It's a tough balance for coaches in the League, and Doc's been doing a great job. Your players need to respect you, first of all. It's great when they LIKE you, but the respect needs to be there first and foremost. You look at the guys like Popovich and Sloan that have had so much consistent success, their players do not necessarily always like them but they always respect them and listen to them. Machivelli (sp?) at its best.
Second, you need the support of the front office. Even when the team struggled, Danny and the ownership stuck by in very strong support of Doc. Players are less apt to tune out the coach when they know that management is on the coaches' side. Coaches that aren't supported as strongly, the players know that they have all the power. Again, guys like Sloan and Popovich aren't going anywhere, the players start acting up they know they'll be gone long before the coach. So, props to DA and Wyc and the other owners to stand behind Doc.
Third, you've got to have your players buy into what you're doing. Doc's been perhaps a bit lucky in this respect, in that he had three star players to keep in line but three guys that were despertate for a single goal and that were all willing to work within the system to reach that goal. Think, too, to O'bie taking over for Pitino; Pierce and Walker and the rest of that team were desperate for leadership, they bought in almost immediately to what O'bie was preaching. But, if you get your stars in line, the rest of the team will follow. This also speaks to the front office filling the bench with coachable players.
Where I think Doc has really shone, though, was getting that balance with his stars. Doc's a very smart guy, and I think the players respect his knowledge. He's also self-confident enough to bring aboard guys like Thibideau, who a coach with less self-confidence (or who had less support from the front office) might view as a threat to their position.
Doc also seems to treat his players as men. He knows he's coaching Hall of Famers, so he treats them with the respect that they've earned. He doesn't seem to need to establish his dominance over them. It's kind of like the level of mutual respect tha exists between Popovich and Duncan.
To finish my Doc love-note, I guess I would make note of how he's shown both an ability to help develop young players as well as to meld together a cohesive team of veterans. Lots of coaches can't work with both young players and with old; think of a guy like Larry Brown, who's a helluva coach as long as you're not asking him to develop a bunch of young guys. Under Doc, though, we've seen a lot of young players blossom. There have been some washouts, but overall, most young players under Doc have gotten appreciably better.
