ChipotleWest wrote:tamaraw08 wrote:ChipotleWest wrote:A coach can screw up a good team a lot easier than make a bad team good. How hard is it to win with Luka and Kyrie and Luka and Brunson? But when you do what he did in Game 4 against the Clippers bench both centers and make Maxi the main rim protector who proceeded to get cooked, that's a negative for his team. I think coaches in the NBA are mostly overrated. Spo getting the Heat to the Finals as the 8th and 7th seed was an exception, but how hard was it to win a championship with prime Lebron, Wade and Bosh? Phil Jackson 11 rings but he had MJ, Pippen, Kobe, Shaq, every championship Pop won he had Tim Duncan etc...
Kobe, MJ and Shaq have a combined 1 ring without Phil and they had many coaches before and after him. Shaq only won with another great coach in Riley.
Right but let's say those Bulls teams had another coach, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't have won championships, or Kobe/Shaq Lakers, or Duncan with Pop. Maybe the amount of championships was greater because of Phil or Pop, impossible to say because it's hypothetical. Although I do give Phil credit for creating the triangle offense. You can't say that about most coaches though they usually just run the same schemes other coaches do.
And people say "Jordan won nothing before Phil" Well he didn't have Scottie until 88, and then he was a rookie averaging 8 ppg. Those weren't great Bulls teams by any stretch in the 80's. Phil was there in 89 and 90 (actually he was hired as an assistant in 87, but that isn't quite the same) and they still couldn't win until 91. But again I probably give Phil more credit than any coach due to creating the triangle offense. But that doesn't mean Bulls would have not won in the 90's at all without him.
Like with Duncan do I think Duncan could have won championships without Pop? Yes, do I think Pop would have won on those Spurs teams without Duncan? No. It's a star driven league.
Jackson didn't create the triangle offense. He just hired the man who perfected it. (Tex Winter)
Jackson deserves approximately as much credit for that as Doc Rivers deserves for Thibs' defense in 2007-10. Hiring the right guy and backing him is not nothing, but it's also not a great personal achievement in Xs and Os.