Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

[JODYE]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

If LBJ had a big ego, he would have never bolted to Miami in the first place.

Brooks is working with a team full of under 25's? Only guys under 25 that play meaningful minutes are Ibaka (DPOTY candidate every year), Kevin Durant (3 time scoring champion) and Russell Westbrook.

Pop has had talent sure, but he's also gotten the most out of guys that weren't doing jack squat previously. Most recently, Danny Green? Boris Diaw? Gary Neal? These guys were destined for the D-League and all of a sudden look like all stars. Danny Green was rotting on the bench in Cleveland. Everyone thought Diaw was done and Gary Who?

Come on man.

[JasonWilliams55]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

If LBJ had a big ego, he would have never bolted to Miami in the first place.

Brooks is working with a team full of under 25's? Only guys under 25 that play meaningful minutes are Ibaka (DPOTY candidate every year), Kevin Durant (3 time scoring champion) and Russell Westbrook.

Pop has had talent sure, but he's also gotten the most out of guys that weren't doing jack squat previously. Most recently, Danny Green? Boris Diaw? Gary Neal? These guys were destined for the D-League and all of a sudden look like all stars. Danny Green was rotting on the bench in Cleveland. Everyone thought Diaw was done and Gary Who?

Come on man.

That's why he left Cleveland, his ego, wouldn't allow him to stay and ride out the harder path, so he bolted for the quick and easy. That is a pure ego decision. "I have to get mine."

Under 25, yes the big 3 were the only one to get big minutes, but he still is coaching the rest of them as well.
KD
RW
Ibaka
Harden
Cook
Aldrich
Jackson
Maynor
Reid (did not play)
Hayward (26)

The only players born before 86 were; Collison, Perkins, Ivey, Mohammed and Sefolosha.

Pops and the off-talent, these players fit his system ala Bill Bilichek, all players in the NBA can play or they wouldn't be there. When you have Timmy, Tony and Manu, it frees up alot of court, and it also helps that they are not egotistical and that they are fundamentally sound.

Green has hit big shots, but thats not Pops that's Danny. Gary fits the system and benefits from having some of the best players around him. Diaw has always been a smart player (PHO days), and it doesn't suprise me that Pops picked him up.

[King_B_Mack]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Obviously LeBron has an ego, everybody does. Not saying those guys don't have egos, but in the context that you're trying to use it to give Spo credit for something it's invalid. Those guys buy into each other, they want to be there and play with each other. Dwyane realizes that LeBron is the better player and at this point in his career it's better for him to take a backseat to LeBron. LeBron is an unselfish player on the court at times to a fault. There's no ego to get in the way of the team because everybody on the team knows what they're roles are and what they should be doing. Spo managing egos like you keep trying to shoehorn Phil Jackson's name into things is doing things like Phil appeasing Kobe and Shaq by monitoring shot attempts so Shaq isn't bitching that Kobe is getting too many more than him. It's Phil knowing how to talk to Scottie to keep him from letting Michael's shadow get to him and wanting to break off and prove how important/good a player he is. It's keeping the team on track so when a player nobody on the team likes, like Dennis Rodman is added, they don't lose sight of the mission at hand because they can't get along. Spo doesn't have those problems because that team bought into all that before he was ever even considered in their decisions.

[BearClaw]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Spoelstra was giftwrapped everything a team needs to win. Unselfish superstar who's already done it all and knows what it takes, another unselfish star who has no qualms with being a pseudo-role player, and Mr. Everything LeBron James. After that all he has to do is fill in the next 9 slots on a roster with defensive bigs, and spot up shooters. The biggest decisions he has to make every night is what suit to wear and when to tell LeBron "win the game for me so it looks like I know what I'm doing." Anyone could win a championship when the odds are stacked that heavily in their favor.

Pops and the off-talent, these players fit his system ala Bill Bilichek, all players in the NBA can play or they wouldn't be there. When you have Timmy, Tony and Manu, it frees up alot of court, and it also helps that they are not egotistical and that they are fundamentally sound.

Green has hit big shots, but thats not Pops that's Danny. Gary fits the system and benefits from having some of the best players around him. Diaw has always been a smart player (PHO days), and it doesn't suprise me that Pops picked him up.

Outside of Splitter, the Big 3, and Kawhi Leonard not a single team in the league would want to take a chance on those players. My theory on Pop is that they play well for him because the bar he sets for each individual player while difficult is still reachable and surpassable. He takes players that can do a small set of skills really well then teaches them how he wants them used.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Honestly I've always been stumped on how to measure coaches. The best way I can look at it, is to look at a coach's season success and ask how many other coaches could've done the same with the same talent?

So if you look at championship runs:

Miami 2012. How many other active coaches could win with that roster? A dozen? lol
Dallas 2011. Maybe 1
LAL 2009-2010? 3-5
Boston 2008? 4-6
SA 2007? 4-6
Miami 2006? 5-6
SA 2005? 2-3
Detroit 2004? 0


Again this is all speculation but you can see where I'm getting at.

