It?s good to be able to count on things.  An NBA season reaches its midpoint, and coaches start getting fired.

Cleveland canned John Lucas even though he was doing basically what he should have been doing given that roster.  AOL fired Atlanta head man Lon Kruger when he failed to get wins from a group including Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Jason Terry and Glenn Robinson.  Clippers coach Alvin Gentry defies all odds and clings to his job.  In Toronto, Lenny Wilkens gets kicked around more than a football at a Toronto Argonauts? practice.

Atlanta probably shouldn?t have hired Kruger in the first place.  He came from the college ranks, but hadn?t distinguished himself as anything more than pretty good.  With the Hawks, he struggled to come up with a system that would maximize his players? talents and translate into wins.

Still, it?s tough to pin the blame entirely on Kruger.  Terry, Abdur-Rahim and Robinson are good players, but few coaches have figured out a way to satisfy three primary scorers.  Add in Robinson?s disdain for defense, a serious lack of backcourt depth, and Kruger was presented with a recipe for disappointment.

The Hawks aren?t much better since giving the helm to Terry Stotts.  They won their first game under Stotts, then lost six in a row.  A two-game winning streak without Robinson had folks muttering that perhaps he was the problem all along.  Following those wins with five consecutive losses ? two of them without Robinson ? suggests that the team?s problems run far deeper than the coaching.

The latest coach to have his head removed is Lucas.  The Cavaliers dumped him and installed Keith Smart as the new man in charge.  It?s a classic case of the coach getting blamed for decisions made by someone else.

Lucas didn?t pick the useless DeSagna Diop.  He didn?t trade the Brendan Haywood for big stiff Michael Doleac, or Andre Miller for Darius Miles.  He didn?t stock the team with NBA tykes and fossils.  All that was done by general manager Jim Paxson.

There?s no question that the Cavaliers stink.  But, it?s unfair to suggest that Lucas didn?t make any progress with the players.  Ricky Davis, who first tried to sign with Minnesota (Cleveland matched), then has done a dead-on jackass impersonation for much of the season, has gotten big minutes and scoring opportunities.  Rookie guard Dajuan Wagner has shown signs of future stardom.  Fellow rookie Carlos Boozer may have been the steal of the second round.

Darius Miles has struggled, as has Zyrdunas ?Watch The Feet? Ilgauskas.  But what did anyone expect of this team?  That?s right, a staggering loss total, to increase the odds of winning the LeBron James sweepstakes.

The team stunk while some youngsters improved, big surprise.  Yet Lucas got cashiered anyway.

Like Lucas, Clippers head coach Alvin Gentry is almost certain to lose his job because of decisions someone else is making.  He hasn?t figured out how to coax wins from a team stocked with Elton Brand, Andre Miller, Lamar Odom and Michael Olowokandi, but that?s as much because of injuries and contract worries as it is Gentry?s coaching.

On its face, the Clippers have a group of talented young players who need time together to grow.  But team owner Donald Sterling is sending signals that he won?t re-sign any of the team?s free agents, and will instead turn to their backups next season.  How does Gentry get four guys wondering where they?ll be playing to focus on the task at hand?  He doesn?t know, and neither does any other coach.

In their zeal to run Wilkens out of town, Toronto fans seem to have forgotten that Wilkens has more coaching victories than anyone in NBA history.   The guy who led Seattle to an NBA title in 1979, and has been at the helm of consistently good teams throughout his career, apparently has lost touch with the NBA, can?t communicate with younger players, and is an all around incompetent fool.

How then does Toronto?s January 14 victory over the Washington Wizards fit?  Toronto entered that game with just eight healthy players ? three of whom were on 10-day contracts.  One player, Damone Brown, was so new to the Raptors that he hadn?t practiced with the team before the game.  Yet the Raptors out-worked, out-hustled and out-played a Washington team that was talking of landing a top-four playoff seed in the East, and had won six of their last seven games.

How?d they do it?  Wilkens made sure Brown knew five plays well, then made sure to call only those plays when Brown was in the game.  Brown scored 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting.

Instead of using timeouts to design special plays (as is commonly done), Wilkens diagrammed the team?s basic offensive and defensive sets to make sure the new players understood the team?s concept.  There was little confusion from Toronto that night, because Wilkens made sure his players knew what to do.

When the Raptors made a fourth-quarter run to seal the game, it was in part because Wilkens went exclusively to motion plays his team had executed efficiently throughout the game.

Wilkens is oft accused of not understanding today?s NBA, and bashed for not properly using his players.  The Washington game suggests something different, however.  For that game at least, he was a smart, flexible teach who adapted to his players? strengths and put them in position to win.

Which begs the question ? if Wilkens isn?t the problem, what is?  Could it be the players?  Nah, that?s ridiculous.  It?s the middle of the season: Off with his head!  And Gentry?s too.