Coach Of the Year candidates
Mike Budenholzer, a coach that has ‘stolen’ the knowledge of how to play good basketball from his mentor, Gregg Popovich, during his time spent as an assistant coach with the Spurs between 1996 and 2013, is yet again one of the most appreciated coaches in the league, and that’s no surprise, if we take a look at how the Milwaukee Bucks are doing and how their players have improved since the last season. Mike has won this award while he was coaching the Atlanta Hawks in the 2014-2015 season when he took them to the Eastern Conference Finals. This year, he is doing a tremendous job with the guys, finding the right rotation to use while running the offense through his superstar player, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Known for his strictness in defense, a thing that he learned from Gregg Popovich, Budenholzer is one of the favourites to win the award. Lately, he was selected as the head coach for the East in the All-Star Game and has won the Coach Of the Month award in January, having a record of 12 wins and 3 loses and maintaining his team to the best record in the entire league.
Michael Malone is another very good coach who surprised the people around the league by getting his ‘small market’ team at the top of the stands in the heavy West, currently sitting 2nd, right behind the Warriors. Malone started his head coaching career only 4 years ago, in the 2013-2014 season, so we can say that he is pretty young in the business. Obviously, the players are the main reason for the team’s success, because one of them has developed into an MVP caliber type of player, Nikola Jokic, and the rest of them have improved a lot since the last year. But, coming back at the coaching staff, Malone is living his best life as a head coach this year, and lately he was selected as the coach for the Western All-Star Team, earning it for the first time in his career while he is the third Nuggets coach in their history to have this honor, joining Larry Brown and George Karl. That’s not a very hard decision to make if we take a look at the stands and the team that he is preparing. If the Nuggets are going to maintain their position until the end of the regular season, he is the favourite to win the award.
Dave Joerger has made the Sacramento Kings a playoff contender team, a thing that hasn’t happened since a very long time. His team is currently on the 9th place, only 1 loss away from the Clippers who are on 8, and 1 win away from the Lakers. I think it is safe to say that not many people were expecting the Kings to perform this well coming into this season, De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield being the main surprises of the team. Joerger is in his 6th season as a head coach and in the 3rd with Sacramento, having an overall W/L% of 40 until now. Even though his winning percentage is not necessarily positive, the first 2 seasons were only a rebuilding process for the franchise, a process that they needed to go through when they traded Demarcus Cousins to the Pelicans. This season he has a 52% W/L, with 28W and 25L, a big improvement compared to the last season, when they’ve got 27 wins in the entire season. The future is looking good in Sacramento, a thing that they couldn’t really say in the past 12 seasons.
Nate McMillan, the Indiana Pacers head coach, is in his 3rd season as a head coach for the Indianapolis based team, and he is doing a pretty good job by making the game plan for his young core. When Paul George left the team 2 seasons ago for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis from the Oklahoma City Thunder, very few expected this team to perform at this high level and to be a strong contender for the Eastern Conference Finals. Some of them weren’t even thinking that they will make the playoffs for some years to come. But all that changed when Oladipo proved them that he is a superstar in this league, and the one that had faith in him was McMillan, who had the will to run the offense through him. Sadly, his superstar player suffered a season-ending injury a few games ago, and their team success is going to be slightly reduced until the end of the season. They are still sitting at the 4th place in the East and maybe they will have the home court advantage, but their chances to make some noise in the playoffs are minimal to zero because of Oladipo’s injury, unfortunately for them.
Kenny Atkinson, who started in the 2016-17 season his head coaching career, is one of the less experienced coaches in the league, and this year he has made the Brooklyn Nets one of the biggest surprises of the NBA, by finding a way to use his young, less experienced guys in a productive way. And he somehow made it, because his team is currently on the 6th place while they beat the Nuggets in their last game at home. He trusted D’Angelo Russell when the Lakers didn’t and now he converted him into an All-Star. Currently, the Brooklyn Nets have 28 wins at the half mark of the season, tying their whole last season record and having with 8 more than two seasons ago. We can safely say that he made a huge improvement for his team, a team which a lot of specialists thought that is done for some years to come as a franchise.
Andrei Dilean, info@brainbasketball.net
