NBA 2015-16 All-Axed-Coaches Team

Derek Fisher was fired by the New York Knicks on Monday, making him the fifth head coach to be fired during the 2015-16 season. Photo Courtesy AP Photo/Lynne Sladky.

In-season coaching firings are nothing new in the NBA. Since 1980-81, there has always been at least one coach to get the axe over the course of the season. 9 coaches were dropped during the 2004-05 season and 8 were fired during the 2008-09 campaign. This season, 5 head coaches were let go with a sixth coach holding on to his job for now. There's a few teams that may make changes at some point, but things look quiet on the coach-slashing front for now.

So with the dust having settled, let's take a look at the best players to play during these released coaches' tenures. There are going to be some substantial names on this list, which may be a testament to these coaches' inability to cultivate the talent they had in these go-arounds. Some of these guys may get chances somewhere else, but for now we bid them farewell and nothing but the best.

COACHING TENURES COVERED

Kevin McHale: Houston 2011-2015

Jeff Hornacek: Phoenix 2013-2016

Lionel Hollins: Brooklyn 2014-2016

David Blatt: Cleveland 2014-2016

Derek Fisher: New York 2014-2016

POINT GUARDS

Kyrie Irving (Cleveland, 2014-2016)

100 games, 20.9 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 4.9 APG

Eric Bledsoe (Phoenix, 2013-2016)

124 games, 17.9 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 5.9 APG

Goran Dragic (Houston, 2011-12; Phoenix 2013-2015)

194 games, 16.3 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 5.2 APG

Kyle Lowry (Houston, 2011-12)

47 games, 14.3 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 6.6 APG

SHOOTING GUARDS

James Harden (Houston, 2011-2015)

285 games, 26.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 6.4 APG

Brandon Knight (Phoenix, 2015-2016)

53 games, 18.3 PPG, 3.4 RPG, 4.9 APG

SMALL FORWARDS

LeBron James (Cleveland, 2014-2016)

119 games, 25.1 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 7.0 APG

Carmelo Anthony (New York, 2014-2016)

87 games, 22.5 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 3.7 APG

Chandler Parsons (Houston, 2011-2015)

213 games, 14.1 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 3.3 APG

POWER FORWARDS

Kevin Love (Cleveland, 2014-2016)

125 games, 16.2 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 2.3 APG

Thaddeus Young (Brooklyn, 2014-2016)

81 games, 14.7 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 1.6 APG

CENTERS

Dwight Howard (Houston, 2013-2015)

154 games, 16.5 PPG, 11.7 RPG, 1.6 APG

Brook Lopez (Brooklyn 2014-2016)

125 games, 18.4 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 1.1 APG

The NBA According to Scenarioball

Happy Monday and Happy Black History Month! I hope you had a great weekend.

A lot of exciting stuff will be coming your way this month, including my first video for the Scenario Mode YouTube channel. I'm still working on my rhythm from recording games to editing to posting. So as of this writing, my first video isn't ready just yet. In the meantime, I decided to give you a post that puts my new game Scenarioball into perspective. While I have done some tabulations for individual games, I eventually wanted to look at my game from a more macro level. The beginning of a new month seems like a good time to reflect.

Below are NBA team Scenarioball stats through January 31st. While the game can get much more advanced by tracking things such as ugly-looking shots and missed open layups, I figured I would keep it simple and look up the tracked stats that you can find in the NBA.com stats section.

It's really cool to see it all laid out in front of me. Here are a few loose observations I extract from the numbers:

• I'm not surprised that in terms of what I enjoy the most about basketball, the Warriors bring it the most and in spades. Every Warriors game I watch has been an event for me. I have been particularly enamored with the play of Steph Curry like almost everyone else, but Golden State's entertainment value is a team effort. I'm looking forward to seeing if they can cap off a historic season, dunking and dropping treys along the way.
• Depsite their underacheiving, the Rockets seem to still be entertaining to watch. I had been avoiding Rockets games up to this point because of the organizational and defensive mess they're in, as well as their outright refusal to play the raw but talented K.J. McDaniels. In the face of these stats, maybe I'll give them a look when they come back around on the national schedule.
• When Doc Rivers replaced Vinny Del Negro as coach of the Clippers in 2013, Blake Griffin quipped that Lob City "[didn't] exist anymore". Yet there they are, leading the NBA in alley-oops, propelling themselves into 3rd place in the Scenarioball standings. A few things turn me off from the Clippers. Among them are Doc's constant whining for calls (more than what's normal for NBA players and coaches), torpedoing his roster with each transaction, and the team's below-average logos and uniforms. Biases aside, there's no doubt the Clippers are fun to watch.
• It's hilarious that the worst team in the league are a Top 10 Scenarioball team, coming in at #9. We should get them a trophy! The Bulls, my favorite team, are all the way down at #20.
• The Brooklyn Nets are at the bottom of the Scenarioball standings with only 118(!) points. They're 48 games into the season, yet are barely over 100 points. If you doubled the Nets' point total, it would still fall short of the second-to-last Hornets. After all of the fanfare of moving into a cool, new arena in the heart of Brooklyn and paying big bucks to be an immediate contender, this franchise has stagnated. The team is attempting to transition with the removal of head coach Lionel Hollins and reassignment of GM Billy King. At this point in American history, however, the future is up in the air. They will be hard to watch for the foreseeable future.

There's a look at the NBA according to basic Scenarioball. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do any of these findings surprise you? Are their teams you enjoy or dislike that are in different places in the standings? I will definitely be updating the stats and adding some advanced categories at a later date. I also want to comb through the college ranks, too, but with 351 schools, that post will take awhile.