I'll say this in that the NBA is the one sport where you can get by without having a top flight Coach and still win. This has been proven MANY times over the years.

The 3 important things I look at to tell if a Coach is good is:

-Do the Players respect them? If they don't respect you, then it's going to damn tough for you to do a good job. Who's the last team that won despite players not having any kind of respect for their Coach and playing great despite their Coach?

-Can you get the players to buy into what you're saying/doing? Again, the NBA is the one sport where you can get by with having top flight talent and non-top flight coaching and still win. That being said, just because you have top flight talent doesn't guarantee or mean that you will win. But they HAVE to believe whatever system you're trying to run otherwise it will not work and before you know it, you'll have player mutinies and you'll be out of a job. You don't have to run the Flex or Triangle or 1-4 every single time(I wonder if there's a percentage stat to track how often a team runs an actual Offense and how often they run Iso/Spread em' out and set PnR/P in the last seconds)up the court but it at least have something to fall back on. If you have that, then it becomes alot easier to develop players under you.

-Can you produce results and do it consistently? You may not need to win championships year in/year out but you also shouldn't be scraping by just to get that 8 seed before falling out of the 1st round.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

I hate that managing ego's angle that EVERYONE seems to use with Spo. Guy was handed the keys to maybe the most selfless superstar since Magic Johnson and three of the best players in the NBA today. If you can't win with that, then you probably don't belong anywhere near an NBA sideline.

Guy is horrible at adjustments, especially on defense, seems lost when it comes to communicating to players and how to effectively manage an offense that promotes fluidity in the half court. The Heat's first 2 years were marred with iso ball. Last night was a perfect example on both ends of the floor.

Brooks is bad at XOs as well. Many mismanaged possessions, especially coming out of time outs, poor offensive strategy (RW is to blame as well). Probably the only thing he did right in the playoffs last year was put Thabo on Parker in the San Antonio series.

Neither of them are anywhere close to being the best coaches in the NBA.

Wait, were talking about Spo, who Wade and LeBron have checked multiple times on the sidelines? LOL okay.




This point is moot. Memphis is a middle of the road rebounding team, and are 8th in offensive rebounding behind teams like Cleveland, Utah, Minnesota etc. Their "cleaning up" is a lot less effective then you're alluding to. Their success is more attributed to solid PG play, ball movement and spacing, having two bigs that can play with their back to the basket and are the second best FT shooting team in the league.

Curious as to what you exactly mean by this?

[The 24th Letter]

Spoelstra has a great defensive scheme...I'll give him credit for that, it's unlike any in the NBA...but it's a high risk/ high reward scheme....he refuses to make any adjustments to it when being beat by the same thing constantly...he just "stays the course"

He did make some key personnel decisions during their playoff run. Other than that, I don't really he's all that good if a coach either.

[JODYE]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Curious as to what you exactly mean by this?

A team with arguably the most efficient scorer in the league, and a 4 that is shooting near 60% on the season, is a part of the 26th ranked starting lineup in terms of efficiency?

That doesn't quite scream, good coaching. They score a lot of points because of their talent, not because of his ability to get the most out of guys. How many times have we seen them come out of a timeout and the play be an iso with Durant or Westbrook. Do we forget the Mavs series two years ago where he was oft criticized for his late game possession management.

Are we forgetting that he got OUTCOACHED by Spo in the Finals!!??

Guy made no defensive adjustments whatsoever and continued to watch James Harden get abused by LeBron in the post. His lineups made no sense and played into the hands of the Heat and what Spo was trying to do which was play small. And I've never seen a team, that was one call away from being right in that series, lay down as bad as the Thunder did in Game 5. That game was embarrassing to watch.

Pack, you eluded to it, but the NBA is probably the only league where you can get buy having a below average coach if you have the talent on your roster.

Spo being in Miami was irrelevant. Those 3 guys decided they were going to come together more than a year prior to The Decision. Whoever coached there was an afterthought. They had already bought into each other before they even stepped on the floor with one another. Vinny Del Negro could have coached that team to the Finals.

[iLLosophy]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Vinny Del Negro could have coached that team to the Finals.

No he'd find a way to mess it up. :wink:

[griznation1]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

I don't have any new names to throw into the great coaches part, but I'm a little surprised not seeing Mike Brown in this mixture of bad coaches.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Had a discussion involving George Karl in the OT Thread. What's everyone's thoughts on him now?

[Taer]

Re: Outside of Pop and Doc, Who Are The Best/Worst Coaches In The League?

Had a discussion involving George Karl in the OT Thread. What's everyone's thoughts on him now?

I think that Steve Kerr said it best about him: He is a really really good coach that has been put in too many hard situations with teams that are good enough to win but not win a championship and teams that are not quite bad enough to showcase his coaching talents to win him Coach of the Year.

I hope Sloan gets back in somewhere this next year. I really would like to see him win an NBA championship.