NBA Coaches Who Will Be on the Hot Seat Next Season

There are certain luxuries afforded to NBA coaches, but job security isn't one.

Just ask the nine skippers who opened the 2017-18 campaign with head coaching gigs but won't do the same next season.

With perhaps a handful of exceptions, nearly every coach has some level of warmth underneath his sideline throne. That said, thermometers can show dramatically different temperatures from one situation to the next.

By analyzing past performance, on-hand personnel, contract status and/or an ability to reach organizational expectations, we have identified the Association's five hottest seats ahead of the 2018-19 season.

Billy Donovan has dealt with a lot over his first three seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Kevin Durant bolted for the Golden State Warriors. Russell Westbrook extended his contract. Paul George (somewhat surprisingly) committed to the franchise long-term. And Carmelo Anthony came and went.

But this summer, the roster disruptions were minimal. OKC had nine players log at least 1,000 minutes last season, and eight will be back in 2018-19. Anthony was the lone significant subtraction, and his fit with the Thunder was awkward at best.

"I think the best thing for [Donovan], and I think the biggest opportunity for him, is in the continuity," Thunder general manager Sam Presti said, per ESPN.com's Royce Young. "Additionally, just continuity in general, with the type of team we have assembled and the way it was assembled, generally, continuity is his best friend going forward."

That continuity, though, could be a blessing and a curse. While it should help Donovan get players more deeply ingrained into his system, it also raises the expectation levels for a club that Presti (and many others) felt "disappointed" in last season. Despite surrounding Westbrook with George and Anthony, OKC only increased its win total by one (47 to 48) and again exited the playoffs in the opening round.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the Thunder—like the plus-13.5 net rating Westbrook, George, Steven Adams and Andre Roberson posted together—but any rough patches could test the front office's patience. Westbrook turns 30 in November, and George will be 29 six months later. So the window for this core may not be particularly wide.

For whatever reason, the Chicago Bulls waited two full seasons after hiring Fred Hoiberg in 2015 to give him a roster that fit his system.

Why a pace-and-space coach would be given Derrick Rose, Taj Gibson and Pau Gasol one year and then Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo the next boggles the mind. But at least the basketball experiments gone wrong seemed to disappear last season. The 2017-18 pieces looked like they came from Hoiberg's preferred puzzle, and it seems the upcoming campaign should help fill out the picture.

Of course, that just means the franchise will soon be closely evaluating Hoiberg's acumen. Gone are the excuses of mismatching styles and combustible chemistry. Expectations, though, remain present in the Windy City.

Granted, the Bulls probably won't grade next season on the playoffs-or-bust scale. But they'll want to see substantial growth from their biggest investments. Zach LaVine is a $78 million man now, and newcomer Jabari Parker sports a $20 million base salary. Kris Dunn and Lauri Markkanen were two of the primary return prizes in the Jimmy Butler swap in June 2017. Wendell Carter Jr. is the latest top-10 pick to join the fold.

There's plenty of potential here but also some unmistakable obstacles. Is Dunn a clever enough playmaker to steer a good-to-great offense? Are there enough touches to go around to keep the scorers happy? Will LaVine and Parker provide any defensive resistance?

If too many answers come back negative, someone will need to pay. Don't be surprised if fingers are quick to point at the coach who has two playoff wins to show for the first three seasons of his five-year contract. 

To hear Denver Nuggets president Tim Connelly tell it, Michael Malone has nothing to worry about.

"There's improvement across all levels of our team," Connelly said in April, per Gina Mizell of the Denver Post. "I guess [questioning Malone's job status is] the unfortunate narrative of professional basketball, but Mo's done a fantastic job."

Unfortunately for Malone, Connelly was only discussing the skipper's 2018-19 fortune. More worrisome, Malone doesn't have a contract beyond the upcoming campaign, and Connelly declined to discuss a possible extension.

Maybe that's because Malone's track record is a bit confusing. The Nuggets have finished each of the last two seasons better than the previous one, bumping their win total from 33 to 40 to 46 over his tenure.

Problem is, 46 wins don't mean much in the Western Conference. While Denver has come as close to the postseason as a club can and been beset by untimely injuries, Malone is approaching a possible lame-duck season without a playoff berth on his resume. He's also a clunky fit as a defensive-minded coach on a team built to thrive on offense (sixth last season) and hopefully survive on defense (26th).

If the Nuggets have a healthy roster, they will feel good about their odds of ending a five-year playoff drought. Then again, it's possible to envision the West as a 14-team race (sorry, Sacramento), so nothing is guaranteed.

Sirens were sounding before the third-seeded Portland Trail Blazers even opened their series with the sixth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans. Portland's close to the season was as uninspiring as it can get for a 49-win outfit, with a 1-4 record to end the campaign and April's 12th-worst net rating (minus-1.7).

The Blazers appeared to be over-seeded—they were 11th in net rating on the season (plus-1.9)—and undermanned. It also didn't help that they were carrying the stench of six consecutive playoff defeats into that first-round fight.

Portland lost a squeaker in Game 1—thanks in no small part to a 36-point first half—and the series was gone shortly thereafter. The Blazers weren't just swept. They lost the final three games by an average of 11.3 points.

Marc Stein of the New York Times tweeted the following not long after the buzzer sounded on Portland's final defeat: "The murmurs have already started in coaching circles that 10 consecutive playoff defeats will cost Terry Stotts his job."

Stotts survived the summer, but 2018-19 could be a minefield.

The Blazers didn't address their wing deficiency in free agency, but they did spend $48 million for Jusuf Nurkic to block 2017 first-round picks Zach Collins and Caleb Swanigan. Both of the young bigs can shoot, and Collins is mobile enough to survive perimeter switches on defense. This pair could give new life to a core that's threatening to stagnate, but instead, it's stuck behind one of the players responsible for the plateauing.

The team used draft night and its remaining free-agency dollars to stockpile more scoring guards, even though it may soon decide Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum—both established 20-point producers—can't win together.

To Stotts' credit, he's made a living out of maximizing what he has at his disposal. But this roster is flawed (with no money to fix it), and his playoff record is lacking (12-28). His contract is up after next season, and he'd be easier to change out than Lillard or McCollum. The Blazers not only remain committed to their potent perimeter pairing, but teams also don't typically get better when trading one of their top two talents.

Stop what you're thinking—this isn't about LeBron James.

Well, not directly about him, anyway.

"LeBron's not the problem," Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said, per Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times. "It's the outside tension that's the problem. Just put added pressure immediately on the coaches, on his teammates. Now everything you do is under a microscope."

At least Lue had Cleveland's version of a microscope; Luke Walton gets the eyes of Los Angeles on him. And not just any part of L.A., but Lakers Land—a region starving for success. The Lakers haven't been to the playoffs in five years. Before this drought, they'd only missed the big dance five teams total.

Further complicating matters for Walton is the mismatched roster he's been given. It's missing a second star, part heavy on prospects, part built with win-now(ish) veterans and all needing to be somehow wrapped around James. There isn't enough shooting (which James needs), and there might be too much playmaking (which James already supplies). All the incumbents played for a 47-loss group just last season.

The challenge for Walton is major—and, it should be noted, nothing like the one for which he was hired. Two summers back, he was a quick-rising assistant tasked with steering the franchise through a youth movement. Now, he must already prove he's a championship-caliber coach to James (who turns 34 in December), the front office and the star(s) the Lakers will surely chase next summer.

That's enough to fan the flames under the seat of any coach, let alone a 38-year-old with a 61-103 record.

Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from Basketball Reference or NBA.com.

Zach Buckley covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @ZachBuckleyNBA.