5 NBA Stars Who Are Smarter Than Their Coaches

Coaches or managers have the worst job in professional sports.

When their team wins, it's the players that get the credit. When they lose, suddenly the coach becomes the prominent figure representing the team and is blamed for the struggles. Only rarely will you see the players being blamed before their coach. You'll see plenty of coaches get fired before you see a team trade away an All-Star.

The thinking is that if an All-Star isn't helping to win games, then surely it's the coach's fault for either not being able to motivate his team or creating the correct system for his team to play in. Even if pieces of the team obviously don't fit, the coach will be blamed for not being able to have his team play efficiently. 

Coaches can't win. They're never celebrated unless they have an extremely long track record of winning games and championships. Even coaches that don't win titles can't be too respected. That's why you don't see guys like George Karl or Don Nelson considered as some of the best coaches to ever walk a sideline.

The Phil Jacksons and Red Auerbachs are celebrated because they won multiple championships. If you attempt to compare yourself to that as a coach, you're going to have a rough time attempting to coach your team.

Anyway, let's take a look at the five coaches who aren't as intelligent as a player on their own team. 

Dwyane Wade

Erik Spoelstra is a good coach.

He's just not the coach for the Miami Heat. It's a team that needs a sideline leader who can create an offensive set. As good a coach as Spoelstra can be when it comes to creating defensive schemes and plays out of timeouts, the fact that he can't put the Heat in a consistent offensive system is stunning and bewildering. It only makes you think how this team manages to get by essentially on talent alone.

Understood that the Heat don't have a point guard who can run the show, but there's still no reason why the team should struggle to score. They still have an excellent floor general in LeBron James, prolific scorers in Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and solid role players in guys like Udonis Haslem and Shane Battier.

This team has the essentials, excluding a center, and shouldn't have an offense that gets stuck along the perimeter. There should be plenty of ways for this team to work together and find baskets easier. However, the fact that this team can go through lulls or not get the ball to Chris Bosh for a shot for entire quarters is completely on the coach and his inability to draw up plays to get the team back on the right track.

Spoelstra is young and he's not the type of coach that can lead a team through mental lapses. A veteran coach would be preferable, but Spoelstra will do for now simply because Pat Riley won't admit defeat and take a key piece away from this roster. However, I would worry about his job if the Heat don't come away with a title at the end of this season.

It was a toss-up between LeBron James and Dwyane Wade as to who the smarter player is, but we decided that Wade would be the better choice considering his ability to remain mentally tough in pressure situations.

Having a strong mentality in those situations completely relates to intelligence. You need to be able to be smart enough to make the correct play, bold enough to make the move and tough enough to convert the shot. While James has the capability of doing so as well, he doesn't have the resilience and consistency that Wade possesses.

Chris Paul

Day by day goes on and we still ponder as to how exactly Vinny Del Negro has kept his job as coach of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Whenever a team has problems and there's no one specific to blame, the consensus of that fanbase and the organization in question will always turn on the coach first. You can't get rid of an All-Star or an entire roster. Coaches are expendable and easy to replace, which is why you'll see teams get rid of one without a question sometimes just because of a losing streak.

Mike D'Antoni quit after numerous rumors of a future firing even though the team was obviously struggling when Carmelo Anthony was on the floor. Was it easier for the Knicks to fire a coach or trade away an All-Star who's making $20 million? Of course the team is going to get rid of the guy making four times less, there's no question about it.

Word is that Del Negro is losing control of his team. Needless to say, this team is expecting a lot more than the 32-50 record from last year. 

Unless Del Negro gets back to leading this team to wins, he's going to end up losing his job. Clippers nation is expecting a lot for the first time in years. They're impatient and ready to start watching their team win some games for once. That's not happening with Del Negro, therefore he might not be coaching the team by the end of the year.

The Clippers are six games above .500 for the first time in forever, but it could easily be considered a disappointment. There are plenty of questions surrounding the defensive struggles and why the pick-and-roll duo of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin isn't as prolific as anticipated.

Speaking of Paul, he, along with Chauncey Billups, are the smartest players on this Clippers team. Paul is an excellent floor leader who has led deteriorated and untalented rosters to heights where they had no room being in the first place. You might remember Paul in his days with New Orleans where he was leading teams with Tyson Chandler and David West to the postseason year after year.

Paul showcases his intelligence on both sides of the ball. Not only is he an excellent offensive leader, he also happens to be an excellent defender with extremely quick hands, terrific awareness of opponents' tendencies and the knowledge of anticipating passes. 

Ray Allen

This was the toughest addition among the five listed coaches and players.

