Sam Smith

You run an NBA team and your first thought is to get a big man. It's usually the surest way to success.

So how come when you get someone to guide your team it’s never a big man?

I was thinking about this the other day after talking to Scottie Pippen about the possibility of him coaching someday in the NBA.

I told Pippen he needed coaching experience first.

He asked me why.

Pippen asks questions like this, like when Phil Jackson told him to pass to Toni Kukoc for that potential game-winning shot against the Knicks in the 1994 playoffs. They are not always great questions for Pippen, but he does know the game and Jackson made him, in effect, the decision-maker on those great Bulls teams of the 1990's. He told Pippen to pass that night because he thought Pippen would make the right call. Pippen didn't, however, when he elected not to play the possession, but in the games he almost always did.

So why does someone have to sit next to a coach for years or coach in the minor leagues or overseas before becoming an NBA coach? Why isn't making split second decisions in the biggest games ever enough experience?

Pippen had a good point. Larry Bird never coached. But he got a pair of good assistants, went to the NBA Finals, and was coach of the year. Doc Rivers never coached and was coach of the year in Orlando. Avery Johnson barely was an assistant. Pat Riley was mostly a broadcaster. Don Nelson was trying to get into referee school. Isiah Thomas never coached and had a nice three-year run with the Pacers. Doug Collins was a natural without any real experience other than studying the game every day of his life and being an NBA All-Star.

It's said to be difficult to find a coach in the NBA, and year after year teams take chances on untried assistants or recycle coaches who have been fired numerous times. Often, it doesn't work out. Why don't teams take a shot on someone like Mark Price or Eddie Johnson, the latter a Suns broadcaster who is one of the most astute observers of the game? Perhaps Jeff Ruland or Joey Meyer from the D-league. Maybe Derek Harper, a tough floor leader who could be the next Jerry Sloan. Or how about Adrian Dantley — who has paid his dues sitting on benches as an assistant — or Darrell Walker.

Which leads me to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Also to Patrick Ewing, who is an assistant now in Orlando after working with the other Van Gundy brother in Houston on the bench.

In Abdul-Jabbar, you have a man who was always regarded as not only one of the top five or 10 players in the history of the game, but a dedicated competitor and one of the more cerebral players ever. That usually means in sports someone who reads newspapers.

Abdul-Jabbar actually read books. Thick ones.

It's a joke, but there's something to it as well. Kareem has interests beyond basketball though basketball was his life. Perhaps with a slightly different personality he'd have been Phil Jackson.

But he virtually had to beg for coaching work, and only now works with young big men with the Lakers.

How would Kareem not be able to think and prepare for an NBA game?

Same with Patrick Ewing. Both are quiet, reserved, dignified men who didn't have great relations with the media.

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But if there is a bias in the most unbiased game in sports, it's against big men in coaching.

The NBA Guide and Register of the league's history lists 31 coaches under the category of All Time Great Coaches. Twenty-one were guards and 10 were forwards. The tallest are Phil Jackson and Rudy Tomjanovich, each listed at 6-8.

Currently, among the 30 NBA coaches, 22 played guard and the other eight are forwards. The tallest is Milwaukee's Larry Krystkowiak listed at 6-9.

Yes, there have been big men who have coached.

Johnny Kerr, still a broadcaster with the Bulls, remains the only NBA expansion team coach to make the playoffs. Bill Russell got two titles with the Celtics (while also a player) after Red Auerbach retired. Bill Cartwright got a brief fling with the Bulls. Dave Cowens got a couple of shots and remains an assistant in Detroit. Wilt Chamberlain took a stab at it in the ABA as he tried just about everything.

Though the profile is clear: Be a guard.

Sure, guards are generally regarded as the quarterbacks of the game, yet at the same time teams always complain how they cannot develop big men. Who better to do it than the coach? And who better to find the right way to utilize a big man than a coach who played the position? It remains the most important position on the floor. Have a great big man and you are guaranteed to contend. Then you need a great guard to go with him. Have the great guard — other than Michael Jordan — without the great big man and it doesn't really work.

Yet, the big guys almost never get the chance. Maybe it's time. After all, one of the best ever in Jackson didn't handle the ball, and when he did his teammates grimaced. Though few see the game better and can teach it better. It's time for the NBA to drop its only true embarrassing bias.