The NBA’s Coach of the Year award is meant to recognize brilliance, but this honor turned into a curse. Between 2018 and 2023, each NBA Coach of the Year eventually lost their jobs with the same franchise they led to success. The list includes Dwane Casey, Mike Budenholzer, Nick Nurse, Tom Thibodeau, Monty Williams, and Mike Brown.
In recent times, Tom Thibodeau earned the honor in 2021 for reviving the New York Knicks, but the team let him go following the 2024-25 season. Despite his disciplined leadership, which saw the Knicks win 51-31 in the regular season and have a .309 win percentage between 2013 and 2020, Thibodeau had to depart from the franchise.
NBA Coach Of The Year Trend Shapes Into A Curse
The Group includes Dwane Casey, who won in 2018 after leading the Raptors to a 59-win season, but the team fired him soon after. Mike Budenholzer earned the award in 2019 and led the Bucks to a championship in 2021, yet they let him go in 2023 after a disappointing playoff run.
Nick Nurse won in 2020 and brought a title to Toronto, but the Raptors fired him in 2023 as the team’s performance dropped. The Detroit Pistons fired Monty Williams after one year with a $65 million deal left after their worst 14-64 season. The Sacramento Kings fired their coach, Mike brown, in 2023.
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Coach Mark Daigneault earned Coach of the Year honors in 2024, bringing the team back to the finals after a 13-year wait. Still, if the recent trend continues, even he might get the same trouble, which could remain more fragile than it seems.
The pattern raises questions about front office patience and ever-rising expectations in Today’s NBA. This six-year streak shows that even top coaching success doesn’t assure job security. In today’s NBA, winning alone may remain enough to keep a seat on the bench.
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