NBA
The Greatest NBA coach of all time?
In the NBA, having the best coach on the touchline can be the x-factor for championship triumph. Great coaching performers like Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach, Pat Riley, Greg Popovich and others have been explored in this article.
Phil Jackson//Getty Images
Having elite talent is almost a guarantee for success. Some of these coaches have built dynasties, innovated schemes and systems that are a point of reference on how the game can be played and laid the foundations on the X’s and O’s of basketball.
The greatest coaches in NBA history must tick various boxes such as: longevity at the top of the game and championship success, in order to feature in the best NBA coach of all time conversation.
The following list is a compilation of the greatest coaches in the history of the NBA.
10. Lenny Wilkens
Lenny Wilkens coached in the NBA for 35 seasons, playing almost 2500 games. He garnered 1,332 wins in his career and made the playoffs 20 times, an astonishing feat considering that he never had the pleasure of coaching a Hall-of-Fame player.
He was a great motivator, who rallied his teams through adversity. Wilkens led the Seattle Supersonics to their first and only NBA title in 1979. They defeated the Washington Bullets, avenging their loss to the same opponents in the Finals, 12 months prior.
Wilkens remained in Seattle for several years, before recording stints with Cleveland, Atlanta, Toronto and New York, winning NBA Coach of the Year in 1994.
Lenny Wilkens coached in the NBA for 35 seasons, playing almost 2500 games. He garnered 1,332 wins in his career and made the playoffs 20 times, an astonishing feat considering that he never had the pleasure of coaching a Hall-of-Fame player.
He was a great motivator, who rallied his teams through adversity. Wilkens led the Seattle Supersonics to their first and only NBA title in 1979. They defeated the Washington Bullets, avenging their loss to the same opponents in the Finals, 12 months prior.
Wilkens remained in Seattle for several years, before recording stints with Cleveland, Atlanta, Toronto and New York, winning NBA Coach of the Year in 1994.
9. Don Nelson
Don Nelson was a remarkable coach whose run-and-gun basketball play style was nicknamed “Nellie Ball”. Nelson is credited for the invention of the concept of point forward, a role that is used throughout basketball to this day.
He made the Bucks one of the league’s premier teams in the 1980s. He won Coach of the Year twice during his tenure, before taking the reins at the Warriors franchise.
A brief stint with the Knicks ensued, before his crowning achievement of transforming the Dallas Mavericks from long-time losers to title contenders. He played a pivotal role in the development of Dirk Nowitzki in the process.
Nelson rounded out his astonishing coaching career with a second spell with the Golden State Warriors. He featured one of the great playoff upsets when the eight-seed Warriors toppled the top seed Mavericks in 2007.
8. Jerry Sloan
Sloan is best known for his tenure as the coach of the Utah Jazz, whom he led to 15 consecutive playoff appearances from 1989 to 2003. This was an extraordinary feat, considering the Jazz are a small-market franchise.
Notwithstanding his feisty character and strife nature, Sloan maximized the talent at his disposal. This was majorly because he was armed with John Stockton and Karl Malone, who were one of the most dynamic duos in the NBA.
Sloan compiled 1,221 wins and a .603 winning percentage and is one of two coaches to win 1,000 games with one franchise.
Sloan’s phenomenal career would however lack the achievement of championships, largely due to the presence of Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls handed him a pair of NBA Finals losses.
7. K.C. Jones
Jones' coaching career wasn't as long as the others on this list, but he made the most of his time with the Celtics. He won two NBA titles and took them to five Eastern Conference Finals.
He has the second-best winning percentage among coaches with over 700 games.
Jones played for the Auerbach Celtic’s in the 1960’s and was a key defensive cog. This in addition to his humility, which was essential to his philosophy, as he thrived as a true players’ coach.
6. Chuck Daly
Although unheralded than other names on this list, one can’t deny that Chuck’s methods worked effectively. His hard-nosed, bully-ball style yielded two back-to-back NBA titles in 1989 and 1990.
Daly was a masterful motivator, who cared less whether people would be upset, and clearly encouraged his team’s notorious physical approach.
