NBA Hot Seat Rankings: Doc Rivers, Jamahl Mosley, more

· Yahoo Sports

Being an NBA head coach is a thankless job, one filled with stress, long hours and the heavy burden of expectations. Making matters worse is that in today's reactionary, need-it-now society, results aren't just expected - they're expected as soon as possible. And if they aren't met, changes are made without hesitation.

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Just look at the case of current New York Knicks head coach Mike Brown, who formerly held the same title with the Sacramento Kings. Brown won Coach of the Year in 2022-23 after leading Sacramento to a 48-34 regular season and a third-place finish in the vaunted Western Conference. Even though the team fell short of expectations in the playoffs, as well as the following campaign, going 46-36 the year after and missing the playoffs (they lost in the Play-In Tournament), for Brown to have been fired just 31 games into the 2024-25 season, just one-plus campaign after winning Coach of the Year, was nothing short of shocking. And quite frankly, a little ridiculous.

Well, thankfully for Brown, he's now in a much more stable team environment, and shouldn't feel any sort of pressure about his security now after the job he's done thus far this season with the Knicks, leading the team to a 48-25 record and a third-place spot in the East. But the same can't be said for a lot of his counterparts in the profession, who we are about to discuss now.

Below, check out our current hot-seat ranking for 2025-26 NBA head coaches.

1. Doc Rivers (Milwaukee)

Team record: 29-43Career record with Bucks: 94-96

It's almost a surprise that Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers has even made it this far into Milwaukee's disastrous 2025-26 campaign, with the team currently sitting at 29-43 and 12th in the Eastern Conference.

Rivers' seat couldn't get much hotter, as we actually think it's likelier both he and Milwaukee superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo will be gone this offseason than it is that they will both be back.

Deserved or not, the Bucks entered 2025-26 with some level of expectations, as is always the case when a team boasts a roster with a superstar of Antetokounmpo's ilk on it. The team went 48-34 last season before losing in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual Eastern Conference finalist, the Indiana Pacers. That made it two seasons in a row in which Rivers failed to lead Milwaukee out of the first round of the playoffs, as the season prior, the Bucks were likewise eliminated by the Pacers in the first round, though that time in six games.

There has been some player backlash to Rivers' coaching this season, too, with veteran players like Myles Turner and Kyle Kuzma being confused by their roles and usage (via The Athletic)

“I’m trying to figure it out, man. Honestly, I’m trying to figure all that out,” Turner said after shootaround on Tuesday. “Some days, I’ll play 22 (minutes). Some days, it’s 28. I think everybody in the organization is trying to figure it out — just different lineups, different combination of guys. “At times, we like to go with switching lineups, so they put Jericho (Sims) or Ous (Ousmane Dieng) or Kuz (Kyle Kuzma), one of those guys at my position. But all I can do is go out there, just stay consistent, put my work in every single day, just to be available and be healthy. And whatever’s asked of me to do, just go out there and do.”

All in all, we do agree that the Bucks have endured some bad luck over recent seasons, as their superstar acquisition, Lillard, didn't take the team to another level as was expected of him, before he blew out his Achilles and headed home to re-join the Portland Trail Blazers. And Antetokounmpo himself missed a ton of time this season due to injury troubles, too, two things that Rivers couldn't really control.

But there have been enough coaching-related issues with the team over recent seasons for us to be confident Rivers doesn't have much time left as the Bucks head coach. Easy call here to say his seat is the hottest among all NBA head coaches right now.

2. Jamahl Mosley (Orlando)

Team record: 38-34Career record with Magic: 182-218

Speaking of falling short of expectations, perhaps no NBA head coach this season has been a more prime example of that than Orlando Magic shot-caller Jamahl Mosley.

After the team went all in on 2025-26, trading four first-round picks and a pick swap to the Memphis Grizzlies for solid starting 2-guard, Desmond Bane, a lot was expected out of Orlando this season, especially with a returning core featuring Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, as well as solid role players like Jalen Suggs.

Well, things haven't quite panned out for the Magic, as the team sits at 38-34 (and losers of six straight) thus far this season, and is placed firmly in the Play-In Picture as the East's No. 10 seed. Of course, that can't all be pinned on Mosley, as Wagner has missed a lot of the campaign due to a tough ankle injury, while Suggs has likewise been in and out of the lineup due to his own health issues.

Even then, Banchero hasn't missed much time, nor has the team's big offseason pickup, Bane, so for the team to be in the weaker conference's 10th seed with just weeks left in the regular season paints a questionable picture of Mosley, one that makes us wonder about his job security this offseason, especially if the Magic are a first-round out in the playoffs - or, even worse, if they miss the playoffs altogether.

Things really started to come to a head in early March when Banchero, not for the first time, seemed to take a public shot at his head coach, Mosey (via Yahoo! Sports):

Following the game, Paolo Banchero suggested the problem stemmed from in-game adjustments. He indicated that opponents are making changes that the Magic have not countered effectively. “Other teams make adjustments at halftime; we don’t make any.” Banchero later emphasized the need for improved communication and organization when teams alter their approach. The Magic, at 31-28, remain seventh in the East but face mounting pressure to regain consistency.

Mosley seemed to defend himself, indicating that the problem in that specific defeat was related to effort and not to coaching adjustments:

The coach instead highlighted increased defensive pressure and transition execution as decisive factors. His explanation shifted the emphasis toward effort and physicality. “The one adjustment that Detroit made last night, they just played a little harder. There was no schematic adjustment that they made.” “They built walls in transition. As we were getting downhill in the first half, they were building a bigger wall than we were able to get downhill in those situations.”

There have been further reports all season saying that it's possible Mosley has lost the locker room...

