Some are fired up by NBA dismissals

For the six NBA coaches who have received a pink slip this season, you have the defending champion Celtics to partially blame.

Even though New Year's Eve is still more than two weeks away, Sacramento's Reggie Theus became the sixth coaching casualty yesterday after a 6-18 start. The other recently unemployed coaches are Philadelphia's Maurice Cheeks, Minnesota's Randy Wittman, Toronto's Sam Mitchell, Washington's Eddie Jordan, and Oklahoma City's P.J. Carlesimo.

Most NBA coaches seemed to have a respectable leash until the Celtics went from a dismal 24-win season to a championship after team president Danny Ainge added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. But with today's teams not getting the wanted quick fix, the firing line for coaches has been a busy one.

"Teams want to win. This team [the Celtics] had an effect on the rest of the league," said Allen. "After all the moves that Danny made over the offseason to get all the guys here and win the championship, teams were like, 'Hey, maybe we can get into the feeding frenzy over the summer with some guys that we know can play and can bring us to the Promised Land.' It's a disappointment. It's the expectation.

"Most teams can be in rebuilding mode and you got the same coach and a terrible record, but you're building your young players. When you bring in high-dollar players and you're in the bottom of your division, it's a big load on you."

National Basketball Coaches Association executive director Michael Goldberg was scanning the Internet yesterday in his New York office when he sighed after learning the Theus news. Goldberg believes that the challenge to fill seats in a struggling economy is another reason coaches are getting a short leash.

"This is an unprecedented situation," said Goldberg in a phone interview. "I've been doing this for close to 25 years. I can't recall another time when so many coaches were fired before [Jan. 1]. It's surreal and disturbing . . .

"A lot of teams have a lot at stake. If your team is playing poorly, there is a knee-jerk reaction on you having a season that's not good. There is a lack of people at games. Game-day revenue looms larger than before the economy [tanked]. In past times, there was patience for coaches instead of getting rid of the coach. Historically, [firing] is not always the answer."

While not one of the fired coaches were perfect, there were issues in each firing that ran a lot deeper.

Theus was in just his second season coaching a rebuilding franchise. Cheeks went from coaching one of the hottest NBA teams at the end of last season to a struggling team trying to adapt to the arrival of rusty two-time All-Star Elton Brand. Wittman was coaching a long list of unproven young players with unrealistic franchise expectations to win now. Jordan was without two of his starters (three-time All-Star Gilbert Arenas and center Brendan Haywood). Mitchell, the 2007 Coach of the Year, received a five-time All-Star in Jermaine O'Neal who is not his old self because of injuries. Carlesimo was coaching a franchise adjusting to moving from Seattle with lots underachieving veterans mixing with developing talent.

"The ownerships are panicking," former Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn said. "It's ridiculous. I don't know what Mo Cheeks could have done. Reggie never established himself . . . I've seen a lot of coaches get fired, but usually they wait till after Christmas though. But these suckers are heartless."

Said former Celtics coach K.C. Jones in a phone interview: "What do some of these coaches make: $5 million? $6 million? That's a determining factor right there. They're fired. They still get paid."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers can certainly relate to the coaches fired before the New Year as Orlando dropped him after a 1-10 start to the 2003-04 season. Being introspective was important for him after the firing.

"I went home and played 18 [holes of golf] the next day," Rivers said. "You do evaluate yourself, you're not perfect. You get a chance to look at yourself."

Jerry Sloan has seen 226 coaches get fired in his 21 years as coach of the Utah Jazz, but doesn't ever remember six firings this early in the season. While Sloan has always had strong backing from Jazz ownership, he believes that most of his colleagues haven't received the same opportunity.

"There are a lot of great coaches who haven't had a chance to coach," Sloan said. "That's always puzzling to me. As soon as they know a coach is in trouble, they know right away, the agents know and everybody knows. The players don't really come to play, I don't think. Once you start making that [lame-duck] accusation I think they have a tendency to say, 'Oh well, we will wait for the next guy to come along and we will go hard for him.'

"My owner has been able to tell us from when we started that we were going to be here. It gives us a fighting chance most of the time. It's not concrete. I think players have a tendency to realize this is what it is and do the best they can."

Allen said players and coaches need to get things off their chest in meetings and coaches that might be at odds with a player need to find a way to get on the same page.

"When a coach is on the verge of getting fired, it might be the other way around [on giving up]. Coaches are sitting back waiting to be fired," Allen said. "There always needs to be some energy injected, even from that coach. The coach gets fired in any situation and the next game the players play a little bit better.

"Even when a coach is a lame duck sometimes coaches need to change up whatever they are doing, whatever their philosophies are. You have to change."

If today's philosophy was in place two years ago, do you think Rivers would have survived an 18-game losing streak with the 2006-07 Celtics? Ainge, however, was patient and gave Rivers talent in Allen, Garnett, James Posey, and Eddie House. With the rejuvenated roster, Rivers coached the franchise to its first title in 22 years and was suddenly a coaching genius.

"I had a patient guy in Danny, who understood what we were trying to do and understood what I had on the floor," Rivers said. "A lot of these situations, you ask a coach to coach a young team and play the young guys and build them, and when your record's bad they say we don't like the record anymore."

With a three-year contract extension in hand and the NBA's best record, Rivers has nothing to worry about. But after being fired once, there is always that fear that one day it will happen to you, too, no matter how great of a coach you are.

"It's like the flu, you just try to keep it away from you as long as possible," Rivers said. "In all sports, maybe that's just a change in philosophy, everywhere. In college football you never heard of a coach get fired during the season. It's happening in all sports. Not a lot you can do about it. Just do your job, that's it."

Said Goldberg: "You need a coach that knows what they are doing. Players that know what they are doing. Chemistry . . . The Celtics are an example of that. I'm not sure the change in coaching mentality will help these teams get what they are hoping for."

Marc J. Spears can be reached at mspears@globe.com.