Re: Sanity

[Kestas <Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU>]

At 17:46 3/4/00 -0400, you wrote:

>Speaking of silly, that's what it is to classify those guys as superior
>coaches based of wins-losses.  

I classify them as superior coaches based on ALL the criteria I listed
(i.e., jointly), not just wins-losses. I don't know why you're singling out
 the one criterion most susceptible to being confounded by things like the
talent on their team, and then saying it's silly to use it in judging
coaches. 

>A cadaver could have coached the Bulls after
>Jordan matured as a player.  And having strong role-players was a huge plus.

Chicago won nothing with Doug Collins, and 6 championships with Jackson.
Can Jordan's maturity account for all of that?  And why did he suddenly
mature under Jackson? Just a coincidence, right? And now Shaq has suddenly
matured into an MVP-type player, which again just happened to coincide with
Jackson's arrival.  The fact that the Lakers turned into the best team in
the NBA, after being a talented but inconsistent and directionless bunch,
is also just a coincidence, no doubt.  That's a lot of coincidences there,
don't you think?
 
>Riley has been surrounded by talent during his 3 stints.  The universal
>respect issue doesn't matter.  How many players don't maintain respect for
>their coach save for Rodman when the cameras and microphones are present?

Players can, and do, say general, vaguely positive things about their
coaches, when they don't have much to say about them, or don't want to say
anything bad about them for fear of reprisals. But when Shaq declares
Jackson "a white version of my father", is he just "trying to maintain
respect for [his] coach, when the cameras and microphones are present", as
you say? Why do former players, who have nothing to fear, proclaim Jackson
and Riley great coaches? Jordan, who surely had nothing to fear from the
management, being able to de facto fire the coaches he didn't like,
*refused* to play for anyone but Jackson after having been coached by him.
Jackson was able to channel Rodman's often self-destructive energies into
helping the Bulls win a bunch of championships. Lots of coaches have been
surrounded by talent - Del Harris &  Kurt Rambis were coaching the same
Laker cast, lest you forget - but haven't gotten much out of the same talent. 

>You're arguments are terribly inconsistent.  One moment, it matters that
>they are playing hard.  Now the wins, losses and respect of peers and
>players matters.

Who, and what, are you talking about?! Where did that come from? Who's
they? What do they have to do with this discussion about good coaches?

>Yep, Pat Riley had an unforgettable career in the pros didn't he?  How many
>out there would say he was a good player?  Same for Jackson, who wasn't the
>worst player, but definitely not one who would have been remembered for a
>stellar career.  

I didn't mention anything about stellar careers. By "good" I meant a solid,
smart player, but not a star, for stars, Bird and perhaps Wilkens
notwithstanding, rarely make good coaches. 

>But out the other side comes the but it's not always
>necessary comment.  Bill Fitch, Larry Brown, George Karl, Dr. Jack Ramsey,
>Greg Popovich, Don Casey, Paul Westhead, Jeff Van Gundy, Flip Saunders etc.
>You would not have wanted them hired because their chances of success would
>be less according to your estimation because they weren't good players.  Don
>Chaney was a good player.  Where's he now?

Are you unable to think in terms of probabilities and there being several
routes to the same end, or are you just trying to be difficult? It seems
like you're attempting to "nail me down" with some ludicrous constraints -
as if it could ever be true in the real world that one type of former
players always become good coaches, and another type - never. All kinds of
people can make good NBA coaches, but the probability rises with the
accumulation of certain criteria, some of which I have mentioned. It is a
stochastic process, and thus there no sure answers. That's why hiring
mistakes like Calipari, Tarkanian and Pitino are made all the time - people
assume that if they were succesful in college, they'll successful in the
NBA as well. Yet, if you exclude former successful college coaches from
your search, you miss out on people like Larry Brown. 
 
>And as much as I like Doc, it is rather foolhardy to even mention him since
>he has less than a year of coaching experience.  Give him some time to see
>how things go down the road before annointing him a better coach than
>others.

Your arguments are terribly inconsistent. You chastise me above for
allegedly relying on  a distinguished win-loss record in nominating  the
good coaches, since, as you claim, their record is inflated because they've
been surrounded by talent throughout their careers. Yet here you admonish
me for including Doc in the same category necessarily based on the OTHER
criteria, since his win-loss record is short and unimpressive.