REAL COACH RATINGS As of October, 2008, before the 2008-09 season began A User Guide Follows 1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 5071.8 2 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 2824.0 3 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan 1277.3 4 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 967.6 5 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown 523.0 6 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni 519.0 7 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 486.6 8 Cleveland Cavaliers Mike Brown 421.8 9 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle 276.0 10 New Orleans Hornets Byron Scott 217.6 11 Chicago Bulls Vinny Del Negro 200.0 12 Detroit Pistons Michael Curry 200.0 13 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 200.0 14 Denver Nuggets George Karl 109.8 15 Sacramento Kings Reggie Theus 106.6 16 New Jersey Nets Lawrence Frank 86.4 17 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers 74.8 18 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles 0.0 19 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien -14.4 20 Philadelphia 76ers Maurice Cheeks -85.2 21 Memphis Grizzlies Marc Iavaroni -85.4 22 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan -157.0 23 Phoenix Suns Terry Porter -180.0 24 Golden State Warriors Don Nelson -205.8 25 Toronto Raptors Sam Mitchell -237.6 26 Washington Wizards Eddie Jordan -465.0 27 Minnesota Timberwolves Randy Wittman -538.8 28 Oklahoma City Thunder P.J. Carlesimo -632.4 29 Atlanta Hawks Mike Woodson -633.6 30 Los Angeles Clippers Mike Dunleavy -686.0 USER GUIDE FOR THE REAL COACH RATINGS I am proud and pleased to present what is probably the world's first serious effort to rate and rank all of the current NBA head coaches. Why should the coaches hide behind a black curtain? Concerning coaches, there is virtually a total lack of the kind of statistical comparing and contrasting that goes on with players 24/7. I for one think it is way overdue that coaches be fairly and systematically compared and contrasted. I can pretty much guarantee you that no one has ever, even with the capabilities created by the internet age, put in as much effort and thought as I have into fairly comparing NBA coaches with widely different lengths of time spent in professional head coaching. And this system CAN be used in other Leagues, other countries, and on other planets. If there are any other basketball planets, that is! As I was working on this I often had a sinking feeling that trying to fairly compare coaches with more than 10 years of experience with those with less than 2 years experience would be in the end impossible. But I persevered and scrapped and fought my way to the goal line and got it done. I achieved all of the balancing that I needed to achieve. Specifically, for example, I kept the points given for experience within reason, while making sure that regular season and playoff losses were penalized to the full extent they should be. You must keep in mind that any coach who has been fired for not winning enough in the regular season, for not winning enough in the playoffs, or for both, and has not been rehired by another team, is not on this list. We don't care about them. The whole idea in multi-billion dollar professional sports is to win more than you lose, and that most obviously and most definitely includes the coaches. So a 50/50 record in either the regular season or in the playoffs is not good enough long term, and coaches who are not better than .500 get fired and not rehired sooner or later, and those who have met that fate already are not on this list. To reflect the reality that coaches who can not win more than they lose are sooner or later going to be fired, and will most likely never advance in the playoffs before they are fired, it is necessary to make sure that losses entail a bigger negative number than do wins entail a positive number. But we have to avoid getting carried away. So when I add in the amount given for experience, the apparent gap between the award for winning and the penalty for losing is shrunk down to a reasonably small amount. In the case of all coaches who have coached fewer than 600 games (which is currently 19 out of 30 of them) since a full point is given for every regular season game for just the experience factor, and since the award for a regular season win is 5 points, and since the penalty for a regular season loss is minus 7 points, these younger, less experienced coaches break even just by achieving a 50/50 regular season record. But heck, they are learning. And if they learn the right things, than they might become the next Phil Jackson or Rick Adelman! Coaches who have coached more than 600 games must do a little better than .500 in the regular season to achieve a net positive toward their overall Real Coach Ratings. The numerical details will be presented below. The rating system demands a little bit more from all coaches, regardless of experience, for the playoffs. All the coaches must do a little better than .500 in the playoffs to get a net positive score toward their Real Coach Ratings. Once again, the numerical details will be presented below, in the section that begins "True Net Scores..." BE CAREFUL REGARDING THE VERY LARGE TIME SCALE OF THESE RATINGS Keep in