Is The NBA Becoming The AAU? If So, What’re The Implications On The Future Of Head Coaching?
There’s little debate on the linear talent improvement over the course of the twenty-first century NBA. Since LeBron James entered the league in 2003, it has experienced a boom in two-way players that can do it all, resulting in a spacing evolution and thus a demand for players who can both guard and attack in a diverse plethora of scenarios and styles.
This has translated into a faster-paced higher scoring and less compartmentalized style of basketball. Most center’s have the ability to shoot threes, creating more offensive flexibility in pick-and-roll actions (the most commonly used play in basketball) and space in the paint, and less need for defenses to stuff the paint with rim protection. When LeBron James entered the league in 2003, the average Possessions Per Game was 90.74, as opposed to the 2022/23 NBA where the average Possessions Per Game was 102.33, a 12.77% increase in pace over a twenty-year period where average pace slowed year-over-year only three times.
With the NBA growing evermore helter-skelter, there’s an argument to be made that coaches, less often, have a profound impact on the outcome of what actually happens on the court, or that at the very least, the way they impact the game has changed. This narrative would ring similar to anyone who’s experienced time in the AAU circuit, where coaches have effectively become glorified babysitters tasked with managing player rotations, telling their team to play with more energy, and staving off angry parents perplexed that their child didn’t get twenty shots…
Obviously, NBA coaches have more nuanced and difficult responsibilities, but the line is becoming more blurry by the season. The league has always been player-driven, but it’s undeniable that coaches are viewed as more replaceable now than at any time in history by their employers. A case study from 2019 showed that the NBA has the highest Head Coach turnover rate of any of the major American sports, with the average NBA Head Coach lasting 2.4 seasons over the past twenty years. What’s more, is that NBA coaches have the greatest likelihood of being rehired to coach again in the future, with nineteen coaches having managed at least three different teams over that span.
This can be interpreted as an “it’s not you, it’s me” sentiment. The idea that coaches are both this disposable yet simultaneously remain qualified and reputable as candidates undermines the value of their messages, in favor of the messenger. This was evident in multiple coaching switches over the past few seasons. The Toronto Raptors just fired Nick Nurse weeks ago. Is it because they think he’s no longer qualified to coach the team or is it because his message has grown stale and the front office feels it’s time for a new voice to resonate a similar message? The same could be said for former Head Coach and current GM Brad Stevens. There’s little debate that Stevens was an excellent X’s and O’s guy, but his ability to effectively deliver his message became compromised when team leaders became split on his personality as it pertained to dealing with player-personnel issues.
The decreased value in the content of the message and increased value in the manner in which the message is received by the team has become the controlling stake in whether a coach retains their job. Teams are more dependent on their front office and analytics departments to affect their on-court strategy than ever before. This collaborative effort has diminished the head coaches role as on-court tacticians and emphasized their roles as rotational managers and emotional regulators. While coaches still take the brunt of the blame (rightfully so) for mistakes regarding in-game adjustments and time management, it’s understandably difficult for coaches to juggle the increasingly important responsibility of being the primary emotional regulator of a team with the caveat that reading the room wrong will cost them their job, while also managing to allocate an appropriate level of attention to detail on specs like when to run what action and when to call that precious timeout.
Clearly, execs have set the precedent of where their priorities lie within this dilemma. Whether this is indicative of a positive change in the style of play over time, or simply a negative externality of player empowerment, only time will tell. There’s also no reason it can’t be both of those things.
