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One day, Dwane Casey is the NBA Coach of the Year.
Two days later, he’s out of a job.
Mike D’Antoni, the head coach of the best team in the NBA, got it dead-on when he called it “laughable.”
Casey’s Toronto Raptors enjoyed a stretch unheard of previously in franchise history. Highlights included the Eastern Conference Finals just two seasons ago and five straight 48-plus win years, of course making the playoffs each season. Vince Carter’s Raptors didn’t do this.
Casey’s team also set a franchise record for wins — this season.
So Casey didn’t beat LeBron James. Memo to Raptors President Masai Ujuri: just about no one does. James may become the best player in the history of basketball. Even if he doesn’t, he’s top-five right now. He’s on the verge of making an eighth consecutive NBA Finals.
Only once before – and just five years ago, the coaching carousel already started going much too fast – has a man been named NBA Coach of the Year and fired in the same season.
Even considering that Toronto didn’t get past James, that’s has nothing to do with Casey, an African-American man who, in a classy move, just wrote a thank-you letter to the folks of Toronto. It has everything to do with the Raptors haven’t had a post player that has risen to the occasion in the postseason.
So, predictably, they’ve been eaten alive by one of the best in the game in Kevin Love – and even unpredictably, by guys like Tristan Thompson. And Thompson did it while in the midst of personal turmoil (that he brought on himself).
I’m not a Raptors fan. But it must be said that there is no excuse for Casey’s firing – and hopefully, it is not an omen of things to come in a world of sports where coaching changes are already too fast. Coaches are not being allowed to develop teams and as they aren’t, it hurts stability in their own lives, as it does for any man in any field where the turnover happens much too often, and much too fast.
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