mind that each coach is rated using information from every season that he has been a head coach in the NBA. It is very plausible that some of the coaches will currently be substantially better or substantially worse than their overall career ratings indicate. But while I am on this subject, I want to warn you to not make the assumption that all or even most coaches get better as they accumulate more and more experience. There is no empirical evidence I know of to back that up, and nor is it in my view obvious or even likely to be true most or much of the time. It is plausible that coaches do not really improve that much after roughly 5 or 6 years of experience. It is also plausible that some of the heaviest experience coaches have not completely updated their beliefs and coaching schemes to reflect the current ways of basketball. They may be hurting their teams a little or even a lot by persisting with strategies and tactics that used to work well years ago but are not working very well in the NBA in 2008. CERTAIN VETERAN PLAYERS CAN COACH THEMSELVES TO A LARGE EXTENT Always keep in mind that older, more veteran teams can coach themselves to one extent or another, particularly if the roster is both highly skilled and highly experienced. It doesn't matter who comes up with the winning schemes and patterns; what matters is that someone does. Younger teams, however, always need a good coaching staff to make headway in the playoffs. Quest for the Ring has gone on record claiming that the 2007-08 Champion Boston Celtics are a good example of a team that could coach itself well to a large extent. POSITIVE FACTORS THAT AFFECT REAL COACH RATINGS <span style="font-weight:bold;">1. Number of Regular Season Games Coached: The Experience Factor:</span> One Point is given for each regular season game coached up to 600 games, which is almost 7 1/2 seasons worth of games. If a Coach has not learned just about everything he needs to by this point, he most likely never will, so the award for experience is sharply reduced for all games coached beyond 600. 0.2 points is given for games 601 through 1,000. Nothing at all is given for any games coached beyond 1,000 games. What about rookie and near rookie coaches? Just because they have never coached in the NBA, should their experience rating be zero? No, I don't believe so. They either have substantial coaching experience in other Leagues, or they were extremely talented and/or intelligent players, or both, or else they would not have been hired to be a head Coach in the NBA. So any coach who has coached for fewer than 200 games is given exactly 200 points for experience. So rookie coaches start out with Real Coach Ratings of 200. Calculations indicate that the average Real Coach Rating is currently 321.4. So the objective of all rookie coaches must be to increase their starting rating of 200 to at least the average rating among of all coaches (321) as soon as they can do so. You can think of the range between 0 and 321 as "the proving ground" or even the "make it or break it range" for coaches. Most coaches who drop below zero instead of going up from 200 during their first 3-6 years will be bounced out of the NBA. Coaches who have ratings below 200 and especially coaches who have ratings below zero should be fired unless the managers and owners involved are sure that the coach has not had competitive players to work with, or are sure that the coach is getting better at his job, or if there is some other unusual mitigating factor. Coaches who persist as coaches with Real Player Ratings below 200, and especially with Real Coach Ratings below zero, are frequently going to be men who have very cordial relations with the managers and owners. In other words, they are being kept on the payroll because the managers and/or the owners involved personally like the coach in question enough to brush aside any concerns about whether that coach is doing a good enough job for their team. These dubious coaches are given the benefit of the doubt, in other words, or sort of a free pass. It is also true that some managers and owners live in fear that they might go from bad to worse if they exchange one coach for another. They simply do not have enough courage to strike out and try a rookie or a near-rookie coach, or to pick up a coach who has been fired by another team but who deserves a second chance. But back to the factors we go: <span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Number of Playoff Season Games Coached: the Playoff Experience Factor:</span> Three points are awarded for every playoff game coached regardless of result. The limit is going to be 300 such games. Only Phil Jackson, who has coached a mind boggling 277 playoff games, has any chance of coming up to the limit any time soon. <span style="font-weight:bold;">3. Number of Games Coached With Current Team:</span> This is a supplementary experience score which credits coaches who have gone the longest without being fired by their current teams. The points given are 0.3 for all games coached with the team the Coach is currently working for. The one side of the coin regarding this is that the coach must be doing what the organization wants to avoid being fired, and he can't be a total failure basketball wise, so he deserves credit in proportion to how long he