Numbers are below, but remember that Winning % isn't everything if you had a crappy team. Feel free to rank them as well, or list any "others," who you think should've been on this poll. Rick Adelman Seasons: 13 Palyoff Berths: 11 Record: 603-384 (61.1 %) Hubie Brown Seasons: 11 Palyoff Berths: 5 Record: 369-456 (44.7 %) Larry Brown Seasons: 20 Palyoff Berths: 15 Record: 879-685 (56.2 %) Rick Carlilse Seasons: 2 Palyoff Berths: 2 Record: 100-64 (61.0 %) Phil Jackson Seasons: 13 Palyoff Berths: 13 Record: 776-290 (72.8 %) Don Nelson Seasons: 25 Palyoff Berths: 16 Record: 1096-828 (57.0 %) Gregg Popovich Seasons: 7 Palyoff Berths: 6 Record: 339-185 (64.7 %) Pat Riley Seasons: 18 Palyoff Berths: 16 Record: 948-496 (65.6 %) Jerry Sloan Seasons: 18 Palyoff Berths: 16 Record: 875-521 (62.7 %) Jeff Van Gundy Seasons: 7 Palyoff Berths: 6 Record: 248-172 (59.0 %) I give honorable mentions to: Flip Saunders (Playoffs 7/8 years, yet doesn't quite crack the elite), Maurice Cheeks (99-65 record, but not yet experienced), Byron Scott (a good coach, but shown to be ludicrously inlfexible at times, shown in grusome detail in his Finals appearances), and Doc Rivers (playoffs 3/4 seasons). I rank them like this: 1. Jerry Sloan 2. Larry Brown 3. Rick Carlilse 4. Rick Adelman 5. Jeff Van Gundy 6. Gregg Popovich 7. Pat Riley 8. Don Nelson 9. Phil Jackson (I'm sorry... I have total contempt for Phil) 10. Hubie Brown 11. Flip Saunders 12. Maurice Cheeks 13. Byron Scott 14. Doc Rivers That list could change at any given moment. It was tough as hell to separate them.
I just noticed that my top 11 are all white coaches. Hmm... funny about that. Now that I think of it, Paul Silas' name should be mentioned .
Hate the Lakers or............Fakers or..............Rapers etc......... But I have to give it up to Phil. He has the highest winning percentage out of all of the coaches listed and has 9 championships to his credit. Plus he has a way to bring together all of the biggest combustible attitudes basketball (Jordan, Rodman, Pippen, Shaq, Kobe,) and have them play team ball as a cohesive unit and make everyone happy, EVEN ROLE PLAYERS. Phil has to be one of the greatest coaches of all time. He wins this one hands down.
Nice thread, Drexlerfan. I thought of posting one of these after answering your other thread. I have to concur with tigereye, Phil Jackson has to be at the top of the list.
I just posted this on another thread... As you'll notice, Jerry Sloan was my choice. Why? First of all, I think we may never see Sloan stick around to rebuild and see his do significant time without his two stars. He'll come back for next season, but I think his early re-sign was probably a bid of Sloan's or Larry Miller's to get Malone to stay. Now that he's gone, Sloan may quit after the next year... but you never know. Has Sloan been blessed with good players? Yeah. So have all coaches who we consider to be great... and it's difficult to separate cause and effect. For instance, I think Phil Jackson is good for nothing more than stroking egos and playing mind games, and that his technical coaching can be mainly attributed ot Tex Winter... my opinion. You could say the same thing about Riles. Also IMO, Sloan accomplished a lot even considering he had two of the top 50 players ever... 1. Rookies on a Sloan team are usually disciplined from the very beginning, though most are unspectacular, and new players are likewise quickly integrated. 2. The Jazz have consistently finished in the top 2 or 3 teams in the league in FG% for every year Sloan has coached, a mark of the Jazz's disipline... after all, in later years was Malone was a jump shooter and they had no center... their high % was solely due to offensive discipline, not talent... just look at their comparatively abyssmal 3P% and FT%. 