Your Top 5 coaches in the NBA

[The G.O.D II]

Stevens
Synder
Casey
Doc
Kerr

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

But that's exactly my point. Accolades and achievements don't directly correlate with coaching ability yet those are the things you're pointing to in declaring his pedigree.

In this context, they do correlate, exactly how much impact/influence Kerr's coaching has had is another debate altogether - one we won't ever get to the bottom of - but that applies to coaching, in general. The point here is that the measurements we do use for coaches are largely (not entirely) founded on what they're able to achieve and the outcome (and I'm not simply talking Championships), otherwise, if we rule them out, we'll all get caught up a web of logical fallacies trying to compare the "abilities" of coaches.

None of those other guys have coached the most impactful offensive player OAT so comparing along those lines to me is pointless.

Jackson's, Pop's, Daly's, Riley's, Red's etc respective peers didn't coach the superstars they did either, so I guess it's "pointless" evaluating their abilities too?

And I won't give him extra credit for managing personalities/lineups etc. not least because Curry and KD are among of the least egotistical stars the league has ever seen and because all these other coaches have had to do the same and in more varied circumstances.

He still has to cater to them - they're not robots. We're not giving Pop credit for managing personalities/lineups because the "least egotistical star" in NBA history was the centerpiece of his team for nearly two decades? What about Draymond, one of the most temperamental players in the league, all the while being the leader of the team? What about needing everyone on the roster to buy into the culture he's created? What about keeping them focussed and on pace during the regular season after winning a title, over and over again - all the while getting teams' best efforts every night - needing to make adjustments to all that comes in that frame?

Other coaches are most certainly not doing the same shyt.

All those other coaches have proven their worth with less than stellar rosters and/or successfully switched up style to adapt to new circumstances. With regard to Kerr that element of the job remains a question mark, excluding him on that basis is reasonable.

Proven their worth in what sense? A bunch of wins during the regular season (only to fade out in the postseason because they put too much emphasis on the RS), while coaches like Kerr have to play the long-game and pace their team to peak at the right time? Successfully switched up their styles in what sense? By the time the coaches get into the league, they are who they are - they don't change in the most general manner, certainly no more than other coaches who have similar personnel/staff changes, environment changes, rule changes etc. Meaning it's relatively the same coaching process no matter the circumstance, and it all depends on all the parts being able to co-exist to achieve success.

I do find it funny how you're of the belief outcome doesn't matter, yet in the next breath, you're talking about coaches proving their worth - how are they suppose to prove their worth if the outcome doesn't matter?

 

[Miggs]

I'm convinced that Caseyn got every ounce of talent outta them dudes.


They just just soft as baby shyt.

I believe he's gonna turn the Pistons around.

He got every ounce of regular season talent,couldnt win in the playoffs because he cant adjust to things on the fly....things you saw in the Cavs series were indicative of that fact....

 

[TheNig]

He got every ounce of regular season talent,couldnt win in the playoffs because he cant adjust to things on the fly....things you saw in the Cavs series were indicative of that fact....

Nah... Them nikkas soft. Period.

 

[Miggs]

Nah... Them nikkas soft. Period.

Its too easy just to blame the players...the coaching was equally as trash...

Dwane Casey as a coach of a 50 win team was swept in back to back years and 3 times out of 4.


You cant just say it was the players

As a fan who watches this team i know it wasnt...

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Okay so we'll assume that he has the ability to properly manage players. That's cool, but without all that talent its hard to tell if he'd be effective like that on court with the suns/last years spurs/even indiana or timberwolves type squads..It's just doesn't makes sense when he is essentially on a coaches wet dream squad where raw talent hides plenty. It'll make more sense when we see him with an average squad when the warriors are no longer the Dubs.

I wish y'all muh'fukkas would stop saying this nonsense, or better yet stick to a script - are Draymond and Klay All-Stars because of the system, or do the Warriors have all this talent?

Remind me, where was all this talent they had in 2015/16 when they won 73 games? A superstar in Curry, a great #2 option in Klay, and a bunch of 'role-playing' offensive players who were average to below-average shooters (Draymond being the best 3-pt shooter out of the bunch).

Draymond
Barnes
Iggy
Barbosa
Rush
Bogut
Livingston
Speights

In terms of offensive ability, that's a league-average support cast - there's a reason why once teams centered their entire defensive scheme to stopping Curry, and forced the role players to beat them, the majority of the time they'd fail to capitalize - it's one of the main reasons why they lost to Cleveland that season.

Furthermore, look at how the Warriors generate points through their ball/player movement, don't you think if Kerr managed to get an entirely different team to buy into that concept, they too would be performing well on offense? It's not like Kerr's system is ISO-centric, where it completely functions on players needing to create scoring opportunities for themselves; the actual system creates the scoring opportunities for the players.



