NBA Coaches
By InsideHoops.com | 2007-08
NBA coaches, listing their team, coaching record and college they attended, updated as of June 23, 2007 with records through the entire 2006-07 season and playoffs. Seasons Coached means full or partial total seasons the NBA coaches have spent as a head NBA coach.
InsideHoops.com Available Coach Rankings: (The best jobless coaches as of October 12, 2007) -- Jeff Van Gundy, Rick Carlisle, Mike Fratello, Larry Brown, Dwane Casey, Terry Stotts, Brian Hill, Paul Silas, Eric Musselman, Bob Hill, Lenny Wilkens.
Also (below): InsideHoops.com NBA Coach Rankings.
NBA COACH RANKINGS
InsideHoops.com ranks the best NBA coaches in the league who currently have a head coaching job. We're factoring both past and fairly recent history as well as last season's results into the mix. Updated October 12, 2007.
1) Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs: Pop gets the absolute best production from every player on his team, and is a master of developing team chemistry.
2) Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers: The triangle offense gets the Lakers into the playoffs even when the overall talent level of the roster isn't too terrific.
3) Jerry Sloan, Utah Jazz: Sloan's teams are always a walking textbook on playing basketball the right way.
4) Pat Riley, Miami Heat: When players give their all, Riley gets the most out of them.
5) Mike D'Antonio, Phoenix Suns: Gets all the Suns to cut and move correctly so Steve Nash can fire perfect passes at them.
6) Don Nelson, Golden State Warriors: Nelson's impact was clear last season. He took a team in shambles, remade them the Nelson way, and they won about 10 more games than they should have.
7) Rick Adelman, Houston Rockets: New to the Rockets, Adelman can be expected to try to make them play the way his Sacramento Kings team used to, with great movement, cutting, motion and quality team basketball.
8) George Karl, Denver Nuggets: Karl showed what he could in the second half of the season before last. Let's see him do his thing in 2007-08. And by do his thing we mean insult a few of his players, while at the same time getting terrific results.
9) Avery Johnson, Dallas Mavericks: The young coach makes some mistakes and can get out-coached on occasion, but generally does a terrific job at making the most of his roster.
10) Mike Brown, Cleveland Cavaliers -- He coached LeBron James and a decent but unspectacular supporting cast into the Finals. If the Cavs do this well again, Brown will move up the InsideHoops.com coach rankings.
11) Sam Mitchell, Toronto Raptors -- After years of many thinking Mitchell would get fired, he stepped up and coached the Raptors into last season Atlantic division title. It's a weak division, but still, Mitchell deserved credit and received it, winning Coach of the Year. If he keeps succeeding we'll move him up this list.
Honorable Mentions: Flip Saunders (Detroit) does a terrific job getting the Pistons to keep doing what they know how to do... Byron Scott (New Orleans), with help from Chris Paul, did nice things with the Hornets especially considering all their injuries... Scott Skiles (Chicago) is good at recognizing limitations a few of his players have and working around it to get the best possible results.
|