Assessing each of the NBA’s 2016 head coaching commitments
The Coaching Carousel, thankfully, has stopped. Kindly dismount the creepy horse and form an orderly queue that will take you past the gate on your way toward Draft City, followed by a spin through our star attraction: Free Agent Land.
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Ten NBA teams – a third of the league!! – committed to brand new head coaches this spring, in a season that isn’t technically over, and in a Carousel run that began just a month and a half ago. One other squad removed the “interim” tag from their coach’s mark in the team directory, and two other franchises sent out contract extensions to their incumbent lead men.
It was all a bit much. Now that everything is assured – save for what will no doubt be a very entertaining introductory news conference for the Lakers’ Newest Guy – it’s time to take stock in who went where.
Boston Celtics: Brad Stevens, extension
Though six years is an eternity in NBA coaching contract terms, few batted an eye when Danny Ainge offered the former Butler coach that length of a contract back in 2013; charging him with the task of shepherding the Celtics through a well-heeled rebuilding process. Stevens responded with three competitive seasons and two playoff berths, and halfway through the deal Ainge clearly thought it the right time to double down on a man who is not only one of the NBA’s great young coaches, but one of the NBA’s great coaches – full stop:
This is the honeymoon period, as the Celtics have yet to cash in on the No. 3 overall pick the Nets sent their way, on top of myriad other assets (including Brooklyn’s 2018 unprotected first round pick) in the team’s search for another All-Star player. There is a chance that all the smart moves and enviable schemes could result in a disappointing pull.
That’s just fine. General manager Danny Ainge secured his top star until 2022, and that’s enough to stay giddy with for now.
Brooklyn Nets: Kenny Atkinson
After years of seeking out the most available players, general managers and coaches with the largest amount of internet search results, the Nets’ ownership group decided to bring in relative neophyte Sean Marks as the general manager stuck with trying to bring some hydration to Brooklyn’s salted soil. That is not the name of an IPA.
Marks continued the one-time trend by bringing in Atkinson, a longtime minor league and international professional point guard who acted as a player development maven in Houston, New York (alongside the emerging Jeremy Lin), and two recent overachieving Atlanta Hawk teams.
His reported four-year deal will pay Atkinson to lord over what will have to be an extended rebuilding process, pitched mostly without earned draft picks thanks to the unconscionable work of former GM Billy King, and current owner Mikhail Prokhorov. As is the case with Brett Brown in Philadelphia, Atkinson will be directed to find and develop future rotation players – diamonds in the rough – as the Nets find a way out of the entanglements provided by the previous administration. Unlike Brown’s gig, though, Atkinson won’t have the luxury of working with any high-end lottery picks any time soon.
Houston Rockets: Mike D’Antoni
The days of Genius Hires are over, if they ever existed in the first place. Houston GM Daryl Morey might turn some TV-types off, but (on record, at least) he’s never tried to pass himself off as anything more than someone trying to go after the best candidate available, be they a shooting guard, draft pick, center or coach. Unlike explaining-away processes that dogged the daft David Kahn or too-clever-by-PDF Sam Hinkie, the method really does boil down to the position that’s been around for ages.
D’Antoni can coach. And when he’s not hamstrung by untenable working conditions or an aging basketball psychopath, he can make players feel at ease and earn on-court results. How much of this will matter in Houston, with a roster in flux, remains to be seen.
Indiana Pacers: Nate McMillan
In 2000, when then-Pacers coach Larry Bird stepped away after three years of coaching despite pleas from management to stay (following an NBA Finals run, no less), he recommended assistant Rick Carlisle for the job he was leaving. The Pacers instead went out of house to hire Isiah Thomas, fresh off of ruining the CBA, as head coach. The team then underachieved for years as a result, while elsewhere Carlisle built a reputation as an offensive coaching genius that specialized in slowed but productive offenses.
Now running the franchise, Bird chose assistant McMillan this time around to replace Frank Vogel, who was not offered a new contract after his had lapsed. The Pacer president is on record as preferring a smaller, up-tempo style of play, but McMillan’s teams in Seattle and Portland routinely ranked amongst the slowest in the NBA, though (as with Carlisle) his teams also worked as some of the most efficient offensive squads in the league.
