Real Team Ratings as of December 31, 2010

REAL TEAM RATINGS
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

--See Sub Rating notes below for some information about how these ratings are calculated.

--See the overall User Guide for Real Team Ratings for complete details about why Real Team Ratings are the best possible ratings and for complete details about how they are calculated.

1 Boston Celtics 104.13
2 San Antonio Spurs 98.99
3 Miami Heat 89.79
4 Dallas Mavericks 81.08
5 Orlando Magic 50.71
6 Los Angeles Lakers 41.22
7 Utah Jazz 37.47
8 Oklahoma City Thunder 27.58
9 New Orleans Hornets 21.40
10 Chicago Bulls 17.29
11 Denver Nuggets 14.66
12 Atlanta Hawks 14.56
13 Portland Trail Blazers 3.44
14 New York Knicks -0.06
15 Houston Rockets -5.61
16 Indiana Pacers -6.46
17 Memphis Grizzlies -6.69
18 Philadelphia 76ers -7.81
19 Milwaukee Bucks -8.12
20 Phoenix Suns -29.53
21 Los Angeles Clippers -30.74
22 Charlotte Bobcats -39.18
23 Toronto Raptors -39.31
24 Detroit Pistons -49.84
25 Golden State Warriors -56.32
26 New Jersey Nets -56.55
27 Washington Wizards -68.71
28 Minnesota Timberwolves -73.79
29 Cleveland Cavaliers -79.71
30 Sacramento Kings -83.31

PROJECTED 2011 CHAMPIONSHIP BASED STRICTLY ON REAL TEAM RATINGS
San Antonio Spurs versus Boston Celtics
If the Spurs had the home court advantage it would be a toss-up; if Boston had the home court advantage they would be slight favorites.

What follows is a very important section of the overall User Guide which explains how to interpret the differences in the ratings from a playoffs perspective.

Following that, for each team there are six sub ratings that when combined together give you the overall Real Team Ratings. If you check these sub ratings you can find out in detail the particular strengths and weaknesses of the teams.

USER GUIDE EXCERPT: INTERPRETING RTR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEAMS / PREDICTING PLAYOFF SERIES
NOTES
(1) This is an excerpt from the User Guide for Real Team Ratings .

(2) Injury adjustments for injuries occurring within the last month or so can not be and are not completely accounted for. For larger differences between teams (greater than 25-30 RTR points) the higher rated team would generally have to have injury problems in order to lose. The probabilities mentioned below reflect the injury wild card factor about as much as they do all other uncertain factors combined. Were it not for injuries Real Team Ratings alone would correctly predict the outcome of most playoff series.

(3) For playoff series predicting, add five or six points to the rating of the team that has home court advantage.

QUICK PLAYOFF SERIES PREDICTION SCALE
After you have added five or six points to the RTR of the team with home court advantage, calculate the difference between the two RTRs. Then find the range in which that difference is below and then you can see the probability that the series will be won by the higher team.

0 to 5.9 Complete toss-up: flip a coin
6 to 11.9 Roughly 60% chance the higher team will win
12 to 17.9 Roughly 70% chance the higher team will win
18 to 23.9 Roughly 80% chance the higher team will win
24 to 29.9 Roughly 89% chance the higher team will win
30 to 35.9 Roughly 95% chance the higher team will win
36 to 41.9 Roughly 98% chance the higher team will win
42 to 47.9 Roughly 99% chance the higher team will win
48 or more Roughly 100% chance the higher team will win

DETAILED GUIDE TO INTERPRETATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN IN REAL TEAM RATINGS
NOTES
(1) This is an excerpt from the User Guide for Real Team Ratings.

(2) In the detailed interpretation guide that follows, the word "roughly" is repeatedly used in front of the probability numbers, as a reminder about the small amount of unavoidable statistical error, and to emphasize that unknown factors, especially injuries, will in some cases result in substantially different actual probabilities.

(3) For playoff series predicting, add five or six points to the rating of the team that has home court advantage.

(4) The probability percentages are based on the historical results in the NBA and on accepted statistical theory.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 0 AND 5.9
The series is a complete toss-up, when statistical error is considered. There is a strong possibility of a 7 game series. The higher team has a 50% to 55% chance of winning, depending on what exactly the difference is. These probabilities are too low for anyone to have any confidence in using RTR to say who will win. All series of this type are decided quite simply by who plays better, by who coaches better, or both.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 6.0 AND 11.9
The series can easily go either way, although the higher team has a small edge, and has between a 55% to 65% chance of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. There is a very substantial chance of a 7-game series. If the lower team wins, it is a small upset. Either slight differences in the quality of coaching, certain players playing a little better or a little worse than they did in the regular season, or both could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 12.0 AND 17.9
The series can go either way, and this type of difference gives a significant chance for a 7-game series. But the higher team has a clear edge. The higher team has between a 65% and a 75% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. If the lower team wins, it is a moderate upset. Either slight differences in the quality of coaching, certain players playing a little better or a little worse than they did in the regular season, or both could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 18.0 AND 23.9
The higher team has roughly between a 75% to 85% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. There is a chance, but only a small one, for a 7-game series. If the lower team wins, it is a fairly big upset. Either coaches, certain players, or both could be responsible for an upset at this level.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 24.0 AND 29.9
The higher team has roughly between an 85% to a 93% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. In this kind of series, often the only way the lower team can win the series is by extending the series out to 7 games and then somehow winning the 7th game, thus taking the series 4 games to 3. However, it is not uncommon, assuming there is an upset in this type of series, for the lower team to so severely disrupt the favored team that the lower team upsets the higher, favored team 4 games to 2. Whichever way it does it, if the lower team does win coming in down by this amount, it should be considered a major upset. In many such cases, the coaching would have to be very wrong and/or negligent.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 30.0 AND 35.9
The higher team has roughly between a 93% and a 97% probability of winning depending on where in the range the difference is. In this kind of series, often the only way the lower team can win the series is by taking the series 7 games and winning the 7th game, thus taking the series 4 games to 3. However, there have been a tiny number of series where a team with this amount of a RTR deficit has won the series by so severely disrupting the favored team that it is able to win the series 4 games to 2. In the vast majority of such cases, the coaching for the higher team was severely wrong and/or negligent. Whether accomplished in 6 games or 7, the lower team winning despite being this far behind in RTR is extremely rare, and would be considered a very major and very surprising upset.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS BETWEEN 36.0 AND 41.9
The higher team has roughly between a 97% and a 99% probability of winning, depending on where in the range the difference is. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in most cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching or by one or more major injuries. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DIFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 42.0 AND 47.9
The higher team has a roughly 99% probability of winning the series. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in most cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching or by one or more major injuries. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

DEFFERENCE IN RATINGS IS 48.0 OR MORE
It is close to a 100% certainty that the higher team will win the series. Obviously, an upset would be extremely rare, shocking, and historical. It would in the vast majority of cases be caused substantially by incompetent and/or severely negligent coaching. With this amount of difference, any upset would almost certainly have to be with the series going all seven games.

COMPLETE USER GUIDE
Above are only excerpts from the full User Guide. See this User Guide article for full details about the revamped Real Team Ratings system.

========== REAL TEAM RATINGS SUB RATINGS ==========

For each team there are six sub ratings that when combined together give you the overall Real Team Ratings (that are near the beginning of this Report). If you check the sub ratings below you can find out in detail the strengths and weaknesses of the teams. For some of the sub ratings there are some limited but important notes from the User Guide. For full understanding and details the complete User Guide must be consulted.

EFFICIENCY SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 Miami Heat 52.00
2 Boston Celtics 44.50
3 San Antonio Spurs 44.00
4 Los Angeles Lakers 34.50
5 Dallas Mavericks 28.50
6 Orlando Magic 25.00
7 Utah Jazz 15.50
8 Oklahoma City Thunder 12.50
9 Atlanta Hawks 12.00
10 Denver Nuggets 10.50
11 New Orleans Hornets 8.00
12 Houston Rockets 7.00
13 New York Knicks 3.50
14 Chicago Bulls 0.00
15 Portland Trail Blazers 0.00
16 Memphis Grizzlies -1.00
17 Philadelphia 76ers -4.00
18 Indiana Pacers -5.00
19 Milwaukee Bucks -12.50
20 Phoenix Suns -13.00
21 Los Angeles Clippers -20.50
22 Detroit Pistons -22.50
23 Toronto Raptors -22.50
24 Golden State Warriors -23.50
25 Charlotte Bobcats -27.50
26 New Jersey Nets -30.50
27 Washington Wizards -33.50
28 Minnesota Timberwolves -33.50
29 Sacramento Kings -36.00
30 Cleveland Cavaliers -48.50

USER GUIDE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE SUB RATING
--For purposes of RTR this sub rating is calculated as three times the difference between offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency.

--Efficiency is how many points scored (or for defense how many given up) per 100 possessions.

--Note that teams can have the same net efficiency with very different team makeups and/or strategies. For example, a team with a mediocre offense but the best defense in the League could have the same exact net efficiency as a team with the best offense in the League but only a mediocre defense.

--Net efficiency is the best single measure of exactly how good a basketball team potentially is and to a large degree how good it actually is. Therefore, this sub rating carries big weight toward overall Real Team Ratings. However, how good the team will actually be in the playoffs requires other sub ratings.

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding this sub rating

PERFORMANCE VERSUS THE GOOD AND VERSUS THE BEST TEAMS SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 San Antonio Spurs 34.19
2 Dallas Mavericks 31.38
3 Boston Celtics 28.43
4 Miami Heat 11.69
5 Oklahoma City Thunder 10.48
6 Denver Nuggets 9.36
7 New Orleans Hornets 8.30
8 Utah Jazz 8.07
9 Chicago Bulls 6.69
10 Orlando Magic 6.31
11 New York Knicks 2.94
12 Portland Trail Blazers 2.94
13 Los Angeles Lakers 0.02
14 Phoenix Suns -0.73
15 Toronto Raptors -0.81
16 Memphis Grizzlies -1.59
17 Philadelphia 76ers -3.31
18 Milwaukee Bucks -3.62
19 Indiana Pacers -5.16
20 Atlanta Hawks -6.64
21 Los Angeles Clippers -6.84
22 Houston Rockets -9.31
23 Charlotte Bobcats -10.58
24 Golden State Warriors -12.02
25 Detroit Pistons -12.94
26 Cleveland Cavaliers -14.91
27 New Jersey Nets -16.75
28 Washington Wizards -18.31
29 Minnesota Timberwolves -19.19
30 Sacramento Kings -23.31

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding the sub rating above.

MOST RECENT GAMES SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 San Antonio Spurs 19
2 Boston Celtics 17
3 Dallas Mavericks 15
4 Miami Heat 15
5 Chicago Bulls 11
6 Oklahoma City Thunder 9
7 Utah Jazz 9
8 Orlando Magic 7
9 Atlanta Hawks 5
10 Los Angeles Lakers 5
11 New York Knicks 5
12 Denver Nuggets 3
13 Houston Rockets 3
14 Portland Trail Blazers -1
15 Indiana Pacers -3
16 Memphis Grizzlies -3
17 Milwaukee Bucks -3
18 New Orleans Hornets -3
19 Philadelphia 76ers -3
20 Phoenix Suns -3
21 Charlotte Bobcats -5
22 Toronto Raptors -5
23 Detroit Pistons -7
24 Los Angeles Clippers -7
25 Golden State Warriors -9
26 Minnesota Timberwolves -11
27 New Jersey Nets -11
28 Washington Wizards -11
29 Cleveland Cavaliers -17
30 Sacramento Kings -19

USER GUIDE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE SUB RATING
--This sub rating over weights the most recent performance: from the most recent 25 games.

