One of the most interesting takeaways from my colleague Neil Paine's FiveThirtyEight article on the Chicago Bulls' dismissal of Tom Thibodeau is his breakdown of which NBA coaches have historically done the most with less.

Btw, Larry Bird: better coach than player? Probably not, but man did his Pacers wildly exceed expectations pic.twitter.com/fEg8IlX8pO — Neil Paine (@Neil_Paine) May 28, 2015

The only coach who has guided his team to more wins above expectation per 82 games than Thibodeau (+7.5) is former Pacers head coach Larry Bird (+9.4), and Frank Vogel (+6.8) is a close third.

In other words, while asserting that the Bulls let go of a coach that was one of the league's all-time best at outperforming preseason projections, Paine incidentally proves that Bird's 1998-2000 head coaching tenure and Vogel's current tenure -- which began in 2011 -- are in the same ballpark in terms of unexpected success.

It's interesting to note that Bird and Vogel have coached the fewest and second-fewest games respectively of any coaches on Paine's list. Thibodeau is third.

But Paine's methodology focuses more on player production, year over year, than coaching prestige. So having more games under their belts wouldn't necessarily mean Vogel, Bird or Thibodeau would slide down the rankings.