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Is there a bigger myth in professional sports than the notion that coaches can’t do their jobs effectively if they happen to be in the final year of a contract? That somehow they’ll be seen as lame ducks by their players, who will simply tune them out and the team will tumble down the standings?

This idea gets repeated so often it’s like it’s become part of the pro sports gospel. The problem is, there’s virtually no evidence to support it.

Just consider some of the recent examples in Toronto alone.

Start with Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, who coached all of last season in the final year of his contract, as a so-called lame duck. What happened? Well, Casey’s team outperformed expectations more than any Toronto team in recent history.

The Raptors were supposed to be terrible and a whole lot of people expected them to tank. And while their turnaround was based on a whole lot of different factors, Casey’s ability to pull it all together was the key.

Did the players tune out Casey? Was his message having trouble getting through because the players saw him as dead man walking? It was quite the opposite, as the Raptors became one of the most stunning turnaround stories in recent NBA history.

About the same time Casey was being rewarded for his efforts with a new contract last spring, the Leafs decided to tack an extra year onto the end of Randy Carlyle’s deal, which was set to expire at the end of the 2014-15 season, even though his team has underperformed during the latter part of last season. Presumably, the Leafs didn't want him to go into this season as a lame duck coach who would get tuned out by his players.

We all know what happened. Carlyle, contract extension in place, couldn’t get through to his players and was fired last week.

The example of former coach Ron Wilson is even more stark. At the start of the 2011-12 season, Wilson began the season entering the final year of his contract. To the surprise of many, the Leafs had a great start to the season – despite Wilson being a so-called lame duck – and he was rewarded with a contract extension on Christmas Day. Less than three months later, he was fired. It's not to suggest that getting an extension hurt Wilson's abiltiy to coach, but it sure didn't help it any, either.

Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons has a contract that tacks an extra year onto his deal every January 1, ensuring he never has to go through a season as a lame duck manager. The only problem is the Blue Jays haven’t won anything under Gibbons.

The strange thing is that when it comes to players, we usually anticipate the best out of them during a year when a contract is expiring, because we expect them to be giving their all in order to earn their next deal.

Maybe it’s time we started to think of coaches the same way.