An NBA team stripped personnel control from its coach. Can the Clippers do the same?
The Hawks took the front office back from Mike Budenholzer but kept him as coach. L.A. should really try to do the same.
The Atlanta Hawks are always innovating under the radar. The franchise pulled out another new trick last week when they stripped personnel power from head coach Mike Budenholzer.
Budenholzer, the longtime Gregg Popovich protegé, was hired as head coach in 2013 by fellow Spurs Family Tree member Danny Ferry and his assistant Wes Wilcox. A year later, Ferry came under fire after recordings of his racially-charged comments about Luol Deng behind the scenes came to light. Budenholzer was given front office control and Wilcox was elevated to the general manager role.
On Friday, Hawks franchise owner Tony Ressler — who bought the team in the wake of the Ferry scandal — sidelined Wilcox and took control of the front office from Budenholzer. The team will now seek a full-time general manager to lead the front office.
This is a rare conclusion to the inevitable problems that arise when coaches can’t handle personnel control. Usually, you just fire the individual and start from scratch. The Hawks were in a pickle because Budenholzer is a phenomenal coach. There’s no one on the market who’d be better. You’d like to keep him in that role while adding a more experienced personnel manager, someone who can spend the winter and spring scouting instead of coaching.
It appears the Hawks will do just that. Budenholzer’s contract situation is mysterious, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere right now. Wilcox has been re-assigned as an adviser to the owner; if he wants real control again, he can and likely will leave. While there is little movement among the coaching ranks this summer, front office jobs have been relatively fluid.
The bigger question that the machinations of what comes next in Atlanta is whether other franchises are willing to decouple the front office and the sidelines.
Target No. 1: the Los Angeles Clippers.
Doc Rivers is a championship coach. He’s also an aggravating front office executive. Lawrence Frank (a coach) is Doc’s top front office deputy. Dave Wohl (a longtime coach with a few scattered years of front office experience) is the team’s official general manager. Gary Sacks, a Clippers lifer who climbed the ladder, is one of two assistant GMs. Four years ago, he was in Frank’s spot and he’s been knocked down a few pegs. The other assistant GM is Gerald Madkins, a retired player who has put in his time as a scout and executive.
This is a front office run by coaches. And it’s a front office that has failed the Clippers’ actual coach, who is Doc Rivers. Doc The Coach is good, possibly great. Doc The GM is a disaster.
Los Angeles has an enormous number of questions this summer with three of its top four players hitting free agency. But the biggest quandary of all may be whether franchise owner Steve Ballmer can wrestle control of the front office away from Rivers without having to fire him in total. Can Ballmer do what the Hawks did and fire the GM but keep the coach when the GM and the coach are the same person?
Rivers is due another $20 million or so. There is not a sure-bet coaching candidate better than Doc on the market. (The coaching market is rather thin, which may be another reason for the abnormal stability.) Is the risk of losing Coach Doc greater than the risk keeping GM Doc ... especially in a pivotal summer? That’s the question Ballmer has to ponder.
The Detroit Pistons might have a similar issue, though Stan Van Gundy has had less time to mold his roster. He seems miserable. The team was a mess this year. The Reggie Jackson gambit does not seem to have paid off, the Pistons weren’t able to pull off an impact trade at the deadline this year, and Andre Drummond isn’t improving on a year-to-year basis.
The only other team with a combo coach and general manager is the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have been under that regime for just one year. The Milwaukee Bucks avoided letting Jason Kidd take front office control in a strange little power struggle two years ago. The San Antonio Spurs are their own paradigm: Popovich has full control but lets R.C. Buford do the necessary work. (He also trusts R.C. and vice-versa.) All other NBA teams have separate front office leaders and head coaches.
That’s how it should be. Skills don’t inherently translate. They are both 70-hour-a-week jobs. Even with strong support staff, it’s extraordinarily hard for one person, no matter how brilliant, to do both well.
The jobs also require different priorities in many cases. Coaches will do just about anything to win every night. General managers are focused on the long-term. When the coach and personnel manager are the same person, those objectives get twisted. The coach usually wins that invisible battle. The Clippers’ roster — light on developed draft picks, heavy on veterans -- is a testament to that.
Kudos to the Hawks for unraveling their little pecking order mess and finding a new leader for the front office. If Budenholzer does stick around as coach, kudos to him for acknowledging there’s a better way. Now let’s see if anyone else — especially the Clippers -- follows Atlanta’s lead.