--It reflects momentum, playoff motivation, and morale.

--It substantially but indirectly and inexactly reflects the current injury situations.

--It partially, indirectly, and inexactly reflects the likelihood that coaching strategies and tactics will work or not in the playoffs.

--The last five games of the Regular Season are ignored due to playoff coaches resting key players and due to other distortions.

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding this sub rating.

GENERAL DEFENSIVE SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 Boston Celtics 5.80
2 Miami Heat 5.40
3 Orlando Magic 5.00
4 Milwaukee Bucks 4.60
5 Dallas Mavericks 4.00
6 New Orleans Hornets 4.00
7 Indiana Pacers 3.40
8 San Antonio Spurs 3.00
9 Atlanta Hawks 2.40
10 Chicago Bulls 2.40
11 Los Angeles Lakers 1.80
12 Memphis Grizzlies 1.40
13 Philadelphia 76ers 1.00
14 Utah Jazz 0.60
15 Portland Trail Blazers 0.20
16 Charlotte Bobcats -0.20
17 Oklahoma City Thunder -0.60
18 New Jersey Nets -1.00
19 Los Angeles Clippers -1.60
20 Sacramento Kings -1.60
21 Houston Rockets -2.20
22 Denver Nuggets -2.80
23 Washington Wizards -2.80
24 New York Knicks -3.40
25 Detroit Pistons -3.80
26 Toronto Raptors -4.20
27 Cleveland Cavaliers -4.60
28 Golden State Warriors -5.00
29 Minnesota Timberwolves -5.40
30 Phoenix Suns -5.80

USER GUIDE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE SUB RATING
--The general defensive sub rating is a relatively small but important adjustment that slightly to moderately modifies the ratings of teams according to where they rank defensively (the better the defense, the better for the playoffs).

--Since many playoff series feature teams with very similar ratings, even a small general defensive adjustment can flip the predicted winner from one team to the other.

--Aside from being a sub rating, this shows you exactly how the NBA teams rank defensively.

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding this sub rating.

PAINT DEFENDING SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 Boston Celtics 5.80
2 Orlando Magic 5.40
3 Milwaukee Bucks 5.00
4 Indiana Pacers 4.60
5 Cleveland Cavaliers 4.20
6 Los Angeles Clippers 3.80
7 Miami Heat 3.40
8 New Orleans Hornets 3.00
9 Utah Jazz 2.60
10 New Jersey Nets 2.20
11 Charlotte Bobcats 1.80
12 Portland Trail Blazers 1.40
13 Atlanta Hawks 1.00
14 Chicago Bulls 0.60
15 Dallas Mavericks 0.20
16 Philadelphia 76ers -0.20
17 Los Angeles Lakers -0.60
18 Minnesota Timberwolves -1.00
19 San Antonio Spurs -1.40
20 Memphis Grizzlies -1.80
21 Houston Rockets -2.20
22 Denver Nuggets -2.60
23 Washington Wizards -3.00
24 Oklahoma City Thunder -3.40
25 Detroit Pistons -3.80
26 Sacramento Kings -4.20
27 Golden State Warriors -4.60
28 New York Knicks -5.00
29 Phoenix Suns -5.40
30 Toronto Raptors -5.80

USER GUIDE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE SUB RATING
--Defense is a little more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season; At the same time, in the playoffs, paint defending (aka interior defending aka down low defending) is more important than perimeter defending (aka outside defending).

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding this sub rating.

PACE ADJUSTMENT SUB RATING
2010-11 Season
As of December 31, 2010

1 Boston Celtics 2.60
2 Charlotte Bobcats 2.30
3 Miami Heat 2.30
4 Dallas Mavericks 2.00
5 Orlando Magic 2.00
6 Philadelphia 76ers 1.70
7 Utah Jazz 1.70
8 Los Angeles Clippers 1.40
9 Milwaukee Bucks 1.40
10 Cleveland Cavaliers 1.10
11 New Orleans Hornets 1.10
12 Atlanta Hawks 0.80
13 Sacramento Kings 0.80
14 Los Angeles Lakers 0.50
15 New Jersey Nets 0.50
16 Detroit Pistons 0.20
17 San Antonio Spurs 0.20
18 Portland Trail Blazers -0.10
19 Washington Wizards -0.10
20 Oklahoma City Thunder -0.40
21 Memphis Grizzlies -0.70
22 Toronto Raptors -1.00
23 Indiana Pacers -1.30
24 Phoenix Suns -1.60
25 Houston Rockets -1.90
26 Golden State Warriors -2.20
27 Denver Nuggets -2.80
28 New York Knicks -3.10
29 Chicago Bulls -3.40
30 Minnesota Timberwolves -3.70

USER GUIDE NOTES FOR THE ABOVE SUB RATING
--The pace of a basketball team is the number of possessions it gets on average per game.

--Teams that run a lot of fast breaks and/or take shots early in the 24 second shot clocks have fast paces, and vice versa.

--The pace adjustment is a small but valid adjustment that slightly modifies the ratings of teams according to the effects of pace on ability to win playoff games.

--The best pace is a little below the League average pace.

--This sub rating has been improved. Beginning with 2010-11, optimum pace is to be the 20th fastest (or in other words the 10th slowest) team in the League. The further from that a team is the lower the pace sub rating. The lowest rating possible is for the team with the fastest pace. The slowest team in the League has a moderate pace sub rating rather than the highest rating as in prior years.

--See the User Guide to Real Team Ratings for complete details regarding this sub rating.

========== USER GUIDE ==========
See User Guide to Real Team Ratings for full details about these ratings which accurately predict who will win in the playoffs.

Rick Carlisle is Caught Red-Handed Making George Karl Type Coaching Errors

In the Real Coach Ratings that were reported at the end of November Quest for the Ring (QFTR) informed everyone that Dallas Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle has been repeatedly badly beaten in the playoffs. In fact, Carlisle’s playoffs record is substantially worse than that of Denver Nuggets Coach George Karl! Rounding to the nearest whole number, both Carlisle and Karl have lost ten playoff games that should have been wins. But Carlisle has done this out of just 78 playoff games coached, whereas with Karl it took 167 playoff games for him to lose ten that he should have won. But both of them are near the bottom of the heap in terms of playoffs coaching and QFTR is certain that neither of them will ever win a Championship.

When in 2009 the Mavs and the Nuggets played in the West semifinal, the two most unsuccessful playoffs coaches among current coaches were matched up head to head. At that time, when the Nuggets thrashed the Mavericks, how bad Carlisle is at coaching in the playoffs was not known. This greatly increased the worry level here at QFTR that we might possibly have overstated how bad Karl is. Had we had to apologize for overstating how bad Karl is we probably would have shut down QFTR! But today, virtually everything that happened in 2009 makes total sense. There are as always a small number of mostly minor mysteries left over from that one of a kind Nuggets year, and there is one medium mystery: why did it take so long for the Lakers to buckle down and use their offensive system to overcome the Nuggets’ defensive overdrive strategy? Fast forward to now, and another similar Lakers mystery appears to be ongoing.

In the 2009 Nuggets-Mavs series, in accordance with the research showing how all the coaches do in the playoffs, neither coach coached well, but Karl clearly outcoached Carlisle. So after this the Nuggets amazingly appeared in the West final against the Lakers. Even more amazingly, the Nuggets in the first four games of that series created the illusion that they could possibly beat the Lakers in that best of seven. When the Lakers demolished the Nuggets to eliminate the Nuggets in game six IN DENVER, 119-92, it was the end of the illusions. Karl had ultimately been outcoached by the master, Phil Jackson. Whenever a team is blown out in an elimination game, coaching has to be at least partly involved, and it surely was here.

FAST FORWARD TO RIGHT NOW: CARLISLE IS CAUGHT RED HANDED
Last night the Dallas Mavericks, still coached by Carlisle, were defeated in their own building (99-93) by the big time revamped and reenergized San Antonio Spurs, coached by one of the very best coaches in the League, Greg Popovich. (Yes, I am starting to think that the Spurs are a real threat to beat the Lakers in the 2011 West Final; more on this later). Although we don’t know ALL of the ways in which Carlisle screws up yet, we do now know that he shares with George Karl the trait of cheating players out of minutes and starts due to personality and style evaluations.

Last night Carlisle refused to play the experienced and at least slightly underrated center Brendan Haywood. Instead, a very young and inexperienced center from France named Alexis Ajinca played. Ajinca has played only 242 minutes in the NBA so technically it is problematic to show a Real Player Rating for him because 300 minutes are wanted for that. But doing it anyway, even QFTR is surprised by how low Ajinca’s rating is. Prior to adding on the Hidden Defending Adjustment his number is only .297. Correctly calculating a HAD is not valid with so few minutes (and would be more difficult than it would be worth anyway) so we just made an educated guess in favor of Ajinca and assumed he is a better hidden defender than 75% of all other players, which gives him a HDA of .235. The resulting overall estimated Real Player Rating for Ajinca is .532. That puts Ajinca in the low end of the marginal role player category; a player with a rating this low should by rights not play in the playoffs and should play sparingly if at all in the regular season on a major playoff team.

So what we saw last night was Ajinca trying to prove himself as a pro in the NBA because he sure has not done so up until now. Ajinca’s game RPR was .736 using an estimated HDA of .140. (Because his plus-minus was miserable it would be absurd to use a HDA higher than this). That is just about the average RPR for centers in the League so you can say that Ajinca was decent in this particular game. (The announcers were gushing about Ajinca as if he was the second coming of Christ, laugh out loud).

But unlike Ajinca, Haywood might have had a game RPR of over 1.000. And the odds are quite high that Haywood would have been at least a little better than Ajinca. By contrast, Ajinca could easily have been a .500. To say that Carlisle was gambling with Ajinca is an understatement. Ajinca played much better in this game than in most prior ones, which matters a lot less than you might think. Ajinca could probably be safely played when the Mavericks were playing bad teams, but to play him when playing the mighty Spurs was just plain stupid.

Brendan Haywood in 2009-10 had a Real Player Rating of .929 for the Mavericks (Superstar) and .744 for the Wizards (Major role player and good enough to start). In 2008-09 Haywood hardly played due to injury. In 2007-08 Haywood’s rating was .833 (Star) using a conservative estimate of .200 for HAD. So Haywood is a bona fide, quality center in the NBA while Ajinca is a shot in the dark. And yet Carlisle plays Ajinca over Haywood in what was an important game for the Mavericks.

True, the Mavericks probably would have lost to the Spurs even if Haywood had played; after all, their historic superstar Dirk Nowitzki was out with a minor injury. But when Haywood didn’t play, anyone watching the game was wasting his or her time because there was no way in hell the Mavericks could possibly have won. So QFTR caught Rick Carlisle red handed making a big coaching error.

A little hunting and clicking around the Internet confirms that some people think that Haywood’s personality (as it shows up on the court anyway) is sort of undependable and a little “soft” at times. Coaches like Carlisle and Karl heavily penalize those who they think have undependable or soft personalities. So we can deduce that Carlisle thought that the very young and very highly motivated Ajinca would do better than the older and relatively inconsistent Haywood. Ajinca’s personality just seemed so much stronger and more dependable than Haywood’s to Carlisle (and to be fair, it might seem that way to others) that Carlisle could not resist making the move.

