How Much Does NBA Coaching Experience Matter? Depends Who You Ask.

Getty Images/Ringer illustration Steve Kerr knows exactly what JJ Redick is in for. The numbers are less certain. Can the Lakers' new head coach thrive despite never … coaching before? "I don't think there's one way to go about it," says Stan Van Gundy. Steve Kerr had a grand vision for his first day as an NBA head coach, a magnificently scripted itinerary of drills and schemes and sets, of conceptual X's and O's that would soon transform Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green into contenders. Oh, did he have plans. Soon to be followed by mild panic. There were maybe 10 items on the list that fall day in 2014, Kerr recalls. "And you get through three of them. And you realize, 'We gotta let these guys go. It's time for practice to end.' And then you go home, and you go, 'What am I going to do? I didn't get seven things in! Like we're falling behind.'" Kerr chuckles, then summons an old Mike Tyson quote: "You come in with a plan—and then you get punched in the mouth." It's not that Kerr lacked an understanding of the NBA. He'd played 15 years in the league, won championships alongside Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan, soaked up lessons from Phil Jackson and Gregg...