(Maybe) NBA Coaches Should Just Coach
The NBA dual role of Coaching & working the Front Office is in trend. Should it really be in vogue?
A recent trend that has come as something of a surprise is to see is the emergence of the dual GM and head coach role in the NBA. Currently, Mike Budenholzer, Stan Van Gundy, Doc Rivers, and Tom Thibodeau carry formal roles as both head coaches and prominent roles in the front office.
These are relatively recent hires and often this dual role is part of the package that team owners use to lure talented individuals to their organization. Note that all of these coaches are not only very well-respected and accomplished, but have done relatively well in their roles thus far.
In addition, all of these coaches were hired under understandable circumstances. The Timberwolves needed to fill the massive hole left by Flip Saunders’ untimely passing, and Tom Thibodeau would only agree to come if the dual role was offered.
The Pistons were a franchise in shambles, the fanbase had turned on the team — Stan Van Gundy was an instant dose of credibility. The Clippers were a similar mess without any of the success the Pistons have had, Doc Rivers not only turned the franchise around but weathered the Donald Sterling storm. Mike Budenholzer took the role of GM only after Danny Ferry was forced to quit due to inflammatory remarks that were made on a private telephone call.
The important question, however — why exactly do these coaches want the added responsibility? What about the current climate is leading them to take the added pressure and hours of work? Why do current old school coaches that aren’t current coaches like Jeff Van Gundy only willing to come back to the NBA under that dual role?
To me, I think coaches, especially the older coaches, feel they are unfairly targeted from fan bases impatient to win and by front offices that are too quick to label a coach as a scapegoat. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, as front office embrace analytics in more depth than ever, the front office begins to offer more “advice” that can rankle the hardcore basketball guys.
Front offices have gone from almost entirely personnel managers to providing input on style of play, pace of play, best 5 man units, situational strategic ideas. That’s a great thing! These additional data points should be helping the coaches, and welcomed by the coaches, but we often hear criticism of the analytics community from the “X’s and O’s” coaches.
Ultimately, coaches have a point too — they shouldn’t feel constantly bombarded. They shouldn’t always be in front of the media taking all the shots for the organization; Sam Hinkie letting Brett Brown take all the heat was one of his biggest mistakes.
The challenge is for front offices to leverage both the skills of the emerging analytics community while not losing the wealth of real-world knowledge the coaching community has amassed over the years. It is nonsense to say that the analytics community disregards that completely, many of them watch plenty of film too, but the conclusions they come to can often not allow enough room for discussion. Numbers never lie, but they don’t always paint a full picture.
It’s short sighted for both organizations and these individuals gunning for the dual role to be letting this happen. Both teams and coaches need to step back and understand why it rarely works when a single person takes over both the coaching and general manager jobs. Independently, both jobs are incredibly difficult and complex to do and at the NBA level only very few people can do one competently.
To ask somebody to do both? It isn’t just insane, it’s misguided. Is Doc Rivers the GM to blame for the Clippers not reaching a conference finals yet? Doc the coach? Both? 60/40? 70/30? 30/70? Solving the problem of coaches feeling threatened by creating a new problem of a dual-role situation is a mistake. Both Budenholzer and Doc Rivers might be looking at having to face a rebuild (or quasi-rebuild) this summer. Which role will they prioritize?
This isn’t a question of capability, this is a clarification of the inherent mismatched incentives for both roles. A coach’s job is to win every single night their team plays a game. A GM’s job is to put together the best roster not only for tonight’s game, but for the next few years. When a coach’s horizon of thinking is a few games at at time and a GM’s horizon of thinking is a few seasons at a time, combining these roles is a mistake.
Both of these working together? That’s the sweet spot, and that’s the only solution to this issue. That’s what the Spurs have created with Pop and RC Buford, that’s what the Warriors are beginning to create with Kerr and Bob Myers, and that’s what organizations should be shooting for moving forward. Does it sound way easier than creating that harmony actually is? Absolutely, but nobody said it was going to be easy.
