The Whiteboard: Matching the right NBA head coach with each vacancy

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The NBA head coaching carousel never stops spinning. Despite the New York Knicks (Tom Thibodeau), Brooklyn Nets (Steve Nash) and Cleveland Cavaliers (J.B. Bickerstaff) all filling their vacancies over the last few months, the league still currently has six job openings.

The Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers, Oklahoma City Thunder, New Orleans Pelicans and Philadelphia 76ers all parted ways with their head coaches in recent months, and most of these teams are conducting thorough searches with so many capable options on the market.

From recognizable names like Mike D’Antoni and Billy Donovan, to assistants on the rise like Adrian Griffin and Ime Udoka, to former coaches looking to work their way back to the big chair like Tyronn Lue, several candidates will interview for multiple positions over the next few weeks. To help all six of these teams with vacancies sift through their options, we’re slamming the brakes on this coaching carousel and matching the most fitting candidate to each job opening.

Chicago Bulls: Ime Udoka

The Chicago Bulls have a plethora of head coaching candidates to interview now that general manager Arturas Karnisovas has taken the reins, but Philadelphia 76ers assistant coach Ime Udoka seems like a great candidate for this youth movement in the Windy City.

Back in June, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he was the frontrunner for the job. While there hasn’t been any movement on that front since, Udoka’s reputation for building strong relationships with players and player development make him a natural fit for a team with good-but-not-great youngsters like Zach LaVine, Lauri Markkanen, Coby White, Wendell Carter and Otto Porter Jr.

Kenny Atkinson is probably the more glamorous option, but his penchant for helping rebuilding teams is needed elsewhere in this exercise ….

Houston Rockets: Tyronn Lue

Midway through the 2015-16 NBA season, the Cleveland Cavaliers turned to Tyronn Lue to hold players — even LeBron James and Kyrie Irving — accountable. They went on to win the NBA championship in dramatic fashion against an all-time great Golden State Warriors squad.

That same kind of accountability is badly needed by another win-now team in the Houston Rockets now, and with Mike D’Antoni out, someone who knows how to create open 3-point looks around a star penetrator and passer would be an added bonus. Lue fits that description perfectly, and Yahoo! Sports’ Chris Haynes expects him to get a look from Houston.

Though Lue’s defensive schemes in Cleveland weren’t particularly impressive, the Rockets’ ultra small-ball brand doesn’t give them much room for variance in their coverage on that end of the floor anyway. James Harden and Russell Westbrook need a coach who can keep players and the ball moving when the offense stalls, generate quality perimeter looks and hold everyone accountable in high-pressure scenarios. Lue might have the best shot at doing so of any coach on the market.

Indiana Pacers: Mike D’Antoni

Nate McMillan’s Indiana Pacers teams were stout defensively during his four years at the helm but quite archaic on the offensive end. The biggest criticism of McMillan’s Pacers was how little interest they showed in taking 3-pointers, ranking 30th, 29th, 26th and 27th in 3-point attempts per game and 29th, 29th, 25th and 23rd in 3-point makes over the last four seasons.

Enter Mike D’Antoni, who will be expected to modernize and revamp the offense of whatever NBA team he controls next with an unrelenting barrage of 3-pointers. While expecting Mike D to turn Victor Oladipo into the next James Harden or Steve Nash is a bit much, he would drastically upgrade the offense simply by encouraging more 3s, while hopefully keeping McMillan’s top-10 defense intact.

The Pacers are conducting a wide-ranging search that includes Chauncey Billups, Becky Hammon, Dave Joerger and several other options, and D’Antoni is reportedly the leading candidate in Philly, but the 76ers just don’t have the shooters to make his system work. D’Antoni would make far more sense with Indiana’s roster.

New Orleans Pelicans: Kenny Atkinson

Kenny Atkinson has not been linked to the New Orleans Pelicans in any substantial report, but as someone who shepherded the rebuilding Brooklyn Nets through a rebuild with far less talent, he’s an ideal candidate for the youth movement in NOLA. He has a relationship with Pelicans GM Trajan Langdon (who was an assistant GM in Brooklyn during Atkinson’s time there) and helped build a winning culture with a franchise that had no business doing so.

Atkinson’s modern NBA offense had the Nets playing at an up-tempo pace and shooting a lot of 3s — trends that would fit right in with these Pelicans. He’s a player development specialist who’d be great for Zion Williamson, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Jaxson Hayes and the rest of this young cast, but he’d also put together a formidable offense after the Nets ranked in the top-five for 3-point attempts every season under Atkinson.

The question is whether he could implement a competent defense — something he struggled with in Brooklyn, as the Nets were in the league’s bottom half for defensive rating in his first three seasons before surging up to 10th this year. Still, between the Nets’ defensive improvement in 2019-20 and the fact that he’d have veterans like Jrue Holiday to help out on the defensive front,  Atkinson deserves a serious look as a proven rebuilding coach … even if the Pelicans are technically building from the middle up.

Oklahoma City Thunder: Adrian Griffin/Maurice Cheeks

Either way, the Oklahoma City Thunder can’t go wrong with one of these two former assistants. Adrian Griffin has been an assistant in the league since 2008, spending time under the likes of Billy Donovan, Tom Thibodeau and Nick Nurse with the Thunder, Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors, where he’s been since 2018. He’s long been viewed as one of the league’s assistants most primed to make the leap to the big chair on the sidelines.

If Griffin doesn’t emerge as a serious option to return to OKC and jumpstart a new era for the franchise, current Thunder assistant Maurice Cheeks is well-respected and well-liked throughout the NBA. Not only does he have playing experience and head coaching experience, but he’s been with the Thunder as an assistant for a total of nine years in two separate stints now (2009-13 and 2015-20).

As the Thunder prepare to turn the page to a full-scale youth movement, having an experienced, familiar face like Cheeks around would be beneficial. So would having a stern, developmental coach like Griffin. Either way, OKC’s best options are former assistants who have familiarity with the organization and would be terrific choices to replace Donovan.

Philadelphia 76ers: Billy Donovan

Tyronn Lue and Mike D’Antoni are other quality options for the Philadelphia 76ers, but for our intents and purposes, their optimal gigs are in Houston and Indiana, respectively. That means Billy Donovan gets the nod here. He’s been mentioned as an interviewee for the Sixers job, and as one of the most coveted options on the market, a potential union would make sense.

As something of a Russell Westbrook whisperer (or at least, as close as one can get to assuming that title), Donovan is used to building an offense around a superstar who can’t shoot. That might help him to some degree in Philadelphia, since neither Ben Simmons nor Joel Embiid is a capable shooter at this point.

The 76ers’ biggest issues reside in their faulty roster construction, but there’s plenty of talent for Donovan to work with between Simmons, Embiid, Tobias Harris, Al Horford, Josh Richardson and some promising youngsters like Matisse Thybulle and Shake Milton. The former Thunder coach left OKC because he wanted to contend now. That’s exactly what Philly is trying to do, making this a great fit by default with Lue and D’Antoni already off the board.

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