NBA Coach of the Year

Randy Wittman (Wizards) and George Karl (Kings) are rumored to be getting fired any minute now, which will likely put a crimp in their arguments for Coach of the Year. With the recent Sixers' front office changes, will Coach Brown be on his way out in Philly? (Personally, I hope not; he's endured so much hardship, it seems rude to run him out now that the upside is in sight) Not sure what the Lakers or Wolves are going to do with their coaches going forward but neither would seem to figure in this year's Coach of the Year Award.

Can a coach that failed to make the playoffs be considered for Coach of the Year? Well, as a general principle I suppose its possible; but this particular year, no.

The playoff coaches:
Lue (Blatt), Casey, Budenholzer, Clifford, Stevens, Spoelstra, Vogel, Van Gundry
Kerr (Walton), Popovich, Donovan, Rivers, Stotts, Carlyle, Joerger, Bickerstaff (McHale), Snyder

Obviously the elephant in the room is Steve Kerr, The Warriors will break the record (I mean, right?) for most wins in the regular season while defending last year's championship. Feels like a no-brainer choice, huh? Well, due to health problems Kerr missed the first two months of the season and the team hummed along without him just fine. This team won the Championship last season and made virtually no changes in the off-season. I haven't made up my mind yet but I'm not sure I'm going to think that Kerr's coaching maneuvers were so decisive. So where does he go? Either he goes 1st or just not at all, right? I dunno what to do with him honestly.

Popovich, on the other hand, oversaw an overhaul of the Spurs roster. Bringing in Lamarcus Aldridge pushes Tim Duncan, the longtime leader of the team, to the side and continuing to trust Kawhi Leonard with more of the offensive duties pushes Tony Parker, a multi-time champion PG, to the side. Also, considering the continued diminution of the duties of Manu Ginobli and the inexplicably poor shooting year from Danny Green, it seems to me that Popovich had a lot more on his plate than Kerr did and frankly had only a slightly lesser season. Yes, he's got a lot of talent to work with and brought in more during the summer, but the changing dynamic of the team can be earth shattering and yet this Spurs team just set their franchise record for wins and tied the league record for home wins. And while they just got spanked twice by the Warriors, I suspect the Spurs still have plenty left in the tank for the playoff run. I think Popovich is my choice but let's run through the rest of the candidates.

Billy Donovan was a rookie coach this season, stepping in after the long time reign of Scotty Brooks in OKC. The Thunder were led by the great Kevin Durant and the downright beastly Russell Westbrook (both of whom will appear in my MVP post) and got an under appreciated season out of Enes Kanter (my runner up for 6th Man of the Year). Should Donovan get COY? No. I can't honestly say his coaching contribution was any better than the guy that got run out of town last year, the Thunder D is still shaky at best and they're still not closing in the 4th. We'll see if he can bring some innovation to the playoff run and perhaps we'll all eat our words but I'd be surprised if Donovan finished in the top ten for COY.

Doc Rivers coached the Clippers to a fine 4th seed in the West despite long stretches of time without Blake Griffin and continued chaos from the bench. But honestly everything that went wrong was really Rivers' fault. I certainly hope he sends Chris Paul a lovely fruit basket because CP3 single handedly saved the Clippers this year. Of the 16 (or so) coaches listed above, I'd put Rivers near the bottom.

Last summer the Blazers blew up the core and started over behind the leadership of Damien Lillard. Nobody was too impressed with their off-season moves (except for, *ahem*, yours truly, who thought they made a lot of nice low budget maneuvers) and the idea that the Blazers have now cruised into 5th place in the West will surely garner Stotts a lot of COY votes. That's fine, I wouldn't disagree that he had a fine season with an entirely different crew than he'd previously worked with, but I would suggest that the doom and gloom predictions were a bit overwrought. I liked the moves they made last summer and while I think Stotts did a fine job, I think he had more to work with than critics acknowledged at the time. The Blazers started underrated, finished overrated, I suspect Stotts will get a more votes than he really ought to to get.

And then there's the Mavs...6th in the West which is probably where we all thought they'd be in the pre-season but somehow it seems like a shocking achievement now, doesn't it? Carlyle is one of those coaches that does what he does over and over and it generally works, he's got a great groove with the front office and with Dirk and he makes the most of a variety of rotation players that come and go. The Mavs had a nice season--not a bad season, not a great season--a nice season. Its easy to see that Carlyle is a good coach, a professional, a guy that should be doing what he's doing. Even though this team is right where everyone thought they'd be, I think its one of Carlyle's better performances as coach.

