Inevitably, when a team loses or doesn't meet expectations, the blame falls on the coach. It makes me think that most people feel coaching has a big part in how successful a team is. If you consider the spread of salaries earned by coaches versus players, its significantly less. I don't know what the numbers are in this season, but in 2010-2011 the average salary for coaches was roughly 2 million for coaches. The top tier coaches earn maybe a bit more than 10 million. If we consider that salary more or less captures how much NBA teams think coaches are worth, do you think that perhaps we put too much emphasis on the coaches impact (both in terms of crediting him or blaming him) for the team's win/loss record? Or do you think that maybe the top coaches are really underpaid?
we need a scapegoat for someone to blame, and the coach is the easiest due to their salary. The players get paid too much to just "fire" them. I do think there is too much emphasis on coaches but coaches like Pop and Thibbs show that good coaching can also make their players overachieve.
Motivating the players, fostering the right environment, putting the right players on the floor, and implementing the right system. Those are pretty important tasks and a coach has a large hand in how those things play out. You change the offensive philosophy of a team, and I'm guessing that changes the outcome of the team a lot.
Coaches and players are different type of investments. Players are the products you sell, a roster is mandated and salaries capped. Follow the rules, you get league-profit sharing automatically. You don't need a coach to share merchandise sales and stuffs. Coaches are value-added investments to the product you sell. You still need them but a fail coach will not affect your revenue stream, but a fail "star" could.
This. Also, it's easier to fire / get rid of one person (the coach) than to get rid of multiple people (crappy / problem players). Not sure if the OP is speaking strictly about the Nets' Carlesimo, but I feel as though it was not a good firing. He took over a team for Johnson during the season, and took the team to the playoffs. You could argue that the Nets should have beaten the depleted Bulls, but that's just as much on the players as it is on Carly.
I think this has been discussed several times before here, although people still seem to think the coach impacts a team's performance more than reality shows. Morey himself has said a coach affects a team's record by a max of +/- 5 games.
And +/- 5 is pretty significant. The gap between a great coach and a fail coach can as significant as the difference between an avg starter vs. a fail bench player. And this only assumes the coaches are given the same roster. I will argue pop affects team record more than hypothetical max 5 games vs. a fail replacement, because pop actually tries hard to prevent injuries. The "what if"s can come into play when avg coaches don't protect players against odds of injuries like pop does. What if spurs lose Manu and esp Duncan for more games than they had? That is additional +/- 5 games affected, if you will.
Of course he affects it by more than 5 games on a "fail replacement", a "fail replacement" would be -5, whilst Pops is +5 I certainly wonder what people would rate Mchale though, I'd probably give him about +2
One way to look at it: NBA coaches impact the game much that MLB managers and soccer coaches, but much less than NFL coaches
Coaches don't really affect W/L's per se- much of NBA basketball is based on talent. The coach is really there to keep the locker room together and stop personalities from clashing (PJax), mentor young guys, or (like Spo) just stay outta the way. Occasionally, you have a coach like Thibs who gives the team identity, buts thats rare.
Success in the NBA is a result of the combination of a) talent, b) effort, and c) execution. (..well, and luck) Coaches can have some influence over b) and c), and it's their responsibility to deploy their talent in a way that gives their team the best chance to win (you'd probably say that's a coach's most important function). But ultimately it's the players' talent, the effort the players put forth, and how well the players execute that determines wins and losses. How much influence on the above factors that the coach has (or even needs to have) varies from situation to situation. Can you blame a coach if he can't motivate a team that's full of lazy, unprofessional players? Do you give a coach credit if his team plays hard, when the roster has a bunch of hard-working players? Is it the coach's fault if a team full of inexperienced players fails to execute, or can you say a coach has done a good job when a team full of veterans executes their game plan without mistakes? All depends on the situation.
Coaches also have some influence on talent. Coaching/teaching and player development matters a great deal.
I don't think there's a ton of variance there from staff to staff, honestly. In some cases you could argue that a young player will find it more difficult to get individual attention on good teams with highly-regarded coaching staffs.
In totally there probably isn't a huge difference, I agree. Between some teams however the difference is substantial, I believe. Danny Green didn't look any special in his first year in the league. Got waived by the Cavs IIRC. Spurs pick him up, develop him and now he's one of the best 3&D players in the league. Splitter came in the league and struggled mightily. Spurs were patient with him, developed him and now he's a very solid starting center. On the other hand there are teams like the Kings that pretty much constantly fail to develop any all of their young talent.
Is there any objective statistics that can verify one way of another? I really want to know. From a strictly speculative view, I think coaching is kind of a negative factor. A good coach doesn't win games. A bad coach loses games. So the gap between good coach and great coaches don't differ that much. The gap between bad and decent coaches make a much more difference by negative impact.
Someone did compute RAPM for coaches, but he took down his stats. There is a thread discussing some of the results here. It sort of agrees with your speculative view that coaching is a negative factor. http://apbr.org/metrics/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7915 I'm not particularly convinced that RAPM is a meaningful way of evaluating coaches. But it does qualify as "objective".
When you think Phil Jackson Greg Poppovich Tom Thibodeau Doc Rivers Then you think Vinny Del Negro Dwayne Casey Keith Smarts PJ Carlesimo Give them all the same team, do you think tier 1 or tier 2 will get the best out of their players?
