Coaching is sometimes overlooked in the NBA. It may not be as important as the NFL, but we’ve seen how Steve Kerr was able to improve the Golden State Warriors’ dynamic core once he got there. We saw Gregg Popovich come in and make the San Antonio Spurs a powerhouse for decades and we’ve seen how Tom Thibodeau can change a team defensively overnight.
Now, while those coaches mentioned above rank towards the top of many basketball lifers’ lists around the league, there are also coaches that have had opportunities and can’t seem to break though.
We saw last year that Tyronn Lue, most notably remembered for being stepped over by Allen Iverson, won a ring on the back of a Herculean performance by LeBron James. Does that make him a top coach? Well, the list below will tell you, at least through the perspective of one person.
Without further ado, here’s the list:
30: Alvin Gentry/New Orleans Pelicans
For Gentry, the resume is a little tricky. He had success when he coached the Phoenix Suns, but it was right after the immense success of Mike D’Antoni. Then he was the associate head coach of the Golden State Warriors when the team won the NBA title. Again, most of the credit went elsewhere. Instead, both the head coach (Steve Kerr) and point guard (Stephen Curry) got the praise.
Overall, Gentry has a losing record over a 13-year career. (365-422) However, when he took over for the Suns, he led them to the Western Conference Finals in the ‘09-10 season. In that same season, he had an offensive rating of 115.3, better than any of the years when Mike D’Antoni was the coach.
However, the defensive rating during that season was worst than any year under D’Antoni and in that ‘09-10 year the Suns won only 54 games, tied for the least amount of wins during the D’Antoni era.
Add it all up and you get a coach who has success, but his success isn’t always considered his own. The good news for Gentry is that he has Anthony Davis entering his prime and a rookie in Buddy Hield who averaged 25.0 points per game in college. That’s not a bad place to start.
29: Earl Watson/Phoenix Suns
It’s too early to say if Watson is a good or bad coach. Last year Watson went 9-24, but he was dealt a bad hand when Brandon Knight had surgery because of a sports hernia and Eric Bledsoe went down in December with a torn meniscus in his knee.
Add in the fact that Markieff Morris was mad at both the head coach at the time (Jeff Hornacek) and management for trading away his brother Marcus and it was bound to be a long season for the Suns.
Don’t forget that this is the same team that won 48 games in the ‘13-14 season with a lot of the same players. This year the team hopes that Devin Booker can take the next step after making the NBA All-Rookie First Team. Mix in a potentially healthy Bledsoe, Knight and two high pick rookies in Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender and this gives Watson the young pieces needed to grow the team.
28: Jeff Hornacek/New York Knicks
Speaking of Hornacek we now get to a coach that came in strong but cooled down with time.
When Hornacek got to Phoenix he won NBA Coach of the Month in December of 2013. At the start of January, the team was 19-11 overall and everybody was thrilled because the Suns won a total of 25 games in the previous season (2012-13). The team finished the ‘13-14 season with a 48-34 record and came within a game of making the playoffs.
However, over the next year and a half the team only won 53 games and Hornacek was fired midway through the 2015-16 season after injuries and poor performances decimated the team.
Now, in New York, Hornacek has a team that he can mold into his image. In his first year in Phoenix, Hornacek’s Suns went from 21st in points per game under Gentry to seventh overall.
Last year, under Kurt Rambis, the New York Knicks ranked 27th in points per game. With a possible star in Kristaps Porziņģis, a recently healthy Derrick Rose and a proven star in Carmelo Anthony, look for the offense to improve under Hornacek. We’ve seen him turn teams around quickly. Now we just need to see it sustained for a long period of time.
27: Nate McMillan/Indiana Pacers
Is Nate McMillan a bad coach? No, but since leaving the Seattle Supersonics for the Portland Trail Blazers after the ‘04-05 season, McMillan is 266-269 and was fired by the Trail Blazers in 2012.
