Top 5 NBA coaches of 2012-13

The NBA season might be well over, but it is always a good time to look back at the season that was. The Heat went rampant to win their 2nd consecutive title at the cost of a dejected San Antonio Spurs.

Everyone knows who the best players of the 2012-13 season were but who were the men that commandeered their teams more effectively than the rest?

In this article, we look at the top 5 coaches of the 2012-13 season, based on the key attributes of team managed, regular and postseason season finish, and the situations they were forced into.

Note: A team winning the NBA convincingly doesn’t certify you to be the best coach. The merit is being awarded based on other factors as well.

5. George Karl, Denver Nuggets

George Karl

There is a jinx to the “famed” Coach of the Year award in the NBA. Almost every coach that wins it has been sacked in the season that follows or sometimes sooner. George Karl won Coach of the Year in 2012-13, and was sacked immediately once the Nuggets bowed out of the playoffs. But his dismissal was one that raised several eyebrows, and even the Nuggets fans took to it negatively. Why wouldn’t they?

For a man that led a team to its franchise best home record of 37-3 during the regular season, Karl made sure his team, without any endorsed star, was still a reckoning force in the West.

He can credit himself with moulding the talents of Danielo Gallineri and Andre Miller, and also functioning efficiently with an offence that saw nobody average 20 PPG. The Nuggets also finished the regular season as the fourth best team which incentivized people voting in Karl’s favour in the Coach of the Year poll.

In NBA annals, Karl is the sixth-winningest coach and having plied his trade in the game for over 25 seasons, the man was sure to being finally honoured with the Coach of the Year award. But Karls’s position in this list could have been lot higher had he capitalized on the regular season momentum to ensure the Nuggets progress beyond the first round of the playoffs.

Despite ensuring that the Nuggets make the playoffs every year, the team from Denver has only made it past the first hurdle once.