Los Angeles Lakers: Luke Walton
After years of chasing the biggest free agents in the game, the Lakers finally came through with one to crow over. Walton will make a fraction of what Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love or Kevin Durant will make next season, and he’ll lend a bit of credibility to a franchise that lost just about all of it when it decided to commit to acting as an exercise in nostalgia and bar code-swiping as opposed to a real basketball team when it decided to make Kobe Bryant the NBA’s highest-paid player in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Walton owns a 39-4 record as Golden State Warriors interim head coach, he’s young enough to have been seen as a contemporary by potential Lakers both upcoming or already-established, and all signs point to him coaching his tail off in Los Angeles. The usual mitigating factors still exist, though – GM Mitch Kupchak’s record was spotted even during his time maintaining championship teams, and basketball el jefe Jim Buss still appears to have no positive impact on the Decision Room that he stumbled his way into via the genetic lottery.
Memphis Grizzlies: David Fizdale
As was the case with Atlanta’s Mike Budenholzer, who sat for years on the San Antonio bench as perhaps the most visible lead assistant coach in the league, it boggles as to why Fizdale (a former Heat assistant) hasn’t gotten a head coaching gig until now. Every team has their reasons, and in Memphis’ case with their new hire we understand. The man is highly thought of, and despite the Big Three markings on his resume just one look at Miami’s roster upheaval since 2008 and you’ll get a sense of just how much Fizdale and his Heat cohorts had to adapt on the fly during his time on the bench.
Memphis is not an assured contender in 2016-17, the team has to consider the future of its 30-something big men and just how much they want to pay Mike Conley to keep turning in those nearly-All-Star seasons. What they will have to fall back on, in Fizdale, is a coach that wants to be there, and wants to work. That, with everything unsettled, is enough to build upon.
Minnesota Timberwolves: Tom Thibodeau
This is the golden goose and, befitting Tom Thibodeau’s smarts, he chose the golden team.
The team designation seems a bit much, in the face of a 12-year playoff drought that even with Thibodeau on board has a good chance of carrying over past 2016-17, but this enviable collection of young talent is perfect for the former Bulls coach (and former Wolves assistant) to tie his future to. Questions do remain – new GM Scott Layden’s personnel past has as many ups as it does downs, to start – and Thibodeau’s own future as lead man isn’t as assured as we’d like it to be.
Will he choose to act as an outsized Scott Skiles, burning through an admirable initial turn prior to the flame flickering out?
Thibodeau, despite his ubiquitous presence in his office and on the practice court, attempted to coach on an island in Chicago; resisting change and endangering player careers as many times as he increased his team’s chances at winning. For as bull-headed as the Chicago front office was during Thibodeau’s time with the team, neither side came away from the divorce with the genuine ability to claim a moral victory. Thibodeau will have to re-assess his approach as he takes to a team and franchise that needs patient, studied guidance.
New York Knicks: Jeff Hornacek
In an ideal situation, Hornacek’s hiring shouldn’t come off as that big a surprise. Knicks prez Phil Jackson was familiar with him as a player, even before lining up to coach against the then-Utah Jazz shooting guard in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals, and Hornacek attempted to employ proper spacing and movement in his time spent as Phoenix Suns coach between 2013 and 2016.
Even for someone as routinely out of touch as Jackson, though, the pre-emptive backlash against former Knicks interim head coach (and Jackson buddy) Kurt Rambis was too much to bear, so he went with a sound candidate that will attempt to make do with a (Jackson-approved) roster featuring a maxed-out 32-year old star in Carmelo Anthony alongside 20-year old Kristaps Porzingis, who will be hitting his prime around the same time Anthony is finishing his third season working on a basic cable NBA preview show that you only watch when it flickers silently above you on a TV at a bar.
Whether or not Jackson and Hornacek will be around for any of that, because James Dolan owns the Knicks, will always be up for questioning.
