Ira Winderman

Clearly, no one in the NBA better understands the significance of winning 50 games than Byron Scott.

The previous time Scott was fired, he was coming off a 49-33 season with the Nets. Midway through the next season, he was replaced as coach by Lawrence Frank.

Thursday, Scott found himself booted again, this time as coach of the Hornets, after, you guessed it, coming off a 49-33 season.

The resume undoubtedly will get Scott back on the sideline again. But next time don't be surprised if Scott is a bit fussier when it comes to picking his employer.

New Jersey has been a well-chronicled ownership mess for years, only now with a cash infusion on the way to potentially create stability.

New Orleans is just cash poor, concern about the luxury tax leaving the offseason's only significant move as the lateral swap of Tyson Chandler for Emeka Okafor.

Should the Hornets be winning bigger, be avoiding encores of last season's 121-63 playoff debacle against the Nuggets? Absolutely.

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But don't kid yourself, Chris Paul hardly is surrounded by a contending cast. David West has reached his ceiling. Okafor wound up driving Larry Brown to distraction. And have you seen Peja Stojakovic on the move lately? No, neither have we.

Paul might yet push hard enough to get the Hornets back to the playoffs. But in the Western Conference and especially in the Southwest Division, New Orleans' upside is limited.

At times, it appeared as if Scott had had enough. The body language even during Wednesday's blowout loss in Phoenix was a sign that he had reached his breaking point.

The difference in New Orleans is that Paul, unlike Cleveland's LeBron James or Miami's Dwyane Wade, is not an impending free agent.

He can huff and puff about change, but he isn't going anywhere with a contract that runs through 2012-13. That also is when Okafor's contract expires. And the deals of James Posey and West don't expire until 2011-12.

So stuck with the players, the Hornets did the only thing they could:

They fired the coach who dared win only 49 games last season.

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Ira Winderman writes regularly for NBCSports.com and covers the Heat and the NBA for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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