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Most Overrated NBA Coaches in History

by Jeremy Block - 6/19/2025

Most overrated NBA coaches Doc Rivers

There’s no shortage of overhyped coaches in the NBA. Some rode coattails like a city bus, others got career boosts just by showing up at the right time, and plenty stood there coaching teams that barely needed direction thanks to rosters already stacked to the ceiling. 

Don’t get it wrong: this list isn’t about coaches that were bad, necessarily. It’s about the ones who got more praise or attention than they earned. They might’ve won games, maybe even titles. However, when you really break it down, the hype surrounding them never quite matched their resume. Let’s get into and name names.

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Doc Rivers

A motivator? Maybe. A top-tier tactician? Let’s not get carried away. Doc Rivers gets brought up like he’s some sort of playoff wizard. However, under the lens, his track history is brutal. He’s lost a record 10 Game 7s, and he's the only coach in league history to blow three different 3-1 playoff series leads. Yes, his 2008 Celtics Championship win is nice, sure—but if your coaching resume includes holding records for most losses of any kind, maybe it's time to pump the brakes on the legacy talk.

What makes it worse is the talent Rivers has worked with. Paul Pierce, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Joel Embiid, James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Call me crazy, but it's like giving someone a Ferrari and watching them stall out in the driveway repeatedly. All in all, Rivers had great teams, wasted opportunities, and is by far one of the most padded reputations in NBA history.

Mike D’Antoni

There’s no denying D’Antoni made the game more fun. His Phoenix Suns teams ran the floor like they had dinner reservations, and his Houston Rockets teams made 3-pointers feel like layups. But his career playoff record stands at just 54–56, and he never reached the Finals—even with rosters featuring Steve Nash, James Harden, Amar’e Stoudemire, Chris Paul, and Carmel Anthony.

Look, D’Antoni coached MVPs, built deep benches, and had all the pace-and-space in the world. What he didn’t have was a backup plan when his offense ran dry come playoff time. And let’s not forget defense. D’Antoni treated defense as an optional class that he never enrolled in. So, taking that all into account, was he overrated? Yeah. Big time.

Steve Kerr

Let’s just call it what it is. Steve Kerr inherited a loaded roster (thanks to Mark Jackson) and managed to not crash the car. That’s not the same thing as assembling your own squad from the ground up like other coaches. Hear me out—he took over a 51-win team and turned them into a dynasty, but the core: Steph Curry, Klay Thomspon, and Draymond Green were already in place. 

To be fair, yes, he does have four rings and a .655 career win percentage. But when your biggest challenge is whether to start Andre Iguodala over other All-Star level players or not, I wouldn’t say your job requires much brain power. I'll leave it at this: Do you think Kerr still wins those rings without all the elite players he had during those runs? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Larry Brown

Larry Brown is somehow both legendary and wildly overrated. Yes, I said that. Look, Brown coached nine NBA teams, and most of those runs ended with more drama than anything else. Yes, he won a title in 2004 with Detroit—credit where it’s due. But his overall playoff record was 120-115, which puts him firmly in “meh” territory if you strip away the one championship with the Pistons.

He’s got a Hall of Fame plaque, a national title, and a bunch of people calling him a “basketball genius.”. However, more often than not his NBA stints turned into a headache. Teaching the “right way” only gets you so far when your teams consistently flatline in the second round.

Doug Collins

Doug Collins always had this aura around him—like he was the bridge between the old-school grind and modern basketball mentality. But here’s the thing: he coached a young, hungry Michael Jordan and couldn’t even get past the second round of playoffs. That’s like being handed the keys to a rocket ship and never making it off the launch pad.

He coached four different NBA teams: the Bulls, Pistons, Wizards, and Sixers, and never once made a conference finals, let alone the Finals. His career playoff record? 23-33. That’s not bad luck. That’s just not getting it done. Yet somehow, Collins was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2024 as a “contributor”. I might catch some flack for saying this, but at some point, all that basketball intellect has to translate into wins, and he never really made that leap.

George Karl

You can’t be shocked with my next pick here, at all. George Karl may have stacked up 1,175 career wins, which looks great until you realize the postseason is where his legacy just nosedives. His playoff record is 80-105, with just one Western Conference Championship in a 27-year career. He had stars at nearly every team he coached: Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Ray Allen, Carmelo Anthony, and even Allen Iverson. What do they all have in common? None of them won anything.

He clashed with rosters constantly, threw players under the bus in crunch situations, and never adjusted when things got rough. You can’t call someone one of the greats if their entire career is a long stint of underachieving.

Byron Scott

Last but not least: Byron Scott. Scott had a coaching career that somehow got better the less effective he was. His overall record? A grim 454-647, which makes you question how he still coached for as long as he did. 

Even when he had talent, like Jason Kidd in New Jersey or Chris Paul in New Orleans, he couldn’t break through (this is coming from a Nets fan). To make matters worse, Scott’s refusal to revamp his offensive strategy made him look a decade behind the times. Coaches can evolve. Scott just aged.

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