Also other than Gregg popovich who is clearly the goat, the current NBA coach that I think might be deserving of that list would be Tom thibodeau to be honest.
I'd rank KC Jones, Pat Riley and Phil ahead of Pop. Those guys not only had to manage super personalities and coach them, the league was practically a UFC match every game during their tenures (with the exception of Riley's Heat time...and maybe Phil's Laker time). Pop and the later coaches were in a much more physically-controlled NBA. I'm with @B-Bob, Cunningham deserves to be in the conversation.
Thanks! I was thinking about it, and he actually outcoached Nellie on the regular and held his own with KC and Riley. But just not enough body of work I guess.
Doc Rivers! I guess this list makes him "Overrated" again. If he didn't get carried by KG and Company, what did he contribute to the game? Nelson, D'Antoni, Sloan, Adelman, and even SVG never won titles as coaches, but their schemes have a lasting impact on the league to this day, and maximized whatever talent they had. You put any of those coaches on the 08' Celtics and they win that title, and likely win in '10 too. But what systemic legacy does Rivers leave behind? What style of offense/defense was his making? Closest I can think of is ICE, but crediting that to Doc instead of Thibs is like crediting MDA for Bizdelik's 5-man switching defense.
That Celtics team's dominance was all about their defense, and it seems to me that the lion-share of the coaching credit for that should go to Thibodeau.
Tomjonovich is the only coach to win multiple titles and not be on this list, isn't he? It is strange how little credit he gets for those championship teams.
Evaluation of coaches is extremely subjective. Unlike players, they don't have statistical data to rate them other than wins and championships. But it can easily be argued that wins and championships are more about the players than the coaches. Also, different styles of coaching are good for different situations. There are very few, if any, coaches who are good for all situations. Is a coach who makes mediocre talents a good team better than a coach who wins a championship with a stacked team? The annual COY award seems to go that route, namely, a coach who bring surprising results with a not so talented team. But if that's the case, those who won a lot of championships (Auerback, Jackson, etc.) may not even deserve to be on the list. But they are normally viewed as historically great coaches because of the chips they won.
Didn’t they also make a couple rule changes off of his coaching style? The backing it in with Dream and Barkley and then something iso wise with Francis? Can’t remember exactly. He literally changed the game lol. Either way, he’s ridiculously underrated.
Sloan was mostly good at calling for his team to run PNR again, showing them ways to take more cheap shots and yelling the F-word at them. Doesn't belong on this list.
My brain supports the former and my heart the 2nd... but Rick the Ruler won nearly 2x as many games as Rudy T over his career. His old Blazer teams were pretty amazing, as were his Sac teams, and he obviously over-achieved with our gang in Houston. Strange that his peers wouldn't support him. At one time, 91.8% of CF thought he should wear a monocle though. (@SamFisher)
It's amazingly coincidental how most of these coaches had multiple HOF players on their teams for most of their careers
Well Adelman did make Petrovic the most overqualified 3rd string point guard until Nash sat behind Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, and Sam Cassell. Petro sat behind Porter and... Danny Young?!?
