Los Angeles Lakers: Power Ranking the Greatest Coaches in Team History
While LeBron James and Dwyane Wade lead their Miami Heat 'mates to duke it out with Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers can do little more than watch the action from the seats of their respective couches on their gargantuan flat-screen televisions.
Now, Kobe has yet to join his Purple and Gold teammates in the chorus line of praise for new head coach and Phil Jackson "replacement" Mike Brown, perhaps because team president Jim Buss neglected to consult him during the hiring process.
It will likely be a good long while until the Lakers know whether they picked the right guy for the job, especially with the specter of a lockout hanging over the 2011-12 season.
It will take even longer still to figure out where the former coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers fits what is arguably the greatest coaching lineage of any NBA franchise.
Until that time comes, let's have a look at how the greatest coaches in franchise history stack up against one another, with only those who stuck around for a full season garnering consideration.
12. Randy Pfund
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Randy Pfund still stands as the only man to coach the Lakers for at least one full season and come away with a losing record—a distinction Lakers fans can only hope will never befall another coach of theirs.
Pfund was let go toward the end of the 1993-94 season—his second in LA—though not before compiling a regular season record of 66-80.
The Lakers finished out the season with Bill Bertka and Magic Johnson serving as head coaches, though their performances did little to alleviate the memory of Pfund's ineptitude.
11. Jerry West
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Jerry West is easily one of the greatest players to ever suit up for the Lakers, but wasn't quite as successful when he attempted to coach the team during the late 1970s.
In three seasons as the head man in LA, "The Logo" amassed a respectable 145-101 record, leading the Lakers to the playoffs each year but failing to advance past the Western Conference Finals.
Of course, West's post-playing career is much more noteworthy for what he accomplished as a front office executive, serving as the architect behind two separate Lakers dynasties—that of Magic Johnson and James Worthy in the 1980s, and that of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal at the turn of the millennium.
10. Joe Mullaney
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Jerry West spent two seasons playing under the auspices of Joe Mullaney, which may prompt some folks to ask, "Joe who?"
Sure, Joe Mullaney isn't exactly a name that will ring many bells in the minds of Lakers fans, but his success in LA during the late 1960s and early 1970s is certainly worth noting.
Mullaney, who got his start in coaching at Providence and bounced around the ABA and the NCAA after his stint in Los Angeles, bridged the gap between Butch van Breda Kolff and Bill Sharman and did so quite well.
In two seasons under Mullaney, the Lakers went 94-70, highlighted by a run to the 1970 NBA Finals in which the Lakers of West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain succumbed to the New York Knicks in seven games.
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9. Del Harris
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Del Harris never got the Lakers to the NBA Finals like Mullaney did, but the sheer length of Harris' tenure earns him the nod in this case.
Harris spent four and a half seasons as the Lakers' head honcho, posting 224 wins against 116 losses while earning NBA Coach of the Year honors after his first season at the helm.
Harris was axed just 12 games into the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, but not before leading the Lakers to the playoffs in each of his four full seasons while wading through the drama of the early Kobe-Shaq years.
8. Mike Dunleavy
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It's no easy task to follow up a legend, which makes Mike Dunleavy the perfect person for Mike Brown to turn to for advice in dealing with sky-high expectations in LA.
Dunleavy stepped in to coach the Lakers after Pat Riley stepped down following the 1989-90 season and didn't waste any time keeping "Showtime" alive, as he guided Magic Johnson, Vlade Divac and the rest of the Lakers back to the NBA Finals. Unfortunately, LA ran into some chums from Chicago.
Do the names Jordan, Pippen and Jackson ring a bell?
The Lakers struggled the very next year amidst Magic Johnson's shocking HIV announcement and his subsequent departure, along with injuries to James Worthy and Sam Perkins, though Dunleavy still pushed the team into the playoffs somehow.
Regardless, Dunleavy dipped for the Milwaukee Bucks gig after the 1991-92 season, leaving Los Angeles with a record of 101-63.
7. Butch Van Breda Kolff
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The Lakers would have had a few more coaches with rings in their lineage if not for the incredible run the Boston Celtics had during the 1950s and 1960s.