Orlando Magic: Frank Vogel
The former Pacers coach is a sensible hire, and he can’t help but improve on the typically-uncertain run that Scott Skiles somehow was hired to lord over during his one year in Orlando (prior to quitting on the team), but we shouldn’t get out of hand with the expectations. This is still a flawed roster, Vogel was no offensive mastermind in Indiana, and the former Jim O’Brien lieutenant shouldn’t be regarded as some sort of NBA martyr as he moves on to his second head coaching gig.
That doesn’t mean Pacer president Larry Bird made the right move in declining to offer Vogel a contract, or that Vogel’s time in Indiana wasn’t hamstrung by various personnel choices made by the franchise. As it even is with the upgrade in Minnesota, you can’t bank on any new coaching addition (even the most obvious or celebrated one) turning a team into an obvious candidate for a rebirth.
Frank Vogel is a very good coach that will inspire a solid young team, while giving them a sense of permanence and confidence they did not have under Scott Skiles. That’s improvement enough, for now.
Phoenix Suns: Earl Watson
After years of sniping, GM Ryan McDonough had little choice but to retain Watson as the player’s choice, even after an underwhelming 9-24 turn as interim head coach following Jeff Hornacek’s dismissal in Phoenix.
Watson was an active NBA player just two years ago, and despite his limited experience as an assistant coach he’ll join the ranks of heaps of former point guards that made an accelerated jump to a head coaching spot, with understandably disparate returns in that realm. Watson, as with many of those former point guards, just felt like a future head coach upon entering the league in 2001, and (for sportswriters especially, and McDonough is the son of a former sportswriter) this tends to go a long way.
As with every other coach on this list, Watson’s turn as head coach will rely significantly on the collective abilities of the roster he’s been handed. Though we admire McDonough’s derring-do and willingness to take risks, it’s been an up and down first three years for the new’ish Suns GM.
Sacramento Kings: Dave Joerger
This is slim praise, and a surprising one given his predecessor’s career coaching wins (if not his every-single-team commitment to bad breakups), but any hire would be preferable to George Karl on the Sacramento sideline. The Kings aren’t an obvious playoff team in waiting, but any semblance of sanity will help – even if the team just hired a coach that attempted to interview for other coaching positions twice during his time in Memphis.
It would be a bit of a stretch to credit Joerger for helping settle Zach Randolph’s career in Memphis, but his tangential role in being around for Randolph’s move from clubhouse cancer-to-trusted leader likely wasn’t overlooked by a desperate Sacramento front office when it went looking for the sixth head coach of DeMarcus Cousins’ young career.
Toronto Raptors: Dwane Casey, extension
The recollection that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri inherited Casey as coach should never be dismissed, but after a second contract extension for the former Bryan Colangelo hire, you get the feeling that Ujiri is happy at home
The Raptors have now won three consecutive Atlantic titles, and the team made it to the third round for the first time in franchise history this season. Casey still has room to grow as a coach, but he certainly juiced as much as he possibly could from his roster in 2015-16, and he remains as honest and forthright as NBA head coaches come. Tacking him on until 2019 at a league-appropriate salary seems like the best move for all involved.
Washington Wizards: Scott Brooks
Despite its talent and dedicated fan base, this remains one of the NBA’s least-interesting teams, but this pairing should be fascinating. The Ted Leonsis/Ernie Grunfeld era has given us little beyond apathy, some cool uniforms, and two NBA TV-heavy runs to the Eastern Conference semifinals, but 2016-17 will be worth watching because in steps Brooks. Not because we’re assured of massive changes, but because we want to see just how both front office and new coach will work within different environs.
Brooks is a year removed from parting ways with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and in any other year his hiring would be seen as another hoped-for attempt to lure semi-local superstar and Thunder free agent Kevin Durant to Washington. The Wizards failed to make the postseason in 2016, though, and Brooks is a solid enough coach – so few are looking at this as a transparent play by this time in the game, something that couldn’t be said some 11 months ago.
Washington’s offensive issues over the last few seasons under Randy Wittman mostly had to do with offensive stagnation, and that was Brooks’ chief criticism in OKC. It will be fascinating to see how both sides act in their respective second acts.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
