DO BASKETBALL COACHES VIEW THEMSELVES AS CEOs?

Do basketball coaches view themselves as Chief Executive Officers?  Kevin O'Neill, USC's head basketball coach was recently suspended by Pat Haden for a verbal altercation (some say a shoving match) with an Arizona booster. LA Times columnist Bill Plaschke's column, entitled "USC Learns that the Cost of Honor is High", does a great job of summarizing the incident and its ramifications. Does O'Neill view himself as a CEO? Probably, but on this night he didn't act like one.

St. John's Steve Lavin embraces the role of coach as CEO as is evidenced in an article ("Steve Lavin's Dream Team Coaching Staff Helps Him Revive St. John's") written by Dick "Hoops" Weiss that focuses on how and why Lavin selected his basketball staff:

"As college basketball has become big business, a head coach has to take on more CEO responsibility,'' Lavin said. "You need the field generals and the foot soldiers. As you build a culture that first year and you're stretched out on the recruiting front, fund raising, media blitz, speaking engagements  you have to have an air tight, solid core of assistants who are going to be hard working, loyal and gifted."

Brian McCormick, currently studying for his Doctorate degree at the University of Utah, and one of the best thinkers and writers on issues surrounding basketball, athletic development, and coaching wrote a thoughtful article on the subject two years ago. @brianmccormick asked the question "Are CEO's & BB coaches similar?" Brian cited a paper published by Jeff Pfeffer in 1977 in the Academy of Management Review "showing that leader’s actions rarely account for more than 10% of the variation in organizational performance, and often, account for much less." Brian wanted to make the reader really think about "how much control does a coach have over the performance of his or her organization." The preceding question and the following two questions that Brian posed at the end of his article:

"So, is a coaching change the way to fix an organization? How can we evaluate a coach to ensure that the next hire is a great coach?"   

The question elicited this response from me on the subject in 2009:

What a rich question? The answer is complex. First, at all levels the coach is not a replaceable commodity. It matters who coaches a team and who coaches your child. The coach as a CEO is easiest to answer at the college and high profile high school level (i.e., think Oak Hill, Westchester (L.A.), Mater Dei (Orange County)). Think of the Athletic Director (AD) and President of the school as the board of directors. Great college coaches create a brand. They control everything in their program. Staff, support personnel, recruitment, strategy, etc. Look at the Kentucky Program. Billy Gillespie is a good coach, but he did not realize that he had to be much more than that at the University of Kentucky. He actually did a good job on the floor with the talent that he inherited, but he got fired because of his lack of “emotional intelligence” (relationship issues). Similar story at UNC with Matt Doherty at UNC. Matt was doing a great job at Notre Dame until he stepped into the hornets nest at UNC. He was national coach of the year at UNC, but he self destructed under the pressure of coaching at Carolina. Roy Williams comes in and reestablishes the program. Yeah, it matters who heads up your program.

Coaches at all levels set the tone for the organization. Even at the youth level. I set the tone even when I’m coaching 8 to 10 year old kids. I let the parents know that winning is not a priority for our team, that I want to teach the kids about what it means to be a part of a team (All for one; One for All), build competitive character, improve their technical and tactical skills, learn how to play hard, smart and together, and most importantly have fun.

At the average high school, the coach is sort of a CEO. The one thing that most high school coaches can’t control is the acquisition of talent. They have to coach the players who live in their school district. Other than that component, the high school coach still has to be viewed as a quasi CEO. Success at the high school level should not be measured by W-L.

The Pro level maybe the toughest to address. Results matter at the pro level. It’s about winning and losing, just like results matter in a company. The most important hire in the NBA is the head coaching position. It’s harder to pick the right coach for your organization than it is to select the right player for your team. Great players are the easiest to pick. They stand out like a sore thumb. There are so many checks and balances in the typical NBA team. Ownership matters at the pro level. You’ve got to have the players, but a lack of leadership at the top level can lead to disastrous results for years (think LA Clippers). However, don’t diminish the impact that a coach can have on a team. Mike Brown deserves a lot of credit for the success of the CAVS. It’s nice to have one of the best players in the game to build around, but you still have to surround the right personnel around him for the team to thrive. The true test of Brown’s coaching ability will be determined over the next few years. You have to have the right personality to coach a NBA team that has a dominant player. Managing NBA egos is a delicate process, not everybody can do it.

Now, let’s take a look at one of the greatest coaches of our generation. Phil Jackson (PJ). PJ has been a part of two great organizations and has had the pleasure and challenge of coaching some of the greatest players in NBA history. He’s had the support of smart and competent owners and front office personnel. PJ would be the first to tell you that you have to have the players, but I will argue that his coaching and management style greatly contributed to the nine championships (now 11) that the organizations won under his leadership as a head coach. Not everybody could have managed the massive egos of those Bulls and Lakers’ championship teams. Doug Collins couldn’t have done it with the Bulls. When Doug got fired, the general public was up in arms. They did not know the inside story. Rudy Tomjanovich couldn’t have done it with the Lakers. He was chosen to replace PJ, but for many reasons (health and coaching style), he resigned after 41 games. Who did the Lakers look for to right their ship? You know the answer to that question.

In answering your final two questions. Sometimes, a coaching change is the way to fix the organization. In some cases, it’s not. How do you replace an incompetent owner? How do you evaluate the next hire? That’s the toughest thing to do. It’s the one reason why experienced coaches with a track record have the edge over coaches who lack head coaching experience. I will be interested to see how Josh Pastner works out at Memphis. He’s been groomed to be a coach since he enrolled as a freshman at Arizona. Obviously, the AD saw something in him in one year to give him this plum assignment. But you never really know how a person will perform until he has to move into the CEO position of basketball coach.