Best Offensive and Defensive Coaches
Posted by Neil Paine on September 21, 2010
When I posted last month about the all-time players who played for the best offensive and defensive teams in NBA history, there was a common theme among a number of the names at the top of each list: namely, they all played for a certain coach, or under a certain scheme. It only makes sense, then, to do the same study for coaches, and determine the guys who have called the shots for the top offenses and defenses of all time (or at least, since 1951).
First, the offensive coaches (minimum 140 career games coached), sorted by points of lifetime regular-season offensive rating above the league average, along with the best offensive team they ever coached:
D'Antoni's presence at the top of the list shouldn't surprise anyone who read the post about players on the top offensive teams, a ranking dominated by members of the Steve Nash-era Suns. In fact, there is a lot of overlap in general between these lists and the player lists from a month ago... As always, it's a frustrating exercise to separate the coach's contribution from that of his players, and you can go around in circles forever arguing whether D'Antoni made Nash great, or vice versa.
At any rate, here are the top defensive coaches along with the best defensive team they ever coached (remember, negative numbers are good for defenses):
Given how dominant the Russell-era Celtics were on defense, why is Red Auerbach not #1 here in a landslide? Well, take a look at Red's coaching record since 1951 (the first year we can estimate offensive/defensive ratings):
| Year | Team | G | W | L | Offense | Defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | BOS | 69 | 39 | 30 | 1.66 | 1.93 |
| 1952 | BOS | 66 | 39 | 27 | 4.34 | 0.32 |
| 1953 | BOS | 71 | 46 | 25 | 4.45 | 2.32 |
| 1954 | BOS | 72 | 42 | 30 | 4.83 | 2.41 |
| 1955 | BOS | 72 | 36 | 36 | 3.29 | 3.35 |
| 1956 | BOS | 72 | 39 | 33 | 2.43 | 1.86 |
| Bill Russell drafted 2nd overall in 1956 Draft | ||||||
| 1957 | BOS | 72 | 44 | 28 | 0.27 | -4.26 |
| 1958 | BOS | 72 | 49 | 23 | 0.35 | -4.10 |
| 1959 | BOS | 72 | 52 | 20 | 0.69 | -4.37 |
| 1960 | BOS | 75 | 59 | 16 | 1.41 | -4.77 |
| 1961 | BOS | 79 | 57 | 22 | -2.14 | -6.37 |
| 1962 | BOS | 80 | 60 | 20 | 0.31 | -6.85 |
| 1963 | BOS | 80 | 58 | 22 | -1.75 | -7.42 |
| 1964 | BOS | 80 | 59 | 21 | -2.90 | -9.27 |
| 1965 | BOS | 80 | 62 | 18 | -1.11 | -7.98 |
| 1966 | BOS | 80 | 54 | 26 | -1.54 | -5.57 |
It really is amazing how much the Celtics' defensive fortunes changed when Russell arrived in Boston. You might be tempted to look at this and conclude that the Celts' dominant D should be credited mostly to Russell (especially since Boston continued to be a great defensive team after Red retired and Russell became coach), but Auerbach clearly orchestrated the acquisition of Russell in the first place and showed a remarkable amount of vision in the way he planned the team's construction. Again, it's all but impossible to differentiate between player and coach contribution, and in most successful cases it's a mutual relationship where neither could have accomplished as much without the other.
Finally, here is every coach since 1951 to rack up 500 career games, just to give you an idea of how the legends stack up:
September 21st, 2010 at 11:15 am
so what does it mean when the 2009 Los Angeles Lakers aren't on both charts and the 2009 Orlando Magic are the 7th best defense and yet the Lakers beat them in 5 games?
the top 5 offensive coaches best teams didn't win the title or even play in the finals
for the top 5 defensive, 2 were in the finals and 1 won.
so does that mean defense is more important than offense?
or does it mean that these stats have very little to do with reality?
September 21st, 2010 at 11:58 am
Cloud, you can't take one exception (Lakers beat Magic) and generalize it to a massive trend (defense better than offense, or whatever you're trying to hint at with that particular example). There's chance involved, good teams sometimes beat slightly less-good teams, and I'm willing to bet the 2009 Lakers more than made up for a lesser defense with their superior offense.
In terms of D being more important than O, see the "Does Defense Really Win Championships" post - http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=7276
That pretty cleared delineates that, while great D doesn't assure you a championship, it goes a lot further than a great offense. Russell's Celtics are yet another demonstration of this: their offense was actually below average most years, but they were the greatest dynasty the sport's ever seen.
September 21st, 2010 at 11:59 am
Cloud, that chart doesn't mean the 2009 Magic are the "7th best defense", it means Stan Van Gundy has the 7th-best defensive rating relative to the league of any coach since 1951 with 140 career games, and the 2009 Magic were the best defensive team he ever coached. The 2009 Lakers aren't on either chart because they were neither Phil Jackson's best offensive team nor his best defensive one.
September 21st, 2010 at 12:02 pm
There, I edited the post to make it clearer: "Best Team" means the best offensive (or defensive, depending on the table) team the coach was ever in charge of. Better?
September 21st, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Interesing observation...
Mike D'Antoni is #1 on the list for offense with a rating 5.14... however sort the legends table by defense and Mike D'Antoni is the worst on the list with a score of 3.52
It's a really good thing that MVP voters completely forgot that basketball has two sides of the court when they voted Nash as MVP twice. The completely ignored the impact he had on placing his coach on the top of the worst defenses list.
September 21st, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Oh yeah, Walter, Nash was the only reason D'Antoni suffered defensively.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:10 pm
He didn't make his defense better that's for damn sure.
September 21st, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Article that discusses the D'Antoni and Nash issue ... interesting.
http://3gotgame.com/kshiz/archives/1296
September 21st, 2010 at 10:39 pm
So Phil has the best overall rating with offense and defense combined?
September 21st, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Following Matt's comment, I took that last table and subtracted defensive rating from offensive rating, then ranked them. Sure looks like a better way to rank coaches than by # of wins!
1-10: Jackson, Popovich, Jones, Cunningham, Auerbach, Riley, Costello, Sloan, Adelman, Karl
11-20: Daly, Sharman, Heinsohn, J. Van Gundy, Carlisle, Fratello, Rivers, Saunders, Nelson, Kundla
21-30: Westphal, Cervi, Collins, Larry Brown, D'Antoni, Hannum, Schaus, Fitzsimmons, Tomjanovich, Holzman
31-40: MacLeod, Ramsay, Harris, Moe, Albeck, Wilkens, Skiles, Seymour, Russell, Attles
41-50: Bob Hill, Gentry, Brian Hill, Guerin, Scott, McMillan, Layden, McMahon, Motta, Cheeks
51-60: Van Breda Kolff, Hubie Brown, Lynam, Silas, O'Brien, Bickerstaff, Shue, Fitch, Dunleavy, Ford
61-69: Phil Johnson, Carlesimo, Jordan, Loughery, Guokas, Weiss, Chaney, Nissalke, Unseld
September 22nd, 2010 at 1:32 pm
#10 - Good call! That's not a bad ranking.
September 22nd, 2010 at 8:35 pm
BTW, that value (ORtg - DRtg) correlates absurdly (embarrassingly?) closely with winning pct. R^2 = 0.945.
September 24th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Adelman is awfully low. Morey was saying that he is an underrated defensive coach, who coached some of the best defenses of all time.
July 1st, 2011 at 1:14 pm
It's interesting that Russell only gets credited for the massive improvement in Boston's defense, but gets no blame for destroying their offense at the same time.