NBA coached with storied careers can find themselves in an interesting position when it comes to being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, that being that unlike players, who have to be retired for a set number of years before they're eligible for induction, coaches can be voted in while they're still actively leading teams.

But, that doesn't mean that the process doesn't take a long time, even longer than is actually warranted, as Hall of Fame Doc Rivers pointed out in a recent press conference.

Rivers' pointed out how most coaches in the NBA who are eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame aren't added until near the end of their careers anyways, whereas college coaches can often be inducted in the middle of theirs. Rivers' main issue with that is that he believes that if NBA coaches were considered Hall of Famers sooner, that could help those coaches in the longevity of their careers by having that moniker attached to them.

It also brings up an interesting distinction between the careers of college and NBA coaches. The difficulty threshold in the NBA is higher, but because there are ultimately 30 teams, a coach and a team has a better chance at winning a championship, or multiple, in their careers, while college coaches have to contend with a much wider field of teams and more fluctuation due to the graduation cycle of players. 

So there is a fundamental difference between how the resumes of college and NBA coaches can look and as a result, in Rivers' mind, college coaches are afforded more grace and given that Hall of Fame distinction earlier in their career.

The main example that Rivers used for this distinction was a certain Golden State Warriors coach who led his teams to dominance in the 2010s. 

"Steve Kerr should be in the Hall of Fame. So why isn't he? There's no actual reason for that," Rivers said (via Clutch Points). 

Kerr's resume as a coach includes four NBA championships, the 2015-16 Coach of the Year and an inclusion on the list of the 15 Greatest Coaches in NBA history along with a lifetime 604-353 record and yet, he's not in the Hall of Fame. 

Kerr's resume doesn't need any more boosting and there's no reason to think that he wouldn't be a Hall of Fame coach one day, but for some reason he has to wait an unknown amount of time before he can be actually considered, despite there being no reason that he can't be included now while he's still active. 

It's an interesting, if minor, injustice, and it's telling that in Rivers' example of coaches who deserve Hall of Fame nods, Kerr was the first person that came to mind.