[Drewbs]

Having a stacked team is only part of it but it takes good coaching to make a stacked team a championship team.

It'd be different if Jackson were taking his stacked teams to 50 win seasons and perennial playoff exits, but hes consistently won championships with his stacked teams.

You can be stacked and still be mediocre. See: Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, all stacked teams, all got the first round boot.

[Zei_Zao_LS]

Phil Jackson and Pop are the top tier of coaches at this point. They both do it different ways but they are always effective in what they do, always.

I'd put Jerry Sloan right after them though. The guy is always successful, even when his teams aren't expected to do an awful lot. Remember a couple years back when they were expected to bomb with Kirilenko leading the show, Matt Harpring being showcased as the #2 player on the team... and they still managed to win 42 games. That all comes down to coaching as far as I'm concerned.

[c_dog]

i voted mike d'antoni simply because i think he's a really good coach and deserve some votes.

phil jackson is a great coach but he's also been extremely lucky. any coach would have loved to coach 4 HOF's in their primes, namely Jordan(arguably greatest ever), Pippen, Shaq, and Kobe. he wasn't always good either though, not being able to win one with Malone and Payton.

jerry sloan is another really good coach. his teams are always disciplined and play at a very high level. he also managed to have his team play well even during its rebuilding years, after Karl and Stockton retired, and now the jazz look like they could be regular title contenders with deron williams and carlos boozer emerging as two of the best players at their positions.

Pops is obviously really good also and has the rings to prove it. i think of all the coaches, he's been able to win championships with the least talent.. Sure he had superstar in tim duncan and at times an aging HOF the admiral, skilled swingman Manu Ginobli, and a young sometimes erratic Tony Parker.. but there aren't many championship teams that's won as many rings as the spurs with this little talent. You look at the league and you see some really stacked teams who look really good on paper, but almost none have the success of the spurs year after year after year.

If i were to rank them it would be Phil, then Pops, Sloan, then maybe Jeff Van Gundy, Rick Adelman, and Nellie. Mike D'Antoni and Stan Van Gundy are kind of new and haven't been in the league as long as these guys, but they're two of my favorites. I can see them ending up somewhere between Sloan and Jeff Van Gundy in a couple of years.

[Vivaldi]

Any coach that we consider mediocre today would have won with Jordan, and a Prime Shaq + Kobe duo.

[Undefeated82]

Originally Posted by Vivaldi

Any coach that we consider mediocre today would have won with Jordan, and a Prime Shaq + Kobe duo.

Wrong, because you can't win 1v5 and 2v5 basketball, in addition the Bulls were a more then just Jordan. It takes the right players (not duo) and right coach with a system that allow the players to play to their best abilities, which is what the triangle does. That is why prior to P.Jackson the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe had 0 Championships.

[sherako]

to me a great coach is about winning, but to reach that goal he must develop the men who play for him into better players, and better men even. to that end, there is none better than the Zen Master himself, Phil Jackson.

Larry Brown also ranks high in my eyes, everyone under him does learn the game in a successful manner.

Coach Pop is top3 at least, but he gets a demerit from me for not developing any young players.

then, there is the second tier, these coaches are capable of winning it all but a lot has to go their way:

Rick Adelman
Byron Scott
Jerry Sloan
Nate McMilan


and everyone else is underneath.

[OneBadLT123]

Is pat Riley being counted? Because I would put him in the top tier with Jackson, and Popovich

[Cris]

Originally Posted by Vivaldi

And the Lakers went nowhere in those two seasons...

They were a freaking rebound from the second round with a combination of smush/kobe/luke/cook and kwame.