2009-10 Real Coach Ratings: Phil Jackson Ahead of George Karl by a Factor of About 10 to 1

The ideal time for the annual Real Coach Ratings to come out is just before the season starts, in October. We missed that schedule, but the first of December is really not that late, and it is certainly better than never.

One of the coaches in the Report, Byron Scott, was fired by the New Orleans Hornets during November, but his Rating is included. The new Hornets Coach is Jeff Bower, who has no experience as a head coach in the NBA. Bower's rating would be 200 by rule.

As always, there has been some tweaking since the last version of this Report. We slightly reduced the "penalty" for losses, which reduced the power in our built in solution to the huge differences in experience problem. There is much more about this in the User Guide.

Another change is a new factor: points awarded for the number of Championship series appearances: 12 points for each. This has the effect of increasing the playoff game experience award for a Coach for Championship games from three to approximately five.

We are showing you the entire spreadsheet so that you can see for yourself not only the ratings but also all of the raw data.

The User Guide for Real Coach Ratings is being updated to reflect the latest coach rating technology. You must consult the User Guide in order to truly undertand and to be able to make valid use of these ratings.