Under McMillan, the Trail Blazers offensive rating was 1st and 7th in the NBA in the ‘08-09 season and the ‘09-10 season respectively. However, the team never made it out of the first round and the team regressed in the 2011-12 season after Brandon Roy’s career was cut short due to knee issues.
In 2013, McMillan was hired as an associate head coach for the Indiana Pacers and became the head coach after Frank Vogel’s contract wasn’t renewed.
Now, with Paul George in his prime and two talented big men in Myles Turner and Al Jefferson, we’ll see how McMillan can do this time around.
26: David Fizdale/Memphis Grizzlies
We now get into the area of coaches where it’s hard to judge because we’ve never seen them before. They may be good and they may be bad but if you say you know for sure you’re a liar.
Fizdale begins the list of coaches that we don’t really know what they are. Before Fizdale became the coach of the Memphis Grizzlies he was an assistant coach of the Miami Heat from 2008-2016.
He saw highs and lows with the Heat. He was with the team when they began in 2010 and when it dissolved in 2014. He learned under Erick Spoelstra and Pat Riley, which isn’t a bad place to start. That’s a total of seven NBA championships and 13 trips to the NBA Finals.
The love from former Heat players like Dwyane Wade, Beno Udrih and Mario Chalmers shows the love players have for him.
“#Fiz2Grizz I like that,”
- Dwyane Wade.
“Fizz to Memphis huh. Great coach and an even better person. Happy for my guy fizz.”
- Mario Chalmers
“Congrats to David Fizdale aka Fiz on becoming a new Head coach of the @memgrizz !!!”
- Beno Udrih
The good news for Fizdale is that the team is ready to compete with the nucleus of Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol and the addition of Chandler Parsons means that Fizdale may have the best chance to come out of the gate with success.
25: Kenny Atkinson/Brooklyn Nets
Everything I just said with the ready-made team in Memphis with David Fizdale is exactly the opposite with Kenny Atkinson in Brooklyn. Poor Brooklyn. The team has only two winning seasons over the last 10 years and even if the team loses they don’t get their pick next year. That pick goes to the Boston Celtics, assuming the Nets have a worse record than the Celtics, because of the trade of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry.
If you look at the talent around the team the only person of note is Brook Lopez and Jeremy Lin. Even Vegas doesn’t have confidence in the Nets when they announced the perceived wins for every NBA team. The Nets were at the very bottom with only 20.5 wins.
Success doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon for Atkinson. Maybe he can swing a few trades to make the team look competitive and hopeful over the next few months. Good luck.
24: Luke Walton/Los Angeles Lakers
It makes perfect sense if you think about it. The last time the Lakers were any sort of exciting Luke Walton was on the team. No, he wasn’t the starter or even the sixth man of the team; he was more like the ninth man.
However, with his last name, his ties to the city and being the top assistant of Steve Kerr, it makes sense that Luke Walton would attempt to make his mark on the Lakers.
The good news is that the team has moved on from the aura of Kobe Bryant. Last season was the Kobe Show all year. Yes, they had young talent in D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle, but it was still Kobe Bryant who led the team in points per game and shots attempted per game. Now, with the pick of Brandon Ingram the team looks to be going in a new direction.
However, if you need to be swayed into believing in Walton, look no further than what he did last year as an interim coach.
When Steve Kerr went down with back problems Walton came in and guided the team to a 24-0 record right out of the gate. When Steve Kerr finally came back to the team the Warriors were 39-4 and on the way to having the best regular season in the history of the NBA.
Yes, the team was already a champion before Walton got there and yes, the team was loaded with All-Stars, but some of that credit has to go to a coach that started off undefeated for over two months. Maybe he succeeds and maybe he fails but that’s not a bad thing to have on your resume for the rest of time.
23: Brett Brown/Philadelphia 76ers
Yes, Brett Brown’s record is terrible but you can’t really blame him for that. The team basically lost games on purpose and sent him out there to take all of the L’s.