According to RG sources, there is a “growing disconnect” between franchise cornerstone Paolo Banchero and head coach Jamahl Mosley. The source described communication between the two as strained, adding that members of the organization have grown concerned about Banchero’s level of engagement with his coach during games. Sources familiar with the situation said communication between Banchero and Mosley has become almost non-existent during timeouts, and the star forward often avoids eye contact when the coach addresses the team in huddles.  “This is what a team looks like when a coach loses the locker room,” one source said. “He needs to figure it out fast. This is on track to go from being the fun young team that has a lot of potential to being the disappointment that gets the coach fired.”

...though that seems pretty obvious when the team's star player thinks it's fine to call out his head coach to the media.

Ultimately, Mosley, who boasts a career head coaching record of 182-218, is very much on the hot seat, and if it weren't for the job Rivers is doing in Milwaukee, we'd say Mosley's seat is the hottest of any NBA head coach heading into the 2026 playoffs.

3. Billy Donovan (Chicago)

Team record: 29-43Career record with Bulls: 224-248

The Billy Donovan situation in Chicago is a tricky one to decipher.

On the one hand, he's done a meh job - and that's putting it kindly - with the Bulls, boasting a losing record through six seasons, and leading the team to the playoffs just once in that entire timeframe. With results like that, a lot of other, if not most other, head coaches would have been fired by now. But the Bulls, for whatever reason, have decided to be just fine with mediocrity for the past decade-plus, so we don't see any reason why Donovan's seat would be any hotter than it should have been in seasons past. It's not like the Bulls picked up some major pieces last summer and expected to be a Top 4 seed in the East this year.

We must admit, though, Donovan has earned a lot of respect for his 10-plus season NBA head coaching career, as well as for his time in Gainesville, winning back-to-back national championships with the Florida Gators in the late 2000s. So we could see this situation going in a multitude of different directions. Donovan, who's now 60 years old, could very well just choose to retire this offseason. Or he could head back to the college ranks and join a vaunted blue-blood in need of a head coach... perhaps a certain recently-opened-up job in the Tar Heel State might appeal to him.

Or the Bulls could finally come to their senses and realize it's time for change, and oust their head coach the summer after they inexplicably decided to sign him to a multi-year extension. (That Bulls' 39-43 regular-season run in 2024-25 was just so impressive it definitely warranted a multi-year extension for Donovan.)

Regardless, we're viewing this from the lens of pretending the Bulls are a well-run organization right now, and Donovan's results have left us with no choice but to say his seat should be one of the hottest in the NBA heading into the offseason.

4. Doug Christie (Sacramento)

Team record: 19-54Career record with Kings: 46-78

It may be hard to remember now, but the Sacramento Kings did enter 2025-26 with a bit of buzz around them, as the team went 27-24 with then-interim head coach Doug Christie at the helm, after he took over for the fired Brown one-third of the way into the season. The Kings followed that up by adding Dennis Schroeder and Russell Westbrook in the offseason, which, coupled with having an entire offseason with former All-Star Zach LaVine (the team picked him up last trade deadline), led to some hope of at least a playoff run for Sacramento this season.

Well, those hopes quickly died, as the Kings started the campaign off 8-29 and never came close to sniffing even a Play-In spot again, leading us to believe the seat will be hot under Christie this summer, even if it was just his first season as a full-time head coach.

The only reason Christie doesn't rank even higher in this exercise is the fact that it is just his first full season at the helm of the team. Sacramento already caught flak for firing Brown so soon after he won Coach of the Year, so is it really going to want to repeat history and abruptly fire yet another head coach? If the Kings were to fire Christie, who would even want that job, considering the weak roster and the franchise's propensity for having a short leash with its head coaches?

At the same time, the team has been unquestionably awful, and the Kings did have some level of expectations heading into the campaign, so that has to be taken into account, too. If this weren't Christie's first full year on the job, though, he might rank first on this list, even if the team did face a plethora of injury troubles, including to team star Domantas Sabonis and the up-and-coming Keegan Murray. Even missing players of that caliber is no excuse to have a bottom-four record in the league.

5. Ime Udoka (Houston)

Team record: 43-29Career record with Rockets: 136-100

In Ime Udoka's second season with the Houston Rockets, the team went 52-30, but fell in the first round of the playoffs after a seven-game battle with the Golden State Warriors. Then, hype for the 2025-26 Rockets season really started to build when, in the offseason, the team added future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, Kevin Durant, as well as solid role players in Dorian Finney-Smith and Josh Okogie.

The Rockets have been disappointing on the season, however, and barring a run in the playoffs, we think Udoka's seat might be warmer than expected just three years into his Rockets head coaching career.

Not only is Houston 43-29 on the season, but it is also 4-6 in its last 10 games, so the team's form as we get close to the playoffs isn't in the best shape. Another first-round exit could spell trouble for Udoka's tenure, particularly the season after adding a talent like Durant, after also getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs the campaign prior.

The Rockets' most recent loss, a 110-108 overtime defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves, was especially troubling, as Houston became the first team in the last 29 years to lose a game in which it was up by 10 or more points in overtime.

To make matters worse, Houston was actually up 108-95 with 2:50 left in overtime before losing.

In fairness to Udoka, the team's roster construction does have its flaws, particularly with a lack of shooting outside of Durant and Reed Sheppard, and once rebound-gobbling man, Steven Adams, went down for the season with injury, the Rockets could no longer pummel foes on the offensive glass, which hurt them more than fans may realize. The team is also missing another starter in Fred VanVleet, which the organization will undoubtedly take into account once it enters decision-making mode this offseason.

But we think that if the Rockets are eliminated in the first round once again, Udoka's job is the one that could be on the line.

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: NBA Hot Seat Rankings: Doc Rivers, Jamahl Mosley, more

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