Image via Complex Original
In a move that will probably seem weird for a long time, the Knicks named Derek Fisher the 26th head coach in franchise history on Tuesday. Fisher, who never technically announced his retirement, is just weeks removed from competing on a playoff stage for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Of course, Fisher's prior relationship with team president Phil Jackson lies as the foundation for this hiring. Jackson wanted a coach who would let the Zen Master's voice ring straight down to the hardwood, and Fisher's move to the sidelines seemed like one that was in the cards. The fit seems to be a good one, though the Knicks' job is far from easy.
Fisher's jump from an NBA roster straight to the coaching ranks got us thinking about those who have made similar leaps of faith. Though usually with more of a gap in between than Fisher's, the player-turned-coach transition is one that has been made fairly often. Ahead, we break down those who have made the switch look the easiest, and those who should've just called it a career.
Worst: Isiah Thomas
Coaching Seasons: 2000-03, 2006-08
Teams: Pacers, Knicks
Record: 187-223 (.456)
If running a basketball team from the sidelines was as the same as doing so in a jersey and some Asics, maybe Knicks fans' bodies wouldn't engulf in rage every time Isiah Thomas was mentioned in conversation.
With the Pistons, Isiah was a legend. He averaged 19 points and nine assists while shooting 45 percent from the field. At just 6'0", 180 pounds, he may be the best little man to ever log an NBA minute. But to many, none of it comes to mind when Zeke's name is brought up.
What comes to mind are those embarrassments of Knicks teams that he constructed and later coached himself, after Larry Brown exited after one miserable season. After hundreds of million in payroll, 108 losses in two years and legions of fans calling for his job on a nightly basis, James Dolan finally fired his buddy after the 2007-08 season.
"To me, it's win or die. And I literally mean death. I don't mean walk away. I mean death," Thomas said during his final season coaching in the NBA. Perhaps we have Zombie Isiah Thomas to blame for this, after all.
Best: Doc Rivers
Coaching Seasons: 1999-present
Teams: Magic, Celtics, Clippers
Record: 644-498 (.564)
The man called upon to boost the Los Angeles Clippers to championship heights was once a point guard for four NBA teams, even appearing in an All-Star Game as a Hawk in 1988. Doc Rivers averaged 10 points and six assists over his 13-year career, appearing in the playoffs in 10 times.
Rivers retired after the '96 season, and after a brief stint broadcasting, became Orlando's head coach. After going just 273-312 after eight seasons with Orlando and some horrid Boston Celtics teams, Rivers had fans and media members calling for his firing. In 2006 ESPN The Magazine's Bill Simmons penned a column with the lede: "Doc Rivers stinks as an NBA head coach." As it turned out, a sudden influx of talent flipped the script.
After the formation of Boston's Big Three (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce) Rivers' teams won 371 and lost just 186. He's put his incredible leadership qualities on display, and has become the master of drawing up quick scores out of timeouts.
At 52, and with Chris Paul and a developing Blake Griffin in his arsenal with the Clips, Doc's future as an NBA leader seems to still be on the upswing.
Worst: Eddie Jordan
Coaching Seasons: 1996-1998, 2003-10
Teams: Kings, Wizards, 76ers
Record: 257-343 (.428)
For four teams over a seven-year span, Eddie Jordan played the role of reserve point man to the tune of eight points and four assists a game. Spending time under a young Pat Riley on championship winning Lakers units, it was feasible that Jordan's basketball mind would eventually make for a decent coaching hire.
Jordan's best season as coach was a 45-37 run with the Washington Wizards in 2005, when they went on to get swept by Miami in the second round. The last we saw of him in the NBA was in 2009-10, when he manned the 76ers' bench, going 27-55 and lasting just one year before getting canned, proving that the Princeton offense has no place in the pros.
These days, Jordan is running the show at his alma mater, Rutgers University, where he's not throwing basketballs at people.
Best: George Karl
Coaching Seasons: 1984-1988, 1991-2003, 2004-13
Teams: Cavaliers, Warriors, Sonics, Bucks, Nuggets
Record: 1131-756 (.599)
The league's sixth-most winningest coach actually began his NBA career as a point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, originally of the ABA, and then remained with the team after the merger until 1978. George Karl spent parts of five seasons with the Spurs, averaging 6.5 points and three assists over 17 minutes for his career.
Once his playing days were over, he took an assistant coaching job with San Antonio, which was only the beginning of Karl's famed coaching career. With five teams over 25 seasons as head coach, Karl's teams missed out on the playoffs just three times. His offenses were often free-flowing, fun to watch, and effective. He won 50 games in 12 of his 25 campaigns. His best unit was likely the 1996 Sonics team that he led to 64 wins and a Western Conference title. Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton both averaged 19 points for Seattle that year.
Karl was curiously canned by the Nuggets after winning the Coach of the Year award in 2013, and at 63, may look to re-enter the coaching scene in the near future.
Worst: Paul Silas
Coaching Seasons: 1980-83, 1998-2005, 2010-12
Teams: Clippers, Hornets, Cavaliers, Bobcats
Record: 387-488 (.442)
Paul Silas kicked around the league as a rebounding big man who could almost guarantee you a full season of durability every year. From 1967 through 1980, he missed a total of 14 games, while averaging 9.4 points and 9.9 boards for his career. Silas hung up the jersey for the final time in 1980, and immediately hopped into the coaching ranks, where it's safe to say he didn't fare as well as he did on the floor.
