Big Money Gives NBA Coaches Real Power

“Expect a miracle.” That’s the motto painted along the sidelines of the basketball court at Oral Roberts University, a school founded by a faith healer, but it could just as easily express the hopes of a few NBA franchises that have decided to pay big-name coaches some very big-time dollars to perform miracles with crippled teams. Pass the cash and say a prayer.

Money seldom has been an issue for NBA owners when it comes to shelling out mind-boggling sums for a franchise player. But it has taken until now for owners to conclude the guys at the end of the bench--the end closest to the scorer’s table--are valuable too.

The deal Pat Riley received two years ago in Miami for a reported $40 million and part ownership was startling, but in two years, he turned a struggling team into the Atlantic Division champion and Eastern Conference finalist, adding value to the team and giving rise to a new breed of “franchise coach.”

Now, the Eastern Conference is full of miracle-workers with a pocketful of dollars. Rick Pitino turned down a sweetheart deal to coach New Jersey last year (John Calipari eagerly grabbed Pitino’s leftovers, signing a five-year contract worth $15 million with the Nets) only to up the ante to a reported $70 million over 10 years to take over Boston this season. Larry Brown, the master of the turnaround for sick franchises, moved from Indiana to Philadelphia for $25 million over five years, and 67-year-old Chuck Daly was lured out of the television booth to Orlando by a three-year deal worth $15 million.

Expecting a different kind of miracle after Brown’s act wore thin, the Pacers hired Larry Bird, one of the game’s all-time great players, for $4.5 million per year in the hope his magic will rub off better than Magic Johnson’s did three years ago in his brief stint as coach of the Lakers. As a result of these mega-deals, the champion Chicago Bulls were forced to pay Phil Jackson $6 million to return for one year as Michael Jordan’s coach of choice, and millions in raises and extensions were passed out to the Knicks’ Jeff Van Gundy, Atlanta’s Lenny Wilkens, Cleveland’s Mike Fratello, Detroit’s Doug Collins and Houston’s Rudy Tomjanovich.

Reflecting on the profitable trend he started, Riley said, “Maybe it’s sending a message. It lets the players know this person is going to be there for awhile to try to establish a singular voice that will lead. The coach should be the one to have a lot to say about the team and how it’s coached and disciplined. The coach should be in charge.”

In the NBA, where high-salaried players often have been instrumental in getting low-salaried coaches fired, this comes as a novel concept. As player salaries have spun ot of control, so have players. Orlando lost Shaquille O’Neal, in part, because he didn’t get along with Coach Brian Hill. In an attempt to prevent Penny Hardaway from following Shaq out the door, Hill was fired in the middle of last season.

“We live in a time where the laws of economics have changed,” Riley said. “Salaries to players are sometimes totally outrageous. Now, big salaries are going to the men who coach the teams. It’s overdue. The men who are getting it are, for the most part, men who have carved out something . . . Whether they’re perceived as CEOs, I don’t think anybody wants that, but maybe it’s a good analogy.”

Riley is the only one with a stake in ownership, but Pitino has total control of the Celtics’ operation. Calipari is the ultimate authority with the Nets, and Brown has control over personnel with the 76ers. Daly says he shares power with Magic General Manager John Gabriel, but you can believe his opinion carries the most weight.

Pitino and Brown are looking at full-scale salvage jobs. The Celtics won a franchise-worst 15 games last season, while the 76ers managed only 22 wins. Calipari, in his first NBA job after transforming UMass from a rinky-dink program into a college power, managed only 26 wins as a rookie coach but has collected enough offensive talent through some imaginative wheeling and dealing to make the Nets believe they are headed up. Daly was brought into a winning situation to forestall a slide to disaster.

Considering the money teams have tied up in players, it makes sound business sense to invest in a coach capable of running the corporation. “I had one owner I talked to--not the Boston Celtics--who said he was looking for a leader of men on and off the court,” said Pitino, who had the whole state of Kentucky at his feet as a college coach. “He wanted someone who could organize the office. Coaches can’t score points or do things players are capable of doing, but they are organizers. They organize it so players get the best shots and play defense.”

What owners want, in Pitino’s view, is a return to discipline under a strong authority figure. What they’re saying with their investment in a big-time coach, Pitino said, is: “ ‘We’re putting all our faith in you to lead on and off the court.’ Players have to understand there is a person who is going to lead them.”

