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Celtics 101: Who are the notable coaches in Celtics history?
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AP Photo/Chuck Burton: Doc makes the list.
Red Auerbach (1950-1966, 795-397, .667 win %, 9 titles)
Bill Russell (1966-1969, 162-83, .661, 2)
Tommy Heinsohn (1969- 1978, 427-263, .619, 2)
K.C. Jones (1983-1988, 308-102, .751, 2)
M.L. Carr (1995-1997, 48-116, .296, 0)
Rick Pitino (1997-2001, 102-146, .411, 0)
Doc Rivers (2004-present, 230-180, .561, 1)
Red Auerbach: It’s a simple concept: you win a championship in a major sports city, and you’ll be remembered for a long time. You win multiple championships, and you’ll be remembered forever. Red Auerbach brought the Celtics to the top of the mountain many times throughout his career. So much so, that he was the face of the franchise after his coaching days were done and he moved into the front office. Even after his death, people within the organization still reference Red from time to time, and the Celtics’ recent championship brought upon many references to the architect of the vast majority of past Celtics’ titles. Simply put, he set the standard for the Celtics both as a coach, and as a front office executive, and nobody will be as successful in both positions as Red was. He developed and/or brought countless talent into the organization: Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish are just a few examples.
Phil Jackson may be a talented coach, but he never had to build a team like Red did. Jackson, with all due respect, inherited the talented rosters that he coached, and let others bring in the talent while he focused on the x’s and ‘o’s. The debate will never cease over who is the best coach in NBA history, even though technically Phil earned that title by winning ring #10 last year. Just that statement alone, without even looking at his record or his accomplishments in the front office, make Red the best coach in Celtics history, and a man who should never be forgotten.
Bill Russell: Russell is viewed as one of the best players of all time, and that’s an honor in itself. But to couple that with coaching duties, which were bestowed upon him later in his career, is simply astonishing. He was the first African American coach in the NBA, and if that wasn’t pressure enough, he had to follow Red’s act as he walked into retirement. Russell successfully adopted the coaching duties while still providing his customary solid play (albeit his play began to slip at this time, mostly due to age rather than the overload of responsibility) and leadership on the floor, leading the Celtics to two more titles.
For Russell to succeed like he did, in a town not known for its political correctness and in a nation during a time of uneven racial bigotry, is remarkable. To do it as a player-coach while also cementing himself as one of the best players in the history of the game is something that Celtics fans should cherish forever.
Tommy Heinsohn/KC Jones: Today, Heinsohn is mostly known for his boisterous color commentary during Celtics broadcasts and his trademark “Tommy Points,” but he was also a great player and coach. Prior to Doc, Jones was the most recent African American coach to win an NBA title.
Two separate rebuilding periods during the Celtics history occurred under the watch of Heinsohn and Jones. Heinsohn had Dave Cowens, John Havlicek, and Jo Jo White to lean on, while Jones had the original Big Three of Bird, McHale, and Parish.
It’s easy to dismiss the accomplishments of these two because of the rosters that they had, particularly Jones, but just like with today’s coaches, the handling of egos, pride, and stats was an important job responsibility, even if it is significantly more so today. Trying to monitor, sustain, and nurture a winning, team-first environment when you have a locker room of superstars is not easy. However, let’s not think that they simply relied on their stars to win them championships. Both men are regarded as solid coaches who continued the Celtics’ championship tradition. Jones and Heinsohn, with the support and aura of Red and the Celtic history to support them, accomplished these feats to the tune of two titles each.
M.L. Carr: Carr was a solid bench player for the Celtics during the ‘80’s, but he clearly was overmatched as a coach. Admittedly, he didn’t have a ton of talent to work with, but the look of a tired, overwhelmed, and defeated Carr is stamped in my brain’s photo gallery forever.