Now is that "raw talent" where they've got all these scorers who can create for themselves, or is that a team buying into a system, and generating points through player/ball movement?



And please remind me, what coach in NBA history has accomplished anything without talent?

 

[camer999]

I wish y'all muh'fukkas would stop saying this nonsense, or better yet stick to a script - are Draymond and Klay All-Stars because of the system, or do the Warriors have all this talent?

Remind me, where was all this talent they had in 2015/16 when they won 73 games? A superstar in Curry, a great #2 option in Klay, and a bunch of 'role-playing' offensive players who were average to below-average shooters (Draymond being the best 3-pt shooter out of the bunch).

Draymond
Barnes
Iggy
Barbosa
Rush
Bogut
Livingston
Speights

In terms of offensive ability, that's a league-average support cast - there's a reason why once teams centered their entire defensive scheme to stopping Curry, and forced the role players to beat them, the majority of the time they'd fail to capitalize - it's one of the main reasons why they lost to Cleveland that season.

Furthermore, look at how the Warriors generate points through their ball/player movement, don't you think if Kerr managed to get an entirely different team to buy into that concept, they too would be performing well on offense? It's not like Kerr's system is ISO-centric, where it completely functions on players needing to create scoring opportunities for themselves; the actual system creates the scoring opportunities for the players.



Now is that "raw talent" where they've got all these scorers who can create for themselves, or is that a team buying into a system, and generating points through player/ball movement?



And please remind me, what coach in NBA history has accomplished anything without talent?

My story has always been Klay is a fukking dynamo and draymond although offensively limited was in contention for DPOY that year. Barnes/livingston/iggy are no slouches either. Iggy just won finals MVP the year before and Barnes is borderline all star talent.

 

[Columbo]

Popovich
Kerr
Walton
Spoelstra
Fizzdale

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

My story has always been Klay is a fukking dynamo and draymond although offensively limited was in contention for DPOY that year. Barnes/livingston/iggy are no slouches either. Iggy just won finals MVP the year before and Barnes is borderline all star talent.

Are any of those players you mentioned standout self-creating scorers? If not, where's all this talent you're talking about, that isn't anywhere else in the league (sans Klay)?

Offensively, Barnes/Livingston/Iggy are everywhere in the league
Iggy won Finals MVP, funnily enough, because of the system, where he was assisted on 80+% of his FGs during that series (on wide open jumpshots)
Barnes isn't even on the radar anymore since leaving GS, and if his bum ass didn't shoot 5-32 on mostly open shots (again, due to the system) in the last three games of the '16 Finals, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

shyt, they found themselves in a hole in the 2015 Finals mainly because the supporting cast was limited offensively; they ended up coming back because the role players made open shots, again, I stress -- again, because of the system.

 

[camer999]

Are any of those players you mentioned standout self-creating scorers? If not, where's all this talent you're talking about, that isn't anywhere else in the league (sans Klay)?

Offensively, Barnes/Livingston/Iggy are everywhere in the league
Iggy won Finals MVP, funnily enough, because of the system, where he was assisted on 80+% of his FGs during that series (on wide open jumpshots)
Barnes isn't even on the radar anymore since leaving GS, and if his bum ass didn't shoot 5-32 on mostly open shots (again, due to the system) in the last three games of the '16 Finals, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

shyt, they found themselves in a hole in the 2015 Finals because the supporting cast was limited offensively. They came back because the role players made open shots, again, I stress -- again, because of the system.

We've had the 2015 argument, if luck was more kind to Bron/CLE/Kyrie/Love. You wouldn't be able to use that in your argument, but I will say if they STILL was at a talent disadvantage in 2015 then fine kerr played his part. I think you know that to not be the case though. Still he deserves some props, but in the upper echelon? It's just still to early to tell. The warriors was on the incline with mark jackson too. Who knows if 2015 on would be the same jackson or kerr. Barnes also had a pretty good year in dallas, he is pretty well over the 20 PPG mark. Not everyone can be consistent self-creating scores but they were well above average starters. The eric gordan type good (obviously not play style, but you get the point.)

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Still he deserves some props, but in the upper echelon? It's just still to early to tell.

It's too early to tell if he's a top-5 coach in the league, right now? Isn't that what the argument revolves around?

The warriors was on the incline with mark jackson too. Who knows if 2015 on would be the same jackson or kerr.

They weren't doing shyt with Jackson, he had already lost the locker room, and they had arguably the worst offensive system in the league (last in ball movement and running Klay post-ups as a go-to).

"Steve Kerr's Impact: In Mark Jackson's last season as GSW coach, the Warriors had the fewest touches per game in the NBA (369) and the longest time per touch (3.05 sec). The next season, they were 5th in touches (439) and had the shortest time per touch (2.41).

