As impressive as Mike Budenholzer’s background is, it’s also true that he hasn’t been a head coach. (“Never called a timeout,” as the time-honored industry knock goes.) He spelled Gregg Popovich for three games when the San Antonio coach took sick — “We were 3-0,” Budenholzer said of his brief star turn — but that’s not the same as being the man in charge.
When the Spurs’ season ends after the NBA Finals, Budenholzer will be in charge of the Hawks, or at least those few still under contract. We cannot know how he will fare, but a reasonable guess would be: Quite well, provided he’s given the tools.
After Budenholzer was introduced at Philips Arena on Wednesday, Hawks general manager Danny Ferry mentioned three prominent NBA coaches — Tom Thibodeau of Chicago, Frank Vogel of Indiana and Erik Spoelstra of Miami. None had been a head coach before assuming their current positions; all have done nicely. Said Ferry: “You can make the argument that Bud is as prepared if not more prepared than any of those.”
You can. Nineteen years spent in the league’s best organization counts for a lot. Over that time, the Spurs have grown from a meat-and-potatoes franchise — “Really old-school,” said Ferry, likewise a San Antonio alum — to innovators in player development, in the use of advanced analytics, in pretty much everything.
This isn’t a case of Ferry giving his bud, pun intended, a vocational break. This is one bright guy hiring another for all the right reasons. Ferry on his new coach: “Bud has a really strong foundation, a knowledge of the league and a clear vision of how his team will play. … That’s a great place to start — being smart and knowing how you want your team to play.”
How does Budenholzer want his team to play? “We want to have an organized offense and an organized defense. We want our players to have roles and be accountable.”
Granted, no new coach has ever stood before the assembled media and said, “I’m just going to roll out the balls and let the players do as they please.” All coaches say essentially the same thing. The difference between those NBA coaches who win big and those who don’t has less to do with coaching than with playing.
Red Auerbach won nine league titles, none without Bill Russell. Pat Riley won five, none without the pairings of Magic Johnson/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Shaquille O’Neal/Dwyane Wade. Phil Jackson won 11, none without Michael Jordan or O’Neal or Kobe Bryant. A clever coach can take good players and make them champions; he cannot take bad players and make them good.
Ferry can do everything right — almost a year on the job, he has so far — but it won’t yield the desired result unless/until he supplies his new coach with top-shelf talent. Would Spoelstra be included on the list of coaching elites if his best player was, say, Josh Smith? Thibodeau moved heaven and earth to drive the Bulls past Brooklyn in Round 1, but without Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, his men lost in five to LeBron and Co.
In his final public appearance as Hawks coach, Larry Drew sounded the NBA’s One Great Truth: Talent wins. Ferry spoke Wednesday of “building the right core — from the front office to the coaches to practices to the draft,” but nobody would have begun to view San Antonio as a model organization if the Spurs hadn’t lucked out in the 1997 lottery and landed Tim Duncan.
This isn’t to denigrate Ferry’s grand vision. If the Hawks do land the requisite superstar(s), these core principles could prove the difference between being a Round 2 loser and an NBA finalist. As Ferry keeps saying: “We want to get the basketball right.” The biggest part of basketball, however, is its players.
(Let’s note that Ferry once was an NBA player. Note also that Budenholzer, when a reporter referred to Ferry’s pre-empting of a question Wednesday as “a block,” recalled Ferry’s defensive prowess and said: “He never blocked a shot.” GM and coach laughed hearty laughs.)
Speaking of his long San Antonio apprenticeship, Budenholzer said: “I feel like I’ve done everything I can to be prepared.” The same applies to the organization he’s joining. Step by step, Ferry has moved this franchise into a position where it could well reap a windfall should the right free agents agree to take the Hawks’ money.
That last bit remains the harder part by far. Hiring Mike Budenholzer was a great way to start the offseason, but it was, in the grand scheme, rather easy. Hiring Dwight Howard and/or Chris Paul will prove more difficult.
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