ESPN Ranking the head coaches: Rudy #10? UPDATED: Users poll ranks Rudy #22 ESPN just posted this article http://espn.go.com/nba/s/2002/0919/1433805.html I think 10 is pretty low for Rudy. I would say definitely a top 5 coach. Think about it, he won a ring his second full year coaching the league, a damn good accomplishment. Look at the coaches that ranked ahead of him: 1. Phil Jackson Lakers The Zen Master is at 9 titles and counting 2. Larry Brown 76ers So good he led Clippers to the playoffs 3. Jerry Sloan Jazz Would've had two rings if MJ stayed retired 4. Pat Riley Heat Stunning stat: 16 division titles in 20 years 5. Don Nelson Mavericks Like Riley, a 3-time Coach of Year winner 6. Rick Carlisle Pistons Coach of Year last season as rookie 7. Gregg Popovich Spurs One of five active coaches who've won it all 8. Jim O'Brien Celtics Led C's to first East finals since Bird heyday 9. Flip Saunders Timberwolves Guided T-Wolves to playoffs 6 straight years I can understand Phil, Larry, Pat and Don but the rest? Even O'Brian and Carlisle beat him out? Damn, ESPN is a bunch of idiots. Even if the Rockets havent made the playoffs in 3 years, Rudy still deserves better. They gave props to Rudy T as the "Best Guy" to hang around with. http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/hughes_frank/1433854.html
Seems fair to me. Hate to be a, "What have you done for me lately?" guy, but it is hard to argue that the Rockets team we have seen over the last few years has looked well coached. I don't buy "Cuttino dribbles" as a viable offensive strategy, and the defense has been pitiful at best. We won our back-to-back on the strength of our defense. Sure we had the best defensive player in the leagu at the post, but it was the team defensive concept that carried us. Where has that gone? One of the primary jobs of an NBA coach is to find a way to convince his players to buy into the defensive scheme, and Rudy hasn't done it. None of this is intended to slam Rudy, just to say that the 10 spot is about right.
Gregg Popovich!?! That's a joke right? How do they put Riley at 4 while noting his past accomplishments and then put people like Carlisle, O'Brien, and Flipper ahead of RudyT?
Oh my. It's sad that they rank Jerry Sloan so high because he 'could have' won titles if MJ stayed retired. Well, I hate to break it to you, but he didn't. Rudy T did though -- the first year with Dream and 4 'role players'!!! Popovich? Please. He fires Coach Hill after a season without Robinson & Elliot. Then drafts Tim Duncan. Suddenly he's one of the top 10 coaches? Absolutely rediculous. I agree with the original poster. I'd give a nod to Larry Brown, Don Nelson, Pat Riley and even Phil Jackson over Rudy T, but not the other guys.
That's pathetic. I could coach Tim Duncan as well as Popazitch. Flip Saunders is a ridiculous pick above Rudy too. Whatever else you say about Rudy, the dude can really coach in the playoffs. Flip flops, year after year, and don't give me the "well, who's he got aside from KG?" Who did Rudy have other than the Dream?
BTW, they are letting the public rank the 29 coaches of the league. Lets put Rudy on the top spot, even beating out Phil "I am SO MUCH BETTER than Red" Jackson. http://espn.go.com/nba/top25/headcoaches.html
A real slap in the face. They all shall pay. I look forward to the end of the season when all of these nay-sayers will have to look themselves in the mirror and say, "I'm still a good judge of talent....I'm still a good judge of talent....I'm still a good judge of talent....I still know what I'm talking about....I still know what I'm talking about....I still..."
Rudy should be in the top 5 easy. Sloan is a good coach, but hasn't won anything. Nelson has been around a long time, but with the talent he has in Dallas, should have had a better showing in last season's playoffs. Rudy deserves better, but I agree, this is a "what have you done for me lately" thing.
Well you cant take anything from Riley's years as a Laker Coach in the 80's. You can also argue about Lenny Wilkins, All-Time Winning Coach and is ranked @ #16.
They confuse themselves often, ranking one coach highly because of past accomplishments, then ignoring another coach's past accomplishments, thereby ranking him lowr than where he should be. I think there are some serious errors on that list - most notably of Isiah Thomas NOT being dead last - but that's why the fans can make their own list and moan about ESPN's.
