Does Coaching Matter?

The (in)significance of hiring Eddie Jordan.


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Published: Jun 10, 2009

Last season, for the third straight year, the NBA's annual All-Star Game was held without a representative from your hometown 76ers. At his introductory press conference, new head coach Eddie Jordan argued that Eddie Jordan will change that. "We have two superstars already," he declared, apparently convinced that his presence had elevated two of the teams' non-stars to an elite level. "I'm sure one of our guys, or two of our guys, or maybe three of our guys, will become All-Stars while we're here."

His implication was that coaching matters. The 76ers were unable to post a record above .500 not because they lacked talent, but because they lacked coaching.

It makes sense for the Sixers to embrace this argument. With the 17th pick in the NBA draft and no cap room to speak of, hiring Jordan will probably be the team's big summer move. We're supposed to believe he'll make them better.

And maybe he will. Jordan was a lead assistant on two New Jersey Nets teams that reached the NBA finals, and took the historically inept Washington Wizards to two consecutive playoff appearances. Coaches play an important role on basketball teams: They decide who plays and what their jobs are. They can make a difference.

Unfortunately for the Sixers, they usually don't. David Berri, the economics professor who wrote Wages of Wins, recently led a team of four Ph.Ds in publishing a study in the International Journal of Sports Finance entitled "The Role of Managers in Team Performance." Berri prides himself on being able to accurately predict basketball outcomes: He's currently leading ESPN's playoff prediction challenge. Using his metrics, the authors looked at the performance of 62 coaches between 1977 and 2008 and tried to determine if their players fared better or worse than they were "supposed" to due to the coaches' presence. Of those 62, only 14 had a positive effect. One who didn't was Eddie Jordan.

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According to the stats, Jordan has yet to make a team better than the sum of its parts — or even help players improve. At his press conference, the new coach boasted that he'd seen two swingmen, Mitch Richmond and Richard Jefferson, emerge as excellent shooters under his tutelage. Upon closer inspection, though, Rock Richmond shot 47 percent from three-point range in his last season at Kansas State, well before Jordan got his hands on him. And Jordan coached Jefferson when RJ was playing next to Jason Kidd, which would make even CP editor Brian Howard — a guy who's put up so many bricks he should have a union card — an improved threat from deep. (Editor's Note: Not even Jason Kidd could make Brian Howard a threat from deep. )

Now, granted, there are some pretty big caveats here.

The first is that no one knows exactly what makes coaches productive. "

Phil Jackson (one of the 14 successful coaches) talks a lot about Zen Buddhism. Does that make him a good coach?" Berri recently asked. "I doubt it, but maybe."

This means that, in theory, a coach could improve, and start making a difference. Jordan wasn't hired because the Sixers believe he made his previous teams better but because they believe he can make this team better. Maybe he'll help Andre Iguodala and Thad Young become lights-out shooters. The second caveat is that maybe Jordan doesn't need to make his players better — maybe he can find a loophole. Let's say, for example, that Marreese Speights is a hidden gem — that his 23 points and 11 rebounds per 48 minutes is a real indicator of his ability. In that case, simply playing the young big man more would improve his team dramatically. Speights will likely improve. But for the team to have left that big a talent on the bench seems unlikely — and once you get past talent selection, "

Basketball is a very predictable game," Berri says. "LeBron James is a lot better than everyone else, so when LeBron James plays there isn't a terrible amount of things you can do to change what he does." It's a good point. Game after game, opposing teams scheme ways to make LeBron do things differently, and yet game after game LeBron goes out there and does the same things. If you put things like maturation aside, NBA players more or less are who they are. Consequently, the most talented teams double as the best ones.

It isn't hard for coaches to affect games because they're incompetent; it's hard because the on-court talent really, really matters.

As such, when it comes to elite teams, coaches can be the final piece. But a much greater amount of variance between organizations is the product of player ability. Perhaps the Lakers will beat the Magic because Phil Jackson is an excellent coach, but they got there because Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol are awesome.

And no player on the 76ers is.

Even if Eddie Jordan makes the team marginally better, he won't be able to turn Iguodala into Kobe, and he won't be able to turn Samuel Dalembert into Gasol. Can coaching matter? Yes, marginally. For the Sixers, that's not enough.

James Beale matters marginally. But is it enough? Let him know: e.james.beale@citypaper.net