I think a coach basically has 3 over-arching responsibilities: (1) Establish an identify for the team and get the players as a collective to "buy in": establish a positive culture for the team and encourage leadership within the team teach offensive and defensive system, principles to the players. settle on an effective rotation for the team which puts players in a role that they're well suited for, and gives players who can help the team a chance to do so. get players to understand and accept their role within that system (2) Player Development: identify areas in which each player should improve their skills and oversee that improvement instill confidence in players, motivate them to keep improving and strive to max out their potential ensure players understand when they're making mistakes and get them to reduce those mistakes. players should stay in shape and/or improve their fitness level, but be mindful not to burn them out. (3) Game Management: come up with a solid game plan before a match and communicate this to the players. effective use of timeouts to keep momentum in team's favor or shift momentum to team's favor; gets the team to execute well out of timeouts effective use of substitutions to keep up the energy of the players on the court, to create mismatches in the team's favor or prevent mismatches in the other team's favor, avoid foul trouble which can negatively impact on-court performance of a player manage end-of-quarter situations -- timeouts if they're available, play-calls, shot clock management, fouls-to-give Does that just about cover it? The tough thing with rating coaches is its just so hard to disentangle what the coach is doing from how "coachable" the players themselves are. Some players have more leadership qualities, are more responsible, and are more attentive to detail. Then you have players who are blessed with innate talent and are capable of quickly developing their skill-level. And the better or more experienced the players you have, the easier it is to get them to effectively execute your gameplan. Also, depending on where the team is in its lifecycle, the relative importance of these 3 areas can shift. Clearly, for a rebuilding team the first two areas become more important. For a veteran squad that's been together many years, player development is probably not as high a priority, but keeping them in good shape and fresh for the stretch run is important. Fine-tuned attention to detail and execution of game plan probably is to be more expected from a veteran squad. Finally, the 3 areas definitely feed into each other, which adds another complication. Getting players to "buy in" to the system is a motivator for their individual development and work ethic to improve. It also is important for getting the players to trust the game plan put forth by the coach and to be willing to execute it. Player development, of course, is key to ensuring that players are up to the task to executing in games. Also, if circumstances necessitate a change in the rotation or roles, player development is important to ensure players are capable of taking on more responsibilities. Even how the coach manages games can impact the other 2 areas. The game plan should be consistent with the established principles of how the team plays, or it could compromise those principles. And the games themselves provide "teaching moments" for players which can be essential for their personal development.
I'm in this camp. People think too much about tactics when they evaluate coaches. Is his rotation stupid? Do they run a good play out of a time-out? Does he call good plays at the end of regulation? Crap like that that might change whether a close game is a victory or a loss. In that, I think coaching probably doesn't matter very much. Where is does matter is setting and reinforcing the culture of the team, building an identity, establishing the systems for the offense and the defenese over the season and over their tenure -- things that are easily attributable to the players instead of the coach because it's the way those players have developed because of the coach. So, I think coaching is very important, but I don't think you could easily do a statistical measure of anything more than in-game tactics. And I think Morey's +/- 5 games quote is talking to that latter bit -- how much impact do in-game tactics have. If he thought the larger role of the coach of establishing the team culture didn't matter, he probably would not have put so much effort into changing the way we do coaching on the Rockets, making the coaching reach all the way down into the Vipers.
The top coaches are underpaid because the GMs are underpaid. Technically speaking, the GM is the most valuable guy in the whole team because he's the one who identifies and gets the superstars. However, since so many GMs are bad at their jobs they aren't paid a lot, and since they aren't paid a lot the coaches by extension aren't paid a lot as well. I think everyone's aware of how important coaches are, first of all they're the guys who develop your players, so if you coach sucks then your players will suck, not to mention they're the guys who decide which plays go where and who plays at how many minutes. I mean, give the MJ Bulls to PJ Carlisimo from the time when PJ got him and I'd be surprised if they win a ring, let alone 6. Personally I would value a GM/Coach way more than player, if I would have to choose between Pops/Buford or Duncan, I take Pops/Buford 100% of the time.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/58016/the-best-coach-in-the-nba Here's how ESPN Forecast rates the top head coaches in the NBA: Gregg Popovich 690 Tom Thibodeau 433 Doc Rivers 262 Rick Carlisle 169 Erik Spoelstra 131 George Karl 72 Rick Adelman 39 Lionel Hollins 38 Frank Vogel 20 Mike Woodson 8 Mark Jackson 5 Scott Brooks 4 Kevin McHale 1 Fair?
The ESPN Forecast article is saying that coach of the year should go to the best coach, which I think misses the point of what that award is driving at. It's an annual award, so it's meant to reward the best coaching performance of that year, which is what it essentially ends up being the coach of the team that is most surprisingly better than we expected given that roster. I will grant that it does underreward coaches with stable rosters that have done great for years, like Popovich. But, crowdsourcing a decision on best coaches isn't any better. It seems like a device that is very vulnerable to groupthink and swayed more by reputation than performance, which is hard to see. It's just a quantification of what I see on this bbs everyday -- Pop's a great coach, Brooks not so much. It's likely too hard to get a clean picture with a statistical analysis. I think the thing I would trust most is an aannual survey of players, coaches, and/or general managers. They know the business much better than fans do and will be far more likely to vote on performance than reputation.
