Mike Woodson took over a last place Hawks team that won 13 games in his first season at head coach and 53 games in his last. They had the second best offensive rating in the league that year. He took over a dysfunctional Knicks team that was 6 games under .500 with D'Antoni and they went 18-6 to finish the season and made the playoffs. The following year he won 54 games and made it the second round (losing to Indiana in 6). That team had the third best offensive rating in the league. The point has never been that offense doesn't matter. The point has always been that if you can't defend than you can't win. And the head coach has to set the tone.
Intentionally or not you just listed 5 white guys as the only qualified coaches in the league. Can you actually quantify what it is about the guys that you listed which makes them more qualified than veteran coaches like McMillan, Woodson, or Mitchell (excepting Coach Pop of course who's on a whole other level)? These guys aren't retreads, they're respected assistant coaches in their own right who happen to have (successful) head coaching stints on their resume as well. Mike Woodson has coached two teams and led both of them to 50+ win seasons and playoff series wins. Nate McMillan has a winning record in 12 seasons as a head coach. He led Seattle to 52 wins and Portland to 54 wins. Sam Mitchell had Chris Bosh, TJ Ford, and a bunch of nobodies and led them to 47 wins in Toronto. Certainly there are some young up-and-coming coaches worthy of the opportunity, but I'm not in a hurry to hand over the future of our team to another unproven head-coaching gamble when there are more qualified options available.
I didn't list 5 white guys as the
only qualified coaches in the league. I said the league is dominated by those coaches, which is something completely different. Every coach on college or NBA level is qualified. And I don't really understand why the colour of the skin has anything to do with coaching an NBA team or with anything else in life. I know, what you are trying to hint, I don't understand why you are doing it and I think this has no place in a sports related discussion between strangers.
Mike D'Antoni had 4 seasons with over 50 wins with the Suns. George Karl never missed the Playoffs. How much are achievements of the past worth today?
I wrote "It feels like" right? Is this a hint, that I use statistical measurements to make up my mind, who is the best coach available? I don't think so. Stats are just Stats and people read way too much into them from my point of view (most of the time to back their claims in sports related discussions, where they want to sound more scientific and objective, which is not my goal as I stated often enough. I'm a fan. I don't want to be objective and I don't want to provide some kind of analytics.) NBA teams are coached not only by the head coach but also by quite a few assistant coaches. How do you measure the individual contribution of each coach by looking at wins and losses or offensive rating?
I watch a lot of basketball. I watched Mike Woodson coach the Knicks. I watched McMillan coach the Blazers and VDN coach the Clippers.
Out of those three I like McMillan the most, but none of them strikes me as a elite coach and potential next great basketball mind.
And maybe I'm crazy but I as a fan am tired of bad to mediocre coaches. I don't want to look at the Warriors, Spurs, Hawks, Celtics, Pistons and so on and get depressed, because those teams play good to great basketball on both ends, while patiently building their teams in a certain way that fits the vision of the FO AND coaching staff and my team is a mess.
Now maybe I'm wrong and Woodson or VDN are in fact great basketball innovators, that lead the Kings into the promised land and start a new dynasty in SAC.
But those names certainly
don't get my hopes up, which was the whole, simplistic and shallow point of my previous post.