but his short-lived tenure with the Knicks is something he and many fans would like to forget about. He was brought in by Isiah Thomas in order to stabilize a Knicks franchise that was rudderless in the mid 2000s. However, things would only get worse with Brown at the helm.

New York finished with an abysmal 23-59 record in 2005-2006, prompting the organization to cut ties with Brown after the year ended. The New York Daily News reported that Brown and Thomas weren’t on speaking terms for much of the campaign. Players also came out and openly questioned the positions Brown was putting them in.

The Chicago Bulls were the team of the decade in the 1990s, having won six championships with Phil Jackson as head coach. However, all good things must come to an end, and that era did for the Bulls in 1999. Instead of potentially bringing the band back together for another championship run, the front office decided to go in a different direction with Floyd at the helm.

Floyd had previously been the coach at Iowa State, but running the Bulls without much talent was a night-and-day challenge. In four seasons from 1998-2002 as Chicago’s head coach, Floyd went 49-190, as the franchise became an NBA laughing-stock. General manager Jerry Krause was reportedly infatuated with Floyd’s coaching potential, according to NBC Sports Chicago.

There’s something to be said for name value within a franchise, and Unseld certainly had that. He’s the son of Washington Bullets legend and NBA Hall of Famer Wes Unseld Sr., as the Wizards wanted to reinvigorate the fan base in 2022 with a familiar name. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened.

Washington finished with identical 35-47 records in 2022 and 2023, before firing Unseld Jr. after a 7-36 start to the 2023-2024 campaign. The Washington Post wrote a story defending Unseld Jr., stating that the organization didn’t hire him because of who his father was. Still, it looks like they could have gone in any other direction, and it would’ve been better.

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Buckner was a respected defensive player during his time in the NBA, making four All-Defensive teams. He was also visible to NBA fans in the early 1990s as an analyst on NBC’s coverage of the league. However, things turned south for Buckner when he agreed to become the head coach of the Mavericks in 1994.

During Buckner’s one and only campaign in Dallas, the team finished with a deplorable 13-69 record. The Los Angeles Times chronicled that his most talented players, such as Jim Jackson, Jamal Mashburn and Derek Harper, all complained about Buckner that year. Dallas’ owner Donald Cater told the LA Times, “The bridges that were burned weren’t just over young players.”

The Clippers hoped that the 1998-1999 season would be the beginning of a resurgence for an otherwise downtrodden franchise. Los Angeles hired the experienced Ford to oversee a group of players looking to build an identity. The Clippers had the first pick in the 1998 NBA Draft, and used it on Pacific University center Michael Olowakandi.

Olowakandi proved to be one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history, and Ford failed to establish any sort of traction with the Clippers over two years. He finished 20-75 during his tenure there. Guard Eric Piatkowski told the Los Angeles Times after Ford’s firing that “it’s something that probably needed to be done,” which might have been an understatement.

The Lakers didn’t want to waste the tail end of Kobe Bryant’s career, and brought in a coach that the Hall of Famer used to look up to. Bryant grew up in Italy, and admired D’Antoni during his playing career there, according to a story by ESPN. The Italian connection, in addition to D’Antoni’s perception as an offensive genius, was supposed to elevate the Lakers.

However, D’Antoni only ended up coaching Los Angeles for two seasons, and finished 27-55 in his final campaign there. The idea was that he would be able to mesh the likes of Bryant, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Steve Nash, but the camaraderie never flourished. The Los Angeles Daily News called for D’Antoni’s firing well before it ended up happening in 2014.

The Lakers were involved in another win-now type of hiring when they brought Tomjanovich in for the 2004-2005 season. Rudy T, as he was known in NBA circles, had a ton of success as the head coach of the Houston Rockets, winning two titles there in the mid 1990s. However, things were just not meant to be for Tomjanovich and the Lakers.

However, Tomjanovich left the Lakers just 43 games into the year. The New York Times reported that the veteran coach didn’t particularly like the stress surrounding the organization, and that it was detrimental to his health. The Times also wrote that Tomjanovich and Bryant had different ideas about how to run the Lakers’ offense.

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