has kept his post. The other side of the coin is that the more experience a Coach has with a particular team, the more valuable he is to that franchise, because he knows everybody and everything concerned with the franchise better and better with each passing year. Generally speaking, the more successive games a Coach has coached with the same team, the more effectively and efficiently he can help the team squeeze out wins that would otherwise be losses. Jerry Sloan, who coming in to 2008-09 had coached a mind boggling 1,591 games for the Jazz, is the ultimate example of a Coach who due to his many years with the same team is going to be more effective and efficient than he would be if he had just switched to a different team. Due partly to this factor, do not be surprised if the Jazz become a losing team shortly after Sloan finally retires. Another name for this factor might be "franchise specific experience." This year the Dallas Mavericks hired a new head Coach, Rick Carlisle, who has a lot of prior experience with other teams. But he is brand new to the Mavericks, so be careful not to expect miracles or even to assume that his coaching is going to be as good as it has been in the past from the get go. Look instead for the Mavericks to get better and better as the season goes along. Because Carlisle needs time to merge his skills and abilities with the specific factors involved with making the Mavericks a playoff winner. <span style="font-weight:bold;">4. Regular Season Wins</span> 5 points per regular season win. <span style="font-weight:bold;">5. Playoff Wins:</span> 21 points per playoff win. A little more than half the teams make the playoffs. Theoretically, unless he is stuck with a truly lousy roster, any truly good coach can get his team into the playoffs. For a good coach, it really is not much of an accomplishment at all. But only the really good coaches can win in the playoffs. In the NBA, the regular season is quite honestly nothing more than the preseason for the "playoff season," which is the season which really matters when all is said and done. Also, obviously, playoff games are generally more intense in all respects: individual players, team play as a whole, and coaching efforts made. For all of these reasons, it is necessary to factor playoff games as being worth at least 4 times as much as regular season games. NEGATIVE FACTORS THAT AFFECT REAL COACH RATINGS <span style="font-weight:bold;">1. Regular Season Losses:</span> 7 points is charged for each regular season loss. <span style="font-weight:bold;">2. Playoff Losses:</span> 30 points is charged for each playoff loss. Now there will be some who leap out of their seats and say "this guy is off his rocker" when they see that the penalty for losing a playoff gamee is 30 points. I can assure you, ye of little faith, that I know exactly what I am doing and that this is precisely correct. I have already explained why playoff games must be valued at at least 4 times the valuation put on regular season games. A regular season loss is 7 points, and 4 times 7 is 28, and 30 is only marginally more than 28. Moreover, consider the true underlying net positive and negative scores, which you get by combining the experience award and the winning or losing number: TRUE NET SCORES COMBINING EXPERIENCE AND EVENT SCORES TOGETHER <span style="font-weight:bold;">Regular Season Win</span>: 6 Points. But it is 5.2 points for coaches with between 600 and 1,000 games coached and it is 5 points for coaches with more than 1,000 games coached. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Regular Season Loss</span>: Minus 6 Points. But it is minus 6.8 points for coaches with between 600 and 1,000 games coached and minus 7 points for coaches with more than 1,000 games coached. Can you see what I think is the genius of this system? The more experienced coaches get experience points that obviously are not available to less experienced coaches. To partially or in some cases completely offset what would otherwise be an unfair advantage in the rating system, the more experienced coaches are expected to do somewhat better in winning and losing in order to achieve a net positive from their winning and losing toward their ratings. This is a primary mechanism used here that tends to even the playing field between coaches of widely differing amounts of experience, without being unfair to any type of coach. This whole project would have been largely a waste of time if I didn't have a good and fair way of varying the treatment of coaches with radically different amounts of experience, in this way. Now here are the true net scores for playoff games: <span style="font-weight:bold;">Playoff Win</span>: 24 points. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Playoff Loss:</span> Minus 27 points. Recall that all coaches get 3 points for experience for each playoff game. So you should be able to confirm these numbers. Are these factore set in stone forever and ever? No, but adjustments will be few, far between, and minor in the coming months and years. And although this is not a perfect system, it is at the very least a very good system. And it is light years ahead of having no system at all with which to fairly compare coaches of radically differing amounts of professional basketball head coach experience.