Unsurprisingly, the offense went from the 12th most points per possession under Jackson to 2nd under Kerr (GSW was 1st in points per possession in Kerr's 2nd and 3rd seasons).

GSW Average Seconds per Touch

2013-14 under Jackson: 3.05 (30th)
2014-15 under Kerr: 2.41 (1st)
2015-16: under Kerr 2.39 (1st)
2016-17: under Kerr 2.43 (2nd)"

"Under Jackson, they were 30th in the league in passes per game - 246.6 (Nuggets were second to last yet they still averaged 17 more passes than they did - 261.9)

Under Kerr, they were 7th in the league in passes per game - 315.9 (plus they were 1st in assists per game, 1st in secondary assists per game, 1st in assist to pass percentage and 1st in potential assists).

They literally went from the worst passing team in the league to arguably the best (from Jackson to Kerr)."

Barnes also had a pretty good year in dallas, he is pretty well over the 20 PPG mark.

Except Barnes hasn't averaged 20 ppg in any of seasons in Dallas, and would it be such a great feat if he did? He's getting #1 reps/touches on a lottery team, I should damn hope he's averaging that much.

Not everyone can be consistent self-creating scores but they were well above average starters. The eric gordan type good (obviously not play style, but you get the point.)

We really comparing the scoring abilities of Livingston/Iggy/Barbosa etc to Gordon?

 

[Greenstrings]

In this context, they do correlate, exactly how much impact/influence Kerr's coaching has had is another debate altogether - one we won't ever get to the bottom of - but that applies to coaching, in general. The point here is that the measurements we do use for coaches are largely (not entirely) founded on what they're able to achieve and the outcome (and I'm not simply talking Championships), otherwise, if we rule them out, we'll all get caught up a web of logical fallacies trying to compare the "abilities" of coaches.

I haven't ruled them out at all and I haven't gone near any of those logical fallacies. There are plenty of "outcomes" in terms of a teams comportment, discipline, intensity, execution, that we ultimately hold coaches responsible for. I see them more as process, as in qualities that need to be reinforced and refreshed over time. I give Kerr credit for his success in that regard but at the same time I have no idea how good he is if he's not operating under arguably the most coach friendly circumstances ever.

Jackson's, Pop's, Daly's, Riley's, Red's etc respective peers didn't coach the superstars they did either, so I guess it's "pointless" evaluating their abilities too?

You're talking about coaches that successfully managed different superstars over 1000 + games. That is not Steve Kerr.
You're talking about coaches that dealt with entirely different teams and setups and challenges. That ain't Kerr.

We talk about the qualities of the more storied coaches with confidence because there's actual texture to their careers. Various questions were asked of them over decades of coaching and they answered. There is tons we don't know about what Kerr actually is as a coach.

He still has to cater to them - they're not robots. We're not giving Pop credit for managing personalities/lineups because the "least egotistical star" in NBA history was the centrepiece of his team for nearly two decades? What about Draymond, one of the most temperamental players in the league, all the while being the leader of the team? What about needing everyone on the roster to buy into the culture he's created? What about keeping them focussed and on pace during the regular season after winning a title, over and over again - all the while getting teams' best efforts every night - needing to make adjustments to all that comes in that frame?

1. People absolutely caveat Pop's record by noting the sustained excellence and humility of Duncan First thing people were saying after Kawhi left was how much more Duncan mattered. His pedigree in that regard comes from the hundreds of other players he dealt with over 2 decades.
2. Don't do that bullshyt where we pretend Draymond is actually some kind of massive problem. Like his drive and fire doesn't compensate for the more placid personalities of their stars and give them an identity to rally around that far offsets whatever aggro he brings. I think we've been spoiled by how good players have behaved in recent years and have forgotten what a problem player really means.
3. Crazy thing is they didn't stay focussed and on pace. Their season record was poor relative to what they're capable of. The biggest problem that team has is not playing down to opposition because they know how much better they are. I'm not gonna fall over myself feeling sorry for po lil Steve Kerr cause of that.
My point is these aren't things that set him apart at all. There isn't a single one amongst the other coaches that haven't dealt with the same but under less agreeable circumstances.

Other coaches are most certainly not doing the same shyt.

(Players gushing about coaches letting them express themselves is one of the oldest cliche's but putting that aside) Yeah that's Kerr's way of doing it, Other coaches no matter their quality are under the same pressure to make their own ways work. But again, my point is that the inherent value of his specific approach is uncertain cause he's only ever had to make it work under one set of circumstances.

Proven their worth in what sense? A bunch of wins during the regular season (only to fade out in the postseason because they put too much emphasis on the RS), while coaches like Kerr have to play the long-game and pace their team to peak at the right time? Successfully switched up their styles in what sense? By the time the coaches get into the league, they are who they are - they don't change in the most general manner, certainly no more than other coaches who have similar personnel/staff changes, environment changes, rule changes etc. Meaning it's relatively the same coaching process no matter the circumstance, and it all depends on all the parts being able to co-exist to achieve success.

