{"id":12552,"date":"2014-10-13T13:19:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T17:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=12552"},"modified":"2014-10-13T13:19:01","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T17:19:01","slug":"sporting-proposition-pro-coaches-are-totally-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/10\/13\/sporting-proposition-pro-coaches-are-totally-overrated\/","title":{"rendered":"Sporting proposition: pro coaches are totally overrated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mid October is great for pro sports, the NBA season tips off this year on the 28th<\/sup>, the NFL season is more than a quarter into the season, the MLB playoffs are moving fast towards the World Series and the NHL has started skating. If you are a professional sports fan in America (Canada, too!) then you like October.<\/p>\n

This post however, is not to celebrate the leagues or teams, but to make a point that I have been making for quite some time with friends and family: pro coaches are totally and utterly overrated.<\/p>\n

For the purpose of discussion, I will limit myself to what I know \u2013 NBA, NFL, MLB \u2013 I am not a very knowledgeable hockey guy. The parameters also defined are full seasons including post-season, etc.–exhibitions don\u2019t count.<\/p>\n

\"Head<\/a>

Head coach Eric Spoelstra, meh?. Photo: Lpdrew<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

The easiest place I can make my case is when it comes to the NBA, and I’ve got plenty to work with \u2013 starting with Eric Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. Spoelstra had two seasons under his belt with perennial All-Star Dwayne Wade and had a respectable .548 winning percentage although with two first round playoff losses.<\/p>\n

Enter LeBron James (and All-Star forward, Chris Bosh). In LeBron\u2019s four years in Miami the Heat–\u201cled\u201d by Spoelstra–made four straight NBA finals, winning two. I wouldn\u2019t call this a coincidence, and I\u2019m excited to see what happens this season since LeBron skipped town and now that Wade is 33 (on the downward slope for NBA players) and has been battling serious knee issues now for several years.<\/p>\n

The Heat still do have Bosh and have acquired some talent in the off-season, and they do play in a terrible Eastern conference, but I would be surprised if they did much better than Spoelstra\u2019s previous .548 winning percentage. Certainly they won\u2019t come close to the .717 win percentage that they had with LeBron.<\/p>\n

Keeping with LeBron, what about his longest tenured coach with his first go around in Cleveland Cavaliers, Mike Brown? Brown had a .663 winning percentage in five years with LeBron and made it to one NBA final.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the Cavaliers and Brown, the general manager and owner didn\u2019t surround LeBron with much talent to speak of, which led him to bolt to the Heat. LeBron left for Miami and Brown got canned in Cleveland and took a job with the L.A. Lakers. Moving from Cleveland to L.A. sounds great! In Brown\u2019s first year in L.A., all-time NBA legend Kobe Bryant and a loaded roster led the Lakers to win their division, but couldn\u2019t advance past the 2nd<\/sup> round of the playoffs. In Brown\u2019s second year there, he was fired after 5 games.<\/p>\n

Brown got another shot back in Cleveland. Things are always better the second time around, right? Nope, Brown and lightly talented (but young and promising!) went 33-49, in a bad conference–and that ain\u2019t good!<\/p>\n

Another great example of contemporary NBA coaches is Mike D\u2019Antoni, and this one especially hurts because he got my hopes up as a Knicks fan! In five years with the Phoenix Suns, D\u2019Antoni had a winning percentage of .650 and even won NBA Coach of the Year once. Oh, FANCY! Come on over to New York we said, with open arms! Then, the Knicks went on to lose 167 out of their 288 games (fired mid-year in his fourth season) with D\u2019Antoni for a winning percentage of .420. Gross.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry, Mike got another shot too, he went to L.A. also, because one man\u2019s trash is another–oh wait, he had a winning percentage of .435 there–I guess it wasn\u2019t Brown\u2019s fault after all!<\/p>\n

So what made Mike so good in Phoenix? Well that would be a healthy Amar\u2019e Stoudemire \u2013 a power house of a player and All-Star and multiple winning league MVP, Steve Nash. True, Stoudemire went with D\u2019Antoni to New York, but by that point he was (and still is) pretty washed up.<\/p>\n

Ok, let us move on from the NBA, even though it\u2019s the game where one player can really dominate and make all the difference.<\/p>\n

How about football? My favorite example to point to is Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, \u201cThe Hoodie,\u201d the \u201cMastermind,\u201d the blah, blah, blah \u2013 really the luckiest man in football. Belichick has led to the Patriots to three Super Bowls and appeared in two others.<\/p>\n

To show why Belichick isn\u2019t good, let\u2019s take it back a few years. Before a stint as an assistant coach with the Jets, before becoming the head coach in New England, Belichick was the head coach with the Cleveland Browns (man, I am all over Cleveland, sorry, I actually liked the city the one time I was there when I was young). While with the Browns, Belichick had one really great year in five years there with a record of 11-5, but in the other four years, he was a combined 25-39, not exactly a \u201cMastermind.\u201d One year of success in a span of five is not an indicator of talent or success, but rather an aberration.<\/p>\n

So back to current times, in New England and why I say Billy boy is lucky \u2013 in his second year with the Patriots, Bill started the season 0-2 (after going 5-11 his first year there) and then they proceed to win 11 of the next 14, And what was the difference? Tom freakin’ Brady. (Disclaimer: I am a very, very bitter lifelong New York Jets fan).<\/p>\n

Belichick only put his backup, Brady, in due to a late hit (a penalty) by the New York Jets linebacker, when Mo Lewis knocked out starting Patriots QB Drew Bledsoe. The Patriots drafted Brady in the sixth round–sixth! How could every team miss that talent five times over. Even the Patriots passed on him for five rounds, which indicates that they themselves had no idea how good he was, or else they wouldn\u2019t have waited so long to draft him!<\/p>\n

LUCK, I say, luck. Belichick\u2019s time in Cleveland, followed by his acquisition and forced play of arguably the greatest quarterback ever has secured his spot as luckiest man in football.<\/p>\n

Ok, how about baseball? As a (nearly) lifelong Yankees fan, this one kind of pains me, but let\u2019s bring up Joe Torre. Torre took the Yankees to six World Series appearances and won four, but let\u2019s examine the rest of his career.<\/p>\n

Besides managing the Yankees, Torre spent time managing the New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and L.A. Dodgers and at all those places had a combined winning percentage of .491, winning 1,153 games and losing 1,230–not very good.<\/p>\n

Now, all of this being said, some coaches I think can really make a difference when it comes to certain things. For example, some coaches actually change the way the game is played. Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers in the 198\u2019s introduced the West Coast offense \u2013 short, quick passes–although he did have Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, possibly the two best ever at their positions.<\/p>\n

How about Phil Jackson who put together the Triangle Offense, oh wait, he has this guy named Michael Jordan and another of the NBA\u2019s 50 greatest of all-time players, Scottie Pippen. Well after Jordan and Pippen, Phil used the triangle in L.A. where all he had was Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O\u2019Neil who both are also possibly the best ever at their positions.<\/p>\n

Hmmm. Maybe even the revolutionary coaches don\u2019t mean much. Your thoughts?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Statistics from basketball-reference.com, pro-football-reference.com and baseball-reference.com <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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