His teams finished a combined 45 games below .500 in his first head coaching job with the San Diego Clippers. It was 16 years before the Charlotte Hornets gave him his next shot at leading a group, and with a talented roster, his teams did well. Charlotte/New Orleans made the playoffs in four straight seasons, before he left the Hornets to coach LeBron James as he entered the league at 18 with the Cavaliers.
That lasted only a season and a half, going 69-77 with a young King James leading the way. The next (and last) we saw of Silas, he was coaching the Bobcats, leading them to a whopping seven wins during the 66-game 2011-12 season, and letting his son occasionally coach the team just for shits.
Best: Jerry Sloan
Coaching Seasons: 1979-82, 1988-2011
Teams: Bulls, Jazz
Record: 1221-803 (.603)
Before Deron Williams ran him out of town, Jerry Sloan served as head coach of the Utah Jazz for 23 years. Before that, he was a key contributor on NBA teams for 11 seasons in the 1960s and '70s—spending 10 of those years with the Bulls—and averaged 14 points and seven rebounds.
He then went on to coach the Bulls for three seasons in the '80s, before accepting the role he would serve for the next two decades. Sloan led the Stockton-and-Malone Jazz teams to 10 50-win seasons and back-to-back Finals appearances in 1997 and 1998. At 72, his days on the bench are likely over, but the Hall of Fame coach will go down as one of the best former players to transform his talents into tangible results as a coach.
Worst: Don Chaney
Coaching Seasons: 1984-86, 1988-92, 1993-95, 2001-04
Teams: Clippers, Rockets, Pistons, Knicks
Record: 337-494 (.406)
Don Chaney logged 12 seasons as a shooting guard in the NBA, managing to average double-digit points in four of those campaigns. After a lengthy career, including several seasons on very successful Celtics teams, a few teams suspected Chaney would make for good coaching material. Well, the record speaks for itself.
Chaney was fired from his first coaching gig after his third season in charge of the Clippers, when he presided over the worst season in Clips history. He was then given a second chance by the Houston Rockets, where he could hardly keep the Hakeem Olajuwon-led squad over .500 through his first two years. He was fired in the middle of the 1992 season, two years before Houston developed into back-to-back Finals champs under Rudy Tomjonavich.
After a stop in Detroit, where he won 48 games over two seasons, Chaney took control of the Knicks after Jeff Van Gundy left his position in 2001. His Knicks went a combined 72-112 over three seasons before he was given the axe for the final time in his coaching career.
Best: Pat Riley
Coaching Seasons: 1981-90, 1991-2003, 2005-08
Teams: Lakers, Knicks, Heat
Record: 1210-694 (.636)
Pat Riley wasn't always the maniacal, mobster-looking figure responsible for constructing the Miami Heat's Big Three. Over his near-half-decade in the NBA, he's donned many hats. The first of which was as a player. Riley played nine seasons in the NBA, averaging seven points for the Lakers, Suns and San Diego Rockets.
But he became a household name with the "Showtime" Lakers of the early 1980s, appearing in the Finals in seven of his first eight seasons as an NBA coach. With four rings to his name by the age of 42, Riley fled to New York after a nine-year run in tinsel town. He then presided over the Knicks for three seasons in the mid-1990s, including their 1994 Finals run. His no-layups mentality regarding the team's defense won the city over as quick as it came, but Pat the Rat earned his moniker in summer 1995, when he famously faxed in his resignation letter before joining Miami the following fall.
Riley nailed down one last coaching banner in 2006 with Miami, after he yanked the reigns back from Stan Van Gundy early in the season. With the book closed on his coaching career, the Heat President stands alone at fourth all-time in wins, second in playoff victories, and is still adding rings to his collection.
Worst: Kurt Rambis
Coaching Seasons: 1998-99, 2009-11
Teams: Lakers, Timberwolves
Record: 56-145 (.279)
If we were rattling off best and worst basketball swag of the 1980s, Kurt Rambis would have a very similar placement on that list. As far as playing careers go, Rambis was serviceable. He gave plenty of championship Lakers teams reliable minutes as a role player, which is far from an accurate depiction of his eventual coaching career. For a bit of foreshadowing, this incident with Kevin McHale should do the trick.
Rambis manned the Lakers' head coaching position on an interim basis in 1999, where he actually fared decently, going 24-13, proving that coaching Kobe and Shaq evidently wasn't all that challenging. But Rambo really should've quit while he was ahead.
Hired as the Timberwolves head coach in 2009, he led Minnesota to a brutal 32-132 record, and put his basketball brilliance on display when he advised Kevin Love to stop shooting threes altogether.
Kurt Rambis: Bad at looking cool on the basketball court, bad at not getting clotheslined by Kevin McHale, bad at being an NBA head coach.
Best: Phil Jackson
Coaching Seasons: 1989-97, 1999-2003, 2005-11
Teams: Bulls, Lakers
Record: 1155-485 (.704)
Perhaps the most glorified head coach the league has ever known, Phil Jackson's legacy lies almost completely in his accolades on the sideline. But the Zen Master was a player in a past life, and enjoyed a fairly lengthy career playing for the Knicks and Nets. Jackson spent 10 seasons in a Knicks uniform from 1967 to 1978, and logged 17 minutes per game on the 1973 banner-raising Knicks team, before finishing his career with the New Jersey Nets.
Of course, more memorably, Jackson's 11 titles and .704 winning percentage as head coach of the Bulls and Lakers rests in NBA lore forever. As far as a successful playing career translating to an even more fruitful coaching run, Phil might be the best example in all of sports.