trex_8063 wrote:PistolPeteJR wrote:Steve Kerr over Eric Spoelstra? I know 4 > 2, but I'm not sure I agree.
Spo was my immediate thought (exclusion), too. Not just the 2, but he's been at the helm of so many over-achieving [seemingly] teams.
He got the same number of conference champs as Kerr, and 231 more career [rs] wins as head coach. And though it has taken him longer to achieve those things [win% .587 compared to Kerr's .654, for example], he's also (outside of four years with the Heatles) generally had LESSER casts to work with.
To be clear, I don't want to make this sound like Spoelstra > Kerr is an obvious slam-dunk case. It's certainly debateable. However, let me approach this from a different angle, by comparing Kerr's coaching career [10 years] to the 10 years of '11-'20 for Spoelstra.....
Kerr has a .654 rs win%, .707 in the playoffs (in 7 playoff appearances in 10 years), with 6 Finals appearances and 4 titles.
'11-'20 Spo has a .600 rs win%, .632 in the playoffs (also in 7 playoff appearances in 10 years), with 5 Finals appearances and 2 titles.
Kerr had [on average] better rosters to work with, however:
*Spoelstra NEVER had a cast as good as what Kerr was working with in '16-'18, for example.
**And outside of an injury-decimated cast in '20, Kerr probably never worked with a roster as
weak as what Spo had in '19 [and arguably '15 as well].
I'd still say the edge must be given to Kerr in comparison of these 10 seasons, though the margin is perhaps not all that large, given the above.
But then consider that Spoelstra has 6 ADDITIONAL seasons as head coach outside of that 10-year span.......and the Heat were a winning team that made the playoffs in
each and every one of them, making it to the Finals one of these years, and as far as the conference finals in another (giving him 7 total conference finals appearances [to Kerr's 6], fwiw).
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire