Pacers coach Nate Bjorkgren already on the hot seat after just 1 season
By John Buhler
Indiana Pacers head coach Nate Bjorkgren is on the hot seat not even one full year in.
It sure looks like the Indiana Pacers have made a GOB Bluth huge mistake when it came to firing former head coach Nate McMillan and hiring Nate Bjorkgren this past offseason.
Indiana went from a certain top-six team in the Eastern Conference a season ago to a sub-.500 team that will likely play in the play-in tournament in a few weeks. It was a strange move for the Pacers to part ways with McMillan when they did. He had a proven track record of winning at multiple stops. Now his successor Bjorkgren might not even get a second season. What the hell?
This is not the season Bjorkgren or the Pacers were hoping for in his fist year leading the team at all.
Amid a year of difficulties with players and staff, Indiana Pacers coach Nate Bjorkgren’s future with the franchise is uncertain as the regular season nears an end, sources tell ESPN. The Pacers are 30-34 and in ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 5, 2021
Bjorkgren has work to do on relationships with key players in his locker room, sources tell ESPN, and has thus far shown a willingness within the organization to try to address those issues. https://t.co/uNeOdHMlnQ
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 5, 2021
Indiana Pacers: Head coach Nate Bjorkgren could be out after one season
This was one of those Woj bombs that caught us totally off-guard. We might be on the backside of a global pandemic, but firing a first-year head coach under these circumstances would be almost as strange as parting ways with McMillan in the first place. Since taking over as the interim head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, McMillan’s new team has been a top-six seed playoff lock in the East.
While McMillan does not have a contract after this season, both of the coaching situations in Atlanta and Indiana have been bizarre. You don’t fire a head coach who took you to the playoffs all four years he was there and then fire his successor after one disappointing season. Doing so would be completely out of character for basketball-crazy Indiana in the conservative Midwest.
Let’s hope Bjorkgren gets one full, legitimate season to show what he can do as a head coach.
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