Hornets Fire Scott As Head Coach

Sports News - November 12th, 2009 - Written by John

Despite winning the NBA's Coach of The Year award after the 2007-08 season, Byron Scott is out as head coach of the New Orleans Hornets, becoming the first coached to be axed this year. The team fired Scott on Thursday, just nine games into his sixth season with the club. Replacing him will be general manager Jeff Bower on an interim basis until a more permanent decision can be made on a team that has disappointed in NBA Sportsbooks so far this year.

Tim Floyd, who once coached the team earlier in the decade, has been brought in to be an assistant coach on Bower's staff, a flip from the 2003-04 season when Floyd was the coach and Bower was his assistant.

“As we look at our long-term coaching plans, it’s not about who the head coach is, it’s about the role of the head coach to get the team to perform to their capabilities and reaching our potential this season,” Bower wrote in a release.

Bower has been a member of the franchise for almost 20 years, rising from the ranks of scout to GM in 2001, a position he has gone back-and-forth to since.

Firing coaches early has been an epidemic as of recent. Last year, six coaches were fired by mid-December, setting an NBA record and inspiring an article in Time magazine covering the issue.

Scott won the top coaching honor after his fourth season with the team in which he guided to a 56-26 record and a Southwest division title. They were a game from making it to the conference finals in the playoffs with terrific chemistry between guard Chris Paul and center Tyson Chandler, before eventually losing in Game Seven to the San Antonio Spurs. But since, the Hornets have fallen to mediocrity, and sources of Yahoo! Sports have revealed that owner George Shinn was pressing for Bowen to make a change recently.

Last year, the pressure began early after the team got off to a slow start, finished 49-33, and was routed by the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs. Bower shuffled much of the roster in the offseason, trading Chandler to the Charlotte Bobcats for center Emeka Okafor, in hopes of getting back to elite status in the Western Conference. But the pair hasn't displayed nearly the same fluidity and has started 3-6. They are the only team to lose to the New York Knicks thus far and four of their losses have been by at least 16 points.

The Hornets only lead the Memphis Grizzlies in the division standings, and are 2 1/2 games behind the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets for first place in the division.

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