With some franchises, there’s always a question of who’s driving the bus. Despite having two No. 1 overall draft choices, Allen Iverson and Derrick Coleman, on the roster, the 76ers were a team in chaos all of last season under the direction of untested Coach Johnny Davis and inexperienced General Manager Brad Greenberg.

President Pat Croce’s answer was to reach out for Brown, who has improved every team he coached, starting with Carolina and Denver in the American Basketball Association, to a 50-win job with the Nuggets in their first NBA season to turnarounds with the woeful Nets, Spurs, Clippers and Pacers. On the college level, Brown achieved an NCAA runner-up finish with UCLA and an NCAA title with Kansas.

For anyone in the market for a miracle-worker, Brown is it. “I needed someone with the mental capacity and physical will to tell a player, ‘You’re on the bench,’ ” said Croce, an owner with a unique perspective on players from his days as conditioning coach for many of Philadelphia’s top professional athletes. “Players respect experience, force and money.”

Croce doesn’t expect a miracle overnight. “I still have to go to church,” he said. But he believes Brown’s experience can change Iverson from the selfish scorer who won Rookie of the Year honors while alienating his teammates into a superstar who can learn how to make his teammates better. “It still will be tough to make chemistry,” Croce said, “but [Brown’s] the chemist.”

Brown understands what is expected and doesn’t shy away from the challenge. He took over the Nets after a 24-win season; he got the Spurs coming off a 31-win season and dropped to 21 wins before drafting David Robinson and winning 56 and 55 games the next two seasons. Brown managed the impossible, turning the Clippers into a playoff team two years running. The year after he left, they won 27 games. Twice he took the Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals.

“Look where I’ve been,” Brown said. “I haven’t walked in on a franchise that has been a winner. I had the Carolina Cougars, Denver, New Jersey and San Antonio when they were bad. Indiana hadn’t won a playoff series [in the NBA].

“They were all difficult challenges, but this might be the most difficult. It also might have the most upside.”

Some may criticize Brown for his job-hopping tendencies, but his track record says he’s worth the investment. “My hope as a coach was to make more than a substitute,” Brown joked. “I always took it for granted I wasn’t as important as a starter.”

Croce has made it clear Brown is more important than Coleman, who is available to anyone who makes a decent offer (Riley, maybe?). The hope is that Brown can reach Iverson before it’s too late to change his me-first attitude. Early indications are that Iverson understands how much brighter he can shine in a winning environment.

It’s not the money Brown is being paid that Iverson respects; it’s what Brown has done to earn it. “He’s won most of his career,” Iverson said. “He’s had one losing season [actually, two]. That’s enough right there for people to respect.”

Money alone isn’t the answer to the problems some teams have establishing authority. But it gives a coach a measure of security that should allow him the time to put his program in place. An owner has to think twice about firing a coach with a big contract before it expires because the financial penalty is severe.

As for gaining leverage with the players by virtue of a big contract, Daly said, “I think players like the fact you have a track record, but the bottom line is that it’s still a players’ league. It doesn’t matter if your credibility goes back to the 1930s. You’ve got to have the players.”

In Hill’s case, he had the players in Orlando, but they weren’t on his side. That’s why Hill is coaching in Vancouver, which is as far away from Orlando as you can get on the NBA map.

Hill declined to discuss his personality clashes with O’Neal and Hardaway, but he said, “I don’t have the type of power situation that Pitino has or that Chuck has in Orlando . . . I’m happy for the coaches that get these kind of contracts and the type of power they have. It will help them to be an enforcer. But not everybody is capable of doing it. It’s going to be a select few.”

The Nets’ Calipari is frank in admitting he would not have risked the jump from the top of the college ranks to the NBA without the security net provided by his contractual status. As a rookie in terms of NBA experience, Calipari said last season “was like going blindly into battle” even though he sought advice from other coaches and players in the league.

Calipari had a highly public clash with forward Jayson Williams, who requested a trade. After seeing the moves Calipari has made to improve the Nets’ p ersonnel by trading for Keith Van Horn, the second overall pick in this year’s draft, Williams has adjusted his attitude now that there’s a chance to win. That’s progress.

“I said last year that, until coaches get paid like the third-best player on the team, it’s hard to coach in this league unless you have Michael Jordan on the roster,” Calipari said. “My star players, I know where they stand, and they know where I stand. For me to come into the league, that had to be the case.”