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The 20 Greatest NBA Coaches Poll
1. Red Auerbach
2. Phil Jackson
3. Pat Riley
4. Greg Popovich
5. Larry Brown
6. Chuck Daly
7. Red Holzman
8. John Kundla
9. Alex Hannum
10. Bill Sharman
11. Jerry Sloan
12. Don Nelson
13. Rick Adelman
14. Slick Leonard

Lenny WIlkens 32 years (8 with Seattle) / 1x Coach of the Year / 1 championship (Seattle)
Career NBA 2487 1332 1155 .536

Bill Fitch 25 years (9 with Cleveland) / 2x Coach of the Year / 1 championship (Boston)
Career NBA 2050 944 1106 .460

George Karl 21 years (7 with Seatlle) / no championshipos
Career NBA 1575 933 642 .592

Jack Ramsay 21 Years (10 with Portland) / 1 championship (Portland)
Career NBA 1647 864 783 .525

Mike Fratello 16 years (7 with Atlanta) / No championships
Career NBA 1215 667 548 .549

Doug Moe 15 years (10 with Denver) / 1x Coach of the Year
Career NBA 1157 628 529 .543

Hubie Brown 15 years (5 with ATL/NYK) / 1 championship (Kentucky ABA)
Career TOT 1087 528 559 .486

Rudy Tomjanovich 13 years (12 with Houston)/ 2 championships (Houston)
Career NBA 943 527 416 .559

K.C. Jones 11 years (5 with Boston) / 2 championships (Boston)
Career TOT 858 552 306 .643

Billy Cunningham 8 years (all in Philly) / 1 championship
Career NBA 650 454 196 .698

Bill Russell 8 years (5 in Seattle) / 2 championships (as player/coach in Boston)
Career NBA 631 341 290 .540

Anyone else that people feel strongly enough about to vote for as their choice for one of the greatest coaches of all time?

I am seriously tempted to go with Doug Moe, my favorite all time coach. KC Jones and Billy Cunningham are the greatest for their short stretches but they are really short. Lenny Wilkens was never spectacular but to me was better than Fitch or Ramsey for the longer run coaches. I could also see Moe or Tomjanovich.

I am torn between Moe, who seemed to make silk purses out of more cow ears (Lever, Adams, Dunn, Hanslick, Vincent, Schayes, etc.) as well as getting the best out of his talent like English, Issel, Vandeweghe, Natt, etc.; Wilkens for his professionalism and longevity, or Cunningham for his short but super high efficiency run. For now, I will go with Doug Moe.

Billy Cunningham

Ramsay.

wilkins

Jack Ramsay.

I'll go with KC Jones.

He was the coach of arguably the greatest team of all time; 86 Celtics, and people forget he was an assistant coach on the 72-73 Lakers, and the head coach of the Bullets when they went to the finals (though they lost in a large upset to the Warriors).

Pretty ridiculous that Lenny's still on the board.

Vote: Lenny Wilkens.

TMACFORMVP wrote:I'll go with KC Jones.

He was the coach of arguably the greatest team of all time; 86 Celtics, and people forget he was an assistant coach on the 72-73 Lakers, and the head coach of the Bullets when they went to the finals (though they lost in a large upset to the Warriors).

+2

Lenny Wilkens 2
Jack Ramsey 2
KC Jones 2
Doug Moe 1
Billy Cunningham 1

people voting early this time and its very close . . . nice

This is tough...i'm gonna go with KC Jones.

At this point you're criminally underrating Ramsay. Before you were just underrating him, Pen, but this is silly. Your argument before was that Ramsay couldn't develop talent, but the death of Randy Smith should remind us what Ramsay was able to do with 7th round draft picks like Smith (not to mention helping Clyde Drexler go from "athlete, not basketball player" to "star on championship contender/key cog on championship winner" player.

I never said Ramsey couldn't develop talent, I said he had certain preconceived notions of what his system needed and discarded talent that didn't fit into it or forced that talent to fit the roles rather than adapt the system to fit the talent . . . like Fat Lever.

He was a great Xs and Os guy and with players fitting his system could do great things. I think Doug Moe was a better coach though in that I think Moe would have achieved better results relative to Ramsey's results if he had had Ramsey's players than Ramsey would have achieved relative to Moe's results if Ramsey had had Moe's players.

Doesn't mean Ramsey isn't one of the great NBA coaches, just not one of the top 15 in my book.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, Pen. I watched a ton of basketball games Moe coached, and I literally never thought of him as a great coach, and I think he had every bit of talent Ramsey had over his career. It's okay, though--we can still be friends