How important is the coach?

[hilton]

If the coach has more than 5 players, then before we debate the ability of a coach to win a close game, we must first address whether the game should have even been close in the first place. In other words, were the best players for that particular game placed on the court.

Thus, an additional coaching skill to highlight is the coaches ability to execute optimal starting lineups and substitutions. Coaches could have a personal stat related to the number of minutes they left their players on the court vs. each players Win Stat ( Win Stat = Raw +/- per minute.)

Even more telling is a coaches ability to place complementary lineups on the floor. Their are 252 unique 5 player lineups that a coach can choose from with a 10 player team. Even if two star players are kept on the floor, there are 56 unique lineups for the coach to consider. Most coaches feature a small number of unique lineups. Here again, the statistic could quantify a crucial coaching skill of giving more court time to the lineups with the highest Win Stat.