Could Hinrich, Mohammed coach one day?

Tom Thibodeau has said he wants a team full of leaders. What about a team full of future NBA coaches?

One interesting question in the annual nba.com survey of general managers was what current player would make the best head coach.

The winner was Clippers point guard Chris Paul. Steve Blake finished second, followed by Kirk Hinrich. Bulls center Nazr Mohammed also received a vote.

“I hope all of them (become coaches),” Thibodeau said with a smile Thursday at the Advocate Center. “I'd like to be sitting in the stands watching them.”

It should be easy for most Bulls fans to picture Hinrich leading an NBA team. Shortly after joining the Bulls in 2003, Hinrich drew comparisons to fellow hard-nosed guard Jerry Sloan, who coached at total of 26 seasons with the Bulls and, mostly, Utah.

Hinrich's father, Jim, was his coach at Sioux City West High School, so coaching would be a natural fit for Hinrich. He just doesn't see himself in that role.

“I don't know,” he said. “I want to play right now.”

Even when he was growing up, dribbling on the sideline while his father's high school teams practice, Hinrich said he dreamed of being a player, not a coach.

“I've never really thought about it,” he said. “People have asked me that before and I say, ‘I don't know.' Just because, right now I'm a player and I think of myself as a family man. There's just … I miss so much with my family when I'm playing. I don't know if I'll be able to make that sacrifice again as a coach.

“My father was a high school coach and teacher, so it was a little different from an NBA or a college coach or something like that. He coached me from the time I was little to the time I was in high school. I owe him a great deal and I respect the way he went about things with our teams and I carry that with me to this day.”

But no thanks on following in his father's footsteps.

Mohammed had similar sentiments, thinking about the toll a coaching career would take on his family. Mohammed has three kids, while Hinrich has four, including newborn twins.

“I do like the individual instruction part of coaching and working with guys,” Mohammed said. “That's something I might think about doing at the college level. But I haven't thought about coaching. I'm thinking more of the management side of it, one day being GM, assistant GM, something like that.”

So his Bulls' role model is more Randy Brown than Ed Pinckney?

“I still look up to Ed,” Mohammed said. “I just know what I've put my wife through the last 17 years; I don't know if she can handle being a coach's wife, too.”

Thibodeau, obviously, never came close to playing in the NBA. His success with the Bulls probably helped spark an interest in hiring coaches who weren't NBA players, such as Mike Budenholzer in Atlanta and Steve Clifford in Charlotte.

This summer saw a return to the ex-players getting a call, with first-time coaches Steve Kerr and Derek Fisher taking jobs in Golden State and New York, respectively.

Asked if he thought any of his current players would go into coaching, Thibodeau's feeling is never say never.

“It's funny because when you ask them now, they say, ‘Nah, I don't want to do that.' But usually after a year or so (of retirement), there's an itch because their love for the game comes back,” he said. “Often times guys you might not think would ever be interested ultimately do it and love it. I think we have the right type of guys that if they chose to do it would be very good at it.”

When someone jokingly suggested Joakim Noah as a future coach, Thibodeau didn't rule it out.

“I'd love to see that,” he said. “He actually would be pretty good, I think. He has a good way about him. I don't know if he'd want to give up all his (free) time. But he'd be good at it if he chose to do it.”

Noah later said there's no chance he'll become a coach. But if, say, the Jamaican national team came calling, who knows what the answer would be.

Get the latest Bulls news via Twitter by following @McGrawDHBulls.