Greatest head coach in Los Angeles Lakers history: Pat Riley, 1981-90
If the history of the Los Angeles Clippers is a series of lows without the highs, the Los Angeles Lakers have seen their history be the exact opposite to their Staples Center roommates. Other than the past half-decade, this is a franchise with seven decades of history as a winner at the highest level.
Therefore identifying the best coach in franchise history is a difficult task. 16 different coaches have finished their Lakers coaching careers with a winning record. As a franchise, they have played 734 playoff games, the most all time. The team has gone to the NBA Finals 31 times, with 16 championships in five separate decades.
John Kundla is a name not known to many modern fans, but he won five NBA championships from 1949 to 1954 as the NBA was just getting off the ground. Only two men have ever won more. Yet he did so in a tiny league with a superstar in George Mikan they changed the rules to contain.
During the period dominated by the Lakers’ rivals in the Boston Celtics, a handful of Lakers coaches were unable to break through to win a title. That changed under the leadership of Bill Sharman, who won the 1972 title and coached the 33-game winning streak that still stands as the longest in NBA history.
Other coaches saw significant success with the team, including Paul Westhead coaching the team to the 1979-80 NBA Championship and Del Harris winning NBA Coach of the Year in 1995. Yet even with this series of successful coaches, the decision comes down to Phil Jackson and Pat Riley.
Jackson coached the team in two stints from 1999 to 2011, with a year off in 2004-05. He won three titles with Shaquille O’Neal and a young Kobe Bryant, then returned to the NBA Finals from 2008 to 2010 for another two titles with Bryant and Pau Gasol. His 610 regular season and 118 playoff victories are both the most in franchise history.
Even with those impressive statistics, Riley wins this competition by a whisker. He won four titles in the 1980s with the Lakers, appearing in the NBA Finals in a whopping seven of his nine seasons.
His .733 winning percentage is elite, by far the best in franchise history among coaches who coached at least a full season. If the NBA had a four-round playoff structure when he began coaching (not to mention a seven-game first round, which was added in 2003) he most likely would have matched Jackson in playoff wins.
Riley, like Jackson, found success with other teams, simply more proof of his value as a coach. In a decade of stars, no team burned as bright as the Lakers in the 1980s. Riley was every bit the star as his players. His legacy is the greatest among a pantheon of great Lakers coaches.