St. John’s very capable yet unknown assistant coach Mike Dunlap, who served more as the team’s head coach while coach Steve Lavin was recovering from surgery this past season, has accepted the head coaching job for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats according to a report on the NBA’s website.
The Charlotte Observer first reported the news and already coach Lavin has offered up his congratulations. “The Johnnies basketball family is ecstatic for coach Dunlap’s opportunity. Mike’s selection as the Charlotte Bobcats’ head coach is a well-deserved honor. To make the unprecedented jump from college assistant to NBA head coach is testament to both Mike’s abilities as a teacher and our basketball program’s marked improvement over the past 27 months.”
A few questions may come to mind about this somewhat unlikely hiring. Here are the immediate ones and the rationale behind them.
1. Why would an NBA franchise hire a college assistant coach when college head coaches already have enough trouble making the transition?
The track record for college coaches making the transition to NBA head coaches is not considered a great one. A number of them have tried only to be released after the experiment failed. Just take a look at one of the best college coaches in the game, John Calipari.
Calipari was hired as coach (and general manager) of the New Jersey Nets in 1996 after resurrecting UMass’s basketball. He led the team to the playoffs in his second season (they were swept in the first round) and after starting the next season at 3-17, Calipari was promptly fired and headed back to the college ranks in Memphis.
There have been other greats that have failed. College coaching legend Rick Pitino was coach of the New York Knicks for two seasons before going to back to the college ranks to lead the Kentucky program back to greatness. He then took over the Boston Celtics as head coach (and general manager) starting with the 1997–98 season. After three and a half playoff-less seasons Pitino was out and headed back to the college ranks.
Were both coaches bad NBA coaches? Not really. They just didn’t have the talent to win immediately or enough success under their belts to let management allow them time to find and then coach the right players to lead them to success.
Hopefully Mike Dunlap enjoys more success than those two.
2. Why would an NBA team want coach Mike Dunlap in particular?
Dunlap does have some NBA experience on his resume, serving an assistant on George Karl’s staff at Denver from 2006–08 when the Nuggets went a combined 95–69.
Even more than that, the Bobcats probably looked at his coaching these past two seasons at St. John’s and realized what a tremendous job he did.
First in the 2010–11 season, Dunlap was part of tremendous turnaround that saw the St. John’s program go from a 17–16 also-ran to a 21–12 contender that really came on in January to finish in the upper half of college basketball’s toughest conference, the Big East.
Certainly there is a lot of credit that could go around for that success, after all Steve Lavin was in charge during that time. But in all fairness to both Lavin and Dunlap, Lavin’s biggest skill is his recruiting prowess, while Dunlap is more of a strategist.
The likeable Lavin is the perfect face of the program for a major contender like St. John’s while Dunlap was known as a tremendous “Xs and Os” coach, and the two made a great team.
But with Lavin out most of this past season, Dunlap was at the helm of the program and was complimented everywhere for the miracle job he pulled off.
The 54-year-old somehow kept the team competitive despite the loss of everyone who played meaningful minutes the year before. After some attrition early in the season he was left with just six players—five were freshman—and somehow the team went 13–19 and 6–12 in the Big East, finishing ahead of programs like Pittsburgh and Villanova.
3. Is this a good job for Dunlap?
3. Is this a good job for Dunlap?
Dunlap could be a good NBA coach. Whether he gets the chance to show that or not is another story.
This is a very tough job. The Charlotte Bobcats went 7–59 last season and their 10.6 winning percentage was the worst in NBA history. Most of the reason for that is that the team is simply devoid of talent and the front office has not been very patient.
This is a team that fired Hall-of-Fame coach Larry Brown last year after a 9–19 start, despite Brown leading them to their only ever appearance in the playoffs just the year before. Currently the team has few good players and couldn’t even capitalize on their historically awful season in the draft, by ending up with the second pick. Had they gotten the first pick, future-stud Anthony Davis would have been theirs to choose and the future would look much brighter.
Part of the reason Calipari’s and Pitino’s NBA careers were cut short was because they didn’t quite have the talent to win. While both coaches had general manager power, in addition to head coaching duties, it takes time to rebuild a team (both coaches inherited teams that needed a rebuild) and it really takes great players to win in the NBA.
Consider this: even the great coach Phil Jackson, who has an NBA-record 11 NBA titles to his resume was only able to get his Lakers to the first round of the playoffs in each of his first two years (2006 and 2007) of his second stint in Los Angeles. Those teams had the great Kobe Bryant, in his prime, as well as a young Lamar Odom.
Normally losing in the first round, in back-to-back seasons, at a legendary franchise such as the Lakers is grounds for firing but Jackson, who had already won nine titles at the time, wasn’t going anywhere. Why? Because everyone knew he didn’t have the players to win a title with yet—even management. Will Dunlap be afforded that luxury? Probably not.
Dunlap is inheriting a much worse roster (no one is even close to Kobe Bryant on this team) and has much less than nine titles on his resume to keep him afloat. Still, it’s a major foot in the door, and few would turn down an NBA head coaching job, if only to get that much-envied experience.
4. What does this mean for St. John’s basketball?
St. John’s will definitely miss Dunlap but should be alright and their players and coaches have benefited from his strategic knowledge this past season.
While Dunlap was busy plotting his game strategy this past season, Lavin was recovering from surgery while on the recruiting trail. Doing what he does best, he found the Johnnies a number of four-star prospects that have verbally committed for next season and their class could be as large as six players. With five players returning with plenty of experience under their belts after last year, St. John’s should see plenty of success in the near future. Hopefully the same will be said about Dunlap’s NBA career.
