Ranking the NBA head coaching vacancies | Ball Don’t Lie

Yahoo Sports NBA writers Jake Fischer and Dan Devine hop on the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast to discuss the NBA head coaching vacancies, and debate which jobs are the most attractive.

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Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JAKE FISCHER: I've been saying to certain people that of all these jobs, I might think Detroit is the most attractive one from a coach's perspective of, like, security. Like, probably have some runway in terms of, like, not having a championship or bust mentality. Depending on if you're like a big Cade Cunningham fan or not, I think that's interesting, but we still technically have Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Toronto, and Philadelphia as five coaching openings right now. Where would you rank them?

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DAN DEVINE: Yeah, I wrote about it on Yahoo Sports, went up on Wednesday. So you can check out the full thing there. But I think a lot of it depends on what your motivations are, right? If what you're looking at is, I want the place where I'm going to be able to have the longest runway and without immediate gigantic pressure, then yeah, Detroit makes a lot of sense there.

I think a lot of coaches, though, are like, when you give them their choice, they're going to say, I want the talent. I want to compete. I want to try to win. I want to have the opportunity to contend for a championship.

You're never going to be a free agent destination there. That's I think a ding on Detroit as a market, or as a job opening, but the pressure is lower, but so is the ceiling, I think is on that job. Then, yeah, once you get past that it's like, I guess Toronto because Toronto is-- you don't have the top end talent that you have in Phoenix, Milwaukee, or Philly, but you also do have, like, big market, you know, well-regarded executive, maybe some flexibility because there's not a whole lot of money tied up in anybody past the end of next season.

But that to me is a cut below those three teams that have been in the championship conversation for the last couple of years. I picked Milwaukee as the most attractive because if you had to ask me, like, which of these do you want to build around moving forward, Embiid with the Harden situation hanging over your head, Phoenix with Durant at 35 and with the injuries that he's had, plus a very committed new owner, let's say it that way, but that is a wild card that can kind of cut both ways, or you've got Giannis. Of those three situations, I think I'd say, give me Giannis and I'll figure the rest out later, but there's a hell of a lot to figure out.