This is my first ever use of Google Documents, which renders excel far better than does Scribd. This spreadsheet has everything very tightly organized: all the raw data, all the factors, and the three great new sub-ratings. I am going to report the sub ratings in this topic though, so you don't have to visit the whole spreadsheet to see the really good stuff (the sub-ratings). Update: Now I have to figure out how to grant the public access! Should be quick. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pExsjS07AiK31253AagUfWQ
Google is giving instructions which don't seem to match reality, which is disturbingly normal actually. They are claiming that I already published the spreadsheet on the web, the whole point of which is to create public access, but the public apparently does not have access. I uploaded again and this time the public appears to have access. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pExsjS07AiK31253AagUfWQ
I uploaded again and this time the public appears to have access. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pExsjS07AiK31253AagUfWQ
COACHES RANKED BY REGULAR SEASON EXPERIENCE SUB RATING This is the same team score (0.3 points per game with the current team) plus the score for up to 600 games (1 point a game) plus the score for between 600 and 1,000 games (0.2 points per game) 1 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan 1157.3 2 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 947.0 3 Los Angeles Clippers Mike Dunleavy 803.0 4 Denver Nuggets George Karl 765.8 5 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 753.8 6 Golden State Warriors Don Nelson 729.2 7 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers 711.8 8 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 704.6 9 New Orleans Hornets Byron Scott 701.6 10 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan 682.0 11 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown 680.0 12 Washington Wizards Eddie Jordan 630.0 13 Philadelphia 76ers Maurice Cheeks 620.8 14 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles 532.0 15 Oklahoma City Thunder P.J. Carlesimo 511.6 16 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle 492.0 17 New Jersey Nets Lawrence Frank 478.4 18 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien 446.6 19 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni 439.0 20 Toronto Raptors Sam Mitchell 426.4 21 Atlanta Hawks Mike Woodson 426.4 22 Minnesota Timberwolves Randy Wittman 325.2 23 Cleveland Cavaliers Mike Brown 319.8 24 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 291.6 25 Sacramento Kings Reggie Theus 224.6 26 Memphis Grizzlies Marc Iavaroni 224.6 27 Chicago Bulls Vinny Del Negro 200.0 28 Detroit Pistons Michael Curry 200.0 29 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 200.0 30 Phoenix Suns Terry Porter 200.0 Jerry Sloan is the most experienced coach. In terms of raw experience, Mr. Karl is slightly ahead of Mr. Jackson! And Mr. Karl is a little ahead of Don Nelson, despite fewer games overall, because of the relatively long term he has coached the Nuggets, versus a shorter term for Mr. Nelson coaching the Warriors. Doc Rivers has more experience than most people think. Notice that all rookie coaches start with an experience score of 200.
