5. Mike D’Antoni, Houston Rockets
Top 5, we made it. D’Antoni at five has a little bit of recentcy biased but the 2017 NBA Coach of the Year has earned it. When Mike was head coach of the Steve Nash Suns teams, he revolutionized the offensive side of the basketball. He was a run-and-gun style coach who demanded his team to run up and down quickly and hoist up a higher amount of threes than usual.
His whole scheme didn’t work without a scoring playmaker at the point guard position which is why Nash thrived with D’Antoni. Fast forward to 2017, and enter James Harden. After barley squeaking into the playoffs last year as an eight seed, the Rockets made the change to Mike and Mike made the change to make Harden their teams point guard.
That change made Harden average 29-8-11 on his way to an MVP runner-up season, and more importantly a 55 win season. 2018 hits and the Rockets have yet another playmaking scorer running the point in a D’Antoni system in Chris Paul. Watch out.