The Best and Worst Coaching Jumps from College to the NBA

For weeks, reporting and rumors suggested that the Los Angeles Lakers would rob the media of JJ Redick and make him the next head coach of their storied franchise.

Then, on Thursday, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski dropped a Woj Bomb onto the timeline, alerting the basketball world to L.A.'s interest in Dan Hurley.

The sudden nature of the report led to some surprise, but the interest itself makes plenty of sense.

Hurley is coming off back-to-back national title runs with the UConn Huskies. Since at least as far back as that second championship, he's been one of the hottest names in basketball.

And though he'd be heading to a challenging situation with a pair of past-their-prime stars and the expectations that come from leading the Lakers, Hurley's pass-heavy scheme and ability to quickly develop talent can conceivably get this organization back to title-hunting.

If he does, he'd join a relatively limited list of prominent former college coaches who successfully transitioned to the NBA. Most examples from the league's past aren't great.

Below, you'll find three of the very worst and three of the best college-to-pro coaching paths in NBA history.

Worst: Tim Floyd

Jonathan Daniel

Tim Floyd and Ron Harper

Coaching in the NBA is a dream for plenty of people, but it's hard to imagine a less enviable first-time position than the one Tim Floyd found himself in in 1998-99.

After going 242-131 in 12 college seasons, Floyd was tabbed as the replacement for the legendary Phil Jackson. The Chicago Bulls were coming off Michael Jordan's sixth title and subsequent retirement, and Floyd's first year was a disaster.

In a lockout-shortened season, Chicago went 13-37, finished dead last in the Eastern Conference and was nine wins shy of the second-worst team in the conference.

And things didn't get much better from there. In four seasons with the Bulls, Floyd went 49-190.

Somehow, he landed one more job in the league after that run, but he went 41-41 and only lasted one season with the New Orleans Hornets.

Best: Billy Donovan

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Billy Donovan and DeMar DeRozan

The track record for longtime college coaches in the NBA is so bad that Billy Donovan, who's probably not seen as a superstar coach by many, is one of the bigger success stories.

He hasn't had a deep playoff run since losing to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals with Oklahoma City in 2016. He hasn't even made the playoffs in three of his four seasons with the Bulls, but at 399-319, Donovan's winning percentage is comfortably in the black.

And unlike plenty of other big-name college coaches who only last a few years in the NBA before returning to the amateur ranks, it looks like Donovan may be here for good.

The 2023-24 campaign was his ninth in the league, and when the two-time national champion at Florida's name came up in connection to this summer's opening at Kentucky, he reaffirmed his commitment to Chicago.

Worst: John Calipari

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John Calipari and Keith Van Horn

John Calipari is one of the most successful coaches in college basketball history. He's ninth all-time in total wins, and his record is absurd: 855-263. He's won multiple conference championships for three different schools and a national title with Anthony Davis in 2012.

But his foray into NBA coaching was both short and uninspiring. Calipari coached the Nets for just over two seasons. He was 72-112. And after starting his third season there 3-17, he was fired.

He'd set out to overhaul the Nets' organizational culture, but his brief tenure was a vivid example of how much different that pursuit is in the NBA than it is in college.

Best: Brad Stevens

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Kemba Walker, Jayson Tatum and Brad Stevens

Brad Stevens coached just six seasons in the college ranks, all for mid-major Butler University. In those campaigns, he finished with a single-digit loss total four times. He made back-to-back Final Fours in 2010 and 2011.

And he famously came within inches of winning a national title in 2010.

The hot start to his head coaching career caught the eye of the Boston Celtics, who hired him in 2013. And after two losing seasons to start his stint there, Stevens had the Celtics functioning about as well as any team in the league.

From the 2015-16 season through 2020-21 (his last on the bench), Boston had the fourth-best winning percentage in the NBA and made three conference finals. Stevens was also a key figure in the development of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown during that time.

And while he never won a title as the Celtics' coach, he wasn't fired in 2021. Far from it. That summer, he transitioned to the team's top front office role, and they're on the verge of a championship in 2024.

Worst: John Beilein

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Kevin Porter Jr., Larry Nance Jr. and John Beilein

This exercise isn't really a true ranking, but if it was, John Beilein would have a pretty strong case for the worst shot at the college-to-pros path in NBA history.

Beilein was a longtime college coach who won conference championships in the MAAC, CAA and Big Ten. He had three 30-win seasons for Michigan and went 63-15 over his last two seasons there.

But his attempt to establish a new culture with the Cleveland Cavaliers went even worse than Calipari's with the Nets.

The 67-year-old had a hard time connecting with his players, which led to some genuinely embarrassing moments. During his lone season there, he apologized to players for calling them "thugs" during a team meeting, insisting he meant to say "slugs."

And that clearly didn't bridge the gap between the two sides, as Beilein stepped down before the campaign was even over with a 14-40 record.

Best: Larry Brown

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Chauncey Billups and Larry Brown

It's easy to identify Larry Brown as the best member of this fraternity of college-to-pro coaches. To this day, he's the only person in history to have won both an NCAA championship and an NBA Finals.

The former came in 1988 with Danny Manning, and the latter was with the legendary Detroit Pistons team that upset Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in 2004.

And just for good measure, Brown even made the ABA Finals as a coach twice.

But postseason success isn't the only reason Brown is here. He's ninth all-time in career coaching wins in the NBA. He had eight 50-win seasons (11 if you count his time in the ABA). And those eight 50-win seasons came from five different organizations.

For the next potential member of this group, UConn's Dan Hurley, Brown's coaching career is a storied one worth aspiring to.