The rise in NBA coaches with dual roles as personnel decision-makers reflects the growing concerns about job security and franchise stability.
Once upon a time, a head coach served at the pleasure of the team owner(s).
He came to work, conditioned his players, drew up plays, got through 82 games (and hopefully more), did exit interviews, went on vacation, and got ready for the next season–if his performance for that season wasn’t too shabby. Lather, rinse, repeat.
That was it.
This was during a time where owners simply wrote the checks and let their front offices do the jobs they were hired to do. Again, these owners came from backgrounds that traditionally required patience and a eye toward the long game.
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Nowadays, new owners are from more dynamic careers that are focused less on the now than the future–and require near instantaneous results.
The 2015-16 season saw a rather prominent spike in head coach firings–most of these taking the league by surprise. The first casualty was Kevin McHale, who took the Houston Rockets to the Western Conference Finals in 2015.
This season, the Rockets decided to give McHale a pink slip after the team started the season with a dismal 4-7 record, which included a four-game losing streak.
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Then there was the infamous and controversial firing of David Blatt by the Cleveland Cavaliers, widely believed to be engineered by franchise star LeBron James (despite his protests and hurt feelings to the contrary).
Blatt led the Cavs to the 2015 NBA Finals (where they fell to the Golden State Warriors) and a 30-11 record before getting the boot; but that wasn’t enough for a player who did a complete 180 from “not ready yet … a long process” toward a championship, to “championship run” mode.
Jeff Hornacek. Lionel Hollins. Derek FIsher. George Karl. Byron Scott. Dave Joerger. Frank Vogel. The coaching carousel almost spun into a new gravitational field this season … and that’s not even mentioning the resignation of Scott Skiles.
In light of the new NBA culture, which apparently encourages fickleness with regard to coaching longevity, the new trend is for coaches to wrest some power back with dual roles. Here are the coaches who currently hold dual roles in the NBA:
- Gregg Popovich (San Antonio Spurs): head coach and president of basketball operations
- Doc Rivers (Los Angeles Clippers): head coach and general manager
- Mike Budenholzer (Atlanta Hawks): head coach and president of basketball operations
- Stan Van Gundy (Detroit Pistons): head coach and president of basketball operations
- Tom Thibodeau (Minnesota Timberwolves): head coach and president of basketball operations
Jeff Van Gundy, current ESPN color commentator and a rumored preferred candidate for the Rockets, has always said that he’d only return to coaching in the NBA if he could get a dual-role setup like his brother Stan.
NBA coaches holding dual roles is not without precedent.
The late Flip Saunders was the head coach and president of basketball operations for the Timberwolves, as well as part owner— which was one of the reasons why Kevin Garnett waived his no-trade clause to return to Minnesota (Garnett has been open about his desire to own an NBA team someday and hoped to get a piece of the franchise where he began, and may end, his career).
“Having a really good coach is probably the most important thing in this league. You can have all the great players you want but you have to have someone to orchestrate it. He’s the guy who’s been here for the longest, having someone like that to orchestrate what you do obviously helps.” — Kevin Durant
It also helped Thibodeau negotiate his contract with the T-Wolves, where he also started his NBA career as a coach.
Mike Dunleavy, Sr. became the head coach and general manager for the Donald Sterling-era Clippers in 2008. Prior to that, he was the head coach and vice president of basketball operations for the Milwaukee Bucks.
In both situations, Dunleavy Sr. ended up stepping down from his coaching role to focus on the front-office part of his job; with the Bucks, he was promoted to general manager.
Dunleavy Sr. left the NBA for good in 2010 and is now the men’s basketball coach at Tulane University, his first college coaching job.
Pat Riley left his head coaching job with the New York Knicks to become head coach and team president of the Miami Heat in 1995.
During his tenure, the Heat won three championships and boast former and current All-Stars in Alonzo Mourning, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and of course James.
These coaching power moves are all well and good, but do they actually work?
Thibodeau seems to think so:
Indeed, in a league that shows players placing an increasing value on franchise stability and continuity, it could be argued that having one person responsible for both signing players and coaching those players is beneficial.
One need look no further than five-time NBA champion and three-time Coach of the Year Popovich who, with general manager R.C. Buford, has created the franchise to which all other NBA teams aspire.
"“Having a really good coach is probably the most important thing in this league. You can have all the great players you want but you have to have someone to orchestrate it,” Oklahoma City Thunder‘s Kevin Durant told Matt Moore of CBS Sports. “He’s the guy who’s been here for the longest, having someone like that to orchestrate what you do obviously helps.”"
The numbers seem to back up this trend. The Spurs, Hawks, and Clippers have been expected postseason attendees and this season did not disappoint.
