The Atlanta Hawks found an easy scapegoat by firing Lloyd Pierce

The Atlanta Hawks have struggled after an impressive start to the season, and head coach Lloyd Pierce paid the price on Monday. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Hawks began the month of March by firing Pierce.

After 34 games the Hawks are 14-20 and are on the outside looking in at a dismal lower playoff bracket in the Eastern Conference. They’re 2.0 games behind the Chicago Bulls, who occupy the last play-in seed spot.

Why Lloyd Pierce was an easy scapegoat for the Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks entered this past offseason with a win-now mandate from ownership and their best player Trae Young, and they made moves like they were a team that had no option other than to make the playoffs. They acquired Danilo Gallinari and Bogdan Bogdanovic, and they added Kris Dunn and Rajon Rondo.

This quartet has played a total of five games.

Trae Young’s production is down a touch since last season, as is that of John Collins, but De’Andre Hunter has had a fantastic bounce-back sophomore season after a rough rookie year, and Clint Capela is leading the NBA in rebounds.

But those moves are what we come back to. These acquisitions are the reason Hawks management and ownership believed that this team might be better, and those acquisitions never got to play for Pierce. So how can general manager Travis Schlenk hold Pierce responsible when these dubious moves for injury-prone players didn’t pan out?

Schlenk is a GM who built previous Hawks rosters without even considering that the team might need a backup point guard, and Pierce had to work around the built-in shortcomings. He has a Golden State Warriors pedigree, having worked under Bob Myers, and he might be living off that reputation at this point.

Following Pierce’s dismissal, Schlenk released a fairly standard statement expressing appreciation for Pierce’s work in Atlanta, but let’s be honest. What Schlenk really appreciated was having somebody lower on the team’s org chart who could take the fall for his own failures.

The Atlanta Hawks were on an upwards trajectory based on internal development, not on Schlenk’s fancy new toy acquisitions. Lloyd Pierce may not be the best coach in the NBA, but nothing shy of a miracle worker could have done much more with this roster.

After a 20-47 record last season, they were on track to improve significantly even with their disappointing 14-20 record. A healthier team could have done better, one whose best new players weren’t held together by popsicle sticks and bubble gum. But as things played out, the Hawks needed a fall guy.

As far as Travis Schlenk was concerned, that could only be one person.

The next coach (either on an interim or full-time basis) will likely be Hawks assistant Nate McMillan, dismissed just months ago by the Indiana Pacers. He got fired less than a week after signing a one-year extension, following a four-game first-round sweep at the hands of the Miami Heat.

Of course, we know now that the Heat went on to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals, which makes that defeat age a bit better for the Pacers.

Will McMillan be able to get more out of this team than Pierce did? Maybe. Probably not. But while provably bad head coaches like Luke Walton continue to run their own bad teams, coaches like Pierce and McMillan himself get swept aside.