Okay, I'll admit it: I have no idea what an NBA coach does (*). The kind of work they really do is behind the scenes, the subtle massaging of egos and the ability to properly tear grown men a new one and make it mean something. That doesn't tend to happen on the sideline during the game or at the post-game press conference, so all I see of the coaches is the shit they don't do. Strategizing to put players in their most optimal opportunities to produce is pretty much 100% of it but I don't really know what that looks like and, of course, it's success is largely dependent on the talent that is available. So...yeah....I'm totally guessing.
Coach of the Year: Quin Snyder (Jazz).
The Jazz have been coming for a while now and this was their season. Utah is in that weird pocket of the country that no one pays attention to (Mountain Time Zone, what?) and features a true ensemble team that rolls ten deep and gets contributions from all over. Coach Snyder isn't relying on one guy to do it all, nor is it simply a 'team concept' that follows his orders, rather it is a group of autonomous guys, any one of whom might feel like he's the star on any given night. They play loose and they have a lot of personalities and balancing all that to finish #1 in the West is impressive.
The rest of my top ten: Doc Rivers (Sixers), Mike Malone (Nuggets), Steve Nash (Nets), Tom Thibodeau (Knicks), Tyron Lue (Clippers), Monty Williams (Suns), (and just to make it look like a top ten) Steve Kerr (Warriors), Taylor Jenkins (Grizzlies), Nate McMillan (Hawks)
Rivers working his magic with a Sixers team that has had a slow build to immense expectations was a joy to behold this year. The Sixers could've turtled up and pretended they weren't ready for another year but Rivers kept that from happening. So he's my Eastern Conference COY.
Mike Malone (Nuggets) juggles a lot of players and makes the most them once again. Nash seems like he was handed the best roster in the game but not so fast--there's a lot of weird energy on that team and he was able to keep them in line--even when they didn't show up for long stretches of time. Thibodeau has never been a favorite of mine but I think this year's roster is precisely what he's good at: getting the most out of reclamation projects (the Knicks might just be the perfect place for him). Lue was able to guide the Clippers to a quiet, understated (which is the way to go in Clipperland) 4th place finish, leaving them well-positioned for the post-season. I like Monty Williams as much as the next guy but after digging into the stats, I'd say the Paul-Booker-Ayton trio does most of the heavy lifting, so while I don't want to diss the improvement the Suns made this season, I'm not really sure Williams is the guy to credit for that.
The also-rans:
So while I've seen Frank Vogel (Lakers) have impressive teams in the past, this year was mostly treading water and hanging on to the last possible rung in the ladder, which was not so impressive to behold.
Terry Stotts (Blazers) has had interesting years in the past (and some duds), but this team is so strictly on auto-pilot right now (for better and for worse), that I'm not sure he's even there on a daily basis.
Mike Budenholzer (Bucks) has a history of getting the most out of lesser rosters, but this year's Bucks team faded from the usual spot--despite being better than they've ever been! So while I think that positions them well for the post-season (oh, I'll be coming back to this in a future post!), this regular season seemed strangely anti-climactic for the team that has been coming for a while now.
I've long been a big fan of Erik Spoelstra (Heat), but somehow the defending eastern champs never looked right to me all season long. Yeah, there were injuries and Covid-19 and all that, but I never felt like this team knew what it was, when frankly it should. The high pressure expectations of the abstraction that is "Heat Culture" sometimes overwhelm a clear identity (when it feels like it should be the opposite, right?).
I think Brad Stevens (Celtics) is maybe the greatest coach in the biz right now (Calipari is just keeping the sideline at Rupp warm for him), but the Celtics were barely better than the Wizards this year, not even as good as the Warriors, not nearly as good as the Blazers. Why is that? I don't blame Stevens but I think he's done so much with so little for so long that the Celtics brass thinks he can just do that every year and this year proved that isn't so. The higher expectations get, the more talent he will need to command to reach those heights. The Celtics were fine this season but they've been trending up and that trend didn't hold.
(*) OMG and European soccer coaches...I don't even know why teams have those...
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