If you look at a list of past NBA Coach of the Year Award winners, you'll notice that there are a few patterns. Sometimes, a certain coach is given the honor because his team was truly, historically dominant, regardless of how much talent might have been available to him. You can put Gregg Popovich, a three-time winner, and Steve Kerr in that category.
And then there are coaches whose team may not be at the very top of the league — though they're practically always at the helm of a strong playoff contender — but whose presence allowed the organization to reverse its recent fortunes or defy expectations.
Nick Nurse won the NBA Finals with the 2018-19 Raptors, his first season at in the head coach role, and took home the honor in his second year there because he was able to record a higher winning percentage the following season, even after the departure of superstar Kawhi Leonard. Mike Budenholzer turned the Bucks from a middling team, with two straight years of win totals in the low 40s, to a 60-22 beast when he earned the award in 2018-19. After two seasons of 41-41 basketball, the 2010-11 Bulls erupted for a 62-20 finish with first-year coach Tom Thibodeau leading the charge.
The more impressive the turnaround, the stronger the argument that the coach was the driving force behind it. And this year, it's hard to find a better candidate than the aforementioned Thibodeau, who is currently in his debut campaign as the head coach of the Knicks. SNY's Ian Begley joined Ryan McDonough on the "Audacy NBA Show" to discuss Thibodeau's case to win the award and, surprisingly, state that he thinks there's another candidate who's case is stronger as of right now.
"He's put together a strong argument, I know that," Begley said. "And he won it his first year in Chicago — obviously, that Bulls team, I think they won close to 60 games or somewhere in that neighborhood, so we're not talking an apples-to-apples comparison here — but we're talking about the first-year coach making a big impact on his organization, and that's what Thibodeau's done this year.
"I don't know if he gets it over a Monty Williams or a Quin Snyder. There's a lot of coaches that have put together strong campaigns. Steve Nash, across the river. Doc Rivers. So I'm not sure if he gets it. I see Monty as kind of the favorite because of the way the Suns have played. We'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks — I think that will ultimately decide which way this thing goes — but you can not overstate Thibodeau's impact on this team."
Considering the 2020-21 iteration of the Knicks with Thibodeau at the helm surpassed the 2019-20 team's win total in March, it's pretty easy to see just how important Thibodeau's influence has been. Julius Randle credits the fact that Thibs has held players accountable for their mistakes and worked hard to fix those flaws. Apparently, that can lead to a nine-game win streak at a key juncture in the season, which we just witnessed before the Phoenix Suns brought it to an end before it could reach double digits.
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Coincidentally, Monty Williams is the man in charge of that Phoenix Suns team, an organization that went from 19-63 under Igor Kokoskov in 2018-19 to 34-39 in 2019-20 under Williams, and who now sits at a whopping 43-18 in a fiercely competitive Western Conference.
Here are how the two teams have evolved from recent seasons, with some advanced stats shown as key indicators of the newfound success (via Stathead):
Regardless of whether or not Thibodeau is chosen for the award, which would make it the second time he's won it, Knicks fans have to be thrilled with the team that has come out on the floor every game this season, with the players who have played their hearts out night in and night out, and with the coach who's helping to make it all possible.
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