With Don Nelson becoming the winningest coach in NBA history, recently, it has put coaches back under the spotlight. My blog brotha, Ed, had some disparaging words regarding Nelson, and that's fine. You should go read it, and then come back here.
This brings up a few things. We universally laud Pat Riley, Red Auerbach, and Phil Jackson as coaching gurus, but Nelson is considered a cut below. Why? Because he has no rangs (rings). A title does mean anything except you had some superior talent. Those three coaches have probably coached more players from the 50 greatest than anyone in the NBA.
Riley: Magic (the greatest PG in NBA history), Worthy, Jabbar. Exactly.
Auerbach: Bob Cousy, Russell. Stank-0 gonna stop right there. Russell is arguably the greatest defensive player to EVER lace up some sneakers.
Jackson: MJ (enough said), SP (one of Stank-0's favorite NBA players and multi-positional to boot), Rodman, Kerr, Kukoc, Kobe, GP, Mailman, the Diesel/Shaq (He was a monster in the 3-peat and became Shaq later on).
Each of those coaches has coached at least two first ballot admissions to the Hall of Fame. Honestly, if they didn't win rangs with that talent, they would have needed to re-evaluate their entire life situation.
Nelson on the other hand has given us some offensive juggernauts (No X-men): Run-TMC, the Nash-Nowitski-Finley triumvirate, and the B-Diddy-Jackson-Barnes-we can switch everything team. He manned the sidelines of one of the greatest upsets in NBA history: the 8 seed Warriors over the 1 seed Mavericks.
However, Nellie has never had a game changer on his team. NEVER. So to punish him for something he had no control over is wrong.
Honestly when Stank-0 thinks of the best coaches the name at the top is John Wooden. When you go consecutive years undefeated and winning chips...Also when the man coaching the team that finally breaks your streak becomes famous because he broke your streak, you're on another plane. We wouldn't know what a Digger Phelps is if he hadn't been fortunate to beat UCLA.
Agree? Disagree? Different opinion?
Honestly when Stank-0 thinks of the best coaches the name at the top is John Wooden. When you go consecutive years undefeated and winning chips...Also when the man coaching the team that finally breaks your streak becomes famous because he broke your streak, you're on another plane. We wouldn't know what a Digger Phelps is if he hadn't been fortunate to beat UCLA.
Agree? Disagree? Different opinion?
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