Sloan and the hoard of the rings

One notion that floated around the internet when Jerry Sloan resigned Thursday was that Sloan can’t be considered a great coach because he never won a championship. That’s the wrong way to look at Sloan’s career. You can’t judge NBA coaches on that criteria because a small cadre hoards the coaching championships in this league. When Larry Brown stepped down earlier this season it left only three active coaches who have won championships: Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich and Doc Rivers. How exclusive is this club? There are more living former U.S. Presidents than active NBA championship coaches.

Major League Baseball has eight active championship managers: Terry Francona, Ozzie Guillen, Jim Leyland, Mike Scioscia, Joe Girardi, Charlie Manuel, Bruce Bochy and Tony La Russa. The NHL has eight (*fix) active championship coaches: Peter Laviolette, Joel Quinneville, Dan Bylsma, Mike Babcock, Randy Carlyle, John Tortorella, Marc Crawford and Jacques Lemaire. Mike McCarthy just became the sixth active NFL coach to win a Super Bowl, joining, Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin, Mike Shanahan and Tom Coughlin.

The NBA hasn’t been as equitable. Jackson, Popovich and Pat Riley (hasn’t been much talk of him coming back to the bench lately, has there?) won 20 of the past 29 championships. And that’s because they had the right players. Those 20 championships featured Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen,� Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan. (And I have to point out that my man Robert Horry won a championship in seven of his 16 seasons during that stretch.)

Sloan never got to face Riley in the playoffs. He split two playoff series with Popovich and went 0-5 against Jackson. On that last one there is once again comfort in the masses. The number of active coaches who have beaten Jackson in the playoffs is the same number who have won championships: three (Popovich, Rivers and Mike D’Antoni, whose Knicks go up against Jackson’ Lakers in Madison Square Garden tonight).

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/24766/sloan-and-the-hoard-of-the-rings

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