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There are plenty of things to expect in the final month of an NBA season — tired legs, catty teammates, playoff posturing — yet there are some events you shouldn’t anticipate. A head coach should probably expect to keep their job for the final twenty-something days.
Yet the Washington Bullets fired Gene Shue with 25 days left in the 1985-86 season, apparently owner Abe Pollin and GM Bob Ferry got a little blue in March:
Pollin, who had never fired a coach before, said he wanted the new coach to implement his system and evaluate talent for the final 13 games and the playoffs.
Ferry said that the club had lost four straight games, including a 28-point drubbing by the New Jersey Nets and a 29-point spanking by the Milwaukee Bucks, at the time and needed a shake-up.
But, as Ferry admitted to Washington writers after the press conference: “The timing is totally strange.”
With 13 to go the Bullets were two games behind the sixth-seeded New Jersey Nets and eight games ahead of the 8th-seeded, 24-win Chicago Bulls. So they hired Kevin Loughery, who coached Chicago the season before.
Said Pollin: “I felt the team needed a new direction. The last four games helped me decide that the time to do it was now. I wanted to give the new coach the opportunity to evaluate his material over the last 13 games. . . . The feeling I had was that Gene Shue had run his course.”
Oh I disagree I’d like more of this:
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