You have to feel bad for Brown at a certain point. He was a director of player development for over a decade with the San Antonio Spurs. He was a part of four championship teams with the Spurs and won a championship in the National Basketball League with the North Melbourne Giants in 1994.
Then, in 2013, Brown got a job as the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers months after Sam Hinkie was hired as the general manager. In the three years since Brown joined the 76ers his career record is 47-199. Yikes!
Now, to be fair, the team is just coming off of getting Ben Simmons in the 2016 NBA Draft, Hinkie is gone, they finally signed Dario Saric and it looks like Joel Embiid may finally be healthy. Now, does that mean that the team will win 55 games? No, but after being in the middle of such a terrible team for years things might be turning around for Brown.
22: Fred Hoiberg/Chicago Bulls
The jury still seems to be out on Hoiberg as a coach.
As a college coach at Iowa State, Hoiberg led his team to the Sweet Sixteen and was the fastest coach in Iowa State history to reach 100 wins (148 games). However, whether it’s Rick Pitino, John Calipari or Mike Montgomery we’ve seen that success in college doesn’t automatically make you a success in the NBA.
He was then thrown to the Bulls after fan favorite Tom Thibodeau was fired after taking the team to the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the third time in five years. The pressure was sky high and people expected him to mash the defensive philosophy of Thibodeau and bring an offensive touch to make them an unstoppable force.
Neither happened and not only was the defense worse but the offensive rating went from 11th to 23rd with a healthy Derrick Rose and an emerging star in Jimmy Butler. The worst of it came in December when Butler called Hoiberg out for not pushing him hard enough.
After everything, the team went 42-40 and seemed to fade into the background. Now Hoiberg not only has Jimmy Butler, a less than stellar shooter, but also brought in even worse shooters in Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade. How that lineup shakes out is yet to be seen and if this All-Star team struggles out of the gate, don’t be surprised if he isn’t on the team long after.
21: Mike Malone/Nuggets
Mike Malone is someone who was dealt a bad hand out of the gate. When Malone got to the Sacramento Kings in 2013, he was supposed to have his father, Brendan, be an assistant coach. However, before the season started he resigned.
Then, once in Sacramento he was given less than a season and a half before being fired with an 11-13 record in year two.
Then in Denver, he made progress, even if it was just baby steps. The team went from 30 wins in the ‘14-15 season to 33 wins the next year.
There’s also a logjam with big men for the Nuggets with Kenneth Faried, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Jusuf Nurkic, Nikola Jokic and even Darrell Arthur. All of them played at least 17 minutes a game.
At least one of those players should get traded soon, leaving room open for the definitive starters to step up and if you add in the emergence of Emmanuel Mudiay, who led the team in field goals attempted last year, the team should make progress, even if in small doses.
20: Mike D’Antoni/Houston Rockets
After a few years of being out of the NBA, Mike D’Antoni is back with the Houston Rockets. In D’Antoni’s four years as the full time head coach of the Phoenix Suns his offensive rating was either 1st or 2nd from 2004-2008. He made it to the Western Conference Finals in 2005 and 2006 and in 2007 coming within a Robert Horry hip-check from possibly going to the NBA Finals.
Later on in New York he played at a faster pace than the previous coaches and helped lead the Knicks to the playoffs for the first time in seven years. Then, in 2012, he was fired after an 18-24 record.
Finally when D’Antoni went to the Lakers he went to the tail end of Kobe Bryant being a superstar. He also was a part of a lot of fighting with Dwight Howard and Bryant. All of it made it the season from hell. Then he fought with Pau Gasol and Steve Nash was hurt the year after and everything went downhill until he was fired early into the ’13-14 season.
Now, in Houston, he takes over a team already offensively talented (4th in points per game in the ‘15-16 season) and in need of a coach to help them make noise in the playoffs once again.
Mix in the additions of Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon and it’s almost a lock to say that the Houston Rockets will have a top four team in terms of offensive rating next year.