Butch van Breda Kolff is one such coach who definitely would have benefited. Van Breda Kolff came to the NBA with plenty of collegiate success under his belt and had seemingly little trouble adjusting, leading Los Angeles to two consecutive appearances in the NBA Finals.
Of course, the Lakers lost both series to the Celtics. Van Breda Kolff caught a lot of heat for the second series defeat, in particular, as he held Wilt Chamberlain, with whom he had a rough relationship, out of the final moments of Game 7 as the Lakers succumbed to Boston by two points.
As one might expect, van Breda Kolff resigned his post shortly thereafter, leaving behind a regular season mark of 107-57 but no rings to show for his efforts.
6. Paul Westhead
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It's tough to deny Paul Westhead a spot in the top five of the Lakers' coaching pantheon, given the ring he earned in 1980, but his spot at No. 6 is by no means a show of disrespect.
Westhead's coaching career began with that championship team, which featured Magic Johnson as a rookie and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a grizzled veteran.
Despite a record of 161-111, Westhead didn't last long in LA. Owner Jerry Buss fired him partway into the third season when it became apparent that he did not get along with his players, or really anyone in the organization, for that matter.
5. Fred Schaus
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Perhaps no man had more professional ire for the Boston Celtics than Fred Schaus.
Schaus coached Jerry West in college at West Virginia and followed "The Logo" to Los Angeles, where he led the Lakers to seven straight playoff appearances and four Western Conference titles, though, like van Breda Kolff, he was foiled each time by Bill Russell's Celtics.
After amassing a record of 315-245 as coach, Schaus moved to the Lakers front office, from which vantage point he built the team into the champion it became at the end of the 1971-72 season.
4. Bill Sharman
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Bill Sharman was certainly a better player than a coach, though the fact that he is one of three individuals enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both, along with John Wooden and Lenny Wilkens, speaks to just how good he really was in both roles.
Ironically enough, Sharman won four titles while haunting the Lakers as a member of the Boston Celtics before switching sides and leading LA to the 1972 NBA championship to cap an epic season that saw the Lakers reel off 33 wins in a row—a record that still stands to this day as the longest in professional sports history.
Sharman ended his coaching career in 1976 with a mark of 246-164 as one of the most decorated men in the history of basketball.
3. John Kundla
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Long before Phil Jackson was the Zen Master, and just before Red Auerbach became the most hated figure in Lakerland, John Kundla was the greatest coach the NBA had ever seen.
Kundla won five NBA championships with the Minneapolis Lakers during the late 1940s and early 1950s while going 423-302 between two non-consecutive terms as the team's head coach.
Like Jackson and Auerbach, Kundla had the great privilege of coaching a supremely talented team, whose depth extended far beyond Hall of Fame center George Mikan to include the likes of Clyde Lovellette, Vern Mikkelsen and Slater Martin.
Kundla's tenure came to an end in 1959 when owner Bob Short moved the team to Los Angeles, while Kundla decided to remain in Minneapolis to coach at the University of Minnesota.
2. Pat Riley
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Pat Riley is making his hay these days as the front office mastermind who brought Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh together in Miami, but he wouldn't be in such a sweet spot without first having made such a strong name for himself as the man in charge of the Lakers' "Showtime" dynasty of the 1980s.
"Riles" won four titles while coaching a smorgasbord of Laker legends, from Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar all the down through James Worthy and Sam Perkins to Michael Cooper, A.C. Green and Kurt Rambis.
Riley left the LA after the 1989-90 season with an astonishing 533-194 record—good for a winning percentage of .733—while becoming one of five men, and one of two non-Celtics along with Billy Cunningham, to win titles as both a player and a coach with the same franchise.
1. Phil Jackson
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On the one hand, it's tough to give Phil Jackson the nod over Pat Riley as the greatest coach in Lakers history when his legacy will forever be defined, first and foremost, by what he accomplished as the head coach of the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, winning six titles amidst two three-peats.
The Zen Master will never define the franchise quite like Riles did, but it's tough to argue with the tremendous success that Jackson had in LA.
Assuming Jackson doesn't return to the sidelines at Staples Center, he will have finished his non-consecutive terms as the Lakers' coach with five titles and a regular season record of 610-292.
With the most wins and the most titles of any coach in franchise history, can you really deny that Phil Jackson is the best ever to stalk the sidelines in LA?
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