Atlanta Hawks has dismissed Lloyd Pierce as coach

[Drygon]

The Atlanta Hawks have fired head coach Lloyd Pierce: http://www.insidehoops.com/blog/?p=25327

[8Ball]

Stephen A Smith in shambles. :oldlol:

[DoctorP]

Are they hiring McMillan?

[insight]

Are they hiring McMillan?
They asked Nate to be the interim coach, nothing official yet.
Lloyd Pierce is a good dude but he seemed to be over his head this season getting outcoached on a routine basis.

[Manny98]

BLM

[fsvr54]

I feel like crying tears of happiness!!

Worst coach in my history of Hawks fandom since 05.

[insight]

I feel like crying tears of happiness!!

Worst coach in my history of Hawks fandom since 05.
The problem is how they did it may come back to haunt them. Lloyd Pierce coached practice today and several players found out via social media. Firing a coach so suddenly is not a good look, reports are Nate McMillian is turning down the interim job

[HBK_Kliq_2]

Long overdue I think

[Axe]

I've heard that jim boylen is available

[scuzzy]

Stephen A Smith in shambles. :oldlol:

black firings always deliver the best Screamin A, can't wait

[insight]

black firings always deliver the best Screamin A, can't wait

Each situation is different. Atlanta's GM hired Lloyd Piece as a 1st time head coach with no head coaching experience. The organization was very supportive of his work in the Atlanta community and gave him an opportunity. Stephen A's beef is that more about minority coaches are not given equal an opportunity to be a head coach in the NBA. The only problem with this firing was the timing, dude just finished practice on the road when he was let go. That's pretty cold blooded.

[DoctorP]

This is actually a good move by Atlanta. McMillan is a good coach and should still be coaching Indiana.

[Patrick Chewing]

Saw a few Hawks games this year, and he honestly brought nothing to the table in terms of being an effective leader. This roster has a lot of talent. Yes, they've had injuries, but they should be a lot better than they are now.

[rawimpact]

Black coaches have been historically horrible.

Tyrone Lue is the only one I can think of as a head coach that won anything.

[Smoke117]

Hopefully they replace him with a white coach so we get an hilarious SAS meltdown.

[Hey Yo]

Rick Carlisle says that Atlanta should have kept Pierce solely based on him being a Democrat.


"Carlisle didn’t cite stellar coaching as a reason why the Hawks should have kept Pierce. Instead, Carlisle cited Pierce’s politics.

“Georgia, in very large part because of Lloyd’s work and commitment, went from being a traditional Republican state to a Democratic state … which has massively changed the landscape of our country,” Carlise told reporters.

Of course, Pierce didn’t win over all of Georgia. He didn’t even win over his own team — as a report from The Athletic said ongoing friction between Pierce and Hawks star guard Trae Young was among the reasons why Pierce got canned. Other Hawks players had also grown frustrated with Pierce, per the report.

Carlise is the president of the NBA Coaches Association, so he is naturally going to defend any coach who gets the axe. That’s understandable. Pierce, 44, is also a quality man who has indeed done a lot for his community and has a reputation for treating the people around him with respect.

So this isn’t about Pierce. It’s about Carlisle giving political reasons for why the Hawks should have kept an underperforming coach. Pierce, Carlisle implied, fit the political party with which the NBA strongly identifies, and therefore Pierce should have kept his job.



Another funny thing is.... Popovich wasn't happy about the announcement either.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EvbvIpiWQAEXwjZ?format=jpg&name=small

https://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds/status/1366542471505846278



Yet it was okay when Pop fired SAS coach and had himself take over the HC duties.


Justin Termine@TermineRadio

Popovich fired Bob Hill after going 124-58 in 182 games, and put himself in charge.

How can he question the Hawks firing Lloyd Pierce after going 63-120 in 183 games?

The Hawks actually gave Pierce more time, despite him having far less success than Hill.

https://twitter.com/TermineRadio/status/1366757470371262468

[ShawkFactory]

Black coaches have been historically horrible.

Tyrone Lue is the only one I can think of as a head coach that won anything.

KC Jones, Doc Rivers, Lenny Wilkens

[insight]

Black coaches have been historically horrible.

Tyrone Lue is the only one I can think of as a head coach that won anything.

Coaches who do not coach for large market teams and do not have superstars are historically horrible. Coaching is a performance based job, what many have called for is a more equitable process for the opportunity to coach. Nobody is claiming black coaches are superior but what you are claiming that white coaches are superior is garbage and shows how little you know about the NBA basketball.

[fourkicks44]

I'm a big Lloyd Pierce guy. He is a process legend. He was a great assistant in Philly and there was a noticeable decline in the Sixers' defense when he left for Atlanta.

On the outside seems that it is a stupid decision to fire him, however reports are he lost the team and Trae, Collins hated him deeply.

If he can't reach the players maybe time to move on but perhaps this says more about the players and not the coach.

Good luck Nate

[falconfan13]

I'm a big Lloyd Pierce guy. He is a process legend. He was a great assistant in Philly and there was a noticeable decline in the Sixers' defense when he left for Atlanta.

On the outside seems that it is a stupid decision to fire him, however reports are he lost the team and Trae, Collins hated him deeply.

If he can't reach the players maybe time to move on but perhaps this says more about the players and not the coach.

Good luck Nate


Nah it was easily time to move on just based on his own personal dumb decisions alone. The fact he took capela out of the game almost every night in the last 3 or 4 minutes when we had the lead or were down by like 3 or 4 was ignorant. He is literally the main stopping power we have on defense and keeps leads or stops others from building on that lead. What makes this even worse is he puts Galo in at the 5 which is absurd and has cost us numerous of games this year already. As a person i like Pierce alot no problems there but as a HC and the crazy decisions he makes during a game all the time he was not good at all. No doubt he was bottom tier of the league as a HC and cost us more games than the players and talent on our team should have lost because of more than a number of his decisions. He might still be a very good assistant somewhere where he isn't making the lineup changes or calls and coming up with plays out of timeouts. So i hope he latches on somewhere and does well.

[LukeWalton]

According to BR

Hawks players wanted Lloyd Pierce gone, and actually wanted his brother Paul to coach