But this was the wrong decision. Haywood is so much better than Ajinca in basketball terms that the abstract and subjective stuff (that favors Ajinca) could not offset the real basketball stuff. Ajinca was decent in the game but Haywood could have been outstanding in the game if he had been given the opportunity. You might be able to win a regular season game against a medium or bad team with Ajinca but there is no way you are going to beat the Spurs in a playoff game with Ajinca (even with Dirk Nowitzki back).

Overall Haywood is being cheated of minutes by Carlisle, but for the Nuggets George Karl is cheating Renaldo Balkman much more so. Balkman is being robbed of everything by Karl whereas at least Haywood still gets to play in a fairly substantial number of games. By the way, Gary Forbes is apparently the Ajinca for the Nuggets: getting someone else's playing time.

CARLISLE, KARL, AND OTHERS LIVE IN THE NETHERWORLD
The bottom line is that Carlisle apparently lives in the same netherworld as Karl, where players who have personality or style characteristics not liked (by them) don’t get to play as much as they should. You want to know what the real truth is? Its Carlisle’s and Karl’s personalities that are the real problem with respect to winning games, especially playoff games. They are too sensitive about the personality problems of others, which makes their own personalities problematic with respect to winning playoff games.

Meanwhile, successful playoff coaches such as Greg Popovich and Phil Jackson do not overreact to perceived problems with personalities and styles. They coach rather than punish; they try to make little changes where possible, but most of all they try to correctly integrate even the “bad personalities” and the “bad styles” into the team’s offensive and defensive strategies and tactics. And they mostly succeed in doing that, of course. Coaches such as Popovich and Jackson do not expect players’ personalities and styles to magically transform into something completely different while the player is held out of games and is sitting on the bench. Rest assured that Karl and Carlisle are dead wrong: no basketball player’s personality or playing style ever changed worth a damn while he or she was sitting on the bench.
























AND RILEY, INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, SAYS RICK CARLISLE IS "WACK"

Fast Break Update on J.R. Smith and Carmelo Anthony

If you look around Internet Land you find that a big majority of bloggers (and an even bigger majority of higher traffic ones) write only remarkably short posts that are basically just little pieces of a real article, or at best outlines of a true article, and/or they are updates of a running story. This is the by the book, establishment way to do it. The main two advantages of doing it this way are that it is easy for the writer to produce this way and it is easy for readers who have very little time to spare to read these little postings; the latter means that traffic will be higher. Also, search engines tend to give more traffic to sites with frequent short posts than to sites with infrequent but far longer posts.

Of course, since Quest for the Ring (QFTR) is a one of a kind site that has it's own custom book and that does things by the establishment book only by accident, QFTR does mostly very long to extremely long reports chock loaded with evidence to as we like to say prove things beyond the shadow of a doubt.

However, as QFTR gets older and due to impossible to contain curiosity about what it's like to try something very seldom tried before, in this post and from time to time in 2011 we will experiment with the shorter update oriented post.

With short update posts the proof beyond a shadow of a doubt will be found in other reports that you can find in many ways. One easy and good way to find recent reports is to use the recent title indexes. The indexes for the latest 40 reports are right at the top and three indexes for the next 60 recent reports (20 in each index) are scattered down the home page. Probably the best way to look for reports on a subject regardless of how old they are is to use Google custom search. That search is NOT at Google; you run a Google custom search right here on this page. For example the subject of this little update post is primarily J.R. Smith. So to find out what all the controversy is regarding J.R. Smith and to find out everything we have already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt regarding J.R. Smith, type "J.R. Smith" into any of the Google custom search boxes on this QFTR home page.

Hell must have frozen over because J.R. Smith has been starting lately. Hell did freeze over for the Nuggets and especially for Carmelo Anthony who left the team December 23 due to the death of his sister Michelle at the age of 36.

Michelle Anthony was always more important than basketball, was always loved, and will never be forgotten by those who loved her, including especially Carmelo Anthony. Tears flow yet there is love and peace. Now win here a Championship, Carmelo.



When Carmelo Anthony left the Denver Nuggets on December 23 Coach George Karl was forced to start J.R. Smith. Think for a second what these latest developments really mean for J.R. Smith. Even though objectively speaking Smith was, back in 2006 and 2007, more than good enough to start, not long after Smith came to the Nuggets, George Karl refused to start Smith due to refusing to accept Smith's personality and playing style. Since like any player Smith wants to start, he made major changes in his game thinking that by doing so Karl would start him and give him the playing time he is supposed to get. Trouble is, Karl’s theories are wrong and when Smith changed he changed for the worse-substantially for the worse. That is, Smith's way of playing now makes him less valuable as a shooting guard than he used to be (and less valuable to other teams who now will be less eager to trade for him and will offer less in trade for him).

So Smith's theory in making big changes in response to Karl's badgering must have been that if he made those changes he would be able to start and would get the full playing time due to him. Certainly Smith was aware that he was "supposed to be" starting. And Karl must have at least implied and may have directly told Smith that he could start if he did as he was told. Even though Smith followed Karl's commands, Arron Afflalo is starting over J.R. Smith at shooting guard and this is not going to change anytime soon. As soon as Carmelo Anthony is back, J.R. Smith will no longer be a starter again.

But what Smith is going to have to learn the hard way is that people who have dictatorial powers in their positions and roles in an organization do not necessarily follow through on what they have hinted at or even stated. They can do whatever they want whenever they want, and those who make a lot of money in American society are known for going back on their word and doing the opposite of what they "promised". With respect to those with high incomes and real power, there is really no such thing as a promise anymore; that kind of thing went out of style and out of the picture decades ago. Again for emphasis, many powerful, high income people today (including some, not all NBA Coaches) do NOT follow through on pledges made to players, whether hinted at or stated openly. Sometimes it’s not even that they are intentionally breaking a promise. For example, if a great new player comes along a coach may not be very able to follow through on a pledge made to another player.

The bottom line is that Smith’s big reward for becoming less of a player than he used to be was to start if the Nuggets were ever very shorthanded as a result of Carmelo Anthony not being there. Obviously, this “reward” was essentially nothing; it was essentially no reward at all. The Nuggets technically have only two shooting guards and one small forward (Anthony) on their roster. The one power forward who sometimes is talked about as a small forward is Renaldo Balkman, who Karl refuses to play at all. So Karl ran out of warm bodies and was essentially forced to start J.R. Smith; this was not really any kind of a reward at all.

While Smith gets essentially nada as his reward, he will be fully penalized by the League as a whole for the fact that he can not and does not make threes as he used to, and for a few lesser changes for the worse he has made in this game. To say the least, Smith has been left with the short end of the stick.

And to be blunt, when new contract time comes, J.R. Smith is going to get many, many millions (probably several dozen millions) of dollars less than he would have received had he not changed his game. There is a rough but fairly high correlation between how good a player actually is and how much money he makes in total during a career. Individual coach opinions about style and personality don't in any way, shape or form determine a player's career pay total (and as we know those opinions do not determine whether rings are won). Career pay totals are largely determined by how good the player is objectively speaking (thank goodness).

BEWARE NBA PLAYERS
--Don’t automatically assume the Coach knows what he is doing, and
--Definitely do not assume that the Coach will reward you if you do exactly what he wants you to do.

Instead of making false assumptions like that, you need and want to get a second opinion (and perhaps a third). Open a channel outside the organization and try to get valuable advice from it. A channel could be a retired coach or an agent who really knows basketball. Another great idea is to find a mentor. For this to work well, your mentor should be a retired player (or better still a retired player-coach) who closely matches your playing style and your personality. Whether or not you can find a mentor or a secret channel, read QFTR, which among other things is in effect a free mentor service for players (and agents and coaches and managers and more).

MICHELLE ANTHONY: MORE IMPORTANT THAN BASKETBALL, ALWAYS LOVED, NEVER FORGOTTEN; TEARS OF HEAVEN AND OTHER TEARS FLOW, BUT LOVE AND PEACE REIGN

The Nuggets Lose at Home to a bad Team that Among Other Shortcomings Could Hardly Make Layups or Free Throws

I don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve been watching a good number of regular season games lately, including the 76’ers at Nuggets game the night of the day after Christmas.

Since I generally reveal all my secrets, let me tell you this: I like to watch the Nuggets play major losing teams in the regular season because I don’t want to miss the big enjoyment (for me) that comes out of where the Nuggets are so badly coached that they lose to a bad team. Mostly I have had the door shut in my face over the last few years while trying to observe what would be a special treat. Instead of seeing the Nuggets lose to bad teams, I have repeatedly seen the Nuggets use massive scoring power to overcome bad coaching. And as for the bad teams opposing the Nuggets, I have repeatedly seen them cheated by circumstances (often by bad calls late in games) repeatedly seen them not able to make free throws, repeatedly seen them not able to make layups, repeatedly seen them lose by just a point or two at the buzzer, repeatedly seen them not able to make quality assists, and sometimes seen them just plain stink so bad that there is no way any team could possibly lose to them.

But tonight I was for a change handsomely rewarded for my persistence in looking for Nuggets losses to bad teams. Tonight, the lowly Philadelphia 76’ers defeated the soon to be lowly Denver Nuggets 95-89. It was more fun than a basketball person should be allowed to have.

True, there was no Carmelo Anthony. And true, Al Harrington was slightly injured and played only 4 minutes. But if you are one of the best teams in the West and you are at home, you are supposed to be able to beat one of the worst teams in the East with or without Carmelo Anthony and Al Harrington. Not to mention that the Nuggets are going to face a hell of a lot more games with no Carmelo Anthony in the future if you know what I am saying, laugh out loud.

Like all major losing teams in most games, the 76’ers certainly made big efforts to lose this game. They could barely make any threes at all and they missed at least five free throws that they should have made. They missed a lot of layups and looked more or less incompetent on offense outside the paint as well. Their point guard, Jrue Holiday, looks and plays like he is 14 years old. He looked like he was up past his bedtime laugh out loud. On the other hand, at least Holiday made most of his free throws and had an excellent scoring night, which is more than can be said for the other 76’ers.

Yet the Nuggets imploded and could not beat this team that, Doug Collins notwithstanding, looks to be so far this year no better than in recent years, which is not good at all.

Let’s make some observations and break down the main reasons the Nuggets lost to a bad team:

Nene seems to only score early in games and by the fourth quarter he’s like a zombie on the offensive end, standing around near and in the paint waiting for someone to pass to a zombie, which doesn’t happen too often. Most guards instinctively avoid passing to zombies, even ones in decent scoring position. Would someone remember to wind up Nene at the half; he’s ticking down to nothing before the game is over.

George Karl failed to call time out as the Nuggets were demolished by one of the worst teams in the League in the 4th quarter in their own building, 29-18. This was a virtual carbon copy of the recent game in Denver versus the Timberwolves, where the Nuggets also imploded in the 4th as the Timberwolves outscored the Nuggets in the period 38-27. In that collapse too there were no Nuggets 4th quarter time outs to speak of. (But the Nuggets escaped with a 2-point win in that one).

