Steve Nash is the NBA’s 16th rookie head coach. Here’s how the rest fared
The NBA has had 10 head coaches with no prior coaching experience in the last 23 years.
Derek Fisher was the worst of those coaches, the only true rookie coach in the past 23 years to win less than half his games (he didn’t come close) — he held a 40-96 record coaching the Knicks from 2014-16.
The rest of his contemporaries during that span — including Steve Kerr, Jason Kidd, Doc Rivers, Mark Jackson, Vinnie Del Negro, Kevin McHale, Isaiah Thomas and Larry Bird — won at least half their games as head coach despite never serving as an assistant.
Steve Nash became the 10th such coach since 1997, according to NBC Sports, after accepting the challenge (or privilege) of coaching a star-studded Nets team headlined by Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and a bevy of budding, young, talented players. Nash had no prior experience as a coach or an assistant. He only served as a player development consultant alongside Kerr on the Golden State Warriors, while also doubling as general manager of the Canadian men’s national basketball team from 2012-19.
