The first coaching casualty of the year was just named as the 3-6 New Orleans Hornets fired their head coach, Byron Scott. Despite having one of the best players in the world, the Hornets have been slipping backwards for two years, and Chris Paul is getting unsubtle about his irritation. So rightly or wrongly, Scott takes the fall for it.
What's the Bulls aspect of this?
Ric Bucher reports that current Hornets General Manager Jeff Bower will take over Scott's position, as well as his own....with former Hornets and Bulls head coach Tim Floyd being hired as his lead assistant.
Yeesh.
Byron Scott fired
Given a warped roster, one hastily put together with payroll coming first and basketball second, Scott couldn't find a combination that worked. He juggled veterans such as Morris Peterson, Devin Brown and Peja Stojakovic seemingly randomly, and overplayed young point guard Bobby Brown to the point of anguish, as if betting the over on how many shots Brown could get up in a 15 minute span.
That said, if any man was set up to fail, it was Scott. The Hornets have been mismanaged for a number of years under the Bower regime - remember, it wasn't Bower that drafted Paul - and even though the Hornets did a decent job this offseason of acquiring some useful talent whilst also cutting payroll, their previous years of mismanagement made it all for nought. Scott had very few pieces to work with, which is probably why he couldn't find any, but that's not all on him. If he couldn't figure out his rotation, then maybe he needed more quality players.
The Hornets of late have been lacklustre, uninspired, and completely devoid of any swag. They were listless and disinterested, as well as old and unathletic. Paul was a bright spot, and he had a strong relationship with Byron Scott, but that was about it for the bright spots. Whenever a team needs some fire, the coach is almost always fired. And the Hornets need a lot of it.
But are Tim Floyd and Jeff Bower going to be the ones to find any it?
5 Comments
Mark Deeks said:
And yes, New Orleans have fired Tim Floyd once before. Apparently that didn't factor too much.
RPK said:
With the Hornets ready to dump salary, here comes the Paul for Rose/Deng rumors...
Mark Deeks said:
Of all the salaries to dump, Paul comes exactly last. If you dump him, you have literally nothing left. So you move everyone else first. Or even just wait it out.
Doug Thonus said:
If they dump someone to us, I wonder if we'd take David West. He'd help out, but he'd kill 2010.
Newskoolbulls said:
I blame Jason Kidd.
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