Atlanta’s Mike Budenholzer has won this year’s Coach of the Year award in a tight race with Steve Kerr.
Budenholzer got 67 first place votes to Kerr’s 57, and finished with 513 overall points to Kerr’s 471.
Jason Kidd edged out Brad Stevens for third 57 total points to 50. Kidd got only one first place vote while Stevens got two, but he got five 2nd place votes to Stevens’ four, and 37 third place votes to Stevens’ 28.
Mike Tirico of ESPN and Ralph Lawler of Prime Ticket were the two first place votes for Stevens.
If I’d gotten a vote, I probably would have gone with Budenholzer first and Kerr second with Stevens third. I obviously have become a huge fan of what Stevens is doing here in Boston, but you can’t argue with what Budenholzer and Kerr have done. Kidd’s Bucks weren’t expected to be a 6th seed, and even though they had a late-season swoon, they still held onto that spot, so I can see why voters would choose him.
Obviously this is all subjective and there were some very deserving candidates. I don’t think there’s any real argument against any of these guys (well, I won’t fight too hard for Kidd because I think he’s a douche and I hate how he got to Milwaukee, but I digress…). Budenholzer has no superstars and his team dominated the East. I’m a huge fan of Kerr’s demeanor with his team and people don’t realize how great a two-way team he’s made them.
And then there’s Stevens, who has Macgyver’ed his way to 40 win season. Some of you will, in the comments, make very passionate statements for Stevens to be COY and, like I said, that’s legit. I’ll just say this: I’m pretty confident he’ll win this award at some point. He got one fewer first place vote than Gregg Popovich (who was 5th) and I think Pop’s a coaching God… so I’m not losing sleep over this. I’m just happy Stevens is in Boston.
Full voting results can be found here.
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