Kevin Pelton, SUPERSONICS.COM | Dec. 29, 2004
As is invariably the case when an NBA head coach is fired, the media has lined up behind deposed Denver Coach
Jeff Bzdelik, who, after months of speculation, was fired yesterday and replaced on an interim basis by assistant
Michael Cooper, who joined Denver this summer after a run of four-plus years with the Los Angeles Sparks that resulted in a pair of WNBA titles. In this case, the Nuggets success last season, when they made their first playoff appearance since the 1994-95 season, as well as clearly inflated expectations entering this year, have been used to argue in Bzdelik's favor.
"A coach should never be fired after leading a team to the playoffs the season before," TNT analyst Charles Barkley, clearly a proponent of this school of thinking, told the Denver Post.
Bzdelik gets the traditional Gatorade treatment after his Nuggets clinched their first playoff berth in nearly a decade.
Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE/Getty
|
However, that's simply not how coaches should be analyzed. If you or I were put in charge of the San Antonio Spurs, I'm quite certain we could lead them to the playoffs, but that would hardly be proof of our competency as coaches. The question, instead, that should be asked is whether the coach is more qualified than potential replacements.
In this case, that means asking, just how good of a coaching prospect is Cooper? As the only crossover NBA/WNBA columnist I know of, I'd like to think I'm uniquely qualified to assess how Cooper's WNBA experience carries over. (I'm not, but I'd like to think I am.)
It's clear from the coverage of Cooper that the media doesn't regard his WNBA experience as anything tantamount to an NBA head job. Reluctantly, I'll admit that's fair in that, clearly, the most qualified male head coaches, like Cooper, end up in the NBA, not the WNBA. For example, Ron Rothstein, never considered a particularly good NBA coach (he won just 29.5% of his games as an NBA head coach, albeit most of those losses with the expansion Heat), rates as one of the better coaches in WNBA history. As with a college coach going to the NBA, Cooper will presumably be matching wits with stronger adversaries.
"Coaching is coaching, whether it's high school, junior high school (or) college," Cooper himself said. "Getting to learn my craft at that level was great, and hopefully I can use that experience that I had there here."
At the risk of completely making a fool of myself, I'm going to respectively disagree with Cooper. I think that coaching in the WNBA is much better preparation for coaching in the NBA than is coaching at the NCAA level. It's no secret that coaches attempting to make the NCAA-to-NBA transition have struggled, as Golden State's Mike Montgomery is this year. It's my opinion that this is because they not only have to deal with the improvement in coaching ability at the game's highest level, but also the differing goals and responsibilities of amateur and professional coaches.
Cooper hasn't been recruiting. He hasn't been picking his players (Los Angeles is one of a handful of teams that have player personnel duties in the hands of someone besides the coach, in this case GM Penny Toler, though Cooper probably did have plenty of input). WNBA rules, with the exception of those tied to the 20-minute halves, are generally the same as NBA rules, and the setup of games, from media availability to how a coach can work the referees, is generally quite similar between the NBA and the WNBA.
More importantly, Cooper has never enjoyed the kind of absolute power an NCAA coach has over their team. While the WNBA's financial restrictions meant Cooper wasn't dramatically underpaid relative to his players, as he will be in the NBA, he was dealing with professionals who, in the case of stars like Lisa Leslie, were more important to the franchise than he was.
Cooper was given the Nuggets job on an interim basis ...
Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE/Getty
|
Knowing the limitations of one's power is one of the most difficult aspects of being an NBA coach, and it's a concept Cooper seemed to master in the WNBA. While I only got to watch him in action a couple of times a year, Cooper's generally quiet demeanor during games seemed to have more in common with his one-time L.A. counterpart,
Phil Jackson, than his NBA or WNBA colleagues.
On the other hand, one can't help but wonder how much Bzedelik's personality had to do with him losing his job. While Nuggets stars Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin both publicly expressed sadness at Bzdelik's dismissal and put the blame on themselves and their teammates, Bzdelik's relationship with Anthony always seemed dicey at best and there were those who felt he was too harsh with his players.
While the name of the position is not so blunt, as in baseball, to be called manager, the first responsibility of a coach is to manage their players. No matter how tactically brilliant, a coach has to be able to maintain a relationship with the team. Many successful coaches have talked about how there are only a certain number of tirades they can have over the course of the season before losing their team. Still, teams regularly hire wanna-be generals who constantly rip their own players. For a few months, or even a season or two, this may work, but the style tends to be a long-term failure.