In spite of the hate that Daly’s Detroit “Bad Boys” Pistons team generated, he left an inerasable imprint on the defensive aspect of the game. This element remains a strong point of reference even to this day.
5. Steve Kerr
Steve Kerr//Getty Images
A student of both Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich, Kerr has won four NBA titles. Kerr led the Warriors dynasty to five-straight NBA Finals appearances. Had it not been for heroic performances by LeBron James in 2016 and injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson in 2019, he would have had more titles.
Kerr emphasis is on ball movement. His use of Draymond Green as a playmaker on offence and a center on defense, has made the Warriors beautiful to watch as well as effective.
Kerr currently has the third-highest, regular-season winning percentage, among coaches who have coached at least 700 games, just trailing behind Jackson and Jones.
Although long gone, Kerr built arguably the greatest team in NBA history with a core of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Kevin Durant. The franchise player, Curry, is still around though. With proper personnel around him, Kerr and the team appear to be capable of winning at least one more championship.
4. Pat Riley
The true style icon among coaches, Riley was a celebrity and culture icon. He has an image befitting the Showtime Los Angeles Lakers, whom he led to four NBA Championships in the 1980’s.
In the 1990s, he took control of the New York Knicks and guided them to an NBA Finals appearance, before losing to the Houston Rockets. He won his last title as coach, when with the Miami Heat in 2006.
Riley is a brilliant basketball mind whose greatest strength is his ability to adapt. He ran a run-and-gun style with the Showtime Lakers team that included Magic and Kareem. He played bully-ball with the Knicks and Ewing, then perfected the half-court offense in Miami, with superstar duo Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal.
3. Gregg Popovich
No name is synonymous with the word culture than Gregg Popovich. He has won five NBA titles and is a three-time Coach of the Year. He has been the San Antonio Spurs head coach since 1996 and had led the Spurs to 22 consecutive playoff appearances. Popovich was the league's most consistent coach.
His insistence on the importance of the collective, working for the team over individual accolades, is what has made the Spurs have such sustained success. His influence in the NBA is reflected by the fact that eleven of his former assistants have gone on to be head coaches.
After Popovich's success with dominant big men David Robinson and Tim Duncan, fans are in anticipation of what Popovich can accomplish with the generational talent of Victor Wembanyama who’s the league’s latest sensation.
2. Red Auerbach
Red Auerbach won nine NBA Championships (eight consecutive) as the coach of the Boston Celtics in the late 1950’s and to mid-1960’s. Known for his trademark victory cigar, he coached legends such as Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and John Havlicek.
He loved to trash talk and revolutionized the sixth-man role with his reliance on the role, as well as maximizing the utilization of easy points on the fast break.
Auerbach worked as a coach in each of the NBA’s first 20 seasons.
Unlike in the modern NBA where there are more coaches and support staff than players, in Auerbach's reign, he was the only member of the coaching staff. He employed no assistant head coaches and also made all the personnel decisions by himself.
Red Auerbach served as coach in the NBA All-Star Game, maintaining an 11-time record as a coach. The NBA Coach of the Year Award trophy is named in his honor.
1. Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson is the greatest coach to have graced the NBA. In his 20 seasons in the league, Phil won a record 11 NBA championships as a coach. He has three three-peat to his name: two with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, from 1991 to 1993 and from 1996 to 1998. The third one is with the dominant duo of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant from 2000 to 2002.
Jackson finished his career after a further back-to-back titles with the Lakers. He is the most winning head coach in NBA history, with a regular-season winning percentage at .704 and has 1,155 wins in his career.
Phil Jackson’s teams were perennial NBA contenders, and deservedly so. Some of that was due to the talent on the roster, but plenty was down to Jackson’s basketball philosophy, psychological prowess and ability to connect with superstar players.
He contained egos such as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O'Neal, while also dealing with eccentric personalities like Dennis Rodman and Metta World Peace.
Ian Mugo Wanyeki is based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a sports enthusiast with vast knowledge of different sport disciplines. Ian is a graduate with a Bachelor’s of Science degree from Kenyatta University. He is a Kenyan journalist who’s worked as a sports analyst at Covenant Television Network, as a sports reporter at NTV and as a Sports Correspondent/contributor at Quartz Africa.