Steve Kerr won
the NBA Coach of the Year Award last 26th of April. 130 media
members from USA and Canada, that regularly cover the North American basketball
tournament, were involved in the voting. The coach of Golden State Warriors did not receive the award last year when he
led the Californian franchise to win the tournament and achieved the highest
number of victories that season. However, he received the award this year after
Golden State Warriors set the NBA regular-season record of victories of all
times (73-9), surpassing the 72-victory Chicago Bulls from the 1995-96 season. In
fact, Kerr played for Phil Jackson back then. Kerr, who is the third Warriors’
coach achieving this award (after Alex Hannum and Don Nelson), will have to
share the prize with his assistant coach Luke
Walton. The team was led for the first 43 games (39-4) by Walton, as Kerr
was recovering from back surgery.
Kerr received
a total of 381 points (64 first-place votes), which is only 46 points ahead of
the runner-up, Terry Stotts, head
coach of Portland Trail Blazers. Stotts
qualified the Portland’s franchise for the play-offs against all odds in the 5th
West ranking position. Portland is actually fighting a spot in the West final
against the Kerr’s Warriors these days. Gregg
Popovich (3rd) from San
Antonio Spurs, Steve Clifford (4th) from Charlotte Hornets; and Dwane
Casey (5th) from Toronto
Raptors completed the list.
Previous
research shows that this sort of award usually goes to the coaches from the
strongest teams not only in the NBA but also in other sports (e.g., soccer).
Nonetheless, coaches that are able to obtain a better performance by optimizing
their resources and squads should be awarded. During recent years, we have
published similar posts analyzing the efficiency of NBA coaches since 1993. For
that purpose, we evaluate objectively the performance of each coach comparing
their results with those expected from betting odds. The probability of winning
each game is implicit in these odds and allows us to calculate the probability
function of the number of victories in a season for each team and coach.
The following
table shows the results for this season:
Team
|
Coach
|
Efficiency
|
Victories
|
Eff. Ranking
|
NBA Ranking
|
Golden
State Warriors
|
Steve Kerr
|
0.99
|
73
|
1
|
1
|
Toronto
Raptors
|
Dwane Casey
|
0.96
|
56
|
2
|
4
|
San Antonio
Spurs
|
Gregg Popovich
|
0.93
|
67
|
3
|
2
|
Charlotte Hornets
|
Steve Clifford
|
0.93
|
48
|
4
|
10
|
Portland Trail Blazers
|
Terry Stotts
|
0.89
|
44
|
5
|
12
|
Miami Heat
|
Eric Spoelstra
|
0.81
|
48
|
6
|
7
|
Los Angeles Clippers
|
Doc Rivers
|
0.81
|
53
|
7
|
6
|
Denver Nuggets
|
Michael Malone
|
0.78
|
33
|
8
|
22
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
Rick Carlisle
|
0.78
|
42
|
9
|
14
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
Dave Joerger
|
0.72
|
42
|
10
|
15
|
Detroit Pistons
|
Stan Van Gundy
|
0.69
|
44
|
11
|
13
|
Washington Wizards
|
Randy Wittman
|
0.65
|
41
|
12
|
17
|
Boston Celtics
|
Brad Stevens
|
0.56
|
48
|
13
|
9
|
Orlando Magic
|
Scott Skiles
|
0.52
|
35
|
14
|
20
|
Indiana Pacers
|
Frank Vogel
|
0.48
|
45
|
15
|
11
|
Chicago Bulls
|
Fred Hoiberg
|
0.47
|
42
|
16
|
16
|
Milwaukee Bucks
|
Jason Kidd
|
0.47
|
33
|
17
|
23
|
New York Knicks
|
Derek Fisher / Kurt Rambis
|
0.44
|
32
|
18
|
24
|
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
David Blatt / Tyronn Lue
|
0.43
|
57
|
19
|
3
|
Sacramento Kings
|
George Karl
|
0.37
|
33
|
20
|
21
|
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
Sam Mitchell
|
0.35
|
29
|
21
|
26
|
Atlanta Hawks
|
Mike Budenholzer
|
0.34
|
48
|
22
|
8
|
New Orleans Pelicans
|
Alvin Gentry
|
0.29
|
30
|
23
|
25
|
Utah Jazz
|
Quin Snyder
|
0.27
|
40
|
24
|
19
|
Brooklyn Nets
|
Lionel Hollins / Tony Brown
|
0.27
|
21
|
25
|
28
|
Los Angeles Lakers
|
Byron Scott
|
0.23
|
17
|
26
|
29
|
Oklahoma City Thunder
|
Billy Donovan
|
0.20
|
55
|
27
|
5
|
Houston Rockets
|
Kevin McHale / JB Bickerstaff
|
0.18
|
41
|
28
|
18
|
Phoenix Suns
|
Jeff Hornacek / Earl Watson
|
0.04
|
23
|
29
|
27
|
Philadelphia 76ers
|
Brett Brown
|
0.03
|
10
|
30
|
30
|
Our results
show that the first position is the same either with the official ranking or
using our methodology. Other coaches also hold a pretty accurate
efficiency-ranking of victories relationship (not only coaches from the higher
ranked teams, e.g., Casey, Popovich, Spoelstra or Rivers, but also coaches from
the lower ranked teams, e.g., Hoiberg, Karl, Gentry, Scott or Hornacek). This method
also identifies the worst coach of the year, Brett Brown from Philadelphia
76ers. In general, the
correlation coefficient between both measures is 64%.
There is
little discussion among fans and media experts about the best coaches this
season as Kerr, Stotts and Popovich showed an outstanding performance (apart
from highlighting the performance of Walton leading the Warriors in the first
games of the season). In fact, all of them might still improve their numbers as
they are coaching their teams in the conference semifinals at the moment.
Nonetheless,
we can observe significant differences in other teams. Steve Clifford (Charlotte Hornets) would be the 4th best
coach of the year with a higher efficiency than Terry Stotts. Other coaches
underrated according to the final number of victories are Michael Malone (Denver Nuggets) or Rick Carlisle (Dallas Mavericks). On contrary, coaches whose teams
are still competing in the conference semifinals, i.e., Tyronn Lue, who substituted David Blatt in the second half season,
would go down to the 19th position of the ranking, even though
Cleveland Cavaliers finished in the 3rd position according to the
ranking of victories. In a similar way, Billy
Donovan, Oklahoma City Thunder coach (5th position), would go down
to the 27th position in terms of efficiency, or even Mike Budenholzer, Atlanta Hawks coach,
who won the NBA Southeast Division last year.
Finally,
another interesting point is that the change of the coach has not resulted in
great improvements in general as all teams that did it (Knicks, Nets, Lakers,
Cavs, Rockets or Suns) are below the efficiency average (i.e., 53%).
We think these
awards should not only be based on the total number of victories at the end of
the season. Our methodology has limitations but it is a good starting point for
the development of an objective ranking, which seems to be in line with NBA
fans opinions. Because of all this, the voting system could be substituted for
some kind of scientific objective indicator (see the one proposed here) to
award the official prizes at the end of the season.
Special thanks to Carlos Gómez González
Follow us on
Twitter: @jdelcorraltm @jazzandmar
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