Four of the most common smoking guns of an inferior offense are (1) there are too many isolation plays and not enough passing and (2) there is too much standing around and (3) The guards (especially the point guards) don’t make enough assists and (4) there are players who, despite being capable of scoring, seem to be completely out of the offensive flow and therefore they take only a fraction of the shots they should take. The Nuggets were guilty of (2) (3) and (4) in this single pathetic game!

THE JR SMITH BLACK SHEEP SAGA: THE 2010-11 CHAPTER
It was sad to see J.R. Smith unable to make threes in this game; he was a miserable and pathetic one of nine from beyond the arc. To make a long story short (reported in great detail elsewhere here) the coach of the Nuggets belittled Smith’s love of the 3-ball, made him think that shooting threes is "soft," and so he induced him to cut way back on threes even though he was at the time one of the most talented (and valuable) 3-point shooters in the NBA. Check this record:

J.R SMITH THREE POINT SHOOTING RECORD
Shown are the year, the number of threes made per 36 minutes, and the percentage of threes attempted made.
2006-07 3.6 @ .390
2007-08 4.0 @ .403
2008-09 2.9 @ .397
2009-10 2.7 @ .338
2010-11 2.3 @ .380

The first two years above were the golden years where Smith would be a major asset to a playoff team facing a very tough paint defense. In 2008-09 Smith cut back on threes (due to Karl) but he did maintain his percentage. In 2009-10 he cut back a little bit more, but the big story was that he could not make threes all that well anymore. Now so far this year Smith is no longer an enthusiastic or volume three point shooter and his percentage is up from last year but down from the golden years.

Smith’s percentage is more likely to go down in the future than back up to where it was. Folks, if you are not enthusiastically and aggressively trying to optimize a skill it is only a matter of time before you don’t have as much of that skill as you used to have when you were enthusiastic and aggressive about it. If in response to bad coaching a player becomes less enthusiastic and less aggressive about a skill then sooner or later that skill is going to fade away and no longer be an asset in playoff games.

The best coaches tell their players to try to get even better at what they are already very good or extremely good at. They don’t tell them to try to rearrange their skills and/or to change their style in pursuit of trying to be a more balanced or “well rounded” basketball player. That thinking is garbage and will never win you playoff games. You want to know the real truth? There really is no such thing as a completely well rounded basketball player. Even the very best basketball players have a few things they are not good at and will never be good at.

So here is an extremely important memo to coaches who don’t want to make the same mistake Karl did with J.R. Smith: Being able to make threes is very, very important toward winning playoff games and championships and any player, but especially a 2-guard who can shoot very close to or over 40% on threes and do so in volume (as J.R. Smith used to be able to do) is very, very valuable and should be encouraged. I mean, get this type of player to mix in some drives and some fast breaks with the threes so that the defenders won’t be coming all the way out to the 3-point line and making life miserable out there. But the last thing you should do is what George Karl did, which is to deny the importance of the three and make players who like to make a lot of threes and who are good at making them feel guilty about that.

Mathematically, making just 33% of threes is equivalent to making 50% of twos, which is roughly the standard or average make percentage for twos. Players who can make more than 38% and especially ones who can make more than 40% of threes (and who aggressively and enthusiastically make a lot of them including contested ones) are rare and should be greatly praised, encouraged, and facilitated. If you instead discourage the 3-ball you run the risk of causing the player to lose the ability to make the threes at all; J.R. Smith is living proof of this hazard.

THE NUGGETS WERE PATHETIC IN THE PAINT DEFENSIVELY
The 76’ers like almost all bad teams are a poor shooting team which means they need to drive into the paint more than would normally be wise. What was especially pathetic about this game was that although the 76’ers are such a weak scoring team that they even had a lot of trouble finishing at the rim (even though in other words they missed a lot of layups) the Nuggets were still hammered in the paint as the 76’ers scored 48 points in, as Hubie Brown calls it, “the painted area”. I mean, the 76’ers could not buy a layup and yet they still scored 48 points in the paint! They should have scored about 60 in the paint.

Surrendering any more than 40 points in the paint is not very good and giving up anything more than 45 is really bad. A fairly large majority of playoff games are won by teams who have surrendered fewer than 40 points in the paint.

The 76’ers made 17 offensive rebounds where 11 is the normal or average number. Offensive rebounds surrendered is a key indicator for who wins in the playoffs; teams with great paint defenses keep the number of offensive rebounds surrendered (made by the opponent) under ten in games. It is almost impossible to win a playoff game when your opponent makes 17 offensive rebounds.

THE JR SMITH BLACK SHEEP SAGA: THE 2010-11 CHAPTER (CONTINUED)
Arguably even more pathetic than this is the fact that J.R. Smith led the Nuggets in rebounding along with Chris Andersen; each of them made 11 rebounds. But a shooting guard should never ever lead your team in rebounding.

In a game like this we can see the total freak that George Karl is trying to turn J.R. Smith into. J.R. Smith is on the verge of becoming some kind of a freak 2-guard who specializes in rebounding instead of shooting and who drives into the paint all the time only to have trouble finishing (because that’s not his highest potential skill) whereas he used to be an extremely valuable shooter who could make threes but now he can’t make threes reliably anymore. In some games, J.R. Smith doesn’t even attempt to make threes; in those games he drives into the paint most of the time. Yet Smith is never ever going to be as good finishing drives as he used to be at making threes. I mean, he’s decent, probably above average at that, but he’s never going to be outstanding or one of the best driving 2-guards. In short, Smith has been induced to trade his best skills away in exchange for doing things that he will never be outstanding at.

The biggest mistake Smith ever made (in basketball, anyway) was to change his style in response to the coaching of George Karl. The situation is so bad that Smith, who should have been a starting 2-guard for Denver and failing that somewhere else in the League, may never start anywhere now. And there is even the possibility that Smith’s NBA career will be cut way short. Certainly, the Nuggets at this point should be motivated to try to trade him to another team and Smith should want to get the hell out of there before even more damage is done.

The Nuggets continue to pay a high and increasing price for injuries to Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen. Although both of them are back and although both of them played extensively in this game, players do not generally play at 100% very soon after coming back from long injuries. Also, the Nuggets continue to pay a high and increasing price for George Karl’s essentially permanent benching of defensive specialist Renaldo Balkman. Last year the Nuggets were able to use luck and some carryover defensively from their one of a kind, miracle 2008-09 season to escape heavy regular season damage due to refusing to play Balkman. They did, however, lose in the first round of the 2010 playoffs even with home court advantage due to not being able to defend the paint.

This year, however, things may be different. The Nuggets have slipped down yet another notch in terms of defending the paint and now this season they seem destined to pay a fairly large price even in the regular season for refusing to play Balkman and for being unable to defend the paint.















LET'S CHECK WHAT RILEY HAS TO SAY >>>
"DENVER NUGGS, YOU

Happy Holidays to Everyone as QFTR Heads into Year Five

What is up people? The holidays are up along with the end of the fourth year of one of the world’s most unique and valuable basketball projects: Quest for the Ring (QFTR). Year four was the best year ever and rock bottom minimum year five will be just as good as year four was.

But as always there is some bad news. QFTR was forced to severely cut back in December due to having to put out “fires” that have nothing to do with basketball and which were caused by a combination of incompetence and fraud. Yes it’s true; QFTR is not immune from being negatively affected by the rampant incompetence and fraud that we have in society today. Alas, incompetence and fraud are found society wide and not just from some basketball coaches, managers, and owners. If you are s sportswriter you can in theory be mostly aloof from the incompetence and fraud in society. Whereas political and business writers are supposed to report on incompetence and fraud in society, although many of them are instructed not to do those types of reports by their fat cat editors. But when incompetence and fraud invade the space of a sportswriter, he or she can't be aloof to it anymore due to the need to put those fires out.

2011 CHAMPIONSHIP
Who is going to win the NBA Championship in 2011? Either the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be champions in 2011 assuming no major injuries on those teams. As QFTR comes back to life again over the coming days, one thing near the top of the agenda is an updated “Situation” report which breaks down the contenders. Also, Real Team Ratings are due in late December; we’ll try to have them by January 5 at the latest.

CHRISTMAS 2010 GAMES
I’m actually trying to watch a lot of basketball on Christmas Day 2010. I just saw the Bulls unable to do much of anything offensively. Is Bulls Coach Tom Thibodeau so obsessed with defense that his team is offensively lost? Apparently so. Come on Mr. T, you have Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer and yet you can’t even match George Karl on basketball offense? Thibodeau is substantially underachieving offensively and it’s a shame because Derrick Rose is the real deal.

Incidentally, I was thinking that Ty Lawson is a poor man’s (or poor franchise's to be more precise) Derrick Rose; the two are very similar in style (although Lawson is a little less athletically spectacular) and I believe that Lawson will be within striking range of Rose’ level when he gets more experience, by 2012 or 2013 at the latest. Lawson is a relatively low profile type of player which means he is going to be at least a little underrated which in turn means that he will be a bargain for some team, hopefully not the Nuggets for Lawson’s sake because the Nuggets will, unless they get all new coaches, never ever make point guards into what you really need them to be. Not to mention that the Nuggets are known for treating players who really should be starters as ones who are not only not starters now, but as players who never ever, no matter how well they play, will ever be starters. I exaggerate not.

Right at this moment I’m watching the Celtics and the Magic and it’s 29-26 Magic at the moment. The game is not that important or interesting because Celtics’ PG Rajon Rondo is not available due to injury (he’s out from December 15 until about January 1). This basically ruins this game for me. Rondo is now apparently right up there with Chris Paul as the best point guard in the NBA and may possibly have surpassed Paul to be the number one PG in the NBA. We’ll find out who the best PG in the NBA for 2010-11 right here at QFTR along about next July. Anyway, due to Rondo not being there I honestly don’t think the Celtics can possibly win this game.

Then later will be the “marquis game,” which this year is the Miami Heat versus Los Angeles Lakers. The Christmas marquis game is the one that tips at 5 pm eastern time and is in theory supposed to showcase and preview the most likely Championship series (that will take place a little more than five months later). However, in practice, the match-up is really more of a popularity contest; the NBA and ABC determine who the majority of people think are going to be in the Championship and schedule that for Christmas at 5 pm eastern.

But as is so often the case, what the popular belief is and what the reality is are two different things. Here at QFTR, we don’t ever just report what is popularly believed, but rather what the exact truth is. And the exact truth at the moment is that the 2011 Championship will be Celtics-Lakers again unless there are one or more major injuries to one or both of those teams.

The Heat have not and most likely will not be avoiding the mistake of trying to have LeBron James do too much, which will stop them cold in the East Conference final if not earlier than that. Also, Dywane Wade and Erik Spoelstra have not figured out how to properly manage an offense when your shooting guard is far better than your point guard, whereas of course Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson (and QFTR) have figured this out. Obviously I am just scratching the surface of this topic here but that’s an accurate, very quick summary of why the Heat will not be in the Championship in 2011 if I do say so myself.

Celtics-Magic and Heat-Lakers are on the ABC Network at 2:30 and 5:00 pm respectively. After the Heat-Lakers will be the Denver Nuggets versus the Oklahoma Thunder in Oklahoma. If your Internet provider includes ESPN 360 then you can watch this game on your computer at 8 pm eastern and after that you can watch the Portland Trailblazers versus the Golden State Warriors at 10:30 pm eastern. ESPN 360 has a small number of regular season NBA games on ordinary days (not just on holidays). I’m pretty sure that ESPN 360 has a more substantial number of playoff games.

