How to Evaluate Coaches

[Erick Blasco]

This from Nate McMillan through BlazersBlog via BP

 

 

The way to judge a coach is not to obsess over this or that little thing, but to look around the franchise and ask: Are the basketball players well-led? Do they give great effort at all times? Are the offense and defense generally efficient? Are the players on the roster well-deployed? Do the players believe in the coach as their leader? Is the staff on the same page?

 

The answer to all of those questions is hell yes when it comes to Nate McMillan.

 

Abbott’s piece reminded me of what might be the single column I’ve revisited most often in my life, the incomparable Bill James (guesting for Rob Neyer) on how to evaluate an organization.

 

Baseball organizations make thousands of decisions every year: A-level decisions, like “Who will be our manager?” and “Should we make a commitment to sign

Johnny Damon

?”; B-level decisions like “Who are we going to use as a leadoff man?” and “Who is going to be our first-round draft pick?”; and on down to Z-level decisions like “Should we use a pinch-runner here or a sacrifice bunt?” and “Is it time to move

Tubby Poholsky

up to Double-A?”

 

It seems to me that if you begin reviewing all of those decisions by a standard of “Is this the way I would have done this?” then you launch into a process that is, by its nature, neither fair, nor logical, nor constructive. Why?

Because it is impossible, by doing that, to form a comprehensive picture of what the organization has done.

You cannot hold 7,000 decisions in your mind while you think them through, so what you inevitably begin to do is pick and choose those which serve to advance your prejudice.

 

 

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=522