3. His conservative strategy is rock solid... layups and more layups, his orders to his players to never jump for a block because it more often gets you a foul or out of position, and his simple but effective playbook. In Larry Bird's words: (paraphase) "I should not have won Coach of the Year this year... it should have been Jerry Sloan. That guy runs about five plays, but they run them so well that they fool you every time." 4. His ability to quickly find and exploit the strengths of the Jazz's constantly changing role players (especially after Bryon Russell left this last year and Harpring entered). Just look at Greg Foster... he looked like a fool on every other team he's been on, but for the Jazz he started for 64 (or was it 67?) games one season and was allowed to do some of what he was good at (outside shooting), while all other coaches don't seem to recognize or care about his shooting ability. (edit) 5. Also, I must say I admire Sloan for being the last of a dying breed. We hear so much about being a "Players' coach" these days... that's all there is... guys stroking stars' egos. Sloan never did that. You do it his way or you sit, and no he doesn't want your suggestions. 6. Lastly... his penchant for riling up his team by arguing with the refs. Sloan gets the most technicals (by far) of any coach (followed by Don Nelson, who has barely 2/3 of Sloan's T's) but that one point off the tech free throw rarely seems a detriment for a coach's T... it seems to unify a team rather than distract them, as a player's technical usually does... just look at the Blazers. I've always thought that it should be coaches going after refs, not players.
I have to give Popovich some credit Of all the Big Four I thought he had the LEAST talented team last year I thought Dallas, Kings and Lakers had superior talent . . . . Yet he got the ring Rocket River
DF22, How in the world can you rank 6 coaches, none of which have won a title (2 of which have never been to an NBA final even) ahead of a coach that has won 9 titles? I can understand why people hate Phil for cherrypicking teams, but you cant argue with his results. He is a proven winner and last I checked, Jordan, Pippen, Kobe and Shaq weren't winning titles until Phil came along (credit Tex Winter also).
Remember that Phil took the bulls to the eastern conference finals with Pippen and Kukoc as their goto guys and gave the Knicks a run for their money.
Exactly! Jackson is the hands-down winner in my opinion. He has 9 Championships, he's never missed the playoffs, and most importantly he has helped promising young talent (Pippen, Jordan, Kobe, Shaq) take their place as future hall-of-famers....he's done it all!
1. Phil Jackson 2. Gregg Poppovich 3. JEFF VAN GUNDY (yes I know I'm a homer!!!!) WORST COACH because of his evilness and greediness : Larry Brown!! Just kidding... Phil Jackson is a genius and has won what? Like the last 9 titles of 13? But he's pretty mean looking....has health problems though. Poppovich is the only coach besides Phil Jackson who has led a team to a championship title the last 5 years...2 times too. My favorite is Poppovich...I just like him.
In no particular order my top 5 are: Jackson (Can't stand him but he's still a great coach) Popovich (Does more with less every year) Van Gundy (Same as Popovich, how he got the Knicks to the finals as an 8 seed was solely on his shoulders) Brown Riley (I like him over Sloan because way back in the day, he coached the Showtime Lakers to the finals, and then he coached a thuggish Knicks team to the finals against us. He can coach an uptempo game, or he can coach a slowdown game. Pick your poison.)
I don't think you can rank coaches the way you rank players. Coaches rely on the kind of players they have. Some coaches are good at developing young talents. Some are good at strategies. Some are good at massaging egos. Some are good at scouting. The importance of each of these aspects varies depending on the situations.
I say Sloan solely because he gets the most out of his scrubs and turns them into a winning team. If he can somehow manage to get the Jazz to play like a .500 team this upcoming season without his stars, that'll seal it. Jackson is up there simply because of his credentials, but I think Popovich is the best mix of the two. Pop again is one of those coaches who gets the most out of his players, and doesn't try and fill himself up in the spotlight, much like Sloan. He's a hardnosed coach who doesn't put up with much bs, and again gets the most out of his players. He's sometimes too hardnosed though and it effects the tempo of the game and the players he has out there on the court. I pretty side this with Sloan's coaching too. Both are sometimes too much by the book in crunch time, that they don't give their own players the freedom to take over the game and step up. That's just my opinion though.
