Should Short Guys Rule Coaching?

It seems that the Detroit Pistons are planning to hire either Mike Woodson or Lawrence Frank as their new head coach.

Detroit's management interviewed Bill Laimbeer and Patrick Ewing, former All-Star centers who are currently NBA assistant coaches, but neither one seems likely to receive an offer. Meanwhile, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been a "special assistant" for the Lakers in recent years, but never received an offer to be a head coach anywhere. Laimbeer won three championships as head coach of the WNBA's Detroit Shock; Ewing and Abdul-Jabbar have helped to develop Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum into the league's best centers. But assistants they will remain.

NBA coaches tend to be former point guards: Maurice Cheeks, Scott Skiles, Scott Brooks, Avery Johnson, Jeff Van Gundy, Erik Spoelstra, Flip Saunders, Larry Brown, Doc Rivers, Mark Jackson, Nate McMillan, and the like. Occasionally shooting guards like Byron Scott or Rick Carlisle (or Woodson) do well as coaches, but we don't see many small forwards manning the sidelines (though Larry Bird did a good job in the last three years of the last millennium). And big men turned into coaches are rare: Phil Jackson and Bill Cartwright are the only two I can think of (there are surely more, which reveals my relative youth and the attendant limits of my hoops knowledge).

As active players, point guards tend to be the guys who direct an offense, orchestrating screens, cuts, dives, curls, and nifty passes. They also are primarily tasked with the intangible mission of convincing teammates to play together. These surely sound like skills that make a good coach. But consider the following points: First, the average NBA player is about 6'7"; a 6-foot-nothing point guard, as a coach, will have a difficult time relating to most of his roster. Second, while point guards know their O, defensive anchors are rarely guards, Kobe Bryant excepted. A team's defensive positioning tends to be directed by its most agile big man: Tyson Chandler, Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Andrew Bogut, or in an earlier era, Olajuwon, McHale, Rodman, Oakley, Robinson. Why shouldn't one of these guys get to coach a whole team?

It's telling that a former power forward / center, Phil Jackson, won 11 of the available 20 championships from 1991 through 2010. To be fair, he was coaching Hall of Fame talents, but his success is at least not inconsistent with the idea that a big man can be a great coach. Why, then, cannot more tall ex-players get offers to coach? Perhaps the historic lack of interest by tall guys in basketball coaching contributes to a stigma when a Laimbeer or Ewing try to get into the game. Or perhaps there is substance behind the stereotype: Small guys who succeed as players in the NBA are likely there because they have been selected, in part, for their smarts and their leadership (Jameer Nelson hardly would be picked first in a streetball game); the pool of tall cagers is, perhaps, more randomly distributed in brainy attributes. Bigs can get by on sheer mass alone. But Laimbeer, Ewing, and Abdul-Jabbar are known as smart guys: Laimbeer ran a packaging company, Ewing led the players' union, and Abdul-Jabbar has written several books. So why not give them a chance? Those guys have 13 championships among them as players and coaches, and Ewing came close to nabbing two more.

Let the tall men reign!

Sloan and Mubarak: Two Despots In Transition

This morning brought galloping rumors of two imminent resignations by aging statesmen: Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Coach Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz.

In the event, Sloan followed through with his intention de partir; Mubarak did not. Mubarak announced that he is transferring powers temporarily to his vice-president while nominally remaining in office. Sloan announced that his lead assistant, Tyrone Corbin, will succeed him.

Sloan has held the Salt Lake job since the fall of 1988; Mubarak held the Cairo job since the fall of '81. Sloan, once a tough defender when he played for the Bulls 40 years ago, was known for a crusty demeanor and a martinet's touch as an NBA coach. Mubarak, who became a man while in Egypt's air force, is known for physical punishment of his perceived enemies. Sloan trods in the same rut, though his floggings are less torturous (mostly verbal) and more widely publicized. Mubarak's tenure has been characterized by a grudging peace with the country's most martial neighbor, Israel; Sloan's teams, by contrast, have always thrived on bullying tactics against the opposition. How else did Matt Harpring earn seven years of paychecks from the Jazz?