I should emphasize that this is not a group I place Bzdelik in; I don't think his style was nearly that confrontational, and I think he'll have success when and if he gets another head job. However, Cooper has demonstrated more ability in this regard. You can add to that the fact that Cooper was not merely a good WNBA coach, he was an extraordinary one who rates statistically as the best in league history. While we here in Seattle never were particularly Cooper fans, what with the Storm's rivalry with the Sparks, what Cooper did in Los Angeles demanded respect. Throw in the fact that Cooper has credibility from his playing days as a member of the Showtime Lakers, something Anthony and Martin emphasized yesterday, and I think Cooper will eventually demonstrate himself to be the superior coach to Bzdelik, if he is given the chance to do so.
Still, there are limitations to what a coach to do, and even if Cooper could turn back time and suit up, he wouldn't solve the Nuggets' biggest problem, the lack of consistent outside shooting. With 109 made three-pointers, Denver ranks in the bottom ten in the league, and that's allowed teams to pack it in and keep Anthony, Martin and Andre Miller from getting to the basket, where they are the most effective.
Cooper's press conference yesterday saw him focus on improving the Nuggets' defense, but while Denver is certainly not a good defensive team, ranking 15th in the NBA in Defensive Rating (points allowed per 100 possessions), they are worse still on offense, ranking a distant 22nd despite the individual skills of Miller, Anthony and Martin. Cooper can help by unleashing the hounds and getting the Nuggets out in transition, where their athleticism should produce easy points. There's also the argument to be made that the Nuggets are more successful as an up-tempo team because they are more accustomed to playing in the thin air of the Mile-High City.
... after leading the Sparks to two WNBA Championships
Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty
|
Defensively, the injury to shooting guard Voshon Lenard (who tore his Achilles on Opening Night, finishing him for the season) also shows up as a culprit. Opposing shooting guards are
averaging 24.0 points per game against the Nuggets while shooting at an effective field-goal percentage of 51.8% (league average is 47.5%). Given that the other natural two guards on the Nuggets roster,
Greg Buckner and
Dermarr Johnson, are well-regarded defenders, the culprit would seem to be Denver's small backcourt of
Earl Boykins and Miller.
According to 82games.com, Miller has played 28% of the Nuggets minutes at shooting guard, and the team has been outscored by 11.7 points per 48 minutes during that time.
In a more long-term sense, the interesting thing about this move as a WNBA observer is what it says about the league's viability in the eyes of the NBA. Clearly, it would be better from that perspective if Cooper had gotten the job on a full-time basis and Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe wasn't talking about a search for potential candidates. Still, having confirmation that Cooper left the Sparks with the knowledge he'd have a good shot at being an NBA head coach, not merely an assistant, is good news.
The Women's Hoops Blog has expressed doubt about Cooper starting a trend, though we've already heard about the possibility and will undoubtedly hear more when and if Bill Laimbeer jumps to the NBA. (The point is also made there that Laimbeer's situation is similar to Cooper's, in that the jobs he wants in the Detroit organization are filled at the moment.)
A female coach in the NBA, even as an assistant, probably remains some time off. That's in no small part because the best female coaches in the world - in particular the Storm's Anne Donovan - have expressed no interest in leaving the WNBA or the NCAA. The handful of women who have coached men haven't built up that kind of history coaching women, and don't have the resume to be anything but a publicity stunt in the NBA.
That being said, if a WNBA head-coaching position is looked at as a stepping-stone to an NBA head job, you can expect the run of former NBA players coaching in the WNBA to continue unabated. That's a mixed blessing. Cooper was an example of the best possible scenario, as he had several years of experience as an NBA assistant and spent a year as a Sparks assistant before getting the head role. On the other hand, many former NBA players have walked into WNBA jobs with little experience, and they've not been particularly successful while at the same time depriving a more deserving candidate of a chance.
In the end, the better coaches in the WNBA, whatever the reason, the better for the league. I'm not the only one who's lamented a lack of clearly qualified candidates for WNBA positions, and while that problem should be diminished in coming years as players finish out their WNBA careers and look to make the move to coaching, anything helps.
