There used to be a "Sports Illustrated Jinx." People noticed when certain athletes made the cover of the magazine, they would shortly start losing. My statistics professor called it an example of "regression to the mean;" they made the cover because they were performing better than people expected, but that's because they were playing better than they actually were and their superior performance couldn't last.
The NBA Coach of the year is a similar kind of jinx. There's a new NBCA Coach of the Year Award selected by the head coaches, and it already went to the Raptor's Dwane Casey this week. He was fired at the end of the week. There's also a Red Auerbach Trophy selected by the media that will be awarded at the end of June. However, the votes are already in and Casey may still win it as it is based on regular-season performance only.
The Auerbach Trophy hasn't always been kind to its winners. From the past 20 seasons:
2013: George Karl: fired 29 days later after receiving the award
2009: Mike Brown: fired a year later after
2008: Byron Scott: fired a year and a half later
2007: Sam Mitchell: fired a year and a half later
2006: Avery Johnson: fired a year and a half later
2004: Hubie Brown: left early the next season to "health issues" and possibly a fall-out with some players
2002: Rick Carlisle: fired a year later
2000: Doc Rivers: fired 2 1/2 years later
1999: Mike Dunleavy: fired 2 years later
While some of these firings were due to contracts or organization politics, what several of the quick firings suggest to me that there is, like the Sports Illustrated Jinx, a regression to the mean. Getting a team to over-achieve, to win beyond anyone's expectations, is the surest way to become Coach of the Year. But the team over-achieved because it wasn't all that good, and the success couldn't be sustained. So after a year or two, management sees the team as no closer and usually farther a way to the ultimate goal of the championship, and decides to make the change.
That's what happened to Dwane Casey. His team improved by 8 wins and and earned the #1 seed in the East and 2nd-best record in the league. But their embarrassing sweep by the Cavs in the 2nd round of the playoffs suggests they regressed to the mean. It was enough to persuade management that they're just not good enough, and not really any closer to a championship than they were over the past two years (they were also the #1 seed in 2016), with no reason to think it will get better under Casey next year.
It's an unfortunate firing, but I would have done it.
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