19: Billy Donovan/Oklahoma City Thunder
Here’s another case of the college coach trying to adapt to the NBA pace. At the University of Florida, Billy Donovan won back-to-back National Championships with the help of Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer.
Last year, Donovan went to a team in Oklahoma City with maybe two of the top seven players in the NBA, a defensive star in Serge Ibaka and a budding center in Steven Adams.
Donovan made it to game seven of the Western Conference Finals before falling to the Warriors. That’s when the bottom fell out of the team. Soon after, Kevin Durant, one of the top three best players in the game, decided to go to Oakland to join the Warriors.
Now we get to see what Donovan can actually do with a less than stellar team. Whatever the offensive and defensive ratings were last year shouldn’t matter because everything will be completely different next year. Durant was the main guy offensively and his length, along with Ibaka’s length, helped give other teams trouble on defense.
Now it’s Westbrook’s team and with the addition of Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis we’ll see if Donovan can sustain his success.
18: Tyronn Lue/Cleveland Cavaliers
Lue has a title. That has to count for something. Now, does that make him a great coach? No, but he has a lot more than most coaches do.
Lue is fresh off of a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers and this year he’s playing with house money. He’s the coach that gave Cleveland its first title since the ‘60s. The city loves him, the players seem to like him and as long as another team doesn’t emerge as a juggernaut in the Eastern Conference, it seems clear that the Cavaliers will make it to the NBA Finals for the third straight year.
Lue isn’t the first coach to bring LeBron James to the NBA Finals and he probably wont be the last. Then again, that doesn’t mean he didn’t contribute to the championship in a major way. The offensive rating improved under Lue and he did the one thing that David Blatt couldn’t do; get along with James.
Sure, there were reports that he told James to shut up and it wasn’t always laughter and karaoke in the garage, but at the end of it, the team seemed looser. That stuff matters sometimes.
He also decided to stop playing Timofey Mozgov and play Tristan Thompson more to play like the Warriors. That helped when it mattered the most. Will he get credit if the Cavs are back in the finals again this year? No, but that’s the price you pay for coaching a guy like LeBron James.
17: Scott Brooks/Washington Wizards
Scott Brooks is someone who doesn’t get the credit he deserves in the same way that Mike Brown doesn’t get the credit. In the case of Mike Brown, he gets slighted because he got to the NBA Finals on the back of LeBron James.
In the case of Scott Brooks he got to the NBA Finals on the back of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden but never won a title. Those three guys are legitimately three of the ten best players in the NBA today.
With all of that said, Brooks never won less than 45 games in his time with the Thunder and actually won more games, had a better offensive and defensive rating, averaged more points per game and held opponents to less points in the year when James Harden wasn’t on the team anymore (‘12-13 season). Only once during his time as coach of the Thunder was their points per game below 5th in the league.
Now in Washington he has one of the best point guards in the game and a shooting guard in Bradley Beal who has all of the talent but has missed 81 games over his four-year career. Even with the complaint by many that Brooks isn’t the best in-game tactician with the talent around him and the futility of the Eastern Conference, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see the Wizards back in the playoffs in the ‘16-17 season.
16: Jason Kidd/Milwaukee Bucks
Life is about expectations and for Jason Kidd they seem to fluctuate with him every year. In the ‘13-14 season Kidd was asked to take over the Brooklyn Nets after the team acquired Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
The team had high expectations even though both Pierce and Garnett both had at least 15 years of NBA experience already in the bag. With those high expectations Kidd took the Nets to the Eastern Conference Semifinals before losing to the Miami Heat.
Then, before the Nets completely became a dumpster fire, Kidd moved on to the Milwaukee Bucks. Once there he took over for a team that went 15-67 the year before (‘13-14 season) and improved them to a 41-41 record and a playoff berth, all of this without the help of star rookie Jabari Parker.
However, with success, comes expectations and in the ‘15-16 season, people believed that the team would take another positive step and it simply didn’t happen that way. Instead, the team finished with a worse record, had a slower pace and had a worse defensive rating with a healthy team.
