Boston’s Joe Mazzulla has a strong case for Coach of the Year. Don’t tell him that
The NBA has started the process of lining up voters for postseason awards, and if form holds from recent years the ballots will be due shortly after the end of the regular season. Some categories will be easier for those on the voting panel to fill out than others. Defensive Player of the Year might not take voters very long (spoiler alert, it’ll be San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama) and Rookie of the Year is basically going to be a two-contender race (a Duke guy will win; it’s TBD if it’ll be Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel or Dallas’ Cooper Flagg).
Other races will be tougher. When talking MVP, for example, logical arguments can be made for Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic, Wembanyama, Boston’s Jaylen Brown and probably a few others as well. Another of those wide-open races?
Coach of the Year. There is no shortage of candidates. J.
B. Bickerstaff is likely going to guide Detroit — a team that made headlines for losing streaks just two years ago — to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Mitch Johnson, in his first full season at the helm in San Antonio (he did coach 77 of the Spurs’ 82 games last season, but technically, this is full season No. 1), will have the Spurs in the No. 1 or No.