In just one night, the three main seasons of the dark horses in the East were reimbursed, and the coaches of the two powerful teams in the West officially announced their resignation, and the old Rockets will face up to 10 years in prison for fraud!
Text: Lao Kan Kanqiu
Editor|Lao Kan Kanqiu
The second round of the NBA playoffs is in full swing, and the situation for teams in the East and West has been somewhat unexpected this year, with several traditional powerhouses, such as the Bucks and 76ers in the East and the Lakers, Suns and Clippers in the West, being eliminated in the first round. In the face of a less-than-expected performance, the head coach has once again been the target of public criticism, taking the black pot of loss, and so far, two teams that have been eliminated in the playoffs have announced the dismissal of their head coach, which can be described as ironic.
Just today, the Phoenix Suns officially announced that the team officially fired head coach Vogel and is currently seeking a new head coach. According to the joint follow-up report of well-known American media reporters Woj and Shams, former Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer has become the biggest favorite for the new head coach of the Suns, negotiations are rapidly underway, and the team's coaching staff is also being reorganized.
The Suns fired former coach Monty Williams last offseason because they were dissatisfied with his coaching performance, and in June of the same year, they hired former championship coach Vogel and signed him to a five-year coaching contract of up to $31 million. The team's new owner, Robert Saver, originally expected Vogel to lead the Suns team with the 'Big Three' to show their strength in the playoffs, but unexpectedly, he was unexpectedly defeated in the first round, and was swept out of the dark horse Timberwolves 4-0, which is simply a shame.
And this also caused Vogel, who had only coached the team for one year, to be fired again, but the Suns still had to pay Vogel a salary of nearly $24 million for the remaining four years. You must know that this season's salary of the Suns ranks third in the league, but during the regular season, they only got a 49-33 record, ranking sixth in the West, and once wandered in the play-off area, and the results were really unsatisfactory.
Regarding Vogel's departure, Suns operating president James Jones later issued a statement, saying: "After a re-examination by the leadership and owners, combined with the team's performance this season, we agreed that the team needs a head coach with a different style to build a championship team, and we also thank Vogel for his hard work for more than a year. ”
Vogel's dismissal has also made many local media in Los Angeles hotly discussed, can the Lakers bring back Vogel? Not long ago, the Lakers officially announced that the team officially fired head coach Darvin Ham. In just one night, the two coaches are out of class, and this is definitely not the end, and it is estimated that more coaches will face a crisis of resignation.
Vogel and Ham were sacked because they couldn't use the troops, while in the East, Knicks coach Thibodeau has been rotated due to a lack of rotation, and the team has as many as three main players announced their season reimbursements: Randle (right shoulder surgery), Bojan Bogdanovic (left foot surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle stress injury). In addition, the team's defensive titan OG-Anunoby also suffered a hamstring strain in the last game, and it is not known when he will be able to return, and the Knicks are really full of injuries.
According to medical expert Jeff Scotts, the average player will need an average recovery period of 13 days for the slightest hamstring strain. According to the schedule, even if the Knicks and Pacers tie seven, it will only be 10 days, which means that Anunoby will almost not be able to play in the second-round series.
Not only that, the team's big core Brunson also suffered a foot injury in the last game, although he played with an injury in the second half and led the team to a comeback to win, but the core seven that head coach Thibodeau trusted rotated, and now there are only 6 left, including: Hart (46.6 minutes per game, first in the league), DiVincenzo (41.7 minutes per game), Hatten, Brunson (43.7 minutes per game, third in the league), Achiuwa and McBride. Is Thibodeau really planning to use a six-player rotation in G3?
In addition, according to the latest report from ESPN reporter Justin Bey, a number of NBA players have been prosecuted for allegedly defrauding NBA league benefits, and many face heavy fines. Among them, in the league insurance fraud case, former Rockets player Terrence Williams, as the mastermind, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, confiscated illegal gains and compensation totaling about 3.1 million US dollars; Former Celtics player Glenn Davis was sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to pay $80,000 in damages; Former Clippers player Kenyan Durin was sentenced to 30 months in prison and sentenced to forfeiture of ill-gotten gains and restitution totaling about $1 million.
According to prosecutors' detailed disclosures, the time span of this fraud case is several years, from 2017 to 2021. During this time, Williams and his accomplices, including several prominent doctors, orchestrated and submitted a large number of forged invoices full of spelling errors and inconsistencies. In this way, they try to reimburse medical expenses that were never actually incurred, and thus make huge ill-gotten gains.
Even more shockingly, prosecutors also revealed that Williams had sent threatening text messages to a key witness after the crime in an attempt to prevent him from revealing the truth.