From the time I first saw Chuck Daly, Pat Riley and my all-time favorite, Larry Brown, who used to wear the cool sport coats with the patches on the elbow, roaming the sidelines coaching in the NBA, I aspired to someday be an NBA head coach.
Because I read about the great Moses Malone putting a note in the Bible, wanting to be a great NBA player someday, I decided at age 11 to do the same thing. Somehow, I didn’t get the same results, having ended up as a pretty good Division 3 player. I guess playing in the NBA was not going to be my destiny.
My path was to first try to be a very successful college coach, then hopefully get scooped up by some GM as the next up-and-comer in the NBA. The first part worked out pretty well as I won approximately 200 games and went to five postseasons in an eight-year period at two different schools, but unfortunately the second part still has not come to fruition, so I’m left to speculate on what coaches in college today might be the next to make the very rare and difficult jump from the college ranks right to the NBA as a pro head coach.
I’ve got five for you: Danny Manning; Kevin Ollie; Jay Wright; Tony Bennett and Fred Hoiberg.
In the last 3 years since I left coaching in the Big East, I have been obsessed with studying and learning everything I can about the NBA game, through first training camps with my friend and mentor Larry Brown while he was with the Charlotte Bobcats, to a constant daily presence at Mike D’Antoni’s Knicks practices, to having an opportunity to spend a few weeks with current Knicks coach Mike Woodson at the NBA Las Vegas summer league.
I have come to the conclusion that the differences between the college and NBA game are like night and day, apples and oranges, not even in the same stratosphere, you get the point.
I understand many college guys have made the jump before, from Rick Pitino to John Calipari to Mike Montgomery and others. Whether it was handling the players differently, because the NBA is truly a players league and they are each like independent contractors, or the nuances of coaching from 30 games to over 90 when it comes to strategy or being able to press, etc., to many guys taking over struggling franchises where they have to adjust to losing five or six games in two weeks when they didn’t lose that many games in two years in college, it is truly a completely different animal.
These five coaches strike me as guys that, because of their background and playing pedigree, or even their demeanor, may be able to make the jump to the NBA.
Although Brad Stevens has suffered through a 2-15 January with the Celtics, and it’s probably tough during March Madness to no longer be a darling, I guess you do get paid handsomely for the misery that comes with losing.
So who might be the next Stevens?
(READERS: With NCAA March Madness in full flow, people can still take part in sweet 16 bracket buster contest and have a chance to win big. Nowadays it’s pretty tough to find an online sportsbook that’s reputable. After some research, we found a site that has a list of top betting sites where one can sign up and play the bracket buster. Play responsibly though, after all it’s gambling.)
The first three guys on the list all played in the NBA, from a cup of coffee to long enough to get a pension someday.
Also, these three are all currently hot and have their teams in the Sweet 16.
Ollie, who is only in his second year after taking over for legendary Jim Calhoun, has done an outstanding job transitioning from ex-NBA player to successful head coach and will match wits this Friday night with No. 2 on the list, Fred Hoiberg of Iowa State, who also has gone from playing in the league to working in front office of Minnesota Timberwolves to doing one of the best jobs of coaching in the country.
Then at number 3 is Tony Bennett, who is the son of the one-time great Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett and now has the University of Virginia, where I was once an assistant coach, as a No. 1 seed in the tourney playing the mighty Michigan State Spartans on Friday. I can remember Tony being in the league as a tough hard-nosed backup point guard back in the day.
I don’t know any of these three particularly well, I’ve met them through the years in coaching, but all three have what it takes to possibly make the very challenging jump to coaching in the NBA if they get the chance.
Next on my list is also a young up-and-coming coach who in just his second season got his Tulsa Golden Hurricane to the big dance, and finished the season on an 11-game win streak. Number 4 is Manning, who as a player led the Larry Brown-coached Jayhawks to the national title as a player, and stands at 6’11, so he can look many players in the NBA in the eye.
Jay Wright of Villanova
Finally, this next guy, like Coach Brown, never played or coached in the league and will probably be mad at me for even suggesting he coach in the league someday, but like Larry Brown, this is more of a personal favorite of mine as a college coach, from the time we had wars at Hofstra and Manhattan respectively, to Villanova and Seton Hall, to finally being roommates for 30 days in the mountains of Izmir, Turkey where we won a gold medal together for USA basketball in the World University Games.
Jay Wright, who’s also known as the George Clooney of coaching, always has struck me as a coach who could someday do a great job in the NBA. I do understand he loves Villanova, where he was once an assistant coach and also met his wife, and the rumors are he has turned down the chance to coach the 76ers on more than one occasion.
While I get he is very happy with college, I have to wonder in the new crushing landscape that has changed the Big East forever, and not for the better, and being that Jay has former assistant coaches Ed Pinckney with the Bulls, Doug West with the Rockets, Brett Gunning with Orlando and Billy Lang with the 76ers, my man Coach Jay could be next.
Well, that’s my list of five. As for me, like Kelvin Sampson, formerly of Indiana University and now with the Houston Rockets, Billy Bayno of UNLV and the Raptors and Quinn Snyder of Missouri and the Atlanta Hawks before me, who have all gone from former head college coaches to current NBA assistant coaches, I’m left to try and follow a new path to still achieve my second and last basketball dream of someday coaching the greatest players in the world in the NBA.
