Stevens places 6th in Coach of the Year voting

Celtics

(Waltham, MA 042116 ) Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens speaks to reporter in Waltham, Massachusetts April 21, 2016. Staff Photo by Chitose Suzuki

Welp, Brad Stevens may have beaten Steve Kerr on Golden State’s home court this month, but he didn’t come close in the Coach of the Year voting. The NBA announced today that the Celtics’ coach finished a distant sixth in votes cast by media members, totaling just 74 points compared to Kerr, the winner with 381 points.

Other coaches that finished above Stevens were Terry Stotts of Portland, Gregg Popovich of San Antonio, Steve Clifford of Charlotte, and Dwane Casey of Toronto.

Kerr, Pop and Casey were deserving candidates based on their teams’ superior records, but this totally biased writer is having a hard time understanding how Stotts and Clifford got so much more voting love than Stevens. Especially when, according to Chris Mannix and Jackie MacMullan, Brad is the next coaching superstar. But neither of those writers had a COY vote.

Stevens received five first-place votes, one of them coming from Tommy Heinsohn. Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe gave Stevens a second-place vote, but A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE and Celts’ radio voice Sean Grande snubbed him.

Maybe next year.

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