I can look the other way on Pat Riley, even if he lucked into a talented Lakers club; seems to me his teams have sucked since then. Even when Zo was healthy, the Heat were often slapped out of the playoffs pretty quickly. But I don't know if Riley's such a great coach. Just because he's intense and driven? He constantly goes after veterans---say the word "rebuilding" to him and he's psychosomatically sick---and then drives them into the ground in marathon practice sessions; and then barely wins games with Tim Hardaway last-second desperation heaves (not now). But I'll let ESPN throw rose petals at his feet. Phil? He's a good coach. He didn't exactly jump at the chance to coach the Nets or the Grizzlies, though, did he? "Do you wanna coach Shaq and Kobe?" "SHOW-ME-DA-MONEY." Don Nelson? Hello? Please. He's a good guy and he's assembled a talented team, but he almost got Sprewelled in Golden State and New York because of his unconventional (re: small-ball) lineups alienating his star players (Webber, Ewing). Flip Saunders. Ah, OK, leave him there. Sloan? Sloan?!?!?! His playbook must read something like "The Longest Yard" w/ Burt Reynolds: "This play is called incidental contact. Every player with the ball gets an extra elbow, forearm, or kick to the head." Larry Brown. Good coach. Just needs to quit tinkering with his lineup. Popovitch. Gimme a break. How can you screw this up. "Get the ball to Tim." You know, Tim Duncan, the guy slumming at power forward, one of the best players in the game? Rick Carlisle. Hmph. Detroit would have been a .500 team in the West, but they win 52 in the East. (He's a good coach, but...) Jim O'Brien. Same story as Carlisle. But probably a good coach. So whither RUDY T? Hopefully the Rockets---healthy, growing together, with a great center---will prove Rudy's worth as a coach. I would've ranked him higher. But ESPN, situated in Connecticut, focuses only on LA when it looks West; everything else gets blurred out.
Right behind Rudy is Adelman, the coach with last year's best record, a coach who actually dealt with JWill, and a coach who led some amazing Blazer teams with the Glyde. The list is just complete random bunk.
A cool guy to hang out with? You bet. But an x's and o's guy Rudy is not. We don't have an offence scheme or a defensive one for that matter. What Rudy excells at is motivationa and makeing his players comfortable and wasnt to play for him. As a matter of fact, I think Rudy T is the best player's coach in the game right now. Some of the names on that list are pretty questionable though. Poppavich, like ROXTXIA said, he doesn't do anything except tell everyone to give the ball to TD. Carlisle has only been coachung for one year so their is no way he should be ranked ahead of Rudy and Flip is just an average coach to me. Rudy's in the top 6-8 but not top 5 IMO.
I say Rudy is more along the lines of a 6th or 7th. What is this about flip saunders making it to the post season 6 years in a row. The rockets went for a little more than a decade. He gets embarrased every year sent home packing in the first round anyways. Jim O'Brien and Rick Carlisle are good coaches, but lets see if tney win back to back titles first before breaking the top ten. As for Poppavich, way to get swept lose 8-1 in the past two years against the lakers. An 8-3 would be respectable. Sloan is the best coach in the world. Best in teaching how to cheat.
I'm confused. Is this "best coach still active" or "best current coach." Either way, they got major screw-ups here. If it is best coach still active, Rick Carlisle and Flip Saunders have no business on there. If it is best current coach, they must be kidding with Riley and Sloan. If we're talking current coaches, where are Doc Rivers, Byron Scott and Rick Adelman? If we are talking best overall still in the game, how in the hell does Rudy T, an Olympic coach and two-time champion, get bested by Larry Brown, Jerry Sloan, Flip Saunders, Jim O'Brien, Gregg Poppovich and Rick Carlisle. If you want to put Nelson, Riley and Zen Dufus ahead of him (even though we all know that Jackson benefitted heavily from MJ and Shaq/Kobe), fine. I guess I just don't get the logic because you can't say a coach is great NOW by talking about how they ALMOST won rings a few years back. If it is great active coaches, you can't brag about a rookie winning coach of the year. That has nothing to do with overall greatness. Just stupid.
