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Kobe Bryant is an unquestionable all-time great; we even compared him to Jay Z on our 15 Rappers and Their Equivalents list. But what would Bryant be without Phil Jackson? Probably one sad, ringless Black Mamba. A lot of rappers wouldn't have the hits they do without their prime choice of producing partners either. Cadence, lyricism, technicality, and all that jazz are a few things the rapper needs, but if that's all showcased over weak ass beats, then the audience really isn't pulled in and the hits prove to be even more evasive.
Greats like Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, and Larry Brown have been instrumental in getting those championship rings on the fingers of many players just like how beatmakers Pharrell, Rick Rubin, and Dr. Dre are the force behind many hits. There's a lot of cases where the relationship between producers and coaches go beyond just function and becomes similar in career trajectory and ideology. Check out some of them on NBA Coaches and Their Hip-Hop Producer Equivalents.
Lawrence Frank Is Scott Storch
These two know what it's like to fall from great heights, although one knows how do so by blowing his fortune on cocaine. Lawrence Frank looked like he was what the Nets needed when he took over from Byron Scott during the 2003-04 season. He won 13 straight games—the most ever for a head coach to begin his career—and led the Nets to three straight playoff appearances. Things went way south as Frank and the Nets forgot the winning formula. The team went through two losing seasons before going 0-16 to begin the 2009-10 campaign, which was got Frank fired and began the Nets' abysmal 12-70 season. Frank is now an assitant coach on the Nets and will likely never lead a team to the playoffs again like how Storch will probably never reach those early-2000s peaks as he did by producing songs like G-Unit's "Poppin' Them Thangs" and Chris Brown's "Run It."
Erik Spoelstra Is Alex Da Kid
No one really acknowledges Alex Da Kid as the man who provided solid production for the likes of Nicki Minaj, Eminem, and B.o.B. He's the guy who happens to have made beats for tracks like "Love the Way You Lie," "Massive Attack," and "Radioactive." He's behind some of the biggest hits but do you think of Alex Da Kid as a superproducer? Erik Spoelstra does deserve credit for having control of the league's two biggest egos. But like Alex Da Kid, you have to to wonder how far Spoelstra would be if he didn't have the big names in his corner.
Rick Carlisle Is Swizz Beatz
Whoever was following 2010's GOOD Fridays series was aware of "Lord Lord Lord," which features Mos Def, Charlie Wilson, Raekwon, and a fantastic backing instrumental. Its main problem: Swizz Beatz rapped. His verse was so bad that versions of "Lord Lord Lord" minus Swizz Beatz started popping up on the Internet. It was terrible but not shocking, because Swizz Beatz was never really a great rapper. Mavs coach Rick Carlisle was once a player but wasn't that good. He only started one game and averaged a grand total of 2.2 points in his NBA career. Carlisle won a 1986 championship riding the bench for the Celtics and won a ring as a coach when his Mavs stunned the Heat in 2011, and Dallas has yet to have a losing season under his tenure. Swizz Beatz isn't the greatest producer ever, but he fares far better on the boards.
Red Auerbach Is DJ Kool Herc
The originators. Red Auerbach invented the sixth man position and the fast break as we know them. DJ Kool Herc invented the genre of hip-hop. Both guys are immortals in their respective fields. Auerbach was also a GM for the Celtics and has had a hand in 16 of Boston's 17 titles, and also made Bill Russell the game's first black head coach. Kool Herc figured out how to prolong certain sections of funk records to create breaks and loops in order to get a party rockin'. These two gentlemen are integral parts of the game and the music we enjoy today, respectively.
Gregg Popovich Is DJ Premier
These two will probably never, ever change their formulas at their ages and won't need to either. Gregg Popovich and DJ Premier has strategies that rejects flash for substance. You'll never see DJ Premier abandoning his sampling technique for chart-friendly EDM, and Lob City doesn't exist over in San Antonio. What would be the point of doing so if you've only had one losing season during your entire 16 years with four championships or if you're one of the genre's legends? Exactly.
Tom Thibodeau Is The Alchemist
Tom Thibodeau hasn't had a bad season recordwise since he started coaching the Bulls in 2010, just as The Alchemist has rarely released a bad beat since his rise to hip-hop prominince. They both can attribute a huge part of their success to one thing—versatility. Thibodeau and Alchemist maximizes the use of the parts they have under any circumstance. A huge case in point for Thibodeau is guiding a Derrick Rose-less Bull to the playoffs and a first round win over the Nets, which is something this Brooklyn-based author admits is "iight." You need something psychedelic (Covert Coup)? The Alchemist has you covered. Need heavy sampling tracks to bring out that New York grit (Return of the Mac)? The Alchemist has you in that department as well. Boom bap, too? You know who to call. See the pattern here?
