NBA Hot Seat: NBA Coaches On the Hot Seat in 2024-25

With another regular season approaching, NBA hot seat conversations are inevitably right around the corner.

Three coaches are prominent coaches at the start of the 2024-25 season.

Chauncey Billups

Portland hired Chauncey Billups to be the Blazers’ head coach back in 2021. Consider how much has changed between then and now – Damian Lillard is gone, and the team finished dead last in the West.

This team is a total rebuild at this point. Last year’s No. 3 pick, Scoot Henderson, did not have a great rookie season.

Portland’s dreadful record clearly isn’t the fault of Billups. This Portland team is not constructed to be competitive right now. Regardless, the Trail Blazers’ front office will eventually have to wonder if the first-time head coach is the right fit for the team as presently constructed.

If they feel he’s not – if they feel he was the right hire for a more competitive team, but it’s now time for a more developmentally-focused head coach – then Billups could be looking for a new job.

Taylor Jenkins

Memphis broke through in 2021-22 with 56 wins in a crowded Western Conference. It was the third year for head coach Taylor Jenkins, and the Grizzlies were riding high.

But since then, Memphis basketball has been … messy. There have been moments of noise and chaos with Ja Morant. There have been dramatic playoff games. There was also the 2023-24 season, which was completely derailed by injuries. Memphis finished 27-55.

Quite a lot of this is not the fault of Taylor Jenkins. But the fact remains that Memphis has won only one playoff series during this current era of high-level player talent in Memphis, and that series was against an overmatched Timberwolves team – the No. 7 seed – in 2022. 

Right or wrong, Memphis feels like it’s underachieving right now. Jenkins needs to deliver a 2025 campaign that shows he’s the right man to lead this talented roster. Otherwise, the front office could move to find a high achiever who can. 

Willie Green

New Orleans drafted Zion Williamson in the summer of 2019. Throughout the following years, it used its considerable draft capital to build a good roster of complementary pieces around him.

The Pelicans don’t have much to show for that. They’ve had more head coaches (three) than playoff wins (two). 

Willie Green delivered a 49-win campaign in 2024 – the best regular season of the Zion era in New Orleans – but that was only good for a play-in bid, followed by a tidy first-round sweep at the hands of Oklahoma City.

New Orleans management knows it has a potentially elite player on its roster, and it wants to see results that are more in line with that reality. If the regular season dips, or the playoff results remain empty, expect the Pelicans to make a move at head coach after Year 4 of Green. 

NBA Head Coaches