As the Timberwolves signed Luol Deng, turning the Timberbulls from a league-wide inside joke into a frightening reality, I reflected on their decision to anoint Tom Thibodeau both Head Coach and President of Basketball Operations. The choice to make someone in the NBA both the coach and GM is a dangerous one. It’s a situation so rarely done correctly and so often done tragically. Being both an NBA coach and GM is difficult and removes a key give-and-take between player acquirement and player utilization.
There have only been three instances where hiring someone as both coach and personnel decision-maker led to a championship: Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, and Red Auerbach. Incredible sidenote about Popovich: he was tasked to find a head coach, already making the personnel decisions as GM of the Spurs, and he chose himself. I would love to see that happen in any other professional field outside of sports. All three are transcendent coaching figures in the game, each changing the way it was played. Unfortunately, for most teams that try it, these three remain the distant outliers to the rest of the league.
The three most recent examples stand in stark contrast: Stan Van Gundy, Doc Rivers, and the aforementioned Tom Thibodeau. Of the three, Van Gundy has been completely fired, Rivers has had his personnel powers revoked, and Thibodeau’s seat is becoming increasingly hot.
In all three situations, the teams trended downwards during their tenure. The Pistons never even sniffed the second round of the playoffs, getting dispatched with ease by LeBron, Kyrie, and Co. in four games in their only appearance over three years. Now, the Pistons find themselves saddled with both Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin’s contract, an average price of $26.7 million over the next three years, with a fourth-year for Griffin. To put a cherry on top of the already bloated sundae, the Pistons selected Luke Kennard 12th before Rookie of the Year runner-up Donovan Mitchell went 13th to the Jazz.
The Clippers traded for Doc Rivers, launching Lob City and years of injuries, pettiness, and blame thrown around. The Clippers stripped Rivers of personnel decision-making and have since cleaned house, shipping their core and rebuilding under the tutelage of ex-Golden State front office sage and “the Logo” Jerry West. While the Clippers did have their most successful years in franchise history under Rivers, I don’t think any Clips fans would recognize him as a good front office exec.
Tom Thibodeau was handed the reins of arguably the best young core at the time with rising stars Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns in addition to complimentary pieces Zach LaVine, Tyus Jones, and Gorgui Dieng. Now, the Wolves find themselves in dire straits. Thibs has turned that hopeful squad into an angsty, underperforming, eight-year reunion of his 2010 Chicago squad. LaVine was dealt along with the pick that became Lauri Markkanen for Jimmy Butler and the pick that became Justin Patton. Wiggins plateaued right as he received a max contract, and Towns stews as the team that was his to lead has been turned over to Butler and shot-heavy veterans like Derrick Rose and Jamal Crawford.
Players like Rose, Crawford, Gibson, and Deng steal minutes and opportunities from the development of young players like Jones, Dieng, Patton, and rookie Keita Bates-Diop.
The Timberwolves are the clearest example of the need to separate the coach from personnel decisions. They went from one of the brightest upcoming stars in the league to one of the warning tales of the dangers of mishandling stars. There’s a real chance Butler leaves in free agency, leaving them in a similar spot to where they were before but with worse relationships with their two best young players.
And, there is no responsibility to Thibodeau’s actions beyond the owner. There’s no GM to tell him to support their younger players more, no GM to tell Thibodeau to not play his top talent an absurdly high amount, and there’s no Head Coach to tell the GM that acquiring the best of the late 2000s-early 2010s Bulls is a terrible idea.
So, if your team is the next team to consider allowing coach control over personnel, think about Thibodeau before you think about Popovich.