Look for the Nuggets to lose to the Thunder due to all the reasons we have posted in other reports.

Since the Trailblazers remain devastated by injuries the Trailblazers-Warriors night cap game will be close even though the Trailblazers are in theory a much better team than the Warriors. Quite frankly it doesn’t matter who wins because neither the Trailblazers nor the Warriors are in the 2011 playoffs picture. The Warriors very probably won’t make the playoffs and the Trailblazers will lose in round one-at best.

Happy holidays to everyone and may we all effectively offset any and all incompetence, fraud (and economic failures) dumped on our laps and lawns so that we can have a reasonably outstanding and enjoyable 2011.

RILEY SAYS: CHICAGO'S OFFENSE SUCKS, LAKERS-HEAT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS YOU THINK IT IS, AND THE NUGGETS ARE LIKELY TO LOSE TO THE THUNDER

I Had to Dump a Bucket of Cold Water on Myself When it was Over: Denver Nuggets 115, Minnesota Timberwolves 113

I watched a regular season game from start to finish (which I readily admit I don't do more than about twice a month, whereas I watch every single playoff game I possibly can) so I wanted to make some comments based on the game. Plus, I want to signal that I am still alive. I have been buried with the need to put out “a bunch of fires” that all flared up at the same time, which required me to suspend Quest for the Ring (QFTR) for almost three weeks.

I just watched the Timberwolves lose to the Nuggets 115-113 and as someone who has come to the conclusion that playoff basketball is much more worth watching than regular season, I must say my opinion on that was verified big time during this game. The game was horrible.

TY LAWSON
Neither team had any organization or flow to speak of although Ty Lawson, who ironically should be a Timberwolve instead of a Nugget, was outstanding. It was great to see him have such a great real point guard kind of game, especially considering that the Nuggets have, two years after their miracle season in 2008-09, reverted back to the same old same old: a team with very little if any offensive flow and a team that will not even try to defend the paint. In defense of the Nuggets though, it should be said that with no Kenyon Martin due to injury, with no Chris Andersen due to injury, with no Renaldo Balkman due to coach stupidity, and when Al Harrington, Shelden Williams, Gary Forbes, and Nene are your actual playing fours and fives, you are probably not going to be able to defend the paint well even if you try to do it.

If anybody is looking for a great point guard who would be good in the playoffs, they should consider trying to get a hold of Ty Lawson. Who knows, the Nuggets might be stupid enough to include Lawson in the upcoming Carmelo Anthony deal or in some other deal. I don’t waste my time trying to keep up with all the contract minutiae and nor do I waste time speculating about trades that never happen. All I am saying here and now is that Ty Lawson is going to be one of the better point guards in the NBA for many years to come and I am also saying that the Nuggets are stupid enough to lose him.

J.R. SMITH
With regard to J.R. Smith (Nuggets 2-guard) he looks more confused and awkward out there and not less when compared with how he was when he first came to Denver, following his going through three years of George Karl’s dubious to say the least coaching. Before Karl confused and disturbed the hell out of him, Smith’s game was a very, very large amount of raw talent mixed in with seemingly half crazy decision making and a half crazy style. But it was partly or possibly mostly an illusion that his decision making and style were half crazy. To avoid being made a fool of, you need to dodge illusions by looking at real evidence, such as that provided by statistics. Numbers don’t lie and they show that Smith in the old days before he was changed for the worse by George Karl was extremely good. The numbers these days show that Smith is not all that good. Although he used to be more than good enough to start, even in the playoffs for a good team, these days J.R. Smith is good enough to start only on bad teams in the regular season. At this point, if he is ever going to be the starter that he was meant to be, I think he will have to go to a losing team to do so.

The main point I want to get across is that it is sad to see what George Karl has done to J.R. Smith. To go into very heavy detail is beyond the scope here. Let’s just sum it up this way: Karl turned an extremely talented but immature player lacking in decision making skills into an almost as immature player who seems to be making bad decisions much of the time and whose skills, therefore, are going to waste. At the same time, it seems that his skills have actually been at least slightly reduced from what they were, and I would wager that the coaching would have to be a miserable failure for that to be even possible to happen.

Other than Ty Lawson (and Carmelo Anthony, who these days seems to play exactly the same and to end up with the same stat line every single game) none of the other Nuggets were much good from a playoffs level perspective. But Denver has so much offensive fire power that they can use only a portion of it, stink on defense, stink up the court as far as offensive strategy and tactics are concerned, and yet beat one of the worst teams in the League by two points or more. (Laugh out loud that it WAS a two point win; that the Nuggets even came close to losing this game). In fact, were it not for Lawson and his nine assists, the Nuggets obviously would have lost to one of the very worst teams in the League! The two main reasons would have been (1) The Nuggets in this particular game were completely asleep as far as defending the perimeter (even more asleep than the Timberwolves who are often asleep) and (2) The Nuggets always insist on running an almost completely disorganized offense consisting of nothing more and nothing less than the sum of all the individual efforts, mostly in isolation plays, of the individual Nuggets players. In other words, the Nuggets are a sad excuse for playoff caliber offense.

But the thing is, if you are armed to the teeth with scoring power, you can easily get by with that kind of offense in the regular season when you play a lot of teams who are way behind you in scoring power, and when defending is not as ramped up (energetic and tough) as it is in the playoffs. Although it can and does happen in the regular, in the playoffs, the Nuggets’ type of offense becomes very lame and ineffective for long stretches of time (which costs them the playoff game). In the playoffs, teams like the Nuggets are squashed like bugs.

And not being able to defend the paint matters not against the worst teams in the League, who usually have no post up offense to speak of. For the Timberwolves, Kevin Love at power forward didn’t post up much at all yet scored a career high 43 points on 14 of 23 made field goals which included five of five on threes, and Love also made 17 rebounds and 3 assists. On the other hand, Love did not look to me in this game to be someone you could possibly rely on in a playoff game to force a few misses in the paint. The very worst teams usually have one guy who makes a very large number of rebounds, so the 17 rebounds was nice for Love but disturbing from a Timberwolves point of view. Having one guy on even one occasion make that many rebounds means that other players are not rebounding and/or it means you are a horrible rebounding team.

This game was miserable on so many levels! The Nuggets should have won this game by 20 points rock bottom minimum and yet they lazily and awkwardly stumbled to the finish and won the game by a bucket even though they were outscored in the fourth quarter by 11 points, 38-27. Yes, the Nuggets gave up 38 points to one of the very worst teams in the League in the fourth quarter as they tried in vain to give this game away; yes, the game was so miserable that the Nuggets lost their effort to try to lose the game! Does it get any more pathetic than that? Not much more.

George Karl might as well not have been there. Apparently thinking (as I was) that the Nuggets could not possibly lose this game, he didn’t even bother to call any timeouts as the Nuggets imploded in the fourth and almost gave away the game. Had the Nuggets lost, it would have been fair justice for Karl, although I would have looked bad for claiming that the Nuggets “can not possibly lose this game,” laugh out loud.

The Minnesota coach, Kurt Rambis, made a miserable error of his own at the end. With 27 seconds left and with Minnesota behind by two, he elected to not foul the Nuggets! Wrong move! Carmelo Anthony, who knows a cheap win when he sees one and is good at nailing a cheap win down, wisely used up virtually the entire 24 second shot clock before putting up an arching shot that took almost forever to reach the rim. Of course, the shot missed (remember, we are talking about a miserable, pathetic game here, so it had to miss). The ball careened off the rim and no one could really get to it before the miserable horn (I don’t like the sound of that horn) blasted to end the miserable game. Then the miserable fans filed out into the miserable cold and the miserable traffic and, well, hopefully the misery will come to an end soon so that everyone has a happy holiday season.

THE PLAYOFFS? YOU ARE SERIOUSLY ASKING ABOUT THE PLAYOFFS???
If the Nuggets were to make the playoffs this year it’s obvious at the moment (and I don’t see how in the world this could possibly change) that the Nuggets will lose convincingly in round one. It would be the same old, same old, in other words (except for the 2008-09 miracle). But actually, the Nuggets will most likely not be making the playoffs this year, simply because Carmelo Anthony agrees with everything I ever wrote and has therefore decided to quit the Nuggets. (Well, at least the last part, about him leaving the Nuggets, is definitely true; the part about him agreeing with everything I ever wrote might be a wee bit exaggerated, laugh out loud.)

RILEY SAYS: "NUGGETS YOU SUCK"
Seriously though, was there ever a team that more deserved to lose one of its very best players (and its’ “franchise player”) more than the Denver Nuggets? The Nuggets, regardless of all the puff pieces written about them on ESPN and regardless of all the puff statements made about them in TV broadcasts, are not really a well run or serious basketball franchise. Every year they do stuff that reinforces this fact. For example, just a few months ago the Nuggets’ ownership fired the two guys who constituted their general management team (for unknown reason(s) but a good guess is that it was for cost cutting) and replaced them with someone with no general manager experience. This was after other potential managers (with experience) turned down the job due to the insufficient salary being offered. The two fired Nuggets managers are the very same ones responsible in the last five-six years for loading the Nuggets to the rafters with players who can score the hell out of the ball. In other words, those managers made it possible for the Nuggets to get away with having essentially zero organization offensively and to get away with (excepting 2008-09) half assed defending. The damage to the Nuggets from losing Carmelo Anthony is probably going to be compounded when the seemingly endless flow of relatively obscure but extremely talented scorers coming to the Nuggets comes to an end as a result of the firing of the two managers.

As for the Timberwolves, aside from having lost a game they definitely should have won, they have let about four point guards slip through their fingers in the last couple years, including Ty Lawson, any one of which are better than all of the ones they have on the team right now. What their problem is is beyond me.

THE VERDICT ON THE DENVER NUGGETS>>>
















THE VERDICT ON THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES>>>

Music Videos Break: One Hundred Irish Music Videos

Irish music is like the hip hop music of Ireland. Don't believe me, check it out for a minute. It's kind of opposed to (or different from) everyday society just like hip hop is.

If you hate Irish music then just move on and have a nice day and week, now.

FIFTY MOST RELEVANT IRISH MUSIC VIDEOS

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FIFTY LATEST IRISH MUSIC VIDEOS

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Official NBA Coach Recommendations: Can the Coach of Your Team Win the Quest or Not?

This is the third of three NBA head coaching Reports. The first two were Real Coach Ratings Reports in the two versions, one looking back on 2009-10 and the other looking ahead to 2010-11. This last one takes the entire work product from the first two and condenses it into specific up or down recommendations for all head coaches from 2009-10 and at the start of 2010-11. The simplification here is useful but the details in the full Reports should be reviewed by anyone serious about finding out whom the best playoffs and/or the best regular season coaches are.

The complete User Guide for Real Coach Ratings is here.

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) starting this year is giving separate playoffs and regular season recommendations for head coach for NBA teams. QFTR is not giving overall recommendations for two main reasons. First, it turns out that there is a big, big difference for a lot of coaches in how well their coaching works out in the regular season versus how well it works out in the playoffs. It turns out that it is relatively common for pro basketball coaches to be very good regular season coaches but poor or very poor playoffs coaches. For these coaches, the way they look at and understand basketball and how they have their team playing works better in the regular season than it does in the playoffs. Because of this alone, making combined regular season / playoffs recommendations would be far less productive than you might think.

