The New York Knicks announced the firing of head coach Tom Thibodeau on Tuesday, three days after the team’s elimination in the Eastern Conference finals against the Indiana Pacers.
With Thibodeau now searching for his next job, the veteran boss remains a member of a distinctive club in league history: head coaches who have piled up victories but have never hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Including Thibodeau, only eight coaches in NBA history have amassed over 500 career regular-season wins, hold a regular-season winning percentage above .550 and never won an NBA Finals. Here are the other coaches on the list.
Jerry Sloan
Career regular-season wins: 1,221
Career regular-season winning percentage: .603
Though Sloan won well over a thousand NBA games and reached the NBA Finals twice, the longtime coach of the Utah Jazz never got over the final hurdle to secure a ring as a head coach.
After a brief stint as head coach of the Chicago Bulls, Sloan would go on to spend 27 seasons in Utah as an assistant and later, a head coach. Sloan’s best chance at winning a title came a decade into his time as head coach with the franchise — the Jazz won 64 and 62 regular-season games in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons, and made the Finals both years. But they ran into Michael Jordan’s second three-peat with the Bulls.
George Karl
Career regular-season wins: 1,175
Career regular-season winning percentage: .588
Karl’s well-traveled NBA coaching career had stops with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, Seattle SuperSonics, Milwaukee Bucks, Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings, spending a total of 27 seasons as head coach.
The veteran coach’s closest brush with Finals glory came in 1995-96 with the SuperSonics — which was also thwarted by Jordan and the Bulls, coming in the first year of the team’s second 1990s three-peat.
Rick Adelman
Career regular-season wins: 1,042
Career regular-season winning percentage: .582
Starting with the Portland Trail Blazers, Adelman’s lengthy head coaching career included stints with the Trail Blazers, Warriors, Kings, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves.
Adelman’s best shots at a ring came early in his journey as a coach. He guided Portland to the Finals in 1990 in his first full season as head coach but fell to the Detroit Pistons in five games. Two seasons later, the Trail Blazers again won the Western Conference, but were felled by — you guessed it — Jordan and the Bulls in the Finals.
Stan Van Gundy
Career regular-season wins: 554
Career regular-season winning percentage: .566
After getting his start in the NBA as an assistant to Pat Riley with the Miami Heat, Van Gundy broke into the head coaching ranks after replacing Riley (who stayed in his role as team president) atop Miami’s staff ahead of the 2003-04 season.
It would be at Van Gundy’s ensuing stop, though, with the Orlando Magic, where he’d come closest to winning his first NBA championship. The 2008-09 Magic won 59 regular-season games, defeating LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals. They then faced off against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, with the Lakers prevailing in five games.
Mike D’Antoni
Career regular-season wins: 672
Career regular-season winning percentage: .560
D’Antoni put together highly successful stretches with multiple franchises — he eclipsed 50 regular-season wins four straight seasons with the Phoenix Suns and three straight seasons with the Rockets — but never advanced to the Finals.
Though D’Antoni made the Western Conference finals twice with the Suns, his most brutal near-miss for championship glory probably came during his time in Houston. In 2017-18, the Rockets, led by then-league MVP James Harden, took a dynastic Warriors squad to seven games in the conference finals. But a historic cold stretch at the worst time helped Golden State advance, going on to sweep the Cavaliers in that season’s Finals.
Scott Brooks
Career regular-season wins: 521
Career regular-season winning percentage: .557
Best known as the head coach of the Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant-led Oklahoma City Thunder squads of the early-to-mid 2010s, Brooks displayed impressive consistency across his time with the franchise, leading the Thunder to 45-plus regular-season wins in each of his last six seasons.
The 2011-12 season marked his closest brush with the Larry O’Brien Trophy, when he led a young Thunder squad to the team’s first Finals in Oklahoma City. In that Finals, the Thunder faced off against the Heat and their big three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, with Miami prevailing in five games.
Don Nelson
Career regular-season wins: 1,335
Career regular-season winning percentage: .557
Boasting a staggering 1,335 regular season wins — second most of any head coach in league history — Nelson accomplished plenty in a coaching career that started in the 1970s and ended in 2009-10. But remarkably the veteran boss never made a Finals appearance over his 31 seasons atop coaching staffs with Milwaukee, two stints with Golden State and the Dallas Mavericks.
Nelson’s best shot at a ring was at the tail end of his tenure with the Bucks, when he led them to a stretch of three conference finals appearances in four years. In each of those years, Milwaukee lost to the eventual Finals winner.
Source: espn.com