A second coach has been relieved of his duties on the bench after 43 games this season in the NBA. The same week the Milwaukee Bucks made a stunning move to fire Adrian Griffin in his first season with a 30-13 record and hire Doc Rivers, the Washington Wizards have made a much less eyebrow raising move after a 7-36 start to the year.
In the midst of his third season as head coach of the team, Wes Unseld Jr. will transition from head coach to a front office role, remaining with the organization but no longer coaching the team. The team announced the move on Thursday morning, hours after their latest loss to the Timberwolves — their fifth loss in a row.
Wizards move Wes Unseld Jr. to front office advisory role and will name an interim coach today and search for replacement in the offseason, team says in statement: pic.twitter.com/VmdxxooEnW
— Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) January 25, 2024
Assistant coach Brian Keefe will take over, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, as he looks to build some kind of positive momentum over the back half of the season.
The Washington Wizards are promoting top assistant Brian Keefe to interim head coach for the rest of the season, sources tell ESPN. He will replace Wes Unseld Jr., who will move into a front office role. Wizards will do a full offseason search for a new head coach. pic.twitter.com/do1A6h64mK
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 25, 2024
That will be hard to do with the roster as currently constructed — and especially so if they continue tearing down in Year 1 of their rebuild at the deadline. Being bad was the plan this season in Washington, but it’s been worse than expected as Jordan Poole has struggled in a starring role, Kyle Kuzma has had ups and downs, and there’s not much in the way of a cohesive team identity at the moment. It might have been a merciful move to not have Unseld’s coaching record (77-130) take any further beating this year (and probably next) as they look to figure out their direction, and they keep the son of a franchise legend employed in the organization, just in a different role.