The second reason why we don't even attempt an overall recommendation is that franchises will look at the importance of the regular season and the playoffs differently. For franchises who know already they are most likely not going to be in the playoffs for a while, and also for franchises who think the regular season is more important for them than the playoffs, they might perhaps use the regular season recommendations more than the playoff ones.

However, QFTR strongly disagrees with any owner or manager who places the importance of the regular season above the importance of the playoffs. By rights, the playoffs should always be considered as more important than the regular season. If a team is not going to be making the playoffs this year it should by rights have a great playoff coach anyway, so when the team does make the playoffs in the near future it has the right coach for winning in the playoffs.

THE COACH RUT
Teams should avoid getting stuck in a rut that the public is completely unaware of but that QFTR has proven exists. This rut is where a team has a very good regular season coach but a lousy playoffs coach. It can be extremely difficult to get out of this rut because it is very hard to fire a coach who usually does very well in the regular season.

Plus, which coaches are not good for the playoffs is basically a secret from the public. This is one of QFTR's favorite and most important topics, and yet it took even us until November 2010 before we assembled all the hard proof and officially reported out which coaches are lousy playoffs coaches. And this is most likely the first time in history anyone carefully and mathematically investigated this. It took many hours of work to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt and it was not very easy to do. So it is understandable that most people are in the dark and would not believe that there are a substantial number of coaches who are very good in the regular season but are poor in the playoffs.

The point is, this is basically unknown territory, so don't expect that these good in the regular but bad in the playoffs coaches are going to be fired when they should be (or never hired in the first place). Instead, expect that teams are going to make mistakes with these types of coaches year after year after year. People and things other than the coach will get the blame, and in some cases other people and things are also to blame. But the problem remains that this type of coach is very seldom if ever blamed simply because no one is aware that this type of coach exists and is fairly common.

Most lousy playoffs coaches get away with being lousy playoffs coaches year after year after year as long as they are good regular season coaches. A franchise can be in the dark about this for many years, for the entire time the coach is the coach. A team stuck with this type of coach will typically go along year after year thinking they have a chance to win the Quest, whereas their coach may be so poor in the playoffs that realistically they have no chance whatsoever to win it regardless of who the players are.

RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT THE RECOMMENDATIONS
QFTR highly recommends that all franchises use the playoff recommendations more strongly than they do the regular season recommendations. But some words of caution are in order. Never completely ignore the regular season recommendations. It is going to be very unusual for a great playoff coach to be a not so good regular season coach (unlike the reverse which is surprisingly common) but if there ever was a coach with an outstanding playoff record but a poor regular season record, you would want to avoid this coach as a kind of insurance policy against having the wrong coach overall. This scenario could play out if the number of playoff games coached was relatively low and a fluke amount of statistical error resulted in an artificially high playoffs rating (whereas meanwhile the lower regular season rating was exactly accurate).

At an absolute minimum, the playoffs should be considered equal in importance to the regular season and the playoff coach recommendations should be just as important as the regular season coach recommendations.

One thing QFTR could do (and what QFTR would do if forced to make an overall recommendation) would be to use a formula where the playoffs rating was more important than the regular season rating. Or for that matter we could change the overall Real Coach Ratings system so that it was even more weighted in favor of the playoffs than it already is. We choose not to do either of these things at this time because of the complexities already discussed and because of other factors not mentioned here.

To some extent this discussion about which recommendations to use is not completely on point, because obviously, the best thing and what you want is a coach who is above average for BOTH the playoffs and for the regular season. Unfortunately however such coaches are much rarer than most people think they are. It turns out that although it is not rocket science, coaching basketball at the NBA level is much more difficult and complex than most people think it is. And then NBA playoff coaching is more difficult and complex than regular season coaching is. Ironically, many of the head coaches themselves apparently underestimate how difficult their job is and many of them don’t even begin to understand the magnitude and nature of the differences between the regular season and the playoffs.

I have a theory (can’t prove it right now) that on average Americans underestimate the importance of coaching more so than other people do. Maybe Canada can find that perfect coach who can bring the NBA Championship to Toronto and to Canada? That would be so sweet.

THE PHIL JACKSON ADJUSTMENT FOR THE PLAYOFFS RECOMMENDATIONS
Phil Jackson is by far the best and most successful NBA playoffs coach among current and recent head coaches. Actually, he is most likely the best NBA playoffs coach of all time (although there are a handful of other ones who are in Jackson’s ballpark). Jackson has repeatedly won playoff games he wasn't supposed to win versus some of the very best of the other NBA coaches. Jackson has won just about 42 playoff games he (statistically) wasn’t supposed to win out of a total of 323 playoff games. Jackson’s all time playoffs record is 225-98 but according to the QFTR investigation his “par record” is just 183-140.

This means that if you think (as most of the general public does) that Phil Jackson wins in the playoffs mostly according to how good his players are and that he has little or no impact on how many wins his teams get you are completely wrong. Jackson has had good teams, since he was “supposed to be” 183-140 in the playoffs but he boosted that to 225-98 and this was such a big improvement that we know, for example, that Jackson would not have won 11 rings (and probably not even half a dozen rings) if he were an average playoffs coach and we also know that Jackson would have won very few if any rings if he was a well below average playoffs coach.

Some coaches have come up against Phil Jackson in many more playoff games than others. Rick Adelman, Jerry Sloan, and Greg Popovich lead this pack, having faced Jackson in 29, 27, and 26 playoff games respectively. Adelman has pretty well held his own but Sloan and especially Popovich have been hammered by Jackson. After these three there is a group of five coaches who have faced Jackson in between 12 and 16 playoff games and three out of five of these have been handed (by Jackson) a big bunch of losses that should have been wins. The damage to them, though, is far less than the damage to Popovich.

For a big majority of coaches, the more playoff games a coach has played against Phil Jackson, the more his Playoff Rating is going to be depressed because Jackson has heavily dominated in playoffs coaching. Therefore, for my recommendations, I decided to remove most of the bias caused by big differences between coaches in the number of games versus Phil Jackson. For determining the recommendations you see below, 4/5 or 80% of the scoring from games versus Phil Jackson is removed.

The "Phil Jackson adjustment" is NOT done in the main Real Coach Ratings Report. All of the numbers in all sections of that Report include all games played against Phil Jackson. Only in these final official recommendations are in effect 80% of the games versus Phil Jackson taken out.

The primary beneficiaries of this adjustment are Greg Popovich, Jerry Sloan, and Flip Saunders. But Saunders is still "strongly not recommended" even after being boosted by the Phil Jackson adjustment. Sloan goes from "strongly not recommended" to simply "not recommended". The biggest swing is with Popovich. Believe it or not, Popovich, who has won four Championships in years when Phil Jackson's team was not competitive with Popovichs’ Spurs, would be "strongly not recommended" if all his games versus Phil Jackson were included whereas Popovich is "recommended" if you take away 4/5 of the effect from Jackson! The Popovich versus Jackson coaching saga is very much like the road runner versus Wily Coyote!

There are two coaches whose ratings would be lower rather than higher if their games versus Phil Jackson were removed. Doc Rivers and George Karl have very slightly gotten the best of Phil Jackson in the playoffs. (Yes, the fact that George Karl has gotten the better of Phil Jackson, even if only by a small margin, is quite a surprise). Even though the Nuggets were destroyed by the Lakers in the elimination game, the 2008 West Conference final was nevertheless one of the greatest achievements for both Karl and the Nuggets because the Nuggets did better than they were supposed to in that series.

For Doc Rivers and George Karl, the Phil Jackson adjustment is ignored so that they get credit for their limited success versus Jackson.

Note that QFTR can in theory include in these recommendations any coach who has ever coached in the NBA (subject to the 25 playoff games and 200 regular season games minimums). If you need a specific coach evaluated, contact QFTR.

The following includes the 33 head coaches from 2009-10 and the six new head coaches for 2010-11 not already among those 33. In total 39 head coaches from last year and the year coming up are included.

Here are the official QFTR recommendations:

========== COACH RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE PLAYOFFS ==========
--The 33 head coaches from 2009-10 are included (three teams changed their head coach during the season)
--The 6 new head coaches for 2010-11 who are not among the 33 who coached last year are included; a total of 39 head coaches are included.
--Coaches who have coached fewer than 25 playoff games are not included in the playoff recommendations due to insufficient information.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-An extremely good team or just a very good team could easily win with these coaches

Phil Jackson
Larry Brown
Mike Dunleavey

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-An extremely good team could easily win and a very good team could relatively easily win with these coaches

Stan Van Gundy

RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-An extremely good team could win with these coaches; a very good team could possibly win with these coaches

Byron Scott
Jim O'Brien
Mike Brown
Gregg Popovich

NEITHER RECOMMENDED NOR NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-An extremely good team could possibly win with these coaches but there are no guarantees among these

Lawrence Frank
Doug Collins
Rick Adelman
Nate McMillan
Paul Westphal
Doc Rivers

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-These coaches are not recommended but an extremely good team could possibly win with these coaches, especially if the players were smart enough to help coach themselves

Scott Skiles
Eddie Jordan
Mike Woodson
Jerry Sloan
Avery Johnson

STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-It is very unlikely that the following coaches could ever possibly win the Quest for the Ring regardless of players

Flip Saunders

VERY STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE PLAYOFFS
-It is extremely unlikely that the following coaches could ever possibly win the Quest for the Ring regardless of players

Don Nelson
Mike D'Antoni
George Karl
Rick Carlisle

NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION
Alvin Gentry
Erik Spoelstra
Jay Triano
Jeff Bower
John Kuester
Keith Smart
Kiki Vandeweghe
Kim Hughes
Kurt Rambis
Larry Drew
Lionel Hollins
Monty Williams
Scott Brooks
Tom Thibodeau
Vinny Del Negro

========== COACH RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE REGULAR SEASON ==========

--The 33 head coaches from 2009-10 are included (three teams changed their head coach during the season)
--The 6 new head coaches for 2010-11 who are not among the 33 who coached last year are included; a total of 39 head coaches are included.
--Coaches who have coached fewer than 200 regular season games are not included in the recommendations due to insufficient information.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Phil Jackson
Gregg Popovich
Jerry Sloan

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Rick Adelman
George Karl
Stan Van Gundy

RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Mike Brown
Avery Johnson
Rick Carlisle
Flip Saunders
Paul Westphal
Doc Rivers

NEITHER RECOMMENDED NOR NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Mike D'Antoni
Don Nelson
Doug Collins
Larry Brown
Scott Skiles
Nate McMillan

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Jim O'Brien
Alvin Gentry
Lawrence Frank
Byron Scott

STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Mike Woodson
Eddie Jordan

VERY STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THE REGULAR SEASON
Mike Dunleavey

NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION
Erik Spoelstra
Jay Triano
Jeff Bower
John Kuester
Keith Smart
Kiki Vandeweghe
Kim Hughes
Kurt Rambis
Larry Drew
Lionel Hollins
Monty Williams
Scott Brooks
Tom Thibodeau
Vinny Del Negro

==========================================
The complete User Guide for Real Coach Ratings is here.

Music Videos Break: One Hundred Lil Wayne Music Videos

Don't like Lil Wayne or don't like rap / hip hop at all? Then move on because it's Weezy time right here.