So now the expectations are lowered for Kidd. Maybe this is the year that the team has a successful season. Maybe with the additions of Thon Maker and Matthew Dellavedova the team can make it back into the playoffs, even if only a seven or eight seed.
15: Dave Joerger/Kings
Dave Joerger is someone who comes into Sacramento with an eye for defense. During his tenure in Memphis, Joerger followed Lionel Hollins’ Western Conference Finals team after Hollins was let go. At least from a statistical perspective, Joerger kept the train moving.
In Joerger’s first season with the team (2013-14) the Grizzlies offensive rating improved from 17th to 15th and the team still won 50 games. In his second year, the Grizzlies offensive rating improved again to 13th and the defensive rating was 3rd. This helped propel the Grizzlies to game six of the Western Conference Semifinals before falling to the eventual champion, Golden State Warriors.
Now, with the Sacramento Kings, Joerger will have a much harder time recreating the magic, especially with news that Rudy Gay has already publicly stated that next season will be his last in Sacramento.
The good news comes with All-Star DeMarcus Cousins who, so far at least, seems to like Joerger. He also has a defensive specialist in Willie Cauley-Stein and a veteran defender in Matt Barnes.
Last year the defensive rating for the Kings was poor, ranking 22nd in the league. Look for that to improve under Joerger. The rest is really anybody’s guess at this point.
14: Dwane Casey/Toronto Raptors
Dwane Casey never really gets credit for what he’s done. Casey has been the coach for the Raptors for the past five years. Every year the team has gotten better and last year the team won the most games ever in franchise history, with a total of 56.
That’s more than the Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter era and that’s more than the Chris Bosh era.
Last year, Casey coached the team to 5th in offensive rating and 3rd in opponent’s points per game. Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan made the All-Star team for the second time in their careers and the team looked to be jellying better than they ever had before, making it to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time ever.
This year the team stayed mostly the same while also selecting Jakob Poeltl with the ninth overall pick in the draft.
Maybe the team doesn’t keep improving to 60 wins, but expect the team to stay around the 53-58 wins range, especially if Poeltl can find a way to help the offense.
13: Quin Snyder/Utah Jazz
Snyder this high on the list may surprise you. After all, Snyder hasn’t had a winning record over the first two years in his career but if you look at the stats a little bit deeper you see his impact with the Jazz.
Snyder took over the Jazz from Tyrone Corbin after a 25-57 record during the ‘13-14 season. During that year the Jazz gave up 102.2 points per game (18th). In the next year Snyder brought that down 94.9 points per game (1st) and then in 2015-16 season it maintained with 95.9 points per game (2nd).
One of the main reasons for that is the fact that Snyder decided to utilize previously unknown big man Rudy Gobert. In Snyder’s first year on the job, Gobert’s minutes went from 9.6 per game to 26.3 minutes per game. Over the last two seasons Gobert has averaged over 10 rebounds a game and over two blocks per game.
Now Snyder has a fresh Dante Exum to go along with the core of Gobert, Rodney Hood and Gordon Hayward and the Jazz have a solid base to grow from going forward.
12: Terry Stotts/Portland Trail Blazers
For Terry Stotts, the third time was the charm. For some coaches you’re a made man right out of the gate. (Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich) For some coaches you have to fail a few times before you become successful. For Stotts, it took his third stop in Portland to make people remember his name.
In Stotts’ first stop in Atlanta, he was dealt a bad hand. The Hawks were in the middle of their fourth straight losing season when Stotts took over in 2003 and Stotts had a record of 52-85 in a little over a year and a half before being fired in 2004.
Then, in 2005, Stotts coached the Milwaukee Bucks, who were also a struggling organization at the time. With the Bucks, Stotts made it to the playoffs during the ‘05-06 season but was bounced out of the first round to those juggernaut Pistons teams. It was better, but not a successful endeavor, getting fired again a little more after a year and a half in 2007.
