To judge the coaches I would start with the players they had and where the coach took them. LAC, PHI were some of LB's better turnaround stories.

Let's see Phil Jackson's record with only Kobe.

IMHO, Larry Brown and Riles top the list. Everyone comes after them. I'm too young to remember older coaches.

I think that's Larry's claim to fame - he's a players' coach. He could inherit ANY team and make them look respectable at the very least.

I don't know, he sure proved last year that he could lose with a heavy favorite in the Olympics didn't he?

He had some pretty good teams in Indiana and never made it to the Finals there. Larry Bird took that team to the Finals as a coach.

Posted by tkf:

well we can say that LB has more in common with Riley than he does with those other coaches mentioned. He and Riley have the championship. Brown's coaching record is a bit skewed because he is not scared to take on a real tough job and coach, like he did with the clippers. If Brown consistently had the talent that phil and Riley had, how many rings do you think he would have?

are we really playing the what-if game again...puhlease.

I don't begrude him the money, just the standing among his peers. It seems he gets a little too high of regard compared to his contemporaries, some of whom are his equal imho. Maybe it's the sportswriters. They can perpetuate anything. Maybe Larry is a good interview and a nice guy to them, moreso than some of the others. He comes across as genuine but might be as phony as they come.

imo brown is the best coach in the game now followed by Phil & Pops

This is really silly.

Brown has won on every level.

He has won in college, he has won in the NBA, I don't if he coached in high school, but he prolly would have won there, too.

It is really not a good way to jugde a coach solely by his winning percentage.

Brown is known for takin over really bad teams and turning them around.

He took the Nets, and for godsakes the CLIPPERS to the playofs.

The Indiana teams he had were ok. They were not better then the teams they lost to. Bird had success with them in the already watered down East.

Brown has won in every single place he went, too. And he did not do with the best 2 players in the game liek Jackson did, or with the entire showtime like Riles, he did with whatever he had.

Brown is by far the best coach active now, and is def up there with the best in history. A noch below Auerbach and Holzman obviously, but he is way up there in the top 5.

Winning percentage really means nothing, you have to look at individual teams, seasons, etc. What did they start at? Like the Sixers for example. Brown took over a 22 win team.

What loosing team has Riley and Jackson ever coach? Same for Adelamn, they guy has a ton of talent every year, and he does nothing with it.

He had the loaded Portland teams and the loaded Kings teams, and he has zilch to show for it.

The more I think about it the more there is obviously some kind of hiddne animosity towards Brown by whoever started this thread. Because nobody with any reasonable knowlegde of bsketball can go ahead and say Larry Brown is overrated.

what a weak argument... how many yrs was jordan on the bulls before phil took over? yea, they won a lot then.. phil implemented team-oriented defense and a complex offense that made the most of Jordan and Pippen’s scoring talents. phil's 2nd yr as coach, he won a ring. YES thats right, PHIL made jordan and pippen into the players they were(even jordan says this). And yes, shaq couldnt win it all in orlando with penny+shaq, or in LA until Phil was brought in. To me, if you coach a player, and he becomes the best ever, thats it for me, that says a lot for a coach.