“I’m the one who makes the decisions, I coach the team, I make the calls. And if this team is losing, especially like it just lost, after four years, if I were my boss I’d probably fire me.” — Pat Riley
The Spurs had a franchise-best 67-win season and made it to the second round of the playoffs before being bested by the Thunder.
The Hawks, while not able to top their 60-win season of 2014-15, nevertheless made it to the second round of the playoffs before getting swept by the Cavs.
The Clippers fell to the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round after being drowned by a wave of injuries.
The Rockets, despite an inundation of mediocrity and team chemistry issues, made it to the playoffs and got bounced in the first round by the Warriors. The Timberwolves didn’t make the playoffs, but managed to string together a 29-53 record.
Given the upheaval of the franchise in the wake of Saunders’ sudden death, it was a testament to this team’s resilience that they made it that far. Even before Thibodeau’s hire, the Timberpups have been tabbed to make a significant leap–maybe even a playoff appearance–next season.
In the Dunleavy Sr. era, he took the Bucks to the playoffs, though they got bounced in the first round. After leaving the Bucks to become head coach (and just the head coach) of the Blazers in 1997, Portland went to the playoffs four times before he was fired.
With the Clippers, the team improved with each passing season under Dunleavy as coach and were one game from making the Western Conference Finals in 2006.
He stepped down as coach and, with Dunleavy Sr. now as GM, the Clippers didn’t make the playoffs again until 2012–well after Dunleavy Sr. had been fired.
Dual roles, then, can be very successful, but also very challenging. Riley was so disgusted with the way his team played in the 2001-02 season–they finished 36-46–that the story goes that he threatened to fire himself.
"“And I’m saying to myself, `How much more of this should they take? How much more of me should they take? Maybe I’m the one who causes all this high expectation and this pressure,'” Riley told Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune. “I’m the one who makes the decisions, I coach the team, I make the calls. And if this team is losing, especially like it just lost, after four years, if I were my boss I’d probably fire me.”"
It was only once he stepped down as coach in 2003 and devoted his energies to his general manager role that the team began a real turnaround–one that began with the drafting of Wade out of Marquette University as the fifth overall pick in the 2003 draft.
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Riley took back coaching duties again in 2005 and subsequently led the Heat to their first NBA championship. It bars mentioning that Riley won his previous four championships as a coach when he was at the helm of the Los Angeles Lakers–and only the head coach.
As controversial as Riley was in his dual roles, no current dual-role coach is catching more recent heat than Doc Rivers.
Rivers continues to be under scrutiny as he tries to balance Rivers The GM and Rivers The Head Coach. Coaching the Clips to a 53-29 season and a No. 4 seed in the Western Conference–despite the significant absence of Blake Griffin–was laudable.
Yet some of his GM moves–like trading for the streaky and underwhelming Jeff Green; keeping clutch player and three-time Sixth Man of the Year Jamal Crawford in trade talks; and trading for his also-ran son, Austin Rivers (although, to Rivers the Younger’s credit, he has stepped up when his teammates went down)–have been seen as head-scratchers, at best.
Most recently, Rivers the Elder has gotten the side eye for still wanting to keep the Clippers All-Star core of Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan, and Blake Griffin together–despite this trio being unable to get past the second round in the playoffs for the past seven years.
His argument is that 1) the Clippers were doing well until the Injury Imp paid a visit, so he wants to see what happens when everyone is back and healthy again; and 2) Paul and Griffin will be unrestricted free agents after the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, respectively, so it doesn’t really matter.
As head coach, the health angle is understandable. As GM, the thought of getting nothing in return for two of your most valuable players taking a walk, is unpalatable.
This is the counterargument against a head coach being more than just that; talent in one position doesn’t necessarily translate into talent in another.
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Should the Clippers–or any other team with a dual-role coach–(continue to) take steps backward, the whispers will grow louder that the coach, in his front-office component, didn’t know what he was doing, and his head will quickly be on the chopping block.
How prevalent the dual-role coaching trend will become remains to be seen. The aforementioned all have, or had, lengthy and distinguished playing and/or coaching careers before those combination roles became available.
Not every coach in the NBA can swing this type of deal, mainly because, given the current turnover climate, coaches don’t stay long enough to build a track record that could translate into such power.
Owner mentality also plays a crucial role; real talk, most of today’s NBA owners aren’t secure enough in their ownership to cede that much control of their high-priced fiefdoms.
Also, given that the NBA players are surely going to fight to recoup some of their significant losses in the last Collective Bargaining Agreement, the owners are going to try to hold on to whatever power and control that they can.
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Winning, however, cures a multitude of sins. If franchises can continue to prove that dual-role coaches can keep a franchise a viable contender, then expect to see more of such deals in the future.