Finally, Stotts arrives in Portland and was gifted the duo of LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard. The first year was tough, going 33-49 in the ‘12-13 season, but Stotts won an average of 49 games a year for the next three seasons, making it to the playoffs in all three years.
He helped with the growth of not only Damian Lillard (2X All-Star) but he was able to help transition the team in 2015 when Aldridge left via free agency. Seemingly out of nowhere Stotts pivoted from Aldridge to giving C.J. McCollum a bigger role, leading to a 20.8 PPG season and a Most Improved Player award.
Stotts has shown he is adaptable and anything less than a 40+ win season from the Blazers would seem like a disappointment at this point.
11: Steve Clifford/Charlotte Hornets
Expectations are important in sports. For the Charlotte Hornets, the expectations were to be average. Before Clifford got to what was then known as the Charlotte Bobcats they had one playoff appearance since 2002 with the most nomadic of head coaches, Larry Brown.
Clifford is someone who spent over a decade with both Jeff and Stan Van Gundy in New York, Houston and Orlando, making it to two NBA Finals. The Van Gundy brothers are defensive guys. Clifford is no different, moving the defensive rating go from 30th in the year before he got there (‘12-13) to 5th in ‘13-14, 9th in ‘14-15 and 8th in ‘15-16.
In the first two years he had Bismack Biyombo and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist as the defensive anchors on the team and last year he had Nicolas Batum to pick up the slack when Kidd-Gilchrist went down with an injured shoulder.
Now with Kidd-Gilchrist back in the fold and Roy Hibbert needing to prove himself after a sub par season with the Lakers, Clifford may have three players to help the defense get to the top five level it was in his first year.
Mix in Kemba Walker’s miraculous plays he creates seemingly every night and maybe the Hornets can progress to a 50-win team for the first time since 1998.
10: Frank Vogel/Orlando Magic
Sometimes your time at a job just runs its course. Sure, some coaches like Gregg Popovich and Jerry Sloan last for 21 and 23 years respectively, but for Vogel six years was his limit.
While Vogel was in Indiana the defense was his baby. From 2012-2016 the Indiana Pacers had a defensive rating of no worse than seventh. You could even make a strong argument that if not for the Miami Heat he may have an NBA title in his trophy case.
However, the offense was never better than 20th and even President of Basketball Operations, Larry Bird, spoke about it.
“I’m sort of going to Frank’s side because he’s had so much success by staying positive,” Bird said. “We do have to stay the course. But I also think he’s got to start going after guys when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. And stay on them, whether you’ve got to take them out of the game when they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do or limit their minutes. I will say, he hasn’t done that enough.
Yeah, that doesn’t make you feel the most secure in your job. And soon after those comments, Vogel was let go.
Now in Orlando, Vogel has defensive specialists in Serge Ibaka and Bismack Biyombo, offensive weapons in Nikola Vucevic and Evan Fournier and a second-year player in Mario Herzonja who wasn’t used very much by Scott Skiles.
Last year’s defensive rating for the Magic was 16th. That will go up to around the top 10, if nothing else. Will they land as a top four team in the East? No, but progress seems inevitable for a Magic team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2012.
9: Doc Rivers/Los Angeles Clippers
The problem with the Los Angeles Clippers under Doc Rivers is that you know what they are. It’s the same sort of thing that happens when you face a team like Georgia Tech in college football. You know what they’re going to do and yet they’re still very successful at what they do. Are they going to win a title? Probably not but they’re reliable.
Paul, J.J. Reddick, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are all solid players, as is Jamal Crawford. However, when you look at the starting small forwards its names like Matt Barnes, Luc Mbah a Moute, Jared Dudley and Paul Pierce in his 18th year in the league.
In his career Doc Rivers is 753-553 through his 17-year head-coaching career with an NBA Championship in 2008 and within a Kendrick Perkins ACL tear from possibly another one in 2010. Over Rivers’ last nine years as head coach of the Celtics and Clippers the defensive rating was only below the top nine one time.
