NBA Coaching Trees and a look at the 2007-08 Boston Celtics
An interesting network to look at is NBA coaching trees. An NBA team has one head coach, but that coach has several assistant coaches working under him. The nodes are head coaches or ex head coaches, and edges are formed between a head coach and his ex-assistant coaches who have become head coaches. Although the network is one giant node going all the way back to Dr. James Naismith with a few isolated components, several prominent coaching trees have emerged over the last few decades.
Certain trees have a reputation for certain playing styles. The most consistent tree is the Jeff Van Gundy tree, almost to the point of hilarity. His three underlings Clifford, Thibodeau, and Malone are renowned for their defensive coaching. The largest modern tree is the Gregg Popovich tree. This tree has a more varied sampling which makes sense as Popovich’s coaching style is based on being adaptive. However, the playing style of this tree is more focused on offense than defense.
In the 2007-08 season, the Boston Celtics coached by Doc Rivers acquired two all-star caliber players; however, their most important acquisition might have been an assistant coach named Tom Thibodeau. That year the Celtics went to being 1st in defensive efficiency up from 19th the year before. Doc Rivers biggest weakness as a coach has always been his team’s defense. By having a coach from another tree join his staff, his team was exposed to a novel defense strategy that they wouldn’t have if Rivers had hired someone he was more familiar with. This combination of Rivers and Thibodeau ended up leading the Celtics to a championship that year.
Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1898409-shaking-the-nba-coaching-trees