NBA coaches know they're hired to be fired

ORLANDO, Fla. - Stan Van Gundy is going to get shoved out the door by the Magic.

He knows it's going to happen.

He just isn't quite sure when.

"I know I'm going to get fired someday," Van Gundy said a few days ago, sitting around the gym. "In this profession, we all do."

And then he adds with a chuckle: "I don't trust a coach who's never been fired."

Not that Van Gundy is complaining or feeling sorry for his unemployed multi-millionaire coaching cohorts, he's just responding to questions about an NBA coaching carousel that is spinning like a yo-yo on espresso.

When it comes to job security, NBA coach ranks somewhere down below surfboard salesman in Topeka and PR guy for Roger Clemens. The only creature with a shorter life expectancy than NBA coach is a love bug living on the interstate.

And the thing is, it's not just mediocre coaches getting run off this year, it's some of the top coaches in the profession.

The Dallas Mavericks just fired Avery Johnson, the NBA's Coach of the Year two seasons ago who took his team to the NBA Finals and won more than 60 games in two of his three full seasons in Dallas.

Then there's Mike D'Antoni, the Coach of the Year three years ago with the Phoenix Suns. He won three division titles in four full seasons and made it to the conference finals twice. Sorry, not good enough. D'Antoni was told by Suns GM Steve Kerr that maybe he should start interviewing for other jobs and, so, he did. He left Phoenix a few days ago to become coach of the lowly New York Bricks, er, Knicks.

"It's going to reach a point," Van Gundy says, "where you'll have 16 coaches in the playoffs. One will win the championship and the other 15 will be fired."

Van Gundy is obviously exaggerating, but not by much. The two coaches he faced in the playoffs - Toronto's Sam Mitchell and Detroit's Flip Saunders - were both rumored to be on the coaching hot seat during their series with the Magic.

It appears Mitchell, the league's Coach of the Year last season, will survive as will Saunders, who's been to the Eastern Conference finals in all three of his seasons with the Pistons.