NBA: 15 Harshest Coach Firings Of All Time
By Phil Watson
1. 76ers Dump Dolph Schayes (May 2, 1966)
Dolph Schayes had spent his final NBA season as a player also coaching the newly christened Philadelphia 76ers after spending his entire career with their predecessors, the Syracuse Nationals.
A couple of middling seasons later and a retirement as a player later, Schayes hit the jackpot when the 76ers acquired Wilt Chamberlain from the San Francisco Warriors, returning the game’s biggest name to the city where he began his career.
With Chamberlain in tow for a full season, expectations were sky-high entering the 1965-66 season and Schayes and the Sixers delivered a 55-25 regular-season record and the Eastern Division title—the first team not named “Boston Celtics” to win the division crown in a decade.
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The Celtics got through their first-round series to meet the 76ers in a much-anticipated Eastern Division Finals.
It was never a series. Boston won Game 1 at the Philadelphia Convention Hall 115-96, blew out the Sixers in Boston by 21 in Game 2 and closed out the series in five games after Philadelphia saved home court in Game 3.
Schayes had just won NBA Coach of the Year honors. Chamberlain had never beaten the Celtics and arch-nemesis Bill Russell in a playoff series. But owner Irv Kosloff fired Schayes and brought in Alex Hannum to coach the club.
The irony of that decision was thick—Schayes was elevated to player-coach only after Hannum refused to move to Philadelphia from Syracuse in 1963, citing business interests.
The Aftermath For Schayes: Schayes went to work for the NBA as its supervisor of officials from 1966-70 before being hired as the first coach of the Buffalo Braves. He resigned one game into the 1971-72 season. He later coached the U.S. to a gold medal in the 1977 Maccabiah Games and was active as a fundraiser for the worldwide games held for Jewish athletes. He died Dec. 10, 2015, at the age of 87.
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The Aftermath For The 76ers: Hannum guided Philadelphia to a then-record 68 wins and an NBA title in 1966-67, but bolted for the ABA’s Oakland Oaks after the 1967-68 season. The 76ers traded away Chamberlain to the Los Angeles Lakers during the same offseason, remaining a playoff team for another few seasons before a historic collapse in 1972-73.