By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

I guess you just really don’t want to be named the NBA’s Coach of the Year.

Avery Johnson and Sam Mitchell were each let go from their respective teams within two seasons of winning the award in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Byron Scott followed them. At the head of a team boasting the NBA’s best point guard and powered by a young All-Star power forward, a then-menacing defensive force at center, and a deadly marksman from behind the 3-point arc, it seemed like he’d break the string of coaches forced out.

Today, we know that wasn’t the case.

On the surface, nine games into an 82-game season seems awfully soon to make such a decision. But whether it was today, next week, next month or in the offseason, Scott was basically a dead-man walking with the Hornets. After a playoff series that saw the team destroyed by an unfathomable 58 points at home and blown out in its other three losses, the team began this season by losing six of its first nine games, including losses of 17, 10, 17, 16, and 20.

Scott had to go. David West’s comments to the press on Thursday confirmed what New Orleans’ on-court play already indicated – he’d lost his team. It’s time for a new direction.

Whether its found that direction this season is yet to be determined. General Manager Jeff Bower has been handed the reins of the team, and former Hornets head coach Tim Floyd tabbed his top assistant.

Lets start with Bower, who has no head coaching experience at any level of basketball. There’s no real guessing game as to why this choice was made: with Scott gone, Bower is accountable for the “mess” he made. This is his chance to make it work or be the next to go. It’s not the first time this has happened in the NBA, and it won’t be the last. Without anything to go on, Hornets fans can only hope he proves a worthy leader that the team can rally around.

As far as Floyd, I’m probably in the minority, but I think bringing him in was a very solid maneuver. As a head coach, he’s failed miserably in the NBA – twice – and seemed a bit over his head each time. He couldn’t handle NBA egos, most notably Baron Davis.

But as an X’s and O’s guy, Floyd shines. It’s why he’s been so successful at each of his stops at the college level. West said it himself – the team won’t be so unpredictable with Floyd in the fold. And he should especially breathe some new life into a defensive gameplan that hasn’t amounted to much this season.

This is not a championship team. Bower/Floyd hope to salvage a playoff season and show the fans – not to mention Chris Paul — that there is hope in New Orleans after all. Bower’s greater challenge still comes in his chair as GM, where he must find a way to get underneath the salary cap and add a weapon or two on the wing, not to mention some desperately needed depth.

These were issues that Scott couldn’t overcome.

Cleveland coach Mike Brown is on notice. Louisiana’s state bird may no longer be on the verge of extinction, but former coach of the year winners are going the way of the dodo. these days.