NBA Rankings: Stan Van Gundy and the 15 Best Head Coach Options

With a number of NBA teams looking for head coaches, you might be wondering who the candidates for your team are.

Here are the 15 best available coaches, be they veteran head coaches who aren't holding a job right now or assistant coaches who have earned their opportunities.

In the case of the veteran head coaches who are in retirement, I didn't really try to determine if they would be talked out of it. While they may or may not be "available" in the sense of entertaining job offers, they're "available" in the sense of not being under contract.

So for the sake of discussion, I've included them too.

15. Patrick Ewing

Patrick Ewing has held an assistant coach position for the Orlando Magic since 2007 and has been a major factor in the development of Dwight Howard. Prior to that he was an assistant under Jeff Van Gundy in Houston and also spent some time in Washington.

He wasn't widely regarded as future head coach material in his playing days, but he's done an admirable job as an assistant, and his name is being rumored with a number of teams, including Charlotte, according to the New York Post.

In essence he's earned the opportunity and may be given one this year. One would wager that he would be a defensive-minded coach based on his (and Dwight Howard's) playing style.

14. Maurice Cheeks

Maurice Cheeks has two previous coaching stints. First he coached the Portland Trail Blazers, and then he coached the Philadelphia 76ers. Overall he has a .498 winning percentage. His best season came when he coached the Trail Blazers to a 50-32 record in 2003.

He had the misfortune of having to deal with some head cases both in Portland and Philadelphia, so his demise in both cities isn't entirely on him.

He has spent the last few years as an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Cheeks did fairly decent his first two times around, bringing two different teams to the playoffs. He's ready to be given a chance to coach another team.

13. P.J. Carlesimo

P.J. Carlesimo has had two opportunities as a head coach before. The one time he had a reasonable roster he made it to the playoffs. With Carlesimo, it just has to be the right opportunity and the right team.

Carlesimo was the lead assistant under Gregg Popovich during three of the Spurs' championships and has a good grasp on the actual game. However, he's struggled in the past connecting with his own players.

Well, he connected with one player, or I should say one player connected with him (I'm talking to you Latrell Sprewell!), but that's not the kind of "connection" you want.

He's not a good coach if you're looking for someone to build and develop a young team, but if you have a mature team that's looking to win, you could do worse.

12. Flip Saunders

Flip Saunders was fired from the Washington Wizards earlier this year, but that was a case of a square peg being in a round hole. Saunders is a good coach if he has a veteran team around him; he's just not ideally suited for a bunch of selfish young superstars.

He is tied for 19th on the NBA's all-time win list with 638 and has a career winning percentage of .548. He coached both the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Detroit Pistons to their respective conference finals.

Perhaps he could land with the Orlando Magic. Or if the Heat don't win this year and Erik Spoelstra gets fired, Saunders would fit in nicely with Miami as well.

11. Mike D'Antoni

Mike D'Antoni was fired from the New York Knicks after another disappointing season. The problem with the Knicks is that they couldn't match his style with the appropriate players.

That's not to say that he can't win with players that fit his system. John Wall and the Wizards would be perfect given their reliance on point guard play.

Given the right team he can still be an effective head coach. It just has to be the right team.

10. Larry Brown

Larry Brown won three ABA Coach of the Year awards, one NBA Coach of the Year award and one NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.

He has 1,098 career wins and has been to the NBA Finals three times. He's one of the greatest "teachers" in the history of the league, having a knack for player development and turning teams around like few have ever done.

One team that might make sense for him is the Los Angeles Clippers. While they have a ton of talent, there's plenty of room for development, and veteran players like Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups will help the team embrace real coaching.

After Vinny Del Negro, it would be hard not to embrace any real coaching.

9. Nate McMillan

Nate McMillan has 478 career wins and a .514 career winning percentage. He's had two head stints, first with the Seattle SuperSonics and then with the Portland Trail Blazers. Three times he's had 50-plus-win seasons, twice with Portland and once with Seattle.

He ran into one of the all-time most notorious injury bugs in Portland. It seemed that every time he turned around someone was getting inured. Add to that the plethora of trades and player turnover, and what he accomplished is truly impressive.

The Blazers had 66 different players suit up during McMillan's time in Portland. Yet despite that crazy turnover, he turned a 27-win team into a winning franchise in just two years. The Trail Blazers remained a winning team for his next three seasons.

McMillan has coaching chops; he just needs to land somewhere where every big man isn't destined to be on the injury list. Granted, it's not a good fit for him to be on a fast-paced offense, but his deliberate style could help a lot of teams.

8. Brian Shaw

Brian Shaw was expected to be a front-runner for the Lakers' head coaching job last year and is widely regarded as one of the best assistants in the league today. He is certainly due for a head coaching opportunity.