Mike D'Antoni Is Timbaland
Mike D'Antoni and Timbaland built their careers out of unconventionalism. Timbaland has helped put some of the greats on the map, including Missy Elliot, Aaliyah, and Justin Timberlake as a solo artist. Though those artists are extremely talented by themselves, a lot of their greatest material were buoyed by Timbo's left field ear. Baby cooing was sexy on Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?," while Eastern influences were injected with a new sort of cool as they pushed Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On" and Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around...Comes Around."
While Timbaland reached East, D'Antoni had help from up north—Steve Nash. This coach's quirk came in the form of an offense the likes of which the NBA hadn't seen before. The "Seven Seconds of Less" offense rocked defenses across the NBA and led the league in points scored three times during D'Antoni's five-year tenure at Phoenix. Not good enough for a championships, but for TV ratings definitely.
Both men started declining around the same time: 2007-08. Timbaland's hit-making prowess fell and D'Antoni began his time with the Knicks with two losing seasons. There were also the broken relationship with big time stars; Mike D'Antoni rift with Carmelo Anthony caused the coach to resign, while Timbaland had a falling out with Jay Z during the Blueprint 3 sessions. The two veterans are rebounding from their slump though. Timbaland produced two platinum albums in one year in 2013 with Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience series, and as for D'Antoni, adapting his coaching style to guide his team to the playoffs after the variety of things that went wrong can be considered an achievement in itself if you're an optimist. They're far from their greatest, but they're still around.
Larry Brown Is Pharrell
Larry Brown and Pharrell did the best with the parts they had, although even the former couldn't do much with the Knicks—not that it's entirely his fault. The two also turned heads in the early to mid 2000s by acting as guiding forces to well-known rebels. For Brown, it was the future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson, and for Pharrell, it was coke game-bred duo Clipse. Iverson made ankles quiver at the sound of his name as he and Brown led a team of average players to the Finals in 2001 and perennial playoff contention in all but one of their six years there. Brown would go on to win an NBA championship with the Pistons in 2003-04.
Pharrell and Clipse matched—and arguably topped—Brown's success with "Grindin," "When the Last Time," and Hell Hath No Fury's existence. Unlike Brown, Pharrell didn't dominate as part of just two teams. Word to fans of "Change Clothes," "Superthug," and "Hollaback Girl."
Brown and Pharrell's magic coincidentally went kaput around the same time. The latter had his last Top 10 hit with Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up" in 2006, and Brown's one-year tenure with the Knicks starting in 2005 was another entry in the Knicks' extraordinary sorry decade. Of course, Pharrell has since bounced back; your grandkids will hear "Get Lucky" at some point in their lives. Brown led the typically terrible Bobcats to their only playoff berth in 2010 and is now trying to make something out of SMU at the college basketball level. Brown is far from Pharrell's highs, but let's see how far he gets.
Pat Riley Is Dr. Dre
Both of these legends come off as your archetypical curmudgeon overseer who seem completely satisfied, although Pat Riley looks more likely to catch a body these days than Dr. Dre. Anyone remember that death stare he gave during the 2011 Finals? Anyway, there's a reason people even cared how Riley was reacting during the game and why Detox was anticipated when it was thought to have existed. The two are greats.
If we're comparing rapping to actually playing on the court and coaching to producing, then Riley and Dre are pretty damn similar. They were both very average as players of their games but still ended up winning. You have Dre with his affiliation with the infamous N.W.A and the creation of the consensus classic The Chronic, while Riley got his player championship by being on the same team as the great Jerry West. Their talents as a coach/producer truly pushed them to the elite level though. Riley won Coach of the Year with three different teams with the help of greats like Patrick Ewing and Magic Johnson. Dre was just winning at music overall, perfecting the West Coast sound as he made hits for Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.
What further draws these two together is how they came back to the top around the turn of the millennium. Both did so with the help of a supertalent. Dre had Eminem and Riley had Wade. Riley and Wade's relationship isn't as highly regarded from a cultural standpoint as the former's, but a championship is a championship. It isn't as crazy as the tens of millions the Dre and Eminem duo sold, but what was really as crazy as that during the last decade?
Phil Jackson Is Rick Rubin
The most obvious comparison on the list, Rick Rubin and Phil Jackson are known as the Yodas of their respective occupations. These two never fretted in the presence of greatness. You rarely saw Phil Jackson with a reddened face when he was in the center of '90s Jordan mania nor when Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were killing cats left and right in the early aughts. Rubin found himself within similar, culturally significant moments with the founding of Def Jam and the production of LL Cool J's Radio and the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill.
They even look unstressed to the public in situations where it would've been understandable if they acted otherwise. Jackson said he detested Bryant after the sexual allegations partially because his own daughter was a victim of such an assault, but he still kept it together to help the Lakers win two more chips in 2009-10. Rick Rubin is chilling the fuck out in shades in the "99 Problems" video where Jay Z gets popped. Let's not forget how he executive produced Yeezus even though he was basically brought in at the last minute. It's always kosher with Rubin.
Rubin and Jackson both also have a style that rarely changes. There's Rubin with his minimalism and Jackson with his triangle offense. Another thing that will never change is how they'll always be in high demand.