18 VERY POPULAR LIL WAYNE MUSIC VIDEOS

Powered by Dailymotion

Note, due to Vevo paying Google to share the traffic for music videos of popular artists, QFTR has no way at the moment to show you the most popular Lil Wayne videos at YouTube. The next best thing is to show you the best channel we could find (other than Vevo whose videos will not play anywhere but at Vevo and at Vevo's YouTube page). We found the Magiczamu channel. Following this player we can still show you the fifty latest Lil Wayne videos without interference.:

LIL WAYNE MUSIC VIDEOS FROM THE MAGICZAMU CHANNEL

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FIFTY LATEST LIL WAYNE MUSIC VIDEOS

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Michael Jackson video

Real Coach Ratings for the NBA, 2010-11, Look Ahead

If you recently read the Look Back Version of Real Coach Ratings you might want to skip to the Ratings that follow the text below because the text that immediately follows is repeated from the 2009-10 Look Back edition.

The following is a very quick, very limited, and simplified summary of the detailed User Guide for Real Coach Ratings.

The Real Coach Rating system has been extensively improved. The biggest improvement is the new factor called "Playoffs Games Coaching Score". A lot of time went into developing this factor, much of which went into developing an underlying data base called the "NBA Playoffs Series, Games, Teams and Coaches Database". This database consists of every playoff series ever played except for twenty best of three first round playoff series played between 1980 and 1983.

To summarize simply, for each series, a statistically valid estimate of how exactly how many games should have been won by each team (to two decimal places, for example, 3.25 wins) and then the actual number of wins is compared to this and either a positive score or negative score is derived from this.

See the revised User Guide for Real Coach Ratings for complete details regarding the Playoffs Database, about the Playoffs Games Coaching Score and about the Real Coach Ratings as a whole.

Starting this year Quest for the Ring (QFTR) produces two Real Coach Ratings Reports. One of them, scheduled for August but three months late this year is called the "look back version" which, as the name implies, gives the ratings for all the head coaches from the season just gone by.

For anyone who has seen a prior Coach Ratings Report, you will see that the format of the report has changed and expanded too. The Report is now divided into two large sections: the rankings and the coach by coach details.

Yes, this Report is longer than most, but the length is justified because if a team has the wrong coach it is going to be wasting money and wasting player talents. For any of the worst playoffs coaches, winning the NBA Championship is literally impossible unless perhaps they end up with one of the very best teams of all time, and even then the poor playoffs coach might still lose the Championship.

The following is the Look Ahead (to 2010-11) Version of Real Coach Ratings. The Look Behind Version (to 2009-10) was posted on November 23, 2010.

NBA REAL COACH RATINGS
--2010-11 Season (Look Ahead Version)
--All head coaches for the 2010-11 NBA season are included
--See the User Guide for Real Coach Ratings for how and why these Ratings are correct

1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 8801.48
2 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown 2420.14
3 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 1574.30
4 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 1510.88
5 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 1263.04
6 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan 866.20
7 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien 577.30
8 Philadelphia 76ers Doug Collins 536.25
9 Los Angeles Clippers Vinny Del Negro 463.00
10 Sacramento Kings Paul Westphal 455.60
11 New Jersey Nets Avery Johnson 445.00
12 Denver Nuggets George Karl 404.92
13 Cleveland Cavaliers Byron Scott 387.25
14 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan 377.75
15 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers 294.35
16 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles 256.70
17 Phoenix Suns Alvin Gentry 216.40
18 Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew 200.00
19 Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau 200.00
20 New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams 200.00
21 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 157.20
22 Oklahoma City Thunder Scott Brooks 74.80
23 Golden State Warriors Keith Smart 65.50
24 Toronto Raptors Jay Triano 53.10
25 Detroit Pistons John Kuester 30.10
26 Minnesota Timberwolves Kurt Rambis -60.40
27 Washington Wizards Flip Saunders -62.50
28 Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins -106.70
29 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle -145.80
30 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni -325.55

REAL COACH PLAYOFFS SUB RATINGS
--2010-11 Season (Look Ahead Version)
--All head coaches for the 2010-11 NBA season are included
--See the User Guide for Real Coach Ratings for how and why these Ratings are correct

1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 6035.00
2 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown 2199.00
3 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 761.00
4 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien 488.00
5 Los Angeles Clippers Vinny Del Negro 386.00
6 Cleveland Cavaliers Byron Scott 380.00
7 Philadelphia 76ers Doug Collins 257.00
8 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan 211.00
9 Phoenix Suns Alvin Gentry 151.00
10 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 101.00
11 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles 57.00
12 Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew 0.00
13 Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau 0.00
14 Detroit Pistons John Kuester 0.00
15 Golden State Warriors Keith Smart 0.00
16 Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins 0.00
17 New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams 0.00
18 Toronto Raptors Jay Triano 0.00
19 Minnesota Timberwolves Kurt Rambis -1.00
20 Oklahoma City Thunder Scott Brooks -24.00
21 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra -45.00
22 Sacramento Kings Paul Westphal -51.00
23 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers -150.00
24 New Jersey Nets Avery Johnson -210.00
25 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich -373.00
26 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan -587.00
27 Denver Nuggets George Karl -648.00
28 Washington Wizards Flip Saunders -682.00
29 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni -700.00
30 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle -793.00

REAL COACH REGULAR SEASON SUB RATINGS
--2010-11 Season (Look Ahead Version)
--All head coaches for the 2010-11 NBA season are included
--See the User Guide for Real Coach Ratings for how and why these Ratings are correct

1 Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson 2766.48
2 San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich 1883.88
3 Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan 1453.20
4 Houston Rockets Rick Adelman 1162.04
5 Denver Nuggets George Karl 1052.92
6 Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy 813.30
7 New Jersey Nets Avery Johnson 655.00
8 Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle 647.20
9 Washington Wizards Flip Saunders 619.50
10 Sacramento Kings Paul Westphal 506.60
11 Boston Celtics Doc Rivers 444.35
12 New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni 374.45
13 Philadelphia 76ers Doug Collins 279.25
14 Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown 221.14
15 Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra 202.20
16 Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew 200.00
17 Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau 200.00
18 New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams 200.00
19 Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles 199.70
20 Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan 166.75
21 Oklahoma City Thunder Scott Brooks 98.80
22 Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien 89.30
23 Los Angeles Clippers Vinny Del Negro 77.00
24 Golden State Warriors Keith Smart 65.50
25 Phoenix Suns Alvin Gentry 65.40
26 Toronto Raptors Jay Triano 53.10
27 Detroit Pistons John Kuester 30.10
28 Cleveland Cavaliers Byron Scott 7.25
29 Minnesota Timberwolves Kurt Rambis -59.40
30 Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins -106.70

========== KEY DETAILS ABOUT THE 2010-11 COACHES ==========

The head coaches at the start for 2010-11 are:

Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew
Boston Celtics Doc Rivers
Charlotte Bobcats Larry Brown
Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau
Cleveland Cavaliers Byron Scott
Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle
Denver Nuggets George Karl
Detroit Pistons John Kuester
Golden State Warriors Keith Smart
Houston Rockets Rick Adelman
Indiana Pacers Jim O'Brien
Los Angeles Clippers Vinny Del Negro
Los Angeles Lakers Phil Jackson
Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins
Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra
Milwaukee Bucks Scott Skiles
Minnesota Timberwolves Kurt Rambis
New Jersey Nets Avery Johnson
New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams
New York Knicks Mike D'Antoni
Oklahoma City Thunder Scott Brooks
Orlando Magic Stan Van Gundy
Philadelphia 76ers Doug Collins
Phoenix Suns Alvin Gentry
Portland Trail Blazers Nate McMillan
Sacramento Kings Paul Westphal
San Antonio Spurs Gregg Popovich
Toronto Raptors Jay Triano
Utah Jazz Jerry Sloan
Washington Wizards Flip Saunders

COACHING CHANGES FOR 2010-11
22 out of the 30 coaches are exactly the same this year as they were last. The other eight are as follows:

THREE NEW COACHES WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN A NBA HEAD COACH BEFORE
Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew
Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau
New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams

All of these brand new coaches start with a Real Coach Rating of 200 all of which is part of their Regular Season Ratings; they start with a Playoffs Rating of zero and it stays at zero unless and until they coach playoff games.

TWO COACHES FROM LAST YEAR WHO SWITCHED TEAMS
Cleveland Cavaliers Byron Scott (Last year: New Orleans Hornets)
Los Angeles Clippers Vinny Del Negro (Last year: Chicago Bulls)

THREE COACHES WHO WERE HEAD COACHES YEARS AGO AND ARE RETURNING AS HEAD COACHES
Golden State Warriors Keith Smart
New Jersey Nets Avery Johnson
Philadelphia 76ers Doug Collins

COACHES QFTR GUARANTEES WILL NEVER EVER WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP
For the guarantee QFTR uses the primary component of the Playoffs Rating rather than the overall Playoffs Rating to identify coaches who will never ever win the Quest. The primary component (the one that has the most weight) is called the Playoff Games Coaching Score. This score is based on a carefully constructed proven model and a database; for details see the User Guide for Real Coach Ratings. The broader Playoffs Rating includes playoff experience and bonuses for Conference and NBA Championships won. The broader Playoffs Rating IS used for the official Coach Recommendations which appear in a separate Report.

The bottom line is that the guarantee is issued whenever a Coach has lost eight or more playoff games that he was supposed to win.

If any of the following coaches ever win the Quest for the Ring, the QFTR Site will be shut down due to utter uselessness.

Denver Nuggets George Karl
Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle

The guarantee is technically not permanent although in practice it is often going to be permanent. George Karl would have to win about two playoff games that he was supposed to lose to be removed from the guarantee list. Rick Carlisle would have to win about one playoff game that he was supposed to lose to be removed.

The guarantee is a little bit risky because if some of their opponents were devasted by multiple injuries than theoretically Rick Carlisle or George Karl could win the NBA Championship despite the guarantee. However, the number of injuries that would be required is so large that I don't lose any sleep over that scenario. If I ever slip and start to worry I remember the 119-92 devastation of the Nuggets by the Lakers in the 2009 West Conference Final elimination game.

COACHES CLOSE TO THE GUARANTEE
If Jerry Sloan loses three more playoff games that he is supposed to win than QFTR will absolutely guarantee that Sloan will never ever win the Quest. If Mike D'Antoni loses three more playoff games that he is supposed to win than QFTR will absolutely guarantee that D'Antoni will never ever win the Quest. If Flip Saunders loses four more playoff games that he is supposed to win than QFTR will absolutely guarantee that Saunders will never ever win the Quest.