COACHES RANKED BY REGULAR SEASON SUB RATING This is the regular season wins score minus the regular season losses score. The average score is intentionally below zero, which reflects the reality that most coaches must win more than they lose within 2-5 years or they will be bounced out of the NBA head coaching roster. However, very highly experienced coaches, coaches who have been notably successful in the playoffs at one time, and coaches who have done a lot better recently are all likely exceptions to the do well in the regular season or get fired within 2-5 years rule. 1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 1954 2 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 1046 3 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 479 4 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan 426 5 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni 131 6 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 99 7 Denver Nuggets George Karl 97 8 Cleveland Cavaliers Mike Brown 18 9 Chicago Bulls Vinny Del Negro 0 10 Detroit Pistons Michael Curry 0 11 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 0 12 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle -72 13 Sacramento Kings Reggie Theus -118 14 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown -154 15 Golden State Warriors Don Nelson -278 16 New Jersey Nets Lawrence Frank -284 17 Phoenix Suns Terry Porter -296 18 Memphis Grizzlies Marc Iavaroni -310 19 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien -338 20 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles -352 21 Toronto Raptors Sam Mitchell -520 22 Philadelphia 76ers Maurice Cheeks -529 23 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers -601 24 New Orleans Hornets Byron Scott -712 25 Washington Wizards Eddie Jordan -801 26 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan -815 27 Minnesota Timberwolves Randy Wittman -864 28 Oklahoma City Thunder P.J. Carlesimo -973 29 Atlanta Hawks Mike Woodson -1024 30 Los Angeles Clippers Mike Dunleavy -1510 Any positive number is respectable. Mr. Karl is 7th in terms of regular season performance: nothing to write home about really but undeniably respectable. The rookies of course start with zero. Mr. Dunleavy has been with the Clippers for many years, who for many years were the doormats of the West. Come on Marcus Camby, give Dunleavy some wins and make me look good for backing you up in the face of the Nene mania!
COACHES RATED BY THE MOST IMPORTANT SUB RATING OF ALL: THE NET PLAYOFFS SUB RATING This consists of the playoffs experience score (3 points per playoff game) plus the playoffs wins score (21 points per win) plus the playoffs losses score (30 points per loss) 1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 2364 2 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 831 3 New Orleans Hornets Byron Scott 228 4 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 96 5 Cleveland Cavaliers Mike Brown 84 6 Los Angeles Clippers Mike Dunleavy 21 7 Chicago Bulls Vinny Del Negro 0 8 Detroit Pistons Michael Curry 0 9 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 0 10 Sacramento Kings Reggie Theus 0 11 Memphis Grizzlies Marc Iavaroni 0 12 Minnesota Timberwolves Randy Wittman 0 13 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown -3 14 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan -24 15 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers -36 16 Atlanta Hawks Mike Woodson -36 17 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni -51 18 Phoenix Suns Terry Porter -84 19 New Jersey Nets Lawrence Frank -108 20 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien -123 21 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle -144 22 Toronto Raptors Sam Mitchell -144 23 Oklahoma City Thunder P.J. Carlesimo -171 24 Philadelphia 76ers Maurice Cheeks -177 25 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles -180 26 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman -216 27 Washington Wizards Eddie Jordan -294 28 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan -306 29 Golden State Warriors Don Nelson -657 30 Denver Nuggets George Karl -753 Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich are hogging the vast majority of the positive points. Doc Rivers needs a lot more playoff wins to get his sub rating up there. If the Celtics fail to repeat this year, could it be because the Celtics this year need more coaching from Rivers and less from themselves? Have the other teams figured out the Celtics relatively simple coaching now? Are the other teams, as Rivers himself said the other day, going after the Celtics in an intense and smart way from the opening tip? If the Celtics fail to at least make it to the Championship, Rivers will be at least partly to blame. Oh my dear Lord, Mr. Karl... You are dead last. What a shame. Yes it's true, Mr. Karl is the worst Coach in the NBA as far as playoffs are concerned! Mr. Karl's poor playoff record (62-83) is normally the kind of record that you would associate with coaches who have poor regular season records as well, which is to say that you would associate it with coaches who were bounced out of the NBA head coaching ranks after 2-5 years or so. But Mr. Karl soldiers on, the ultimate regular season only warrior. Notice finally that although Mr. Karl is the basket case, he is not the only one who has been hammered by the likes of Phil Jackson and Greg Popovich in the playoffs. Jerry Sloan and Rick Adelman have taken more than their share of licks from Jackson and Popovich over the years. Will this finally be the year when Adelman, Sloan, or both overcome both Jackson and Popovich? Stay tuned.
