No job is safe and the NBA coaching world is not exempt from that harsh reality. And as Mike Brown's case would show, the Coach of the Year winner is always the most vulnerable.
Like players, coaches have come and gone, especially in the NBA.
That is regardless of how many games their teams won, how they built solid relationships and set impactful culture within the organization, or the life lessons they imparted to the players themselves.
But in some special cases like Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, who is perhaps the one of greatest coaches to never win the Coach Year award but owned three NBA titles, he doesn’t mind the accolade as long as the job is done in the end.
“Four of the previous seven coaches to win the award were fired within two years of winning it, though none of the past three lost their jobs. ‘It’s not quite as definitive as the [Sports Illustrated] jinx, but pretty close,” Spo said after losing the COTY race to George Karl in 2013.
Mike Brown's latest firing from the Sacramento Kings is not the first time that a former Coach of the Year winner got sacked within a period of time.
[ALSO READ: Mike Brown, Kings part ways after two years — reports]
Let’s dive into some former NBA coaches in the last 25 years who suffered the same fate as Brown.
Dwayne Casey
Casey won the award in 2017-2018 season after taking the Toronto Raptors to a franchise record 59 regular season wins and the no. 1 seed in the East.
But he, DeMar DeRozan, and Kyle Lowry ran into the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers and got eliminated for the third straight playoffs.
What made it more ironic is that Casey was yet to receive the Red Auerbach trophy before he got fired.
Mike Brown
Way before his Sac-Town head coaching gig, Mike Brown was a young head coach with the Cavaliers that featured a young LeBron James.
After an NBA Finals appearance in 2007, he led the Cavs to a franchise best 66-16 record in the 2008-09 season en route to winning the first of his two Coach of the Year awards as Cleveland fell to the Orlando Magic in the East Finals.
But following a disappointing second round defeat to the Boston Celtics a year later, he was fired by the Cavaliers.
George Karl
Into his ninth season as the Denver Nuggets head coach, Karl guided the squad to eight straight playoff appearances but got bounced out early in seven of those occasions.
The lone exception came in the 2009 playoffs where Denver went as far as reaching the West Finals and lost in six games against the eventual champion LA Lakers.
Despite having no All-Stars to their roster, the 2012-2013 Nuggets finished the regular season with a 57-25 record (a franchise record in wins) and entered the 2013 playoffs as the no. 3 seed.
Thus, Karl got rewarded and copped the top coaching award. But the Nuggets fell to the sixth-seed Golden State Warriors in six games. General manager Masai Ujiri then left for the Raptors.
Karl was fired 29 days after receving his COTY award.
Byron Scott
Scott arrived in the formerly New Orleans Hornets coming off back-to-back NBA Finals appearances with the New Jersey Nets.
After three disastrous seasons, Scott and a young Chris Paul led the Hornets to the no. 2 seed in a loaded West with a 56-26 record. They defeated the Dallas Mavericks in the opening round before bowing down to the San Antonio Spurs.
Scott was named 2008 Coach of the Year for turning the Hornets around but got fired in November 2009, after yet another first round exit and a woeful 3-6 start into his sixth season.
Avery Johnson
Johnson played 19 seasons overall and was a champion point guard for the San Antonio Spurs before joining the Dallas Mavericks coaching staff as an assistant in 2004 under Don Nelson.
After Nelson resigned from his post, Johnson led the Mavericks to a strong 16-2 finish in the 2004-05 season before Dallas got booted out in the West semifinal round by the no. 1 Phoenix Suns.
The next two years saw him steer Dallas to back-to-back 60-win seasons, an NBA Finals appearance in 2006, and also won his first and only Coach of the Year award in the same year.
A year later, Johnson found more success after the Mavs, led by MVP Dirk Nowitzki, dominated the regular season with a franchise-record 67 wins but ultimately succumbed to the "We Believe" Golden State Warriors. Dallas became the first no.1 seed to lose against an eight seed in a best-of-seven series.
The 59-year-old never recovered from that as Dallas fired him a year later after the Mavericks fell again in the first round for the second successive year.
Is Spoelstra on to something with this?