Sloan's resignation and Mubarak's slowly creeping exit have both been incited by unrest from below. Years of chronic unemployment, excessive economic restrictions, high food prices, and abuse of his own people have inspired brave protesters to hold strong in Tahrir Square over the past two weeks. Allegedly, Jerry Sloan's refusal to loosen his offensive control of offensive flow angered star PG Deron Williams to the point that recent arguments made Sloan pick retirement over continued tension. Utah also has struggled a bit this season; its remarkable set of comebacks in 2010-11 would not be necessary if the team could start games with more power. Continously poor preparation is surely the coach's fault.

When Sloan ascended to Utah's top job in 1988, an astute bettor would have picked Mubarak to outlast him. NBA coaches have a median tenure of 1.3 seasons before they are dismissed or otherwise leave the job. Meanwhile, a typical head of state in the Middle East or North Africa typically stays for a couple decades, at least. By around 2005, though, the smart money probably had shifted to Sloan. Mubarak, by that year, was 77, his dyed-black hair a fictive cover on his failure to appreciate the youthful vigor of his people. Sloan, 13 years younger, had already taken his small-market team to the NBA Finals twice, and by that year had been gifted with new stars like Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Andrei Kirilenko to replace the Stockton-Malone duo. The Jazz made the Western finals in Williams's second season, 2006-07. Why would Sloan quit? Why would Mubarak stay?

But Utah has shown little subsequent potential to slam past that barrier, losing in the first or second round each year after 2007. After trading away Eric Maynor and Ronnie Brewer for minor draft picks during the 2009-10 season, Utah's 2010 offseason saw the loss of Carlos Boozer, Kyle Korver, and Wes Matthews Jr., replaced by 20-year-old Gordon Hayward, 34-year-old Raja Bell, and creaky Al Jefferson, none of whom fit well in Sloan's motion offense. Egypt, meanwhile, has experienced annual GDP growth near 5% in most years of the past decade: not the pace of China or India, but better than other MENA countries and enough to convince a leader that a joyous legacy might be had with just a year or two of waiting. So by early 2011, the conventional wisdom of 1988 was back: Mubarak could hardly be imagined to leave, while Sloan's days seemed short. Indeed, we now have that result.

Perhaps Sloan, though a minor tyrant, does care about being liked. Mubarak apparently does not. Sloan also likely wants what is best for his team. Mubarak, though possibly misguided, likely wants the best for Egypt's people as well. Sloan could appreciate that his team no longer responded to him; Mubarak will not see.
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UPDATE Feb. 11th: Well, Mubarak apparently changed his mind (or someone changed it for him) after his Thursday night slumber. Mubarak has now officially resigned as President. He still outlasted Sloan, though.

Bench Vacancies

With Justice John Paul Stevens announcing his retirement yesterday, President Obama is reportedly considering several candidates to take his seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some of the leading candidates, according to reports, include U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, U.S. State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh, and Harvard Law School Professor (and now Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) Cass Sunstein.

What do all of the above have in common?

They've never been a judge!

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Nets are looking for a coach, having fired six-year veteran Lawrence Frank earlier this season and used an interim coach, Kiki Vandeweghe, since before Christmas. Leading candidates, according to rumor, include (i) Mark Jackson, former Knicks/Pacers point guard and now ESPN/ABC announcer, who has never coached anything, and (ii) Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University, who has never coached in the NBA. Meanwhile, other pundits have suggested in the past week that 33-year-old coach Brad Stevens of Butler University, having husbanded his men to a couple centimeters from the national championship, deserves a shot at the pros.

Other teams looking for a new coach next season may include Golden State, New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia, Indiana, and the L.A. Clippers. That Chicago will need a new steward is not surprising: when they hired Vinny Del Negro in June 2008, he had no experience as a basketball coach, for any team, at any level of the game, anywhere!

Both NBA coaching positions and Supreme Court justiceships are, respectively, the highest achievement in the profession. Why would you give such highly coveted positions to individuals who have hardly proven that they can do it? In the judging realm, someone with big aspirations can gain experience at several levels of state or federal judicial systems. As a coach, the best way to audition for an NBA head-coach job is to start as an assistant: Stan Van Gundy, Jeff Van Gundy, Mike D'Antoni, Rick Carlisle, Mike Woodson, Lawrence Frank, Avery Johnson, Phil Jackson, Byron Scott, Erik Spoelstra, Rick Adelman, Nate McMillan, Scott Brooks, Jerry Sloan, Scott Skiles, Mike Brown, and many others rose to prominence this way. Coaching a college team, not quite as effective preparation (most college coaches who have tried NBA jobs have failed), is nonetheless better than no experience whatsoever.

