The struggling Levanga Hokkaido announced on Wednesday that they've fired head coach Juan Manuel Hurtado Perez and named his assistant, Kota Mizuno, interim head coach.
Last season, Perez, a 40-year-old Spaniard, led the NBL Eastern Conference club to a 31-23 record, the best winning percentage that the Sapporo-based team had ever posted, in his first year in Japan. But the Levanga have dropped to sixth place in the seven-team Eastern Conference with a 4-12 record through Sunday.
Under Perez's guidance, Hokkaido, which finished last in the eight-team JBL (predecessor of the NBL) with a 6-36 record in 2012-13, almost made the postseason last year.