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NBA: Greatest head coach in each team’s franchise history

By Josh Cornelissen

Gregg Popovich, Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Gregg Popovich, Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
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Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Indiana Pacers
Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Indiana Pacers. (Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images) /

Greatest head coach in Indiana Pacers history: Larry Bird, 1997-00

Great players often make terrible coaches, unable to translate their instincts and abilities into helpful teaching and guidance. Sometimes, they make incredible coaches, as their understanding of the game and team dynamics a distinct advantage. In rare cases, they make good coaches and front-office executives.

That’s the case with Larry Bird, one of the greatest players to ever play the game. After starring for the Boston Celtics and serving with their front office, Bird returned home to his native state to become the Indiana Pacers’ head coach in 1997.

A former ABA team, the Pacers did not find much success in the NBA until they drafted Reggie Miller and the team they crafted around him became a perennial playoff team. Yet friction between the team and head coach Larry Brown led to the coach resigning to join the Philadelphia 76ers, leaving an opening that Bird filled.

In just three seasons with the Pacers, Bird led them further into the postseason than they had ever been before, including to the 2000 NBA Finals. His Pacers teams never won fewer than nine games in the postseason, falling to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in 1998 and Patrick Ewing’s New York Knicks in 1999 before winning the Eastern Conference in 2000.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal and a young Kobe Bryant would take down Miller and the Pacers in six games, the final days of Bird’s coaching career.

Bird’s peak coaching with the Pacers outweighs the longevity of a coach such as Frank Vogel, who had a largely successful run in Indiana but could never break through to the NBA Finals. Bobby Leonard coached 13 seasons in the ABA and NBA with Indiana, but his success in the ABA (three titles) was not carried over into the NBA.

Bird would go on to run the Pacers’ front office for many years, earning NBA Executive of the Year in 2012. That makes him the only player in league history to win an MVP, NBA Coach of the Year and NBA Executive of the Year. At least part of what made Bird special on the court helped him to be special on the sideline as well.