In Basketball Coaching, Experts Make The Best Leaders

Star players make better basketball coaches, according to research by scholars at the University of Warwick and Cornell University. The research is further evidence that experts in their field rather than generalists typically make the best leaders in organizations. Using data from 15,000 basketball games between 1996 and 2004, the authors learned that the US’s premier basketball teams in the NBA tend to win more games if led by coaches who were good players or if they had long playing careers, controlling for other factors that affect team performance. That upholds the authors’ hypothesis that, across many kinds of industry, it is experts in their field who typically make the best leaders. In the current US NBA finals, the Lakers’ coach, Phil Jackson, is tied with the Celtics’ legendary Red Auerbach for the most championships as a head coach (nine) and has the second best career regular-season winning percentage (0.700) of all time. read more

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