Iavaroni is in. Avery is out. D’Antoni is…well….no one knows yet. The NBA coaching carousel is in full swing as teams exit the playoffs. I thought I’d weigh in on who is in, who it out, and who is in the rumor mill. If you have been following the NBA drama season you will recognize a few of the names while a few others may surprise you.

Who is out?: Mainly Avery Johnson and Isaiah Thomas at this point. Pat Riley circumvented being given the pink slip by retiring once again. However, Eddie Jordan, Sam Mitchell, and PJ Carlesimo may soon be added to this list. Thomas earned his ax (and his mental hospital admission) with his circus show in New York. I feel bad for Avery Thomas though. He seemed to be a good coach. The players liked him, he won in the season, and even his former boss Mark Cuban could find little bad to say about him. The fact of the matter is that someone’s head needed to roll after the failure of the Jason Kidd experiment. Kidd was too valuable so Avery was next in line.

Who is in?: Coach of the Year winner Byron Scott got his much deserved extension. MJ is looking to tweak his front office experience with the help of Larry Brown. Marc Ivaroni is back in Memphis (I don’t know if the money is worth is to work for such a lousy franchise, they gave away Jerry West and Pau Gasol for nothing to show). Mo Cheeks is getting more time to reap his seeds of youth in Portland. Kelvin Sampson didn’t like the NCAA rules so he decided to take his skills to the Bucks (HAHAHAHA Barry, I told you the Bucks really don’t care about winning). George Karl looks like he is bringing his unorthodox sumo ways back to the Mile High city. And it looks like Rick Carlisle is going to get a much deserved look from Dallas.

I’m usually not this much into the coaching realm in the NBA, but it seems like many deserving coaches are being bounced for not reaching the “win now” mantra in the playoffs. There is only 1 NBA champion every season and right now Greg Popavich looks really cozy as the coach to feel relief from being in that position.

Just for fun, here is that hilarious pre-game ritual of George Karl and his staff. There was more intensity in from the coaching staff than there was from the players during the game!