Jerry Stackhouse has been a terrific coach for the Raptors 905. It felt like Masai Ujiri might have been grooming him for the Toronto Raptor head coaching job. However, with the success Dwane Casey has had this season it feels like Stackhouse may now never be the coach of the Toronto Raptors.

Coaching Surplus

This is year five of Dwane Casey having success in the regular season in terms of wins. However, it’s the first year of a new offense that actually looks like it could translate to the post-season. We are seeing a lot more passing and threes from the Raptors. In years past come playoff time the opposing team would trap DeMar DeRozan or Kyle Lowry in isolations over and over again. The Raptors finally now have a counter to that. The entire team is touching the ball when they are on the court making it harder to focus DeRozan and Lowry. We have seen on occasion this season where teams have tried to sell out to stop DeRozan. However, this season the Raptors have had no problem finding other players to step up because the ball is moving a lot better.

In 2016-17 Stackhouse coached the Raptors 905 to 39-11 record which is significant because the previous season they had only won 23 games under Jesse Mermuys. Yes, that was the 905’s first season as a franchise, but Stackhouse deserves credit for the massive improvement in year two. Furthermore, he won the D-League title. The 905 haven’t been quite as dominant this year, but they still have a winning record. Jerry Stackhouse had success as an NBA player and now he’s having success as a D/G-League coach.

Case Closed

The Raptors should certainly explore trading Jerry Stackhouse if the intention is to keep Dwane Casey as the coach of the Toronto Raptors. Jalen Rose and Bill Simmons both concluded Casey was the 4th best coach in the NBA and that’s a very reasonable opinion. So, it would likely take the Raptors getting embarrassed in round one of the playoffs for him to be let go. With how good the Raptors are playing this season it’s hard to envision that. If Dwane Casey stays the coach of the Raptors it will be really difficult to retain Jerry Stackhouse. Stackhouse has expressed in a head coaching job in the NBA. If the Raptors cannot offer him that some other team will.

Last summer no NBA coaches were fired so no jobs opened up. During this season three coaches have been fired so far. Earl Watson was fired in Phoenix. David Fizdale was let go in Memphis. And most recently Jason Kidd was terminated in Milwaukee. The Phoenix Suns, Memphis Grizzlies, and Milwaukee Bucks now all have interim coaches which means they could be looking for a head coach. You know who could interview for one of those jobs? Jerry Stackhouse.

Trading A Coach

Coaches don’t often get traded, but you don’t see up and coming coaches like Jerry Stackhouse every day. In 2013, the Boston Celtics traded Doc Rivers to the Clippers for an unprotected first-round pick. An unprotected first-round pick? Wow! The Raptors cannot expect to get a great asset like that from Stackhouse, but they should be able to get something. Even the Nets got two second-round picks when they traded coach Kidd to the Bucks and at that time Kidd was fighting with Nets management to the point they didn’t want him back.

Why can’t the Raptors get a heavily protected first round pick or two seconds for Jerry Stackhouse? It seems reasonable. Masai was smart enough to get a second-round pick from the Magic when he gave up his GM Jeff Weltman. Jerry Stackhouse is arguably more valuable than Weltman. There are very few elite coaches in the NBA that make a significant impact on their teams. Stackhouse has the potential to be one of those elite coaches. At the end of the day, it will be Jerry Stackhouse’s decision which job he takes, but whoever employs him should return an asset to the Raptors as an acquisition fee. It would be nice if the Raptors could trade him now so they could use that asset in a trade to help their post-season run, but they will likely have to wait until the summer when teams start interviewing coaches.