A coaching change occurred at the top of the Eastern Conference earlier this week when the Milwaukee Bucks fired first-time coach Adrian Griffin and replaced him with experienced sideline leader Doc Rivers. On Thursday morning, another is on the way after the Washington Wizards announced that Wes Unseld Jr. would be leaving his duties as head coach and will be transitioning to a front office role.
Wes Unseld Jr. assumed Washington's head coaching job in the summer of 2021. During his tenure as Wizards head coach, the 48-year-old amassed a record of 77-130. This season, the 7-36 Wizards have the second-worst mark in the Association just above the 5-39 Detroit Pistons.
Washington has reportedly named Brian Keefe as interim coach. The Wizards still reportedly plan to make a full-scale head coaching search during the offseason. Whoever assumes the role will oversee a rebuild for the foreseeable future. With the Wizards on the hunt for a new head coach, here are some potential replacements to assume Wes Unseld Jr.'s seat.
Adrian Griffin
Too soon? But why not? Adrian Griffin deserves another chance.
He deserved that chance with the Milwaukee Bucks, who unceremoniously gave him the pink slip, despite leading his team to a 30-13 mark and the second-best record in the NBA. While yes, this is a brutal business, Griffin deserved to at least get a full season under his belt. He simply did not get the chance to prove himself in Milwaukee.
Perhaps the Wizards could give him that chance. Griffin has spent 15 years as an assistant, so his experience on the sidelines cannot be questioned. Before assuming the head coaching role in Milwaukee, where he actually started his assistant coaching career in 2008, Griffin had stops in Chicago, Orlando, Oklahoma City, and finally Toronto, where he won an NBA championship.
The Wizards could be a good chance for him to show that he can be a legitimate head coach in the NBA. Unlike the Bucks, this is a team that does not have any lofty expectations for the next few years, so there's not much pressure on his part. It's tough for first-time head coaches like Griffin to get placed into high-pressure situations, where there is an immediate need to win. Perhaps he can establish himself in Washington and prove that he could help develop a rebuilding program.
James Borrego
James Borrego is another coach the Wizards could look to hire to replace Wes Unseld Jr.. Borrego is currently the associate head coach for the New Orleans Pelicans. He last served as a head coach with the Charlotte Hornets. After being mostly an assistant coach throughout his NBA career, the Mexican-American finally got a full-time coaching role with the Hornets to make him the first Latino head coach in NBA history.
Borrego made steady progress through his Hornets tenure, going from a 23-42 record during the shortened 2019-20 season, to 33-49 in 2020-21, to 43-39 in 2021-22. With a budding star in LaMelo Ball leading the way, Charlotte looked like a rising team in the East.
However, the Hornets front office never gave him the chance to prove that he can lead the franchise back to the postseason. Borrego was fired after they lost to the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Play-In Tournament. Despite failing to make the playoffs, the Hornets still finished with an above-.500 record, the first time they did so since the 2015-16 season. Overall, Borrego tallied a record of 138-163 in his four years as head coach of the Hornets.
Borrego could be a good option to lead another rebuilding franchise like the Wizards. His track record shows that he is capable of doing so during his time in Charlotte.
Kenny Atksinson
Another former coach and current assistant the Wizards can look to hire is Kenny Atkinson. Atkinson is currently on the sidelines for the Golden State Warriors as an assistant coach. He has been under coach Steve Kerr's staff since 2021 and he helped the Warriors during their 2022 championship run.
Atkinson previously served as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets from 2016 to 2020. He steered the ship that helped the Nets back to relevance during the 2018-19 season, where they won 42 games and made the Eastern Conference playoffs as the sixth seed, where they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round.
He and the Nets mutually agreed to part ways late in the 2019-20 season because he reportedly did not fit what the Nets were trying to build after landing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the offseason. Before Brooklyn, he had spent four years as an assistant with the New York Knicks (2008 to 2012) and four years with the Atlanta Hawks (2012 to 2016).
Atkinson was previously supposed to land his second head coaching job with the Charlotte Hornets in 2022. But he opted to remain in Golden State after they won the championship. Perhaps this upcoming opening with the Wizards will get him back to being a head coach in the NBA.
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