Dave Joerger has been on the hot seat all year long in Memphis and in the coming off-season, it feels the Grizzlies are a candidate for a complete makeover (whether they want to or not). The Grizzlies having been gritting and grinding for years now and while 7th in the West is not dissimilar to their recent finishes, this one somehow feels miraculous rather than a continuation of the trend. Marc Gasol has been out for most of the season, Mike Conley has been out for a while and the supporting cast has been wildly changed in the last few weeks. Seems like the Grizzlies were primed for a downturn....but there they are, back in the playoffs just like always. It seems to me Joerger has had one of the best years of his career but its hard to imagine the Grizzlies front office will feel the same way. Hard to imagine that COY voters will either.

At the beginning of the 2014-15 season I thought the Rockets would disappoint and Coach McHale would be on the hot seat; instead, the Rockets played well all year, Harden should've won MVP and they made it to the conference finals. At the beginning of the 2015-16 season I thought the Rockets would finish 1st in the West, Harden really would win the MVP and McHale would be garnering serious COY talk; instead, Harden came in fat and grumpy, McHale got run out of town pronto and the Rockets have struggled all year long waiting til the last day of the season (I mean, right?) to finally make the playoffs. McHale deserved better than he got from his players and though young Mr. Bickerstaff has been fine in his interim-ness, I can't help thinking there's a better coach out there for the this team. No votes for Houston coaches.

I know I said non-playoff coaches won't get any votes but I thought I'd just go ahead and point out that Utah is a really fun young team to watch and they've got a bright future. They squander games down the stretch (should've beat the Warriors last week) the way young teams do but they've shown a lot of improvement and personally I hope they make the playoffs. Coach Snyder has had a good year and he might even get a vote or two.

In the East, the Cavs fired off David Blatt, then had virtually the same winning percentage under Tyronn Lue. No votes for either of those guys.

Last year, I thought the Raptors would dominate the East and Coach Casey would get serious COY votes. They started well then melted away down the stretch then flamed out in the playoffs (for the second straight year). But this year, the Raptors kept their intensity thanks to great team concept and I think Casey deserves a lot of credit for that. Fortunate for him, too, because he may well be looking for a new job if the Raptors had flamed out again.

The Celtics have the best non-Popovich coach in the game of basketball. Brad Stevens had a fine year, the Celtics overacheived again but somehow I don't see him getting as many votes for COY as you think. The Celtics are a dangerous team, a scary team, but somehow you know they're not going too deep with this personnel. Oh well, Stevens is still the best as far as I'm concerned. (Gonna look good on the sidelines at Rupp Arena one o' these days)

Coach Spoelstra has always impressed me. He survived Hurricane Lebron and came out with a bunch of rings and looking strong. The Heat assembled a wild cast of characters this year and while I knew it would take time for them to come together, I trusted that Spoelstra was the perfect coach for the task. It took a little longer maybe than you'd like (especially since the Bulls were horrible and the Hawks fell off from last year) but the Heat do look dangerous going into the post-season. COY? Ehh, not sure I'd go that far, I think the best of the Heat is yet to come.

Last year, the Hawks (think back) dominated the shit out of the stretch between Xmas and the trade deadline catapulting them into the top spot in the East. But, think about it, they've otherwise just been a nice, slightly above average team except for that killer six week stretch they had. Throw in the phony baloney weirdo turmoil around Danny Ferry for over a year, which only resolved when Coach Budenholzer threw him under the bus and took his job...I dunno, man, I do not like the vibe around this team. They're a year older, they overachieved last year, the vibe is all wrong. I gotta admit: I'm not a Coach Bud fan.

Coming into this season I had no faith in the Hornets: I'm dubious on Kemba as a team carrier, I love MKG but the kid cannot score to save his life, Big Al looks past his prime, I love Batum but I wondered if he was over last year's nagging injuries, I thought Kamisky would be a nice player but he's not the McRoberts replacement that GM Jordan has been longing for, I don't dislike Jeremy Lin but I didn't see him as the 6th Man type the Hornets needed. Honestly....I think I still think all of those things! But hey, man, this team is going strong into the playoffs which is not something that I saw coming. I give all credit to Coach Clifford, big ups to that guy.

I love Coach Vogel, I think he has over-performed for years in Indiana and this was another season of that. COY? Well, not sure I'd go that far but I'm a fan and I think he had a great year.

Coach Stan Van has remade the Pistons over the last few years and will finally be getting some post-season love this year. I can't imagine they'll beat the Cavs but they'll make 'em work and that'll be a good show. The best is still ahead for the Pistons.

So who I got?
1 Popovich (Spurs)
2 Casey (Raptors)
3 Clifford (Hornets)
4 Carlyle (Mavs)
5 Kerr (Warriors) (I guess I gotta have him in my top 5--they were one of the best teams ever!)