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Introducing Coaches

August 11, 2026

Steve Kerr Steve KerrMotion Offense Gregg Popovich Gregg PopovichThe Beautiful Game Phil Jackson Phil JacksonThe Triangle

Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich: The White House (public domain). Phil Jackson: Steve Lipofsky, Basketballphoto.com (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Drafts now start with a coach pick. Before you draft, you choose one of three offered coaches, each running a real system with a real identity, and that system stays with your team for the run. Build a roster that fits what your coach is asking for and your team plays a little bigger than the sum of its price tags. It is a new layer on top of the draft you already know, not a replacement for it.

Why coaches

Coaches exist to make every draft feel different. Instead of just collecting the best value at every price point, you are now also trying to build a team around a system. The game underneath has not changed. Cost still overwhelmingly drives good drafting, so do not overpay for a player just because he fits your coach. But fit is now a second factor sitting alongside cost, and it is often enough to make you rethink a pick or two per draft.

Example: Steve Kerr's Motion Offense

Kerr's Motion Offense is read off two things, averaged across your whole roster: how well a player shoots the three (volume and accuracy both count) and how much he creates for teammates, his assist rate, with free-throw shooting worked in as a smaller third ingredient. It is not about one-on-one, unassisted scoring. A high-usage bucket-getter who does not pass and does not shoot threes will not trigger it, no matter how many points he puts up.

And the bonus is never a penalty. A team that fits poorly does not get punished, it just does not add much. Three real seasons show the range:

Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry
2015-16
30.1 PPG
45.4% on 11.2 3PA
Perfect fit
Pascal Siakam
Pascal Siakam
2021-22
22.8 PPG
34.4% on 3.2 3PA, 23% AST
Decent fit
Zach Randolph
Zach Randolph
2010-11
20.1 PPG
18.6% on 0.6 3PA, 10% AST
Neutral fit

Curry is the extreme case: nobody in the pool shoots more threes at a higher clip, so the system is built around exactly what he does. Siakam is a real three-point threat too, just not on Curry's level, and his passing helps close the gap, a genuinely solid, moderate fit. Randolph was a Hall-of-Fame-caliber post scorer who barely ever left the paint, let alone stepped behind the three-point line, so Motion Offense has almost nothing to reward. None of that makes him a worse pick than the other two. It just means his value to your roster is about the bucket he gets down low, not about a coach's bonus.

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