| National Basketball Associationawards and honors |
|---|
| Team awards |
| Individual awards |
| Honors |
| Sport | Basketball |
|---|---|
| League | National Basketball Association |
| Awarded for | Coach deemed most integral to their team's success in regular season of theNational Basketball Association |
| History | |
| First award | 1962–63 |
| Most wins | Don Nelson Pat Riley Gregg Popovich (tied, 3) |
| Most recent | Kenny Atkinson Cleveland Cavaliers |
TheNational Basketball Association's Coach of the Year is an annualNational Basketball Association (NBA) award given since the1962–63 NBA season. The winner receives theRed Auerbach Trophy, which is named in honor of the head coach who led theBoston Celtics to nineNBA championships from 1956 to 1966. The winner is selected at the end of the regular season by a panel of sportswriters from the United States and Canada, each of whom casts a vote for first, second and third place selections. Each first-place vote is worth five points; each second-place vote is worth three points; and each third-place vote is worth one point. The person with the highest point total, regardless of the number of first-place votes, wins the award.[1]
Since its inception, the award has been given to 41 different coaches. The most recent award winner is currentCleveland Cavaliers head coachKenny Atkinson.Gregg Popovich,Don Nelson andPat Riley have each won the award three times, whileHubie Brown,Mike Brown,Mike Budenholzer,Mike D'Antoni,Bill Fitch,Cotton Fitzsimmons,Gene Shue, andTom Thibodeau have each won it twice. No coach has won consecutive Coach of the Year awards. Riley is the only coach to be named Coach of the Year with three franchises.[2]Tom Heinsohn,Bill Sharman, andLenny Wilkens are the only recipients to have been inducted to theNaismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as bothplayer andcoach.Johnny Kerr is the only person to win the award with a losing record (33–48 with theChicago Bulls in1966–67). Kerr was honored because he had guided the Bulls to theNBA Playoffs in their first season in the league.[3]Doc Rivers is the only person to win the award despite his team not making the playoffs (41–41 with theOrlando Magic in1999–2000). Only five recipients also coached the team that won the championship the same season: Red Auerbach,Red Holzman, Bill Sharman,Phil Jackson, and Gregg Popovich. Popovich is the only NBA Coach of the Year recipient to win the championship in the same season twice, winning the NBA title with theSan Antonio Spurs in 2003 and 2014. 2020 winner and formerToronto Raptors head coachNick Nurse is the only coach to receive this honor in both the NBA and theNBA G League, having received theG League award in2011.[4]
2015–16 recipientSteve Kerr only coached 39 of the 82 games in the season due to complications from offseason back surgery, though he received credit for all of theGolden State Warriors' 73 wins that season. Assistant coachLuke Walton served as interim head coach for the other 43 games for the Warriors, receiving one second-place vote and two third-place votes.[5] Steve Kerr and Luke Walton both wonNBA Coach of the Month during the 2015–16 season, Kerr in March and Walton in November. Kerr asked the league to award Walton with the wins accumulated during Kerr's medical recovery time, but the NBA refused to do so because under league rules interim head coaches do not have win-loss records at all. Mike Brown became the first unanimous Coach of the Year recipient in NBA history in the2022–23 season.[6]
| ^ | Denotes head coach who is currently active in the NBA as a head coach |
| * | Elected to theNaismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach |
| † | Denotes coach was an unanimous winner |
| Bold | Team won NBA championship for that season |
| Coach (#) | Denotes the number of times the coach has been selected |
| Team (#) | Denotes the number of times a coach from this team has won |
| W–L | Win–loss record for that season |
| Win% | Winning percentage for that season |
| Win% ± | Winning percentage change from previous season |
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