COACHES WHO HAVE NEVER COACHED A NBA PLAYOFF GAME
Atlanta Hawks Larry Drew
Chicago Bulls Tom Thibodeau
Detroit Pistons John Kuester
Golden State Warriors Keith Smart
Memphis Grizzlies Lionel Hollins
New Orleans Hornets Monty Williams
Toronto Raptors Jay Triano

========== COACH BY COACH DETAILS ==========

--See the User Guide to Real Coach Ratings for details about all of the components.
--All head coaches for the NBA 2010-11 season are included.
--The playoffs rating plus the regular season rating equals the overall Real Coach Rating.
--Coaches who have never coached a playoff game have Playoff Ratings of zero.
--Brand new coaches who have never coached a NBA game have Real Coach Ratings of 200.00 (the Regular Season Rating is 200.00 and the Playoffs Rating is zero).
--See the User Guide to Real Coach Ratings for how the playoffs games that should have been wins or losses are calculated.
--The number of extra playoff games the coaches will win or lose out of 100 are statistical averages and are not exact predictions.
--The statistical error for the number of extra playoff games the coaches will win or lose out of 100 rises as the number of playoff games coached goes down.
--The number of extra playoff games the coaches will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for any coach who has coached less than 25 playoff games due to excessive statistical error. For 25 or more games, the reported numbers are relatively accurate and reliable. The estimate of the number of extra playoff games the coaches will win or lose out of 100 is very accurate for coaches who have coached 50 or more playoff games, except that it is possible though very unlikely that a coach will at some point make big changes and become a much better playoff coach.
--In the Look Back Version, when a team switched coaches during the season, both coaches are shown.
--There are three types of coaches whose number of games coached with the current team is zero: brand new NBA Coaches, Coaches who were fired after last season but were hired by another team, and Coaches who retired or were fired in years prior but are now returning to head coaching.

ATLANTA HAWKS
COACH: LARRY DREW
Real Coach Rating: 200.00
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 19 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 200.00
Regular Season Rank: 17 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 0
Regular season wins: 0
Regular season losses: 0


BOSTON CELTICS
COACH: DOC RIVERS
Real Coach Rating: 294.35
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 15 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -150.00
Playoffs Rank: 23 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 444.35
Regular Season Rank: 11 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 86

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 4.7

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 5.5

NBA Championships won: 1
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 1

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 492
Regular season games coached: 831
Regular season wins: 451
Regular season losses: 380


CHARLOTTE BOBCATS
COACH: LARRY BROWN
Real Coach Rating: 2420.14
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 2 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 2199.00
Playoffs Rank: 2 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 221.14
Regular Season Rank: 14 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 193

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 16.1

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 9.4

NBA Championships won: 1
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 2

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 164
Regular season games coached: 1974
Regular season wins: 1089
Regular season losses: 885


CHICAGO BULLS
COACH: TOM THIBODEAU
Real Coach Rating: 200.00
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 19 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 200.00
Regular Season Rank: 17 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 0
Regular season wins: 0
Regular season losses: 0


CLEVELAND CAVALIERS
COACH: BYRON SCOTT
Real Coach Rating: 387.25
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 13 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 380.00
Playoffs Rank: 6 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 7.25
Regular Season Rank: 28 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 57

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 1.7

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 2.9

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 2

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 707
Regular season wins: 352
Regular season losses: 355


DALLAS MAVERICKS
COACH: RICK CARLISLE
Real Coach Rating: -145.80
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 29 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -793.00
Playoffs Rank: 30 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 647.20
Regular Season Rank: 8 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 78

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 9.5

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 12.2

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 164
Regular season games coached: 656
Regular season wins: 386
Regular season losses: 270


DENVER NUGGETS
COACH: GEORGE KARL
Real Coach Rating: 404.92
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 12 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -648.00
Playoffs Rank: 27 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 1052.92
Regular Season Rank: 5 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 167

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 10.3

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 6.2

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 1

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 450
Regular season games coached: 1657
Regular season wins: 986
Regular season losses: 671


DETROIT PISTONS
COACH: JOHN KUESTER
Real Coach Rating: 30.10
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 25 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 30.10
Regular Season Rank: 27 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 82
Regular season games coached: 82
Regular season wins: 27
Regular season losses: 55


GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS
COACH: KEITH SMART
Real Coach Rating: 65.50
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 23 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 65.50
Regular Season Rank: 24 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 30
Regular season games coached: 40
Regular season wins: 9
Regular season losses: 31


HOUSTON ROCKETS
COACH: RICK ADELMAN
Real Coach Rating: 1263.04
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 5 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 101.00
Playoffs Rank: 10 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 1162.04
Regular Season Rank: 4 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 157

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 3.1

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 2.0

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 2

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 246
Regular season games coached: 1479
Regular season wins: 902
Regular season losses: 577


INDIANA PACERS
COACH: JIM O'BRIEN
Real Coach Rating: 577.30
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 7 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 488.00
Playoffs Rank: 4 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 89.30
Regular Season Rank: 22 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 31

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 4.3

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 12.2

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 246
Regular season games coached: 586
Regular season wins: 286
Regular season losses: 300


LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS
COACH: VINNY DEL NEGRO
Real Coach Rating: 463.00
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 9 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 386.00
Playoffs Rank: 5 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 77.00
Regular Season Rank: 23 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 12

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 3.6

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 164
Regular season wins: 82
Regular season losses: 82


LOS ANGELES LAKERS
COACH: PHIL JACKSON
Real Coach Rating: 8801.48
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 1 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 6035.00
Playoffs Rank: 1 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 2766.48
Regular Season Rank: 1 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 323

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 41.9

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 13.0

NBA Championships won: 11
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 2

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 820
Regular season games coached: 1558
Regular season wins: 1098
Regular season losses: 460


MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
COACH: LIONEL HOLLINS
Real Coach Rating: -106.70
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 28 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: -106.70
Regular Season Rank: 30 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 121
Regular season games coached: 185
Regular season wins: 71
Regular season losses: 114


MIAMI HEAT
COACH: ERIK SPOELSTRA
Real Coach Rating: 157.20
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 21 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -45.00
Playoffs Rank: 21 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 202.20
Regular Season Rank: 15 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 12

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 0.7 (less than one)

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 164
Regular season games coached: 164
Regular season wins: 90
Regular season losses: 74


MILWAUKEE BUCKS
COACH: SCOTT SKILES
Real Coach Rating: 256.70
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 16 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 57.00
Playoffs Rank: 11 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 199.70
Regular Season Rank: 19 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 42

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 0.3 (less than one)

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 0.8 (less than one)

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 164
Regular season games coached: 696
Regular season wins: 361
Regular season losses: 335


MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
COACH: KURT RAMBIS
Real Coach Rating: -60.40
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 26 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -1.00
Playoffs Rank: 19 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: -59.40
Regular Season Rank: 29 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 8

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 0.2 (less than one)

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 82
Regular season games coached: 119
Regular season wins: 39
Regular season losses: 80


NEW JERSEY NETS
COACH: AVERY JOHNSON
Real Coach Rating: 445.00
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 11 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -210.00
Playoffs Rank: 24 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 655.00
Regular Season Rank: 7 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 47

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 3.5

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 10.4

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 1

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 264
Regular season wins: 194
Regular season losses: 70


NEW ORLEANS HORNETS
COACH: MONTY WILLIAMS
Real Coach Rating: 200.00
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 19 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.0
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 200.00
Regular Season Rank: 17 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 0
Regular season wins: 0
Regular season losses: 0


NEW YORK KNICKS
COACH: MIKE D'ANTONI
Real Coach Rating: -325.55
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 30 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -700.00
Playoffs Rank: 29 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 374.45
Regular Season Rank: 12 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 51

Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 8.0

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 15.7

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 164
Regular season games coached: 603
Regular season wins: 328
Regular season losses: 275


OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
COACH: SCOTT BROOKS
Real Coach Rating: 74.80
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 22 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -24.00
Playoffs Rank: 20 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 98.80
Regular Season Rank: 21 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 6

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 0.4 (less than one game)

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 151
Regular season games coached: 151
Regular season wins: 72
Regular season losses: 79


ORLANDO MAGIC
COACH: STAN VAN GUNDY
Real Coach Rating: 1620.30
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 3 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 807.00
Playoffs Rank: 3 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 813.30
Regular Season Rank: 6 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 99

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 4.6

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 4.6

NBA Championships won: 1
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 1

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 246
Regular season games coached: 431
Regular season wins: 282
Regular season losses: 149


PHILADELPHIA 76'ERS
COACH: DOUG COLLINS
Real Coach Rating: 536.25
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 8 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 257.00
Playoffs Rank: 7 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 279.25
Regular Season Rank: 13 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached:

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 1.8

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 4.8

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 0
Regular season games coached: 619
Regular season wins: 332
Regular season losses: 287


PHOENIX SUNS
COACH: ALVIN GENTRY
Real Coach Rating: 216.40
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 17 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 151.00
Playoffs Rank: 9 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 65.40
Regular Season Rank: 25 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 21

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 1.1

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 113
Regular season games coached: 516
Regular season wins: 249
Regular season losses: 267


PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS
COACH: NATE MCMILLAN
Real Coach Rating: 377.75
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 14 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 211.00
Playoffs Rank: 8 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 166.75
Regular Season Rank: 20 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 28

Net Playoff games WON that should have been losses: 1.6

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will WIN out of 100: 5.5

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 410
Regular season games coached: 805
Regular season wins: 410
Regular season losses: 395


SACRAMENTO KINGS
COACH: PAUL WESTPHAL
Real Coach Rating: 455.60
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 10 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -51.00
Playoffs Rank: 22 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 506.60
Regular Season Rank: 10 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 49

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 2.0

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 4.1

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 1

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 82
Regular season games coached: 508
Regular season wins: 292
Regular season losses: 216


SAN ANTONIO SPURS
COACH: GREG POPOVICH
NOTE: Greg Popovich' playoff ratings are unfortunately misleading. Popovich has had the misfortune of meeting up with Phil Jackson in the playoffs much more than any other coach. Greg Popovich' playoff ratings and details would be much higher were it not for the large number of times that Phil Jackson out-coached him. Jackson's coaching dominance over Popovich, who is a great coach in his own right, is one of Jackson's greatest achievements.

Real Coach Rating: 1510.88
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 4 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -373.00
Playoffs Rank: 25 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 1883.88
Regular Season Rank: 2 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 175

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 11.2

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 6.4

NBA Championships won: 4
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 1098
Regular season games coached: 1098
Regular season wins: 736
Regular season losses: 362


TORONTO RAPTORS
COACH: JAY TRIANO
Real Coach Rating: 53.10
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 24 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: 0.00
Playoffs Rank: 15 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 53.10
Regular Season Rank: 26 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 0

Playoff games won that should have been losses: 0
Playoff games lost that should have been wins: 0

The extra playoff games this coach will win or lose out of 100 is not reported for this coach due to insufficient number of playoff games.

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 147
Regular season games coached: 147
Regular season wins: 65
Regular season losses: 82


UTAH JAZZ
COACH: JERRY SLOAN
Real Coach Rating: 862.20
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 6 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -587.00
Playoffs Rank: 26 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 1453.20
Regular Season Rank: 3 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 200

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 10.9

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 5.5

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 2

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 1855
Regular season games coached: 1970
Regular season wins: 1190
Regular season losses: 780


WASHINGTON WIZARDS
COACH: FLIP SAUNDERS
Real Coach Rating: -62.50
Rank Among 2010-11 Coaches: 27 out of 30

PLAYOFFS / REGULAR SEASON BREAKDOWN
Playoffs Rating: -682.00
Playoffs Rank: 28 out of 30
Regular Season Rating: 619.50
Regular Season Rank: 9 out of 30

PLAYOFFS DETAILS
Playoffs experience: Number of playoff games coached: 98

Net Playoff games LOST that should have been wins: 8.8

How many EXTRA playoff games this coach will LOSE out of 100: 9.0

NBA Championships won: 0
Number of times this Coach won a Conference final but not the Championship: 0

REGULAR SEASON DETAILS
Games coached with current team: 82
Regular season games coached: 1065
Regular season wins: 613
Regular season losses: 452

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