"Things are not what the seem"-Disclosure 1994
The typical sports guy, which is certainly not limited to "us" regular folk and extends to people in the mainstream media, too often fall into the trap of mis-attributing outcomes and occurrences. To further illustrate and display some of the more egregious or rather noteworthy, Mike Brown '08-'09, Byron Scott '07-'08, Sam Mitchell '06-'07, Avery Johnson '05-'06, Mike D'Antoni '04-'05, and Hubie Brown '03-'04 won the last 6 Coach of the Year Awards. Not only do these coaches share this award, but also they have been straight up fired, not re-signed, let go, and/or called awful. 1 of the 6 last coaches of the year is still with the same team. And, the only coach that remains with the same team, Mike Brown, is widely accepted to be awful, unimaginative, and powerless.
Sportynation, I find it hard to believe that all of these coaches were absolutely fantastic and great and the best in world at what they do, coach, but a year or two later are terrible. There has to be more at play than than the easy/lazy attribution and overstatement of the coach's worth. I am of the camp that believes that players such Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, LeBron James, Pau Gasol, Chris Bosh, and Chris Paul are more responsible for the team's ultimate success rather than the coach. Indeed, the coach has some importance, but that importance seems to be greatly overstated.
A real life example can be found in day to day business. Simplistically, juxtapose the leader with the absolute best employees in the world with the leader with the worst employees in the world. The leader with the best employees will more often than not be more successful.
Sportynation, all I am saying is that we shouldn't act in haste. We should think more and not automatically take the easy points of view and stances by default. Without a doubt, the leader is the dominant image of the team, company, but there are workers as well. Without workers, the leader is nothing particularly in a ridiculously highly specialized industry, professional sports, where the workers value/worth is amplified and tremendous, and the coach's value diminished. The workers are paid more than the coach or leader for a multitude of reasons that I will tangentially explore in a future post.
Sportynation, be smart, be different, and try something new. This is my Minority Report.
The leader deservedly or not, takes credit for the success and blame for the failures. That's just the way it is. A lot of times, the coaches are the scapegoat when the team fails, and credit is exaggerated when the team succeeds. It's two-fold.
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