Tier 2: The elites
5. Ty Lue, Clippers
4. Steve Kerr, Warriors
3. Rick Carlisle, Pacers
2. Nick Nurse, 76ersRick Carlisle is demanding. He asks more out of his ball-handlers than any other coach in basketball, and that rubs certain players the wrong way. There's a whiff of Thibodeau in here. Some players just aren't Rick Carlisle players. Where they differ most significantly is in flexibility. Carlisle is probably the NBA's most creative coach. In Dallas he had a No. 1 offense that ranked 18th in pace. In Indiana he just finished No. 2 with the NBA's second-fastest team. He's coaching a roster with very little defensive talent? No problem. He'll devise a scheme that sacrifices everything at the rim for the sake of walling off the 3-point line, because hey, no matter who you have, you can always stop something. Carlisle's 2021 series against Lue was an adjustments master class, with each getting crazier and crazier by the game just to match one another. By Game 7, Boban Marjanovic was playing 31 minutes while the Clippers had all but abandoned traditional big men. That's what you get with a Carlisle teams. Bespoke strategies tailored entirely to the roster and opponent he has at that specific moment. He never found his Tom Brady, but in that sense, Carlisle is almost the NBA's Bill Belichick.
High praise from CBS Sports, Bill Belichick comparison notwithstanding.
3 comments
Kerr at 4 when his career has been relying on steph curry lma0
Honestly rick sucks ass lol. The GM got the good players like haliburton, and then Rick found a way to lose a bunch of games we had in the bag
I was able to watch Rick as an assistant coach with Larry Bird, then watched almost every game he coached when the roster was Tinsley, Artest, Miller, Jermaine O’Neal etc, and of course this current bunch.
The man is a basketball genius who has forgot more about basketball than I will ever be lucky enough to know. He cares about his players as former players have attested to in the past and we are damn lucky he came back to Indiana.