In the NBA, the biggest contribution a coach can make is to the defense. Offense is mostly dictated by talent, but defense relies upon teamwork -- teamwork that is built through good coaching.
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For example, the top four defenses as of February 5 are Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, and New York. The coaches of these teams are Lenny Wilkens, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and Pat Riley, err, Jeff Van Gundy, even though Riley was the one who built the Knicks into a defensive powerhouse. Wilkens, Jackson, and Riley are Hall of Fame coaches that have always won with defense. Yes, Chicago has the best offense in the league and the greatest offensive force in the universe, but Jackson kept his Bulls in the playoffs during the Jordanless years by having a defense that was one of the best in the league. Miami, Atlanta, and New York are ordinary offensive teams with mediocre offensive talent that looks good to All-Star voters primarily because the defense is good.
Offensive ability is legitimately difficult to improve at the NBA level. Even great coaches have a hard time taking a 24 year old NBA player and improving his offense very much. They can fiddle with offensive sets as much as they want, but they are not going to turn Shawn Bradley into an offensive star. On the other hand, they can talk to shootaholic Ron Harper and coach him into a defensive stopper. It has been done. By Phil Jackson. Indiana's Larry Brown has done a similar job with Reggie Miller, convincing his star to play solid defense. His defense was critical to keeping Indiana in the playoff race this season while Smits was out and as Miller's shooting dipped to a career low.
Larry Brown is actually a good example of just what a good coach can do for a team. When he joined the Pacers, he made little change in personnel, but the team defense improved from one of the worst in the NBA to one of the ten best. That changed Indiana from a 0.500 team to a playoff team. All that Brown did was instill in his team a will to play defense...
...Something the Golden State Warriors don't have. The Warriors were the inspiration for this column after I listened to a sports talk radio show in the San Francisco Bay Area where the host and all the callers were describing the Warriors problems as "chemistry", whatever that is. The Warriors main problem is defense. They are the worst team in the league. They are undersized and don't have a true center, but some blame must be given to the coaching staff. Latrell Sprewell was drafted as a defensive player, but his defense has declined steadily since joining the league due to inconsistent coaching and perhaps his own motivation. Joe Smith was a defensive force in college and, even though he is a slight power forward, he has the ability to be a good defender in the pros. B.J. Armstrong, too, though not a great defensive player, showed that he can play defense when he was with the Bulls. These guys, along with a hungry Chris Mullin, can play better defense. They need the attitude instilled in them. They need it coached to them.
If your team is "lacking chemistry", too, you might want to consider that it is actually lacking someone to coach defense. If your team has poor offensive talent, it can still be a good team if the coach preaches defense. If your team has good offensive talent, but loses to a strangely large number of poor teams, it might be defense. Now go call that sports talk radio show and complain about the coach, not the chemistry.