Coaching 101 - NBA

A wise person once said, "A good coach is one who makes a good team great, not a great team good." Well, okay, this so-called wise person is me. If you are a good coach, you can turn a team full of mediocre talent into a group that works well together and become a great team. If you have great talent that under-performs and you cannot turn that talent into an exceptional team, then you're just not a
good coach.

We have one of each in the NBA Finals right now, and it's because of the coaches that one team has the series lead right now.


Let's just look at the talent for each team.

Gregg Popovich has some good, albeit old, players on the team. Tim Duncan is arguably the best player from the past decade, Tony Parker has been a dominant point guard for most of his career, and Manu Ginobili even in his old age can hold his own on the court.

But that trio cannot compare to Erik Spoelstra's Miami Heat "Big 3." Dwayne Wade is just starting to be deemed as a seasoned vet but can ball any night when he feels like it. Chris Bosh is the most forgotten of the Big 3. And of course LeBron James, undoubtedly the best player of this generation.

Role players? For the Spurs: Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, Gary Neal, Tiago Splitter. Essentially no-names going into this series. For the Heat: Ray Allen, Udonis Haslem, Norris Cole, Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier, Chris Anderson. Big name players that we all know about.

Let's say just for simplicity sake that the star players of each team, the "Big 3" for both the Spurs and the Heat, are equivalent. They cancel each other out. How will a winner be determined? The obvious answer is based on the play of the role players. Whichever group of role players, non-starters, and three-point specialists have the better game and series will win the title.

I disagree. It's not based on the their performance, but on the coach's ability to turn those role players who aren't as talented and turn them into MVP potential.

Spoelstra's role players have done next-to-nothing this Finals. Other than Ray Allen, none of these role players have averaged over 9 points per game in the playoffs. Popovich has Leonard averaging 12 points per game, and Danny Green hasn't done much now has he. He's only set the record for most three pointers made in an NBA Finals series (with potentially two games still to go). He's shooting 51% from beyond the arc in the playoffs.

Advantage: Popovich. He's found a way to make the role players and the Big 3 on the team to mesh as one TEAM and create a winning formula.

The final thing to look for in a good coach is adjustments. Which coach makes the better adjustment to what's happening in the game and in the series.

Spoelstra decided to make an adjustment in game 4 and start Mike Miller instead of Udonis Haslem. The results haven't been pretty, as now instead of putting a three point specialist in near the end of a quarter against weaker defenders, he's now facing the Heat's top defenders. The result: 0 points in each of his two starts in the Finals. He was 10-11 from the field in the first three games, and 0-2 in games 4 and 5.

Popovich also made an adjustment in the starting lineup. He put the 35-year-old Manu Ginobili into the starting lineup for Game 5 and he went lights out. He averaged just 7 points in the first four games, but put up 24 in Game 5. It was his first start all season, and he made the most of it. And Pop wasn't afraid to put Manu into the lineup, knowing fully well what the ten-year veteran could do.

Oh, and let's not forget about adjustments that Spoelstra has made to stop the lights out shooting of Danny Green. Oh, ya, there have been none. A half-decent coach would have done SOMETHING by now to stop the bleeding. Instead, it's been five games of great shooting that will lead to Green being named the Finals MVP.

Spoelstra has by far the most talented team in the NBA. Talent can only get you so far, though. The coach needs to create moments for the team to excel beyond its capabilities. A good coach makes his team overachieve. A bad coach sees his team knocked out before they deserve to be.



Gregg Popovich is a great coach. Erik Spoelstra is a terrible one.