Coaching in the NBA: More Than Meets the Eye

Prior to the NBA Finals, many NBA journalists were criticizing Phil Jackson of being a poor coach, just and above average motivator. After winning the Championship, these same journalists who had been shown to be wrong said that the only reason for Jackson’s postseason success was because of a superior set of talent that he has been lucky to have.

Jackson must be the luckiest person in the world, because luck usually only happens once or twice, not ten times.

Many of the criticisms that Jackson faces stem from him not doing too much during actual game time. However, basketball, unlike a sport such as American football is a much more free flowing game that is not stopped often. Basketball should be compared to a sport such as football (or soccer in the US).

The game clocks in both sports are only stopped when the other team scores or a foul is committed (actually in football, the game clock is never stopped, but extra time is given at the end of the game – which basically results in the equivalent of a clock stoppage).

If a football or basketball coach were to manage a game the same way as an American football coach the entire flow of the game would be broken. Many of the best managers in football manage their teams like Phil Jackson does with the Lakers.

Kobe Bryant stressed it often in his film “Kobe Doin’ Work” that basketball is a game of “execution”. What this means is that the team prepares for the game and usually sticks with their game plan throughout the course of the entire game, with as little alterations to the game plan as possible.

Spike Lee made an interesting inquiry, asking Kobe why teams don’t mask their calls like in a sport such as American football. Kobe replied saying once again that basketball is a game of execution and that every team already knows what each other is going to do, it results in which out-executes the other.

Come game time, basketball is a player’s game unlike football, which is a coach’s game.

As I already explained earlier, an NBA coach’s job during a game is not very difficult: motivate the team and try to capitalize on any mismatches. However, people who criticize coaches like Jackson forget the preparation that coaches put into the team prior to game time.

I think that these people just assume that what they see on their TV’s is all that happens with respect to that game. This is a stupid assumption: this isn’t recess basketball where you just show up and play basketball and don’t think about the next game until five minutes prior.

These guys get paid too much money to just show up to the game and play. Anyone who has played competitive sports at any level will know that there is much more to the game than just what happens during game time.

I think that coaches such as Jackson are unjustly criticized because we live in a televised era of instant gratification, and if we don’t see our team performing well during the game, we will point out the member who did not “seem” to contribute the most at that time.

If Jackson were to start coming up with trick plays, would that really make him a better coach? We as fans and critics of basketball must understand that much more happens in coaching a team than meets the eye.