The wins from the Clippers over the last three years are 57, 56 and 53. Assuming that Blake Griffin and everyone else on the team are relatively healthy you can pencil in around 55 or so wins for the Clippers at the end of the year. Just don’t expect a title.
8: Mike Budenholzer/Atlanta Hawks
The problem for the Atlanta Hawks is that the team may have peaked two years ago.
During the ‘14-15 season the Hawks had four players make it to the All-Star Game. (Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, Al Horford and Pau Millsap) The issue for the Hawks is that they never had a true go-to scorer from the wing position and the Cleveland Cavaliers swept them in the Eastern Conference Finals.
In that ‘14-15 season the Hawks won 60 games, the most in the history of the Hawks, and the team made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, the farthest in their history.
Then, in the ‘15-16 season, they fell back to Earth finishing 48-34, fourth in the Eastern Conference, and were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers, this time in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
This year the team basically decided to swap Jeff Teague and Al Horford for Dennis Schroder and Dwight Howard. Defense is Budenholzer’s thing (2nd in defensive rating in 2015-16) and if Howard can recapture some of the defensive prowess he had in Orlando, then a 45 or so win total seems doable.
7: Stan Van Gundy/Detroit Pistons
In the case of Stan Van Gundy he’s a guy who pretty much everybody around the league loves. He’s the guy who got shoved out of town in Orlando and the coach responsible for developing Dwyane Wade before Pat Riley had to take over because of family reasons.
From 2003-2011 Van Gundy’s teams (Heat and Magic) never fell below 9th in defensive rating and in that same time only one of those teams fell below 9th in offensive rating. Van Gundy builds a balanced team that is also good at shooting threes, something that is very valuable in today’s game.
Those Magic teams were either 1st or 2nd in three-point field goals made every year Van Gundy was the coach. In his time with the Pistons they have ranked 9th and tenth and the numbers continue to grow.
Van Gundy improved the Pistons from 32 wins in the ’14-15 season to 44 wins last year. He’s also the person who taught the world what the stretch provision was and how it can be something that can help your team out in the long run. (Poor Josh Smith)
Now, in his third year in Detroit most people see the Pistons as a team that could possibly climb to maybe a top four team in the Eastern Conference after the continued growth of Andre Drummond and Stanley Johnson and the addition of Tobias Harris and Boban Marjanovic.
6: Erik Spoelstra/Miami Heat
Erik Spoelstra falls into that easy narrative of, “Oh well he isn’t that good. I mean, he had LeBron. I could win an NBA title if I had LeBron, Wade and Bosh.”
Well, now Spoelstra has none of those players.
LeBron went back to Cleveland. Wade went home to Chicago and Chris Bosh will probably never play in the NBA ever again after having multiple blood clot scares.
Also, for those who think that Spoelstra was terrible before LeBron got there, remember that Spoelstra averaged 45 wins in the two years before James got there.
Not only that, but in the 2009-10 season the Heat ranked second in opponent points per game and finished the season 18-4 in their last 22 games.
Even last year when the Heat were without Bosh because of a second blood clot scare, the Heat made it to game seven of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Spoelstra has shown that he’s capable of winning without a team loaded with stars but now he’s going to have to be able to win without Wade for the first time in his career.
It is now up to Hassan Whiteside and Goran Dragic to hold it down for South Beach, for better or for worse. The Heat won 48 games last year. Don’t expect that to continue this year.
5: Brad Stevens/Boston Celtics
Referred to as “The President” by some and seen as a genius by others. Before he even made it to the NBA, Stevens made it to the NCAA championship game for two straight years and was within one bank shot from winning the title at Butler.
Before Stevens left in 2013, the Butler Bulldogs made it to the NCAA Tournament a total of 12 times. Five of those times came under the watch of Stevens.
Then, once he made it into the NBA, Stevens’ Celtics lost two legendary players in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and had to deal with Rajon Rondo tearing his ACL the year before. That’s okay, they’ll do more with less.