Speaking of roster talent…
While it’s no surprise that Carr didn’t win a ring with his provided roster, it is fairly surprising that he failed to win more games than he did. Carr had Dino Radja, Rick Fox, Eric Williams, and Dee Brown. That’s not elite talent by any means, but I could have coached those guys to a winning percentage better than 30%. While Chris Ford oversaw the disastrous handling of the Big Three’s final years, it was Carr who was on watch while the franchise completely plummeted into the abyss.
Rick Pitino: Pitino made memories for Boston fans to hold and cherish, but those memories are of embarrassing moments involving Pitino tarnishing his coaching legacy, not enhancing it. And that was before the sex scandal that he’s had to deal with this year.
Pitino would often be seen stomping his feet, screaming instructions to his player all game, every game. It’s one thing to be a hands-on coach, and it’s another thing to be so thoroughly smothering that your players begin to not only tune you out, but want nothing to do with you. As the player’s patience wore thin with Pitino, his wore thin with his players, the media, and the fans. His infamous post-game rant about his current roster, and that the Big Three weren’t “coming through that door” to help bail him and the franchise out will never be forgotten.
Pitino not only smothered his players, but also overhauled the roster, and made poor personnel decisions regarding who to bring in and keep. He got rid of Chauncey Billups, in the middle of his rookie year no less, plus Dee Brown, Rick Fox, and David Wesley, and signed off on big contracts for Tony Battie and Vitaly Potapenko. Not exactly a good string of moves.
To put it bluntly, Pitino was viewed as a hard-working savior who would get the Celtics back on the right track and restore the glory that the previous regimes brought to the Celtics franchise. Instead, he deadened any chances the franchise had of recovering quickly from the M.L. Carr and Chris Ford eras. The drafting of Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker, and Jim O’Brien’s (Pitino’s successor) subsequent slackening of the reigns (and putting his stars in the driver’s seat, rather than himself) led to the Celtics making the playoffs in the 2001 season, which was the first full season without Pitino at the helm.
Doc Rivers: Doc has been a polarizing figure in Boston. At first, it seemed like every pundit and fan wanted Doc out after his second or third year on the job. Doc watched from the bench as the playoff team he inherited quickly sank to the depths of the Eastern Conference, bottoming out in 2006 (his third year) with only 24 wins. We all know the story after that, with Danny Ainge acquiring Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, and Boston falling in love with the worst-to-first Celtics.
However, one can’t gloss over Doc’s first few years in Boston. Sure, he slowly had less and less talent to work with, but his rotation decisions and mid-game strategies struck a negative chord with fans and media alike. It was not uncommon for people to feel that Doc was being outcoached on a nightly basis, and that can’t happen when you’re dealing with moderate talent. That’s the time for the coaching staff to elevate his team, not allow it to fall into the ranks of the also-rans.
Doc’s success with the Celtics has basically been laid at the feet of the best players he’s been allowed to coach. When he’s been given a good, healthy team, he’s done well. If he isn’t, then he’ll do poorly. Any coach can do that. And that’s why Doc still hasn’t won over the majority of the fanbase. Until Doc can do more than simply manage a game and his team’s star personalities, then people will consider him to be a mediocre coach who was lucky enough to coach an excellent roster of players. Sure, he oversaw the development of players like Al Jefferson, Rajon Rondo, and Kendrick Perkins, but the development of the big men can mostly be attributed to his assistants, like Clifford Ray, who specialize in post work. Doc’s major contribution has been working with Rondo, and even then it’s hard to see too much progress there. The improvements in Rondo’s game are natural, and I don’t necessarily see where Doc’s influence comes into play: the game has slowed down for him, he makes more mature decisions, and he runs the offense (in a system that he’s now been in for a while) smoothly. Doc’s fingerprints are there, but not to the extent that he deserves a tremendous amount of accolades.
Doc has done a solid job as the head of the Celtics, but again, he’s mostly been a game manager. Let’s see how he does over the next few years, as his coaching ability will need to begin to make up for the decrease in contributions coming from the aging Big Three.
So, those are the Celtics coaches you need to know. Doc’s successor will have his work cut out for him if he wants to add his name to this list.
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