Preparing to judge is certainly easier than preparing to coach, though. The raw materials of judging are statutory text, constitutional text, caselaw precedent, and briefs from litigants, all of which are publicly available. It is easy to "simulate" judging a particular case. Motivating 12 world-class athletes to play hard defense and pass the ball effectively, though, is a draining task that can only be conjured, not very realistically, in one's interior world. While there may be political reasons why President Obama might pick a non-judge for the Supreme Court, I cannot imagine why Mark Jackson or any college coach would be hired to lead a potential NBA champion (which is, we hope, how every team views its long-term trajectory).

Gotta Serve Somebody

New Orleans Hornets coach Byron Scott was fired yesterday after a disappointing 3-6 start. Notably, Scott won the the NBA's Coach of the Year award just 18 months ago in April of 2008, after a successful 56-win season that ended with the team just one victory away from the conference finals.

The Coach of the Year award appears to be "jinxed" much like Sports Illustrated cover photos; winners of the COTY seem to lose their jobs within a couple years.

• 2000: Doc Rivers wins, then is fired by Orlando in November 2003
• 2001: Larry Brown wins, then resigns from Philly in June '03
• 2002: Rick Carlisle wins, then is fired by Detroit in May 2003
• 2003: Gregg Popovich wins – the only true exception to my rule
• 2004: Hubie Brown wins, then resigns from Memphis in Nov. '04
• 2005: Mike D'Antoni wins, then resigns / is fired in May 2008
• 2006: Avery Johnson wins, then is fired in May 2008
• 2007: Sam Mitchell wins, then is fired in December 2008
• 2008: Byron Scott wins, then is fired in November 2009
• 2009: Mike Brown wins (and there is no shortage of demands for his ouster)

Of the eight coaches above who lost their jobs, the average time between their COTY award and their job termination was about 23 months.

For the eight teams represented by those eight coaches, the average drop-off in regular-season victories from the COTY season to the following season was about 4 fewer wins. (For this calculation I referred to this Google Docs spreadsheet that I created for an earlier analysis back in June.)

Perhaps this jinx is tied to the criteria for the award. Rather than rewarding coaches who help excellent teams stay excellent, or help pitiful teams avoid the cellar, the award voters usually vote for coaches who helped mediocre teams become good. But teams with mediocre talent are not likely to exceed expectations two or three years in a row; thus, when the team's "true" ability becomes apparent, the coach looks to be at fault for no longer finding the lipstick to put on that pig.

Byron Scott took over as New Orleans coach before the 2004-05 season, meaning that he's already completed five full go-rounds with the team. As such, he was one of the NBA's longer-tenured coaches, tied with Mike Woodson and Doc Rivers and trailing only Lawrence Frank, Phil Jackson (if you consider him as continuously employed by the Lakers since 1999), Gregg Popovich, and Jerry Sloan. Scott will surely find employment soon enough; who would resist a man with 82 suits in his wardrobe? (I am unsure of whether he intentionally chose that number so he could pick a different suit for each day of the season.)

Si Se Puede Jugar

Caron Butler opines on new Wizards coach Ed Tapscott:

Now that we got 'Obama' on the sideline with us, we're going to ride with it. Tap, he's light-skinned, he stands for change, he's got a law degree, he uses big words, and he's new in the district, and he's in control now, so shout out to Obama. We won tonight; he brought a lot of hope. And he's good with numbers, so hopefully he'll change the economy as well.

Given that the White House is about a 15-minute walk from the Verizon Center (or three minutes by motorcade), I don't see why the new President can't get himself some seats in the owner's box and become a regular Wizards fan. True, Clinton didn't start rooting for the Hoyas over the Razorbacks, and Bush surely still checks Rangers scores on ESPN, and it's true that Obama was in Chicago during Jordan's glory years, but if he wants to see some ball (or keep up his habit of balling with NBAers), it's clear where to go.