NBA 2018-19: Top 10 coaches by disclosed salary
While head coaches are making nowhere near the money that the biggest stars of the league do, coaching in the NBA certainly pays a whole lot better than a real job. Picture it like this: you're in an executive role in an industry where hundreds of millions of dollars are spent as wages for just over 50 people.
A disproportionately large part falls to the players, who're the reason the wages for everyone else exist in the first place, but the few millions left to go around for the front office executives and coaches is usually ample for a job of that magnitude.
Here, we have compiled a list of reportedly the 10 biggest contracts handed out to coaches in NBA history. Do keep in mind that teams can and have chosen to keep coaching contracts clear of the public eye, but we've done the best we can, and the figures we quote in the article are all obtained from reputed sources like ESPN and TNT.
#10 Alvin Gentry - $4.5 million
The Pelicans landed a good coach to run Anthony Davis with, following the disappointments they suffered in the first 2 seasons of Davis' NBA career. Gentry is a proponent of fast-paced offenses and switch-everything defenses, which are tactics in line with the modern NBA. The reason the Pelicans have not been in the top 8 of the Conference for a while this season is primarily injury trouble, but also their extreme lack of depth at the 2 and 3 positions.
Gentry is under contract up until the end of the 2020-21 season, but whether he lasts long in that role or not depends a lot upon how well they fare this season, and what will happen with Anthony Davis' upcoming free agency in 2020.