Terry Stotts

In his 8th season at the helm of the Trailblazers, coach Terry Stotts is at a crossroads. He’s overseen the successful changing of the guard from LaMarcus Aldridge to Damian Lillard as the team’s superstar, and the positive cultural identity that brings.

With Stotts patrolling the sideline, the Blazers have reached the playoffs for seven straight seasons, winning a pair of Divisional titles and making the Western Finals last season.

Blazers GM Neil Olshey, despite last seasons success, chose to shake things up in the off season, letting starting forwards Mo Harkless and Al Farouq Aminu depart, with the headline addition being much maligned Miami big man Hassan Whiteside.

The results haven’t been great. Portland are at the bottom of the (admittedly strong) Southwest Division, and sit outside the surprisingly open Western Conference playoff picture.

Stotts, for all of the positives he’s brought to Portland, hasn’t found a way to vary the offense and take attention away from star guards Lillard and CJ McCollum. In the playoffs, teams have consistently picked on the Blazers defensively challenged back court.

Success tends to cover over cracks such as those, but once that record starts to slide, so does a coaches safety net.

The Blazers are missing starting bigs Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic. Once those two return, the heat will be on Stotts to get things back on track.

If he can get the Blazers back to the playoffs and make waves once there, the goodwill generated by his previous performances should carry him through. If they’re on the outside looking in, Portland could look to make a change at the top – both Stotts and Olshey will be looking over their shoulders.

Luke Walton

There was a time when Luke Walton had it all.

The son of an NBA Hall of Famer, Luke himself had a long and successful playing career, including being a starter on a pair of championship teams.

As a developing young coach, he took over the Warriors for a period in in the 2015-16 season. With Steve Kerr injured, he led the Warriors to a 39-4 record. The most sought after young coach in the league was snapped up by his beloved Lakers, and immediately cemented his reputation as a players' coach.

With LeBron in town, being nice to people didn't cut it anymore. Walton proved unable to handle the 'win now' pressures of coaching James nor the personalities that he brought with him.

Whilst his sacking was inevitable, landing a job with the young Kings, replacing the successful but abrasive Dave Joeger seemed the cushiest of landings.

About that.....

The Kings started 0-5 and whilst they've righted the ship since that horrid start, this just isn't the Kings side that almost made last season's playoffs.

Marvin Bagley's suspension and De'Aaron Fox's injury have kept two of the teams best sidelined, but the Kings have frankly performed better without them.

That may seem like a slight against those two, but it's really a concern that Coach Walton hasn't figured out how to best use his two cornerstone players.

It's all well and good to get role players playing hard, and slowing the game down to keep things close, but these Kings are made to run.

Walton's challenge is to merge the run and gun stylings of Fox, Bagley, Buddy Hield et al with a solid defensive base. Basically, see if he can make this team a mini Warriors.

Yes, that's a thankless task. So far, Walton hasn't looked up to it, though. Surely the Sacramento decision makers will give him the season to figure things out, although they've made hasty calls on coaches before.

At 38 years old, Walton is still a very young coach, but it's fair to say that he's no longer the Bright Young Hope that he was just two years ago.

Watch the NBA on Kayo - grab a two week free trial here!