Shaw was with the Magic during the "glory days" when they made it to the NBA Finals the first time with Shaquille O'Neal. He was always a popular player there, and there have been rumors that he could be invited back to coach in his old stomping grounds.

There have also been discussions that he could be interviewed for the Bobcats' vacancy.

He's studied under the master of the game, Phil Jackson, and he's ready to step up and take the reins of his own team. This year he should get his opportunity.

7. Mike Malone

Mike Malone was voted the best assistant coach in the NBA by the league's GMs this year.

He is reportedly also on Chris Paul's "short list" to "replace" Vinny Del Negro, according to Eric Pincus of HoopsWorld. It should be noted that it is not yet official that Del Negro needs to be replaced, but it's widely assumed he will be.

Basically it's assumed that what Chris Paul and Blake Griffin want, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin get. My guess is that Paul would actually like a head coach that knows more about basketball than he does, but hey, that's just me.

Malone would certainly fit that bill, and he had great rapport with Paul in New Orleans.

6. Mike Budenholzer

Mike Budenholzer has been an assistant in San Antonio for the last 16 years. He is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced assistant coaches in the NBA. Last year he was on the short list to coach in Golden State, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, but he didn't get the job.

His problem might be that he's in "Tom Thibodeau" country, where the only reason he's not getting a head coaching job is that he's been an assistant for too long. There's a strange mentality in the NBA that if you're an assistant for too long, then there must be something wrong with you.

Here's my thinking: If you have a chance to land someone that spent 16 years learning from Gregg Popovich, you reel that baby in.

5. Phil Johnson

Phil Johnson is actually not that "rumored" as a head coach, but I have no idea why. It might just be he's not interested in the idea of a head coaching job. He is actually a former Coach of the Year, winning the award in 1975 with the Kansas City/Omaha Kings.

Yeah, I didn't know that either. That's what a little research does for you though.

Mostly we know Johnson as the man by Jerry Sloan's side for 23 years. If you want to put that in perspective, 179 NBA players weren't born when Johnson first started coaching alongside Sloan.

That kind of experience has to account for something. When he abruptly retired along with Sloan last year, he was regarded as the best assistant in the game. With Sloan considering a comeback, maybe he should do the same, though as a head coach instead of Sloan's loyal assistant.

4. Stan Van Gundy

There's a part of me that hopes that Stan Van Gundy's brother, Jeff, gets an NBA head coaching job this year and Stan replaces him in the booth.

It would make his "Stan(d)" up routines even better. (Was that a reach?)

Van Gundy is actually a good coach and has gotten to the point where some things are beyond his control. It was almost like Otis Smith was trying to mess with his head, making one bad trade after another and saying, "Uh huh? Win now!"

After the whole Dwight Howard fiasco, it wasn't surprising that he was gone.

Van Gundy was partly a victim of his roster, partly a victim of dumb management, partly a victim of Howard and partly a victim of his own rigidity.

He does know how to coach though, and given a fresh opportunity he should bounce back like a D12 block.

3. Jeff Van Gundy

Jeff Van Gundy can't really be Stan's brother, can he? Maybe one looks like their mom and one looks like their dad. They sure don't look alike.

There's a tendency sometimes among communities and writers on the Internet to denigrate the knowledge of certain analysts. If you've heard that Van Gundy doesn't know what he's talking about from some of them, you've heard wrong.

Van Gundy is one of the most knowledgeable basketball people alive. He has a tremendous breadth of knowledge about the game and could coach any team in the league. In the 11 seasons he coached, whether full or partial, he had a winning record in 10 of them.

When he led the Knicks to the 1999 NBA Finals, it was an outstanding coaching performance.

It would not be at all surprising if his rants weren't a part of the ESPN broadcasts next season.

2. Jerry Sloan

A case can be made that Jerry Sloan is the greatest coach in the history of the NBA without a ring. The only question is whether there is even any argument. Who else is in the conversation, Don Nelson?

Sloan is third all time in the NBA in wins (sixth in the postseason) and fifth in games over .500. Nelson is the only coach with more wins and no rings. No one in front of him in the other two categories has failed to win a championship.

Sloan is not only the greatest coach without a ring—he's better than a lot of coaches who have one. Given the right opportunity, though, don't you think he'd like to remove that tag line from his name?

He could fit in with any team that is willing to be coached. He simply knows the game. However, his hard-line style wouldn't fit well with any teams that are resistant to actual coaching.

1. Phil Jackson

Phil Jackson is the greatest coach ever with a ring. Just in case you want to argue that point, though, he's the greatest coach ever with 11 rings. You can't argue that point.

Five of those rings came in the country's second-largest city, Los Angeles. The original six came in the third-largest city, Chicago.

Would he be willing to take his show to the Brooklyn Nets? You might say not without the stars, but what if the Nets land Deron Williams and Dwight Howard? That would certainly make for some interesting conversation.