Who's separating success from talent? What chorus here said he was the greatest coach in NBA history? Feel free to offer a "deeper" analysis. Looking forward to it.
Some of us are at work and don't have the time or want to test our IT department's patience with a "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" treatise on Phil Jackson. Why can't the answer be, "Yes, quite likely" (the former) and, um, "Definitely yes" (the latter)? Jackson always came into a situation where the talent was outstanding, top-notch. He didn't say, "I want to go coach that dog-doo [Insert Name of Franchise That Sucked When he was Coaching]." At the same time, he got the star players to mesh well. He certainly didn't get the players to lose their egos but he got them to trust each other a little more on the court and "be satisfied" with scoring, say, 25 ppg rather than 35 ppg and freezing out the other stars/players. And once PJ started winning rings and also improving his in-game situations ("I've seen this before, the other team is gonna pull such-and-so play"), he gained that much more respect of his players. So much more goes into it, of course. Management has to get the right role players. Jordan-Pippen never won a ring without Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman; the Magic bounced the Bulls in Jordan's comeback year when they were between dirty-work power forwards. And did PJ ever win without Tex Winters and the triangle? Too bad coaching is beyond PJ now. When you hit 70 it's got to be that much more difficult.
I certainly will. Thank you for the invitation. The 2010 (year? from memory) MIT-Sloan statistical paper fully outlined the effects of head coaches on the number of wins of their team. And this metric compares the best head coaches with the worst. Less than five. <5. Less than 2.5 wins over an average NBA coach. That is it. Period. Head coaches mean much less to the success of a team than fans believe.
To clarify the obvious, jtr meant in terms of winning percentage, not total wins. Rick Adelman 193W, 135L, .588 Rudy Tomjanovich 503W, 397L, .559 Jeff Van Gundy 182W,146L, .555 Don Chaney 164W, 134L, .550 Kevin McHale 79W, 69L, .534 In the next 40 games, McHale will need like 32 wins (80%) to be our winning-est coach. That will be tough. If he wins 65% of his games from here on out, he will need 131 more games before he has a winning percentage better than Adelman.
To clarify: I'm talking about winning championships. Mike Brown won over 60 games twice with the Cavs. Nobody in their right mind thought he was anything more than average. (For the record, I trashed him constantly). You figure out a way to quantify 11 championships, I'm all ears. A statistical analysis of regular season winning doesn't do this. Just so everyone knows how weird this is for me: I despise Phil Jackson.
You are using start of season wins as opposed to McHale's wins. 34+45+42 = 121 And his win % is approaching Adelmans.
No argument. Just asked a question Are you arguing that somehow Phil Jackson "rode" his way to 11 championships? Because if so, I definitely have a rebuttal to that
I certainly can do that. How accurately does RS win % reflect on playoff performance? How powerful were all of those Bulls teams under Jackson? But with the Pacers game coming up I am not motivated to do so. Actually come to think about it a statistical analysis of the effect of win % on playoff performance would be interesting. Weren't the Rockets the lowest seed ever to win the chip?
I'm not a stat guy, but comparing RS win % vs. playoff performance may not prove much. The 2nd year the Rockets won, they made a huge in-season trade for Clyde after they were sputtering. The regular season performance before Clyde meant nothing to the playoff team that had Clyde. Also, Dream missed a part of late season because of blood clot issue. It hurt the win % but it also gave him a rest that I strongly believe contributed to the fresh legs he had during the playoff championship run. He played less than 60 RS games. I'm not anti-stats and I believe in what Morey is doing with the Rockets and Vipers.
I'll be honest. I have no idea if a coach is a good coach or a bad coach. It seems like the coaches that are recognized as some of the best of all time, also had some of the best players of all time. Coaches that have bad coaching records seem to have bad players. That's why I usually give credit and blame to the players instead of the coaches. I think what is most important for a coach is that his players respect him. When the players respect the coach, they are more receptive to what the coach is saying. I think the players play harder for a coach that they respect. As soon as a team loses respect for the coach then changes must be made. Either players have to go, or the coach must go. It's usually easier to replace the coach. Phil Jackson is exactly what the Knicks need. I think Melo would stay with the Knicks with Jackson as coach, and I think he could attract top free agents once the Knicks get some cap space. Jackson played for the Knicks and the Nets for like 13 years, so he has a connection with the team and the city. So, it does make some sense that he could be interested. If he doesn't want to be coach right now, then maybe he could be the GM until the time is right to be the coach.
Exactly. What is a head coaches most critical task? To get the roster motivated, aware of the offensive and defensive strategies and focused on winning. Jackson excelled at that, using some Zen psychobabble that may never be reproduced in the NBA again. But he was great at keeping players focused, using the Triangle, intent on winning, and he most of the time kept the peace.
