No Love: Disrespect for the NBA Coaching Position

2013 seemed to be a significant year for NBA coaches. There were 12 coaching changes in the summer of 2013 with most of the changes being coaches being fired or not resigned. That summer seemed to set the tone for coaches that we see today.

Earlier this year, Kevin McHale, the coach of the Houston Rockets was fired EARLY in the season. Not even a quarter of the season went by. They went to the Western Conference Finals last year and ran into a brick wall called the Golden State Warriors. However, they were off to a disappointing start this year. Then, David Blatt, the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers gets fired. The Cavaliers went to the NBA Finals last year with a team full of key injuries and ran into a brick wall called the Golden State Warriors (you see a trend here?). He got fired right before the All-Star break and the team was first place in the East. The coaches of the two first place teams usually coach their respective conferences for the All-Star Game. The interim coach for Cavaliers coached the All-Star Game having only coached for 3 games this season. These are the types of things that are going on in the NBA.

Five coaches have been fired this year and we are at the “halfway mark” of the season which is right after the All-Star game despite the fact that more than half of the season has passed. I would say that coaches are on a short leash, but a guy like Lionel Hollins, who has been successful as a coach in the NBA before, only lasted 1 and 1/2 seasons with the Nets. That’s another level of short. I would say you would have to win quickly as a coach in the NBA, but David Blatt got fired while his team was at the top of the East. The only logical reason that I could think of that coaches jobs are constantly on the line like this is a lack of respect for coaches in the NBA.

Analytics plays a factor in this, as well. We are in a new era of NBA basketball. Math has invaded the game. General managers are looking for today’s coaches to take into account shot percentages when they are coaching offense. I don’t mean that the general managers want them to tell their players to take high percentage shots. I mean that LITERALLY want the coaches to coach players to take shots that go down at a higher percentage using the advanced statistics that are available to teams. For example, if your team makes threes at a higher rate than layups, today’s general managers are going to look for you to coach your team to jack up threes and turn down layups. This newer way of coaching with an emphasis on numbers and not just traditional offense has resulted in people looking away from older coaches despite having the numbers. Many older head coaches lament this new focus by general managers due to the fact that a coach might have the results and it still might not be good enough. This is why the Memphis Grizzlies fired their successful head coach Lionel Hollins and signed rookie, analytics focused Dave Joerger as head coach. Although, even his job isn’t all too safe. This why the Houston Rockets only score from behind the three point line and close to the basket, nothing in-between.

But, it’s more than that. You cannot tell me that coaches are having their teams at the top of the NBA, still getting fired, and there not be anything deeper going on here. Stan Van Gundy is one of the most well-respected coaches in the league and he just got his first job since getting fired by the Magic at the end of the Dwight era. It seems as if Gregg Popovich, Rick Carlisle, and Steve Kerr are the only head coaches that are untouchable in the NBA and I only say Steve Kerr because the Golden State Warriors might have the best season in NBA history. There is a lack of respect for the coaching position in the NBA.

Job security is important in all career fields. If a person constantly works with the pressure of one mistake costing them their job, they are probably not going to do their job well. In coaching, your job security is dependent on how other people do their jobs. It is supposed to (emphasis on supposed to) be that if the players play well, then you keep your job. However, when you look at head coaches like Scott Brooks from the Thunder, David Blatt from the Cavaliers, Tom Thibodeau from the Bulls, and others, then you see that may not be the case in the NBA. Even if your team isn’t doing well, you have to give a coach time to really implement what he wants to implement with a team. A coach has to get to know their team. One year is not enough to do this. Two years might not even be enough to do this. Look, I’m a Knicks fan and even though a lot of fans wanted him gone, and I’m not saying that they are wrong in saying that or that the Knicks are wring in their decision, I cannot be totally outraged if Derek Fisher didn’t get fired this year or even came back for another year…………… OK, that extra year might be pushing it, but my point is that teams have to allow coaches to work and work freely. In the previous eras, coaches were given time to work. If a coach has a bad year in the 1990’s, or even two, unless it’s historically they’re not going anywhere. They have time to develop an identity with their team and see if they are the right fit for a team. In addition to finding the right fit, giving the coach a few years gives the general manager time to figure out if an underachieving team is underachieving because of the players or the coach.

Who’s more important: the player or the coach? Really think about this. Gregg Popovich and the whole Spurs organization are what general managers want. They want the perfect coach, the perfect system, and players who take discounts. So, in an era where people have no patience in general, are general managers giving coaches no real time to prove themselves because they are in a rush to look for the next Pop. Or, are they blame deflecting on the coaches anytime a team doesn’t live up to the expectations of the public.

