The NBA’s coaching carousel is still spinning. Three big jobs remain open with the Finals not even halfway over.
The Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, and Portland Trail Blazers are all still searching for head coaches as of Monday. That is a lot of basketball decision-making sitting in limbo while the rest of the league focuses on Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.
The Bulls opening is the most interesting of the three. Billy Donovan stepped down on April 21 after years of trying to keep a roster of competing veterans together. Chicago immediately became a chase team for several of the highest-profile available candidates, including some assistants from the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder staffs. The team has reportedly interviewed a long list of candidates but has not pulled the trigger on any of them yet.
The Mavericks opening is the most chaotic. Jason Kidd and Dallas mutually agreed to part ways on May 19, ending a tenure that included a Finals run in 2024 but went sideways after the team’s surprising 2024-25 collapse and the front office’s continued struggles to surround Anthony Davis and Cooper Flagg with the right pieces. Dallas is reportedly looking for a coach who can develop Flagg into a true MVP-caliber star.
The Trail Blazers opening has been quieter but no less important. Portland is in a full rebuild and needs a coach who can develop young talent and stomach what is going to be another tough season. The job tends to attract assistants who want their first shot at running an NBA team without massive expectations.
The hires that have already happened tell their own story. The Milwaukee Bucks hired Taylor Jenkins on April 30 after Doc Rivers resigned on April 13. Jenkins, the former Memphis Grizzlies head coach, gives Milwaukee a younger voice as they try to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo happy and contending.
The New Orleans Pelicans made the most surprising move of the cycle. They fired Willie Green earlier in the season, then hired Jamahl Mosley on May 18 just two weeks after Mosley was fired by the Orlando Magic. Mosley gets a fresh start with Zion Williamson and a roster that needs reinvention.
The Orlando Magic countered by hiring San Antonio Spurs assistant Sean Sweeney as their new head coach just before the NBA Finals began. Sweeney has been considered one of the top assistants in the league for years and finally gets his shot. The Magic also fired general manager Anthony Parker and reset most of the basketball operations side of the organization.
The remaining three openings will likely be filled in the next two to three weeks, with the goal of having all 30 head coaches in place before the 2026 NBA Draft on June 25-26. That deadline is real because new head coaches typically want a voice in draft decisions, and front offices generally want their new coach on board before they spend lottery capital on a 19-year-old.
The Bulls are reportedly down to a final two or three candidates that include current NBA assistants and at least one former head coach. The Mavericks are considering some bigger names that could include current Spurs assistant Mitch Johnson and one or two G-League head coaches who have built strong reputations. The Trail Blazers have been quiet about their search but are believed to be eyeing a younger candidate who fits the rebuild timeline.
The bigger picture here is that the NBA coaching profession has become a revolving door. Six teams changed coaches this offseason. Two more (the Pelicans and Magic) replaced coaches mid-season. The average tenure for an NBA head coach is dropping every year as front offices get faster and faster to reach for the reset button.
That makes the next three hires especially important. The teams that get this wrong will be back in this position again in two or three years. The teams that get it right could set up a five-to-seven-year run of stability that lets them actually build something.
For now, Bulls, Mavs, and Blazers fans are watching the Knicks-Spurs Finals while waiting on news that affects their own franchise way more than anything happening on the court.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
