This morning while drinking my first cup of coffee, i did my usual. started looking at some stories on the web whether be sports, wrestling, entertainment, or news related. Whatever catches my interest. Maybe something that would be good on the blog. Lo and behold on Basketball Network there is a story on why Carmelo Anthony won't be pursuing a coaching career in the NBA. Melo's reasoning? "No big time player has gotten back on the sideline and was successful as a coach....."
Mr. Anthony you couldn't be more wrong. No big time player has had a successful coaching career? Bill Russell isn't big time? 2 NBA as a player coach for the Celtics. In the early 70's he coaches Seattle to 2 winning records out of 4 yrs. Both those teams go to the playoffs. One team almost had a winning record. the '76-'77 team finished 40-42. Bill's only non-successful coaching stint was his one year coaching the Sacramento Kings to a 17-41 record in '87'88. Overall i would say taking teams to the playoffs in 5 out of 8 coaching years and winning 2 NBA Championships is something any coach would hang their hat on.
Give me another example you say....Does the name Larry Bird mean anything? the Hick from French Lick who won 3 NBA Championships and 3 NBA MVP awards throughout his illustrious career. Let's take a look at his sideline record with Indiana Pacers.
3 years as coach. All winning playoff teams. The last year he coached the Pacers were the Eastern Conference Champions. No NBA ring but I would consider that success. That's not all though.
Bird came back to the Pacers as team President in 2003-2012. 5 teams out of 9 go to the playoffs. Even though there was a playoff drought there in the mid years range, the worse they finished was 10th in the conference. 3 of those 4 teams were knocking on the playoffs door. His last year though he has rebuilt a playoff team. He takes a little time off and then comes back again as team president from 2013-2017. Again only one team was not a playoff team. No NBA rings but building winning playoff caliber teams is fairly successful.
If you want to succeed as a coach, maybe you need to be coachable first. Bird was notorious for being the first one to practice and the last one leaving practice. Over the summer he would try to hit 99 consecutive free throws and than bank number 100. He would attempt to do this 5 times consecutively. He knew to be the best player he could he needed to put in the time and effort. If you expect that of yourself, then you can expect that of the players you coach. Not one Hall of Fame coach called him overrated.
