By Matthew Shircliffe–

If you are a coach in the NBA nowadays, apparently winning is not cutting the mustard anymore. On Monday, the New York Knicks fired Derek Fisher after coaching for one-and-half seasons. Despite their mediocre start to the season, it is hard to place any blame for last season’s abysmal train wreck on Fisher. Phil Jackson dealt Fisher a pretty lousy deck getting rid of J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert and receiving nothing in return that Fisher could work with. This premature firing is not the first or the most shocking in the last year, when the competitive NBA head coach job market is scrutinized more now than ever.

The New York Knicks are in a rebuilding phase. Rising young stars such as Derrick Williams and Kristaps Porzingis, not to mention the team’s veteran, Carmelo Anthony, may make this franchise a viable playoff contender in a couple years. They are right on the cusp, on the outside looking in, so it seemed odd that they would disrupt all of that by letting Fisher go. He had off-court issues with Grizzlies forward Matt Barnes, so if the firing was perpetuated by off-court issues, that’s fine, but Fisher had the team improving. They were the worst team in the Eastern Conference last year, so anything would be an improvement.

Fisher is just one of many coaches fired in the last year. Since April, there have been eight firings, beginning with Oklahoma City Thunder, who let Scott Brooks go, which was laughable. Last year was the first time since the 2008-2009 season the Thunder failed to make the postseason. Kevin Durant missed 55 games and Russell Westbrook missed fifteen, and still this team almost snuck in to the eighth spot, but lost it on the last day of the regular season.

What about Monty Williams, coach of the New Orleans Pelicans? They made the playoffs last year. They obtained the eighth and last spot; however it resulted in a first round sweep from the team that won it all, the Golden State Warriors. New Orleans has not made the playoffs since the 2010-2011 season, so why was Monty Williams let go? It’s not as if the Clippers or Grizzlies swept them. The firing is just downright wrong.

The oddest firings of them all come from Houston and Cleveland. Two of the four teams who reached last year’s conference finals were both relieved of their duties before the all-star break. Kevin McHale, one of basketball’s great minds, was let go after the Rockets started the season 4-7. It only took eleven games to decide he was not a good fit, despite the team coming off their best season since the 1997 season. This was highly disappointing and unwarranted. I understand it came down to the players “not trusting him.”

One of the more recent and controversial firings came from Cleveland with the release of David Blatt who was only on his second season with last year ending in a trip to the Finals. When he was first hired as the head coach of Cleveland, the pressure was insurmountable. Kevin Love was a reliable double-double every night and traded to Cleveland. Lebron James was back on the team, and an all-star point Kyrie Irving continued to develop. He had all the instruments he needed to be a successful team and they did just that.

A trip to the Finals was what was expected and the Cavs completed that task. So why get rid of Blatt? All of the allegations that he was incompetent, he would “freeze” in big-time situations and that he was a babysitter while Lebron was running the show. Lebron is going the Finals regardless of who is coaching. It did not matter if Mike Brown was there or Erik Spolestra, Lebron is the best player in the world right now and any team he is on, he automatically has a shot at winning the title. With two decades of coaching experience under his belt, Blatt will not have trouble finding another coaching job.

Some firings were certainly justified including Jeff Hornacek, who lost all control of his team in Phoenix despite the plethora of talent they have. Lionel Hollins was fired in Brooklyn as Joe Johnson’s woes continued.

As the Washington Wizards, who have had some successful seasons lately, find themselves struggling to put a winning-streak together, their coach, Randy Wittman, is rumored to be on the hot seat and could be the next coach out of a job.

So what have we learned about surviving as a coach in the NBA’s competitive job market? Well for one, loyalty seems to be a lacking theme among franchises. Very few organizations are loyal. Teams such as the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs and the Boston Celtics have all demonstrated a consistent display of loyalty among their players and staff.

The random but crazy stat of the day that is pretty interesting; since Greg Popovich has been the San Antonio Spurs coach, the league has seen 223 coaching changes. It is snake pit and only the strong survive. Many of the coaches who have been a victim of the lay-offs did not deserve it, but it is the law of the jungle. Survival of the Fittest.