Are we really gonna pretend like the NBA is some cross country race where a lesser team wins by resting smarter as a matter of course? That's nonsense. If those teams faded out it's typically because they weren't as good or matched up poorly with the teams they lost to.
Even with core styles holding strong it's easy to see which coaches successfully adjusted to how much the game has changed over the last decade because we've also seen how many have fallen by the wayside and are now seen as dinosaurs who don't understand the modern game.

I do find it funny how you're of the belief outcome doesn't matter, yet in the next breath, you're talking about coaches proving their worth - how are they suppose to prove their worth if the outcome doesn't matter?

Proof is in the process. The outcomes of Brad Stevens First 2 seasons were nothing special on paper so how did we immediately know we were dealing with a something special?

 

[AntoineWalkerShimmy]

Spoelstra
Pop
Kerr
Stevens
Carlisle

 

[camer999]

It's too early to tell if he's a top-5 coach in the league, right now? Isn't that what the argument revolves around?

They weren't doing shyt with Jackson, he had already lost the locker room, and they had arguably the worst offensive system in the league (last in ball movement and running Klay post-ups as a go-to).

"Steve Kerr's Impact: In Mark Jackson's last season as GSW coach, the Warriors had the fewest touches per game in the NBA (369) and the longest time per touch (3.05 sec). The next season, they were 5th in touches (439) and had the shortest time per touch (2.41).

Unsurprisingly, the offense went from the 12th most points per possession under Jackson to 2nd under Kerr (GSW was 1st in points per possession in Kerr's 2nd and 3rd seasons).

GSW Average Seconds per Touch

2013-14 under Jackson: 3.05 (30th)
2014-15 under Kerr: 2.41 (1st)
2015-16: under Kerr 2.39 (1st)
2016-17: under Kerr 2.43 (2nd)"

"Under Jackson, they were 30th in the league in passes per game - 246.6 (Nuggets were second to last yet they still averaged 17 more passes than they did - 261.9)

Under Kerr, they were 7th in the league in passes per game - 315.9 (plus they were 1st in assists per game, 1st in secondary assists per game, 1st in assist to pass percentage and 1st in potential assists).

They literally went from the worst passing team in the league to arguably the best (from Jackson to Kerr)."



Except Barnes hasn't averaged 20 ppg in any of seasons in Dallas, and would it be such a great feat if he did? He's getting #1 reps/touches on a lottery team, I should damn hope he's averaging that much.



We really comparing the scoring abilities of Livingston/Iggy/Barbosa etc to Gordon?

o

It's too early to tell if he's a top-5 coach in the league, right now? Isn't that what the argument revolves around?

They weren't doing shyt with Jackson, he had already lost the locker room, and they had arguably the worst offensive system in the league (last in ball movement and running Klay post-ups as a go-to).

"Steve Kerr's Impact: In Mark Jackson's last season as GSW coach, the Warriors had the fewest touches per game in the NBA (369) and the longest time per touch (3.05 sec). The next season, they were 5th in touches (439) and had the shortest time per touch (2.41).

Unsurprisingly, the offense went from the 12th most points per possession under Jackson to 2nd under Kerr (GSW was 1st in points per possession in Kerr's 2nd and 3rd seasons).

GSW Average Seconds per Touch

2013-14 under Jackson: 3.05 (30th)
2014-15 under Kerr: 2.41 (1st)
2015-16: under Kerr 2.39 (1st)
2016-17: under Kerr 2.43 (2nd)"

"Under Jackson, they were 30th in the league in passes per game - 246.6 (Nuggets were second to last yet they still averaged 17 more passes than they did - 261.9)

Under Kerr, they were 7th in the league in passes per game - 315.9 (plus they were 1st in assists per game, 1st in secondary assists per game, 1st in assist to pass percentage and 1st in potential assists).

They literally went from the worst passing team in the league to arguably the best (from Jackson to Kerr)."



Except Barnes hasn't averaged 20 ppg in any of seasons in Dallas, and would it be such a great feat if he did? He's getting #1 reps/touches on a lottery team, I should damn hope he's averaging that much.



We really comparing the scoring abilities of Livingston/Iggy/Barbosa etc to Gordon?

You came with the receipts. You got me to acknowledge that kerr truly is a good coach, but honestly the overwhelming talent is going to make it hard for me to put him at top 5, and he does have 2016 as a blunder. You got me with Harrison Barnes. I swore I saw he hit 20+ppg, but he would be the Eric Gordon type. The others are just seriously above average players. Talent was never an issue 2015 on.

 

[Remote]

There are a number of good coaches in the league.
I think a better exercise may be to identify those who are a bit underappreciated.

Quin Snyder is a guy that comes to mind.