Stevens’ defensive rating has improved each of the three years.
In the ‘13-14 season the defensive rating was 18th.
In the ‘14-15 season the defensive rating was 12th and in the ‘15-16 season the defense improved to 4th.
The team wins rose from 25 in ‘13-14 to 40 in ‘14-15 to 48 in ‘15-16.
Slowly the Celtics have gotten better and now with the drafting of Jaylen Brown and the free agent acquisition of Al Horford it looks like the Celtics will improve again especially in a lighter Eastern Conference.
4: Steve Kerr/Golden State Warriors
Some may feel like Kerr being this far down on the list is disrespectful considering the man has been to the NBA Finals for two straight years and is responsible for the greatest regular season of all time.
The problem lies with duration. Kerr has only been in the league for two years and hasn’t had the prolonged success of the people mentioned above. With that said, let’s look at some of the numbers that puts Kerr this high on the list.
Last year (‘15-16 season) the Warriors were 1st in offensive rating and 5th in defensive rating. The team won more games in the regular season than any team ever has and they did it shooting threes at an unheard of rate.
The Warriors made a total of 1077 three pointers in the ‘15-16 season and 883 the year before that. Teams didn’t do that before the Warriors.
The Warriors are responsible for revolutionizing the game with three-pointers. Now Kerr added Kevin Durant to the team. That doesn’t seem fair and yet it’s something that will only help Kerr’s rise to the top of the coaching rankings.
3: Rick Carlisle/Dallas Mavericks
Carlisle has been an NBA coach for 14 years. In those 14 years, 10 of them had a winning record. In seven of those years, Carlisle’s team won 50 or more games.
Over the last five years the Mavericks have only one constant, Dirk Nowitzki. Over the last five years the Mavericks have been surrounding him with one-year players trying to replace Tyson Chandler and replicate that championship team.
Players like Zaza Pachulia, Chris Kaman and Samuel Dalembert. Add in Jose Calderon, Richard Jefferson and Carlisle’s favorite of them all, Rajon Rondo and nothing has worked.
Carlisle is the best at taking teams that seem to be destined for the lottery and making it to the playoffs. Yes, he hasn’t made it past the first round since winning the title, but since joining Dallas in the ‘08-09 season, the only All-Star to stand beside Dirk Nowitzki was Jason Kidd in 2010. It’s hard to win championships like that.
2: Tom Thibodeau/Minnesota Timberwolves
Thibodeau is someone who is almost universally respected in the NBA. Before taking the job in Chicago, Thibodeau was an assistant coach for over twenty years before finally getting his chance.
In the three years that Thibodeau was an assistant with the Celtics the defensive rating was 1st in ‘07-08, 2nd in ‘08-09 and 5th in ‘09-10.
In the three years before that when Thibodeau was the assistant coach of the Houston Rockets the defensive rating was 4th in ‘04-05, 6th in ‘05-06 and 3rd in ‘06-07.
Then, once he got his chance in Chicago in the ‘10-11 season the team went from winning 41 games to winning 62 games.
The defensive rating went from 11th under Vinny Del Negro in ‘09-10 to 1st in ‘10-11.
In the ‘11-12 season the defensive rating was 2nd.
In the ‘12-13 season the defensive rating was 6th.
In the ‘13-14 season the defensive rating was 2nd and in his final season he had his worst showing defensively in Chicago when the defensive rating was 11th.
Needless to say the Minnesota Timberwolves will be better defensively. Last year the Timberwolves were 28th in defensive rating and had only 29 wins.
Expect, at the very least, a big switch in defensive intensity. It doesn’t hurt that his team is loaded with players like Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn.
1: Gregg Popovich/San Antonio Spurs
Popovich is the best coach, period. You can get cute about it if you want but Popovich is the king. The man has 1089 wins, (8th all time) five rings and hasn’t won less than 50 games in an 82 game season since the 1996-97 season. That was Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson’s rookie year. All hail the king.
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