The NBA is a player’s league. If you don’t have good player’s, you cannot win no matter what system you run. Yet, organizations hold coaches accountable for a team not doing well. Part of the reason for this is that general managers choose the players so if they blame the players, they are really blaming themselves. Another reason is that general managers invest a lot of money in players so trading players, even if that may be best for the team, means that the general manager wasted their money by signing this player in the first place, so they rather stick with the player, hope that the team suddenly starts to play well, and fire the coach to look like you’re fixing the problem. These are people’s livelihoods that teams are playing with. You literally have guys like Doug Collins, Jeff Van Gundy, and maybe even Mark Jackson that do not want to coach in today’s NBA because of what they would have to deal with. They rather stick to being commentators. At the end of the day, from what I’ve noticed, these teams usually set their teams development back by firing coaches quickly so to the teams that fire coaches quickly…

Sinking Ships: Tanking in the NBA

The following video is going to highlight the Spurs and their bench more than talk about the Sixers, but pay attention to the score.

The official meaning for the word ‘tank’ does not have anything to do with sports. You will not find the most common use of the word in any official dictionary. However, when you search for the definition on Google, it gives the official definitions, but incorporates the ‘slang’ definition, as well. The definition basically says exactly what the Philadelphia organization has been doing for the last 3 years which is basically losing on purpose. Now, when you tell non-sports fans about this concept, the first thing you will almost always hear is: Why would a team want to lose on purpose? This is important to recognize because the fact that this question comes up speaks to the fact that tanking goes against our very nature as human beings and therefore there might be something fundamentally wrong with it.

This is how tanking happens in sports: particularly in the NBA. In the NBA, you either want to be the best or the worst, as crazy as that sounds. The reason for that is that if you are the best, you can win a championship. If you are the worst, you have a better chance of getting the first pick in the NBA Draft, where the best college basketball players get selected by NBA teams. If you are just alright, then you’ll make the playoffs most likely but we all know that you’re not winning the championship because you’re just not the best and you’re too good to get a high pick in the draft so you’re basically stuck there trying to provide false hope of a championship to your fans and no future pretty much. An example of a team like this would have to be the Atlanta Hawks from around 2007-2011. They were good and had some good records to show for it, but they weren’t knocking LeBron out of the playoffs and the fans knew this because they would have decent attendance, but most of the fans were rooting for the other team. Many people thought that this was because you have so many people from other states that move down to Atlanta, but that might not be the case because we saw how excited the fan base could be when they feel they have a legitimate chance to do something in the playoffs last year and to a degree this year, as well.

Other leagues have drafts, as well. However, tanking isn’t as big of a problem in the other leagues due to the nature of the sport. I had an argument over Christmas with my cousin. He was born and raised in Jamaica, as almost all of my family was, as a HUGE soccer fan. When he came to America, he started to follow basketball a little bit more and decided to become a LeBron James fan. So, he saw all The Decision mayhem and he saw him go back to Cleveland, as well. Basically, as a soccer fan, he was used to seeing superstars join each other’s teams and dominate so he said he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. My position was that basketball is a different sport by nature so you can’t compare the two and that there’s something to be said for being THE reason why you win a championship in a sport where one guy can change the whole direction of an organization. It was a long argument. That being said, it is true that one or two guys can single-handedly change the whole direction of a franchise in basketball and it is hard (not impossible) to say that about football, or soccer, or hockey, or any other team sport. This is why there is more parity in the other sports, as well. Therefore, the moves being made by a team’s front office in other sports are almost always about improving the win percentage in the next season. In the NBA, who’s beating LeBron and whoever else is on his team? Notice, over the last 20 years, it’s almost always the same handful of teams winning the championship. The Bulls won 6 in the 1990’s. Kobe has 5, Wade has 3, the Pistons, Celtics, Mavericks and Warriors (to date) won one, and Duncan has 5. That’s all in the last 17 seasons, but there’s 30 NBA teams.

So now, you have the NBA draft. In other sports where tanking isn’t as common, the rules of the draft are very similar to the NBA. However, this might not be common to say, but the NBA Draft rewards tanking. Tanking is illegal in the NBA, but it’s hard to enforce a rule when you can’t really prove that a team is breaking it. The 76ers have come the closest in NBA history to show without a shadow of a doubt that they are tanking. I have never met an athlete in my life that has played a game with the intention of losing. Although, it has happened.

It is the front office that makes roster changes that directly hurt the team. Philadelphia has done nothing but make losing changes and here’s a list of them. The worst trade of all was trading away their most promising rookie in a long time who people thought they were tanking for in the first place. Now, all Philadelphia does is lose. They consistently get high draft picks though and this what they want. Is this wrong or just how business works in the NBA.

This can’t be right. That initial first reaction when you explain tanking to someone is what let’s you know that. First of all, I’m a Knicks fan and my team tanked last year and this year we look pretty good and are improving every game. I feel for the Philadelphia fans. They have tanked for so long that losing is a habit over there and it might take them a while to shake it. There must be a way in which Philadelphia can look at other teams or other leagues for guidance on how to develop a good team. The fans don’t deserve it and the city doesn’t deserve it. After all, this legend played there.