Whipped Cream Difficulties

Missed this one until I was tipped off by, shockingly, Mike the Musicologist:

Doc Rivers was fired as head coach of the Clippers yesterday.

The precipitating incident for this seems to have been the team blowing a 3-1 lead in the playoffs and losing to Denver. He was 356-208 in seven seasons, but the team has struggled in the playoffs.

The Clippers’ job becomes the sixth current vacancy in the NBA, along with Houston, Indiana, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and New Orleans. New York, Brooklyn and Chicago have already filled vacancies in their offseasons.

Also noteworthy:

Rivers’ departure means the league also is down to four Black coaches currently with jobs: Lloyd Pierce in Atlanta, J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland, Monty Williams in Phoenix and Dwane Casey in Detroit. Rivers is the third Black coach to either step down or be fired this offseason, joining Nate McMillan in Indiana and Alvin Gentry in New Orleans.

Edited to add: fixed the poor formatting introduced by trying to use the visual editor in the WordPress app on the iPhone.

Jim Boylen out as Chicago Bulls coach. Tribune.

He was 39-84 over “parts of two seasons”, which I believe works out to a .317 winning percentage.

(Are they playing pro basketball now? I haven’t noticed.)

Sports firings have been kind of slow recently. With very little sports going on, who’s going to get fired and why?

Answer: Nikita Lowry Dawkins, assistant women’s basketball coach at Texas Tech. And head coach Marlene Stollings.

As for the why…

The termination follows a USA TODAY investigation into what 10 players allege was an abusive culture…

…

Wednesday’s report by USA TODAY Sports, in collaboration with The Intercollegiate, was based on season-ending exit interviews with players from the past two seasons, other documents and interviews with 10 players, two former assistant coaches and two parents. Six of the players spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Among the claims from players:
Coaches directed players to maintain an heart rate of at least 90% of capacity during play or face conditioning assignments or risk losing playing time.
The three international players on rosters the past two seasons allegedly faced treatment such as being ridiculed, isolated and threatened by coaches. Brazil native Marcella LaMark said Stollings told LaMark her fitness lagged so far behind teammates’ that she was “dangerous” to them.
Emma Merriweather, a 6-5 center, said she was admonished by coaches for displaying symptoms of depression, for which she was eventually diagnosed. She was also allegedly told by assistant coach Lowry Dawkins to snap a rubber band on her wrist when she had a negative thought.
Five players alleged Petrella sexually harassed players, making suggestive comments to one player and using a therapy technique that involved applying pressure to some players’ chests and pubic bones and groins.
Three players said Stollings retaliated by holding tougher practices after they brought abuse claims to school officials, including Judi Henry, executive senior associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator.

The “Petrella” mentioned above is strength and conditioning coach Ralph Petrella. He resigned in March.

Things have been kind of slow on the sports firings front. With no real sports being played, who’s firing people?

Answer: the Chicago Bulls, who just fired Gar Forman as their general manager.

Ron Jans out as head coach of FC Cincinnati. This is being presented as a “resignation”, but it is a resignation that comes after he was accused of using “racial slurs”.

“As Major League Soccer’s investigation unfolded and some themes emerged, Ron offered his resignation and we agreed that it was the best course of action for everyone involved with FC Cincinnati,” club President Jeff Berding said in a team news release.

The first games in the new XFL season took place over the weekend.

The first firing took place today.

Pepper Johnson was fired as defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Wildcats.

Also, Anthony Johnson, linebacker and one of the team captains, declared on Twitter that he’s a free agent.

I wonder if the check didn’t clear…

The New York Knickerbockers have fired team president Steve Mills.

Mills joined the Knicks as general manager in 2013 — just two days before training camp — and got fired two days before the 2020 trade deadline.

Don’t have a lot of time for this right now (I’m stealing five minutes from work), but: Carlos Beltran out as Mets manager.

This seems to be being spun as a resignation, or a mutual decision, rather than an out and out firing.

Goofus tells his players to high stick opponents.

Gerald Gallant gets fired by the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Gallant has a 118-75-20 record with the Golden Knights, having led them to the Stanley Cup Final in the team’s inaugural season in 2017-18, the same year he won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year. But the Knights have been underwhelming in the standings this season with a record of 24-19-6. Their .551 points percentage ranks ninth in the conference.

The MLB cheating scandal claims another head: Alex Cora out as Red Sox manager.

Cora was a former Astros bench coach, and was implicated in setting up the Astros cheating scheme: MLB has not announced any discipline for him yet, but there are allegations that he also set up a cheating scheme with the 2018 Red Sox.

Cora, who worked as an ESPN analyst before leaving for the Astros, played 14 MLB seasons, including parts of four seasons with the Red Sox, winning the 2007 World Series with Boston. He also played for the Dodgers, Indians, Mets and Rangers before finishing his career with the Washington Nationals in 2011.

There’s an interesting piece at ESPN about how other teams are reacting to Rob Manfred’s disciplinary actions:

Multiple ownership-level sources told ESPN that dissatisfaction with the penalties had emerged following a conference call with Manfred, in which he explained how the Astros would be disciplined, then told teams to keep their thoughts to themselves.
“The impression,” one person familiar with the call told ESPN, “was that the penalty for complaining would be more than Houston got.”

…

Initially, Manfred planned on limiting the investigation to the Astros. Now MLB is looking into the Red Sox — and considering that their use of an Apple Watch to relay signs in August 2017 was the original sin of modern technological cheating, the penalties for any second offense could be severe. Though they’re the only other team with a known investigation pending, Sports Illustrated reported that the Astros named eight other teams they believe cheated in 2017 and 2018 — and Crane said “the commissioner assured me that every team and every allegation will be checked out.”

I just got back from the doctor and don’t feel much like extended blogging, but I wanted to get this up:

Astros GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch fired.

This is in the wake of MLB’s findings on the 2017 Astros cheating scandal (they were using video cameras to steal signs: both men have also been suspended by the commissioner for a year.

More from ESPN:

The scheme itself, Manfred wrote, began in 2017 and evolved throughout the course of the season. After initially using video-replay personnel to decode the opposing catcher’s signs via a center-field camera and relaying the information to the bench via phone or text message, Cora “arranged for a video room technician to install a monitor displaying the center field camera feed immediately outside of the Astros’ dugout,” according to the report. Players watched the camera live and, upon decoding the sign, hit the trash can with a bat — and sometimes a Theragun — to signal to the hitter which pitch was coming. Initially, they had tried clapping, whistling or yelling, Manfred wrote, but players determined the trash can was the best use of relaying the sign.

In addition, the Astros lost their first and second round draft picks in 2020 and 2021, and have been fined FIVE! MILLION! DOLLARS!