Report: Kentuckian and NBA Coach of the Year Dwane Casey fired by Toronto

Dwane Casey, who played and coached at the University of Kentucky, has been fired by the Toronto Raptors. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski first reported Casey's termination.

Casey, who played at Union County High School before playing at UK from 1975-1979, was named NBA Coach of the Year this week.

He was named head coach of the Raptors in June 2011 and is the franchise's winningest head coach. He was 320-238 with the organization in the regular season but 21-30 in the postseason.

Toronto played in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in franchise history in 2016. The Raptors lost a 4-2 series to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who went on to win the NBA championship that season.

The Raptors won a franchise-record 59 games this season and advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the third straight year, falling 4-0 to the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second straight season. Toronto had only ever reached the semifinals once before, in 2001, prior to Casey's tenure.

Casey has one contract year left valued at $6 million.

Casey coached 122 games for the Minnesota Timberwolves for the entirety of the 2005-06 season and part of the 2006-07 season before being fired in the middle of the season by that organization. He was an assistant coach on the 2010-11 Dallas Mavericks team that won the NBA title.

Wojnarowski speculated that Casey could "quickly become a top candidate" for other available jobs due to his success with the Raptors. Wojnarowski specifically mentioned Detroit, which fired Stan Van Gundy on Monday, but the coaching jobs in Atlanta, Milwaukee and Orlando are also vacant.

This story was originally published May 11, 2018 at 11:33 AM with the headline "Report: Kentuckian and NBA Coach of the Year Dwane Casey fired by Toronto."