Doc Rivers has been excellent coaching the Boston Celtics. Like so many of these superstar laden teams are proving, it takes a lot more than just having great players to win. It takes a lot of adjustments, tremendous leadership and an ability to quickly establish chemistry amongst the players that recently joined the team.

In the summer of 2008, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett joined Paul Pierce in Boston. They won 65 games and an NBA championship that season. Compare that to the Miami Heat who came up a few games short, the New York Knicks who might not even make the playoffs or the Los Angeles Clippers who could soon fire their coach.

It takes a whole lot more than bringing great players together for the purpose of winning games. Rivers was able to relate to his new players, had an excellent defensive mind and was lucky enough that the organization brought in players who were veterans and knew what it took to win games. Along with already having Glen Davis and Rajon Rondo, the Celtics were set for a title.

It was tough picking out a player between the Celtics big three, but we thought it best to go with the most fundamentally sound, strongest mentality and most consistent player of the bunch in sharpshooter Ray Allen. 

Even at the age of 36 and the oldest member of the big three, Allen is arguably the best player amongst the wily veterans. He's averaging only 15 points per on 46 percent shooting, but is hitting on an unbelievable 46 percent of his five three-point attempts per. This comes a year after shooting a career-high 44 percent from beyond the arc.

That's right. At the age of 35, Allen shot a career high from the three-point line. Even more confusing is the fact that he's converting at an even more efficient rate from beyond the arc at the age of 36. He's baffling the NBA world game by game as we continue to ponder just how he's able to perform better than ever in his later years. 

Kobe Bryant

In five years coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers, Mike Brown recorded four seasons of 50 wins or more and two seasons of 60 wins or more.

He also led the team to the 2007 NBA Finals and bred LeBron James into a juggernaut on both sides of the ball that has won two MVPs and has become arguably the best player in the league. Yet he was let go in the 2010 offseason during James' free-agency period. How does a coach with numbers like Phil Jackson get let go after five extremely successful regular seasons?

Simply because the success was in the regular season. Brown might have been leading his Cavaliers to 50-win season after 50-win season, but it wasn't transferring to the postseason. They made it to the finals only once in his tenure, with the most disappointing output being a semifinals exit after a 61-win season. 

Were the Cavaliers ever really Brown's? It seems that LeBron James could have been running the show. A small-market team with a big-time player for the first time in franchise history meant that the organization had to bow down and do whatever pleased the All-Star. James ran the show on the court, as well as off, and dictated how the Cavaliers were going to play that night.

It wasn't healthy to have one player running the show, which is why the team kept faltering in the postseason. It takes an entire roster to win a championship and the Cavaliers never had that. Of course that falls on the organization for failing to bring in quality players, but it also falls on the coach who needs to maximize the talent he has in front of him.

Brown is a smart coach, but would you rather listen to him or the player that has willed his team to five championships and has won two Final MVPs and a league MVP? Kobe Bryant is one of the most intelligent players to ever step on the hardwood and it has translated to nothing but 15 years of success at all levels of the season.

With the capability of hitting any type of shot, making plays on both sides of the ball and converting when his team needs a score most, Bryant uses his intelligence more than any other trait and that's why he has seen so much success over his career.

Steve Nash

Like Doc Rivers, Alvin Gentry also happens to be an intelligent coach.

Think about it. He may not have the hardware, but look at what he's done with this Phoenix Suns team after two coaches. He's been able to acclimate this Suns team to a new system after the departure of Mike D'Antoni and Terry Porter, and now has them nearing a playoff spot. 

This comes from a team where two of the three best players are 39 and 38 years old and a leading scorer named Marcin Gortat, who was once a seldom used backup on the Orlando Magic. Gentry has played a larger part than most of us give him credit for. He's got a Suns team near the playoffs that could have easily been at the bottom of the Pacific Division.

Of course, he didn't do all of this on his own. He had a little help from a point guard who very well could be a head coach in the near future after their eventual retirement. 

Thirty-eight-year-old All-Star and two-time league MVP Steve Nash definitely has a coaching career in front of him. The intelligence he showcases on the court is head and shoulders above any other player in the league, as he continues to play the role of a perfect point guard who could affect the outcome of a game with both his scoring and passing ability.

While Nash is averaging only 13 points per game, his lowest output since 2000, he's leading the league in assists per for the third consecutive season and the sixth time in the past eight seasons. At 11 dimes per, Nash has been consistently dishing out that amount of assists per for the past three seasons. With or without Amar'e Stoudemire, Nash has been leading one of the league's most effective offenses.

Coupled with the ability to see teammates where no one else can and being able to hit timely shots, Nash is one of the most intelligent players in the league and is by far the smartest part of the Suns.