The NBA’s 15 greatest coaches: the NBA 75 list explained

Who made the NBA’s 15 greatest coaches list?

The NBA named 15 coaches as part of its 75th anniversary season. The names below follow the alphabetical order used in the official announcement and the NBA Coaches Association’s list graphic. Each name represents a selection to the same group, rather than a position in a ranking. [1] [2]

• Red Auerbach
• Larry Brown
• Chuck Daly
• Red Holzman
• Phil Jackson
• K.C. Jones
• Steve Kerr
• Don Nelson
• Gregg Popovich
• Jack Ramsay
• Pat Riley
• Doc Rivers
• Jerry Sloan
• Erik Spoelstra
• Lenny Wilkens

How were the coaches selected?

The NBA and the NBA Coaches Association assembled a panel of 43 coaches: all 30 NBA head coaches at the time and 13 former NBA head coaches. Each panelist chose 15 coaches without ranking the choices and could not vote for himself. Ernst & Young LLP tabulated the results. [1]

The league announced the selections on February 8, 2022, during its 2021–22 anniversary season. The list was revealed on TNT. “Current head coaches” in the voting description refers to that 2022 panel, not to today’s coaching jobs. [1]

Does the list name the greatest coach of all time?

No. The selection recognizes 15 coaches and deliberately leaves them unranked. It therefore does not name a number one, and the first ten alphabetically are not an official top ten. Red Auerbach appears first because the published order is alphabetical. [1]

A personal all-time ranking needs criteria the reader can assess. Career wins measure accumulated regular-season results, playoff wins describe a different set of games, and championships count titles. Those measures can inform a comparison, but none converts the NBA 75 vote into an ordered ranking.

Compare the honor with career records

Use the coaching wins archive for separately dated regular-season and playoff records, and the championship archive for title-winning coaches. Those pages identify their own sources and observation dates. Their more recent totals should not be presented as the figures used by the 2022 voting panel.

The historical selection itself remains dated February 8, 2022. Checking its source pages again confirms what those pages show; it does not turn the honor into a new annual award or a fresh league ranking.

Contemporary sources

The NBA release is dated February 8, 2022 in New York (February 9 in UTC). The NBCA announcement followed on February 9. Their original dates remain separate from our source checks.

1. NBA names 15 Greatest Coaches in celebration of landmark 75th Anniversary Season — NBA Communications. Published 2022-02-09 UTC. Source checked 2026-10-09 UTC.
2. NBA Announces “15 Greatest Coaches of All-Time” — NBA Coaches Association. Published 2022-02-09 UTC. Source checked 2026-10-09 UTC.

The names were checked against the list graphic in the NBCA announcement. Graphic checked 2026-10-09 UTC.