The Best Dressed NBA Coaches (and a Few of the Worst)

There's been entire think pieces devoted to Pat Riley's 1980s style, and let's admit it—it wasn't officially "Showtime" without Pat Riley and his extravagance. Riley would pull up to The Forum with his hair slicked back and groomed to perfection in his elegant suit, nice car, and sunglasses. Make no mistake—Pat Riley was the man, and one day we're going to do an in-depth profile on his 1980s style. Plus, he still dresses super nice till this day.

Tyronn Lue has mostly gone the way of athleisure in recent seasons since the dress code changed, but when suits were required all the time, Lue used to show up in some nice ones. The suits were especially nifty in 2016 when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the championship, but maybe that's our Cavs bias showing.

If you watched The Last Dance, or have seen any pictures of Phil Jackson from his playing and early coaching days, then you already know that he was a hippie to the fullest (and it actually cost him an earlier job with the Bulls because of it). Jackson was practically forced into wearing a suit, but once he committed to it, he was all in and actually wore some nice ones.

Coach Popovich is actually to have a spot on both our best and our worst (sorry Pop), which we'll discuss in a few. When Gregg Popovich fully commits to the task of wearing a suit, he gets it right. When he doesn't, however...we're going to get to that in a second.

Steve Kerr gets athleisure and formal correct on every occasion. In fact, we'll even go as far as to say that he is one of the best dressed NBA coaches of all time. His suits (which most of the time are black or dark blue) are tailored to perfection, and he's been known to have a decent tie selection as well. When Kerr goes the athleisure route, he tends to keep it simple like the rest, but the shoe game is impeccable.

Let's take a minute to appreciate how Monty Williams showed up to his press conference introduction as the new head coach of the Detroit Pistons. Look at the details. The dark blue suit, the baby blue undershirt, the red tie, all of which matches the Pistons' official team colors. It's the commitment for us. Coach Williams isn't new to this, he's true to this.

You can't talk best dressed NBA coaches without mentioning the man who kind of revived looking fashionable on the bench. These days, Erik Spoelstra mostly goes for the athleisure wear too, which is honestly understandable why most coaches do nowadays. There's tons of games, tons of travel, and suits aren't always the most comfortable outfits to wear (especially in an arena that can get hot at times), so athleisure is the most comfortable way to go. Similar to Steve Kerr, Spoelstra keeps the shoe game extra fresh.

Unless our eyes our deceiving us, we're pretty sure that's the Patagonia label on that nice puffer coat Mr. Casey was rocking last season, which means he's with it in the streetwear department. The Nike's are clean too. We're looking forward to seeing the next chapter of Casey being in the Pistons front office.

Tim Duncan aka Timmy D may have only worked as an assistant coach for one season, but he brought the fits on the sideline for the entire year. In fact, we actually think his courtside fits were and still are underappreciated, so we're taking the time out to appreciate them now. Don't worry Timmy—we got you!

While Brad Stevens official title nowadays President of Basketball Operations for the Boston Celtics, let's not forget about his coaching days where he was always on the sidelines with an immaculate suit. Stevens never disappointed in the suit department, and he deserves to be appreciated a little more as well.

The reason why Coach Pop has to also make the worst dressed is because of times like this we're he showed up not matching. We get the vision, but the pants don't go with the blazer, and the shoes don't go with anything. Sometimes color contrasting works, but not in this case.

Our guy Stan Van Gundy. Stan, this isn't a bad outfit. In fact none of your outfits are bad, but we just need you to try a little bit harder. That's it. You've got it in you because you worn some nice suits in the past, but we need athleisure game stepped up slightly more. That's all!