Worth noting that Juwan called out Keith Smart explicitly on a list of like 6-7 coaches that were influential to him as a player and as an assistant on the Dan Patrick show. Maybe this guy is on to something…
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I think the point is more: “This person isn’t a great coach just because they are a former/current NBA player/coach.” Like Mike Woodson has a long track record of mediocrity and hasn’t been a head guy for a long time at this point.
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What makes Howard so rare is that he had a long career, made a lot of money, and was still willing to grind as an assistant. Hard to maintain that drive for so long.
I’m sure there are a lot of black coaches out there that were able, as players, to stick in the NBA for a few years based on skill and basketball IQ before switching to coaching, that haven’t gotten a shot. (Older versions of Chris Hunter.)
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I accept that. In a way it’s just a statement of the obvious. And one reason why Juwan is winning right now is because he’s paid his dues as a coach, studied the coaching trade.
But I try to resist the idea that because a coach hasn’t triumphed in the past he cannot do well in future. Just too many circumstances conspiring against most to say that categorically. And that NBA list is worth studying. A lot of those guys were successful.
Sure. But if you have your choice, you probably want to look first at the group of coaches working their way up the coaching ladders, vis-a-vis a guy who hasn’t been willing to grind at that level like Juwan was. A former pro who has the potential to be a good coach would only enhance that potential by giving himself the experience of being an assistant.
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100 percent agree. You’ll find me advocating for chances for younger, unproven coaches all over this board, historically. But Jerry West, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, KC Jones. . . inevitably got a leg up. And I don’t think ability to grind is actually the criterion–those guys have done that. And are going to do it a lot more, in the NBA or NCAA D1. In the NBA, those guys grind year-round, where Bobby Knight used to brag about playing four months of bball and fishing for eight. (He gave that as a reason why he didn’t want to work in the NBA–too much work.) TBH, I think that the nature of the grind might have been more shocking for John Beilein than Leonard Hamilton. I’d guarantee that Leonard feels he has a less stressful life now than he did with the Heat.
That is priceless!
I do think lots of people think the ability to grind - IOW work long and hard at the bits that require such – is a criterion. Whether being an NBA assistant or not is the right indicator for that specifically is another matter though. Saw this tweet a few hours ago. Relevant.
Sounds like something a twitter account run by college basketball coaches would say
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Anonymous observation hardly disqualifies former NBA players from potentially succeeding as college coaches. And I think you’d agree that these guys have done some grinding. In fact, the whole thing from fans about players being lazy is usually thinly-veiled garbage of the most. . . normal American kind. Everyone in America thinks that everyone else in America needs to work harder! 
But heck, we live in a world where anonymous fans who never played–or who played for a minute–can also sit and blithely assert that such coaches don’t know their xs and os. . ,
In the end, we probably agree that a careful case-by-case basis is almost always the way to proceed!
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Crazy to pick Rutgers to beat Houston? It’s a rock fight, right? Those can become a pick-em.
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i had the same thought. I’m ready for a magical run for the Scarlet Knights.
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Houston has a top 10 O to KP and Torvik. I expect Houston to run them out of the building
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Yeah, a bit crazy IMO. Houston will give Illinois a game I think.
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I would not at all agree that every retired player looking to get into coaching without being an assistant first is someone who has done some grinding or will continue to do so. You’re right that we shouldn’t assume they won’t do it, but the opposite extreme is assuming they will, and that to me is no wiser an approach. Stereotypes do not apply to all people, but they’re gonna apply to some.
Or Oklahoma St…
Wow. I don’t think you recognize what it takes to get to the NBA. Especially to any level where you would be considered as a coach by any reputable establishment in the first place. I was trying to warn against all of the dangerous prevailing assumptions about other people’s laziness that float around out there, sometimes attaching to one or another group of people. . . you don’t seem to want to grasp hold of that (to me) kinda obvious lifeline. . .
The idea that former NBA players, as a group, would somehow be lacking in work ethic, is–to me–bad news on a bunch of levels.
EDIT: You talk; good place probably to let it go.
Unpopular pick alert: I don’t have Rutgers beating Clemson.
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This is one year I’m really hoping that the B1G teams kick behind. Tonight’s play-in excepted.
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