Report: Raptors to Fire Assistant Coaches; Retain Dwane Casey (Update: Snitch in Locker-Room)

As per Twitter people, the Raptors have decided to retain Dwane Casey and instead clean-up their assistant coaches:

#Raptors' Dwane Casey no longer on hot seat. Per league sources, he’s returning to Toronto for next season, probably with new assistants.
— Mitch Lawrence (@Mitch_Lawrence) May 12, 2015

Clarification on Raps coaching situation. Dwane Casey will return. Management has suggested staff changes. No decisions have been finalized
— Steve Simmons (@simmonssteve) May 12, 2015

Ah, so it was the assistants all along. I bet it was Jesse Mermuys who made the decision not to matchup with Paul Pierce, and I’m almost positive it was Tom Sterner that was at the heart of the Raptors defensive scheme being horrible in the regular season, and league-worst in the playoffs.

All jokes aside, this certainly seems like blame-shifting to the assistants as per the Leafs model and Carlyle. Granted, they’ve probably been poor but who really knows what happens behind the scenes?

I like the phrasing of management “suggesting” changes to the assistant coaching staff, as these are generally picked by the coach. If this is the case, then it certainly sounds like Masai Ujiri’s making some decisions on behalf of his coach, who at this point doesn’t have much leverage when it comes to making a stand.

Isn’t it weird how a poor second-half followed by a 4-game sweep can completely wipe the optimism that you’d think be generated from a 49-win season?

Update:

What should concern the Raps: someone in their inner circle is leaking info before the coaches involved are even aware of their situations.
— Steve Simmons (@simmonssteve) May 12, 2015

Damn, this is not exactly a tightly run ship. I just presumed that those coaches would have already known by now, but it turns out this is leaked information that even the soon-to-be-fired don’t know. Having said that, you don’t need to be a genius to put two and two together and figure there’s going to be a house-cleaning, given some of the coaching failures of this season.

Here are the six assistant coaches: