What's your point, if its that Red didn't have great teams, you're wrong. Name one coach who didn't win with either the best team or best players. And if you do name some, remember Phil wasn't Jordan's, Shaq's, or Kobe's first coach.
He's extremely out of vogue, but I've always been a big Pat Riley fan... He's just softened up too much in Miami...
Well, if it's the "Greatest Team Ever Assembled", then the coach shouldn't matter. I'd pick someone who would coach for free to off-set some of the cost of putting the team together.
Again, what's your point, Rudy didn't have Hakeem for his best years? Daly didn't have Isiah for his best years. I bet Jackson could have won with the Rockets' 96-97 squad.
"Could have won" implies that that team didn't win, which is incorrect. They went to the WCF and lost to a 64-win team, with Matt Maloney at point guard and significant injury throughout the year.
No, I'm implying that they were a dissappointment, because we all thought they would at least win the Western Conference Championship. But I like how Barkley apologists spin, "we beat Seattle, and that's what we brought him in for". And you spun it quite nicely also, but I still think Phil would have led them to a championship, but that's just my opinion.
Aww man, you edited it. Now I look like some crazy guy that just makes up sh*t for quotes in his posts.
I am with you. The only coach that would mess up a team like that would be a guy who liked to piss his players off. So I wouldn't want guys like George Karl even if he'd do it for free. pgabriel, As you said, every coach won it with the best player, or best team. So what's the point? Why do you think Phil Jackson is better than the others? Could other coaches have won with Jordan and Shaq?
Apparently not, they didn't. That's my point, Jackson wasn't always Jordan's coach, and he wasn't always Shaq's and Kobe's. That's exactly the point. Also, I never said you automatically win with the best players, it still takes a coach to put the team in position to win, you just can't win with sub par players.
Riley (4): Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Scott, Green, Cooper, Thompson, Nixon, Wilkes Kundla (5): Mikan, Pollard, Mikkelson Auerbach (9): Russell, Cousy, Havlicek, S. Jones, Heinsohn, Sharman Jackson (9): Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Kobe, Shaq, Rice (now Malone & Payton) The only coaches with more than 3 titles. It's amazing how many people hold talent against Jackson because if leading a ton of talent to a championship is a drawback, then that means that the best coaches in the history of the game are Al Attles ('75 Warriors), Jack Ramsey ('77 Blazers), Dick Motta ('78 Bullets), and Lenny Wilkens ('79 Sonics). The notion that Red is a better coach because he spotted talent and built his teams (the ones he coached) is exaggerated as well. He was urged to draft Cousy by the Boston media and fans, but picked some other stiff instead. Boston luckily got Cousy in the dispersal draft in 1950 (drawing his name out of a hat) after the team that drafted him folded. Auerbach was also alerted to Russell at San Francisco Univ by one of his league friends out West. Russell and Heinsohn both won titles (Russell as a player-coach) with the Celtics after Red retired in '65. That doesn't speak too highly of his omnipotence. Riley won a title with the same team that Paul Westhead lead to the title 2 years previous. That doesn't speak too highly of his immediate impact on the Lakers. He also fell into the head coaching spot like a Plinko chip, not because Jerry West thought he was a smart guy. After Westhead was fired because Magic didn't like him, Buss announced at a press conf that West would be the coach and West promptly stood up and announced that Riley was the coach. Jackson did something that Lougherty, Albeck, Collins, Goukas, Hill, Harris, and Rambis couldn't do - direct Jordan and Shaq to so much as 1 NBA title. And take a peek at the players surrounding Shaq and Kobe from 2000-02. Even with those two, it was still a huge feat to win titles with so many scrubs.
