Pop is not COY

[phxspurfan]

...according to NBA.com:

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/04/05/statscube-the-case-for-karl/?ls=iref:nbahpt1

"Jackson and Karl have made their strongest case with how well L.A. and Denver have played since the All-Star break. And for Karl, we have to look back at how he well he kept the Nuggets together in the midst of the ‘Melo-drama that ran from September to February."


http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/04/05/statscube-the-case-for-karl/?ls=iref:nbahpt1


If anybody besides Pop should be COY, it should be Jerry Sloan of the Jazz, posthumously. He showed, by leaving the Jazz and stupid DWill, that a coach really is that valuable.

[Cessation]

Obviously, he's not.

[JR3]

Aint that some shhhhh.

[DesignatedT]

Cool

[Mugen]

He should have been permanently out of the running as soon as he had Steve Novak inbound the ball.

[alchemist]

he should get it this year no doubt. if Denver gets 50 wins though I would not be upset if Karl got it.

typical spurfag comment to come:
fire pop he sucks.

[nkdlunch]

no way Jackson gets it.

It's either Karl, Pop or the bulls coach. It will be either Pop/Bulls coach. Whoever gets #1 seed.

[TD21-FTW]

Who cares.

[4>0rings]

Karl is so great now that Carmelo is gone?

[Strategic]

Where were the Spurs predicted to finish prior to start of season? Where are they now? Who found Gary Neal?

[Obstructed_View]

He should have been permanently out of the running as soon as he had Steve Novak inbound the ball.

qft

[DMC]

Phil won't get it. He's got a defending championship team who played shitty the first half. So they are playing better now. He hasn't gotten blood from a turnip like Pop has. Tibbs has done great, but having Boozer and an MVP might skew it a bit for him. I always thought Nate McMillan does a great job with the situation he's had to face every year. George Karl might be considered as well, but no one put the Spurs over 60 games this season (assuming they get there), especially considering Splitter wasn't a key component to the season.

[TD 21]

Even before the Spurs slide, there was growing sentiment for Thibodeau to win the award. Given that his primary competition was a Spur, he'd have probably won it anyway, but now that the Spurs don't possess far and away the best record in the league, I'd be surprised if Thibodeau doesn't win it. Collins (media connections) and Karl (sentiment) will also garner strong consideration.

It would take the Lakers winning or surpassing 70 games for Jackson to ever have a legitimate shot. Short of that, it doesn't matter if he does the best job of his career, he'll never get (a lot) of credit for coaching that team.

[Pauleta14]

It's a good thing!!

All the previous COY failed to win a championship that same year... :)

[Creation88]

Thibadeau will win although Pop deserves it.

[WeNeedLength]

Thibadeau will win although Pop deserves it.

No he doesn't. Is sticking with a lineup that has worked due to lucky shooting percentages from Bonner and other subs really going to work forever? This constant Blair/Bonner lineup that lets the Spurs get shit on at the end of the 1st quarter and half of the second is absolutely D-league trash coaching. It's fucking ridiculous watching this stubborn POS refuse to change his faulty ways.

[ShoogarBear]

I'd vote for Thibodeau. Yeah, Rose has had a great year, but the single biggest reason why they're challenging for the best record is their team play and defense. When the Bulls lost a key cog (Noah), they played through it. He's completely transformed their identity, they're peaking at the right time, and they're playing a style that's conducive to a long run in the playoffs. (At this point, Pop can only claim one of those three.)

[20beastie45]

Jackson shouldn't get it

Tib's deserves it

Pop has lost it

Karl.......IDK......i wouldn't be upset about it.

[HarlemHeat37]

Thibodeau easily deserves it, it's not even close IMO..Chicago has a superstar in Rose, but their system has been the key to their success IMO..

Pop actually did a great job earlier in the season, when he turned the Spurs into a running team, knowing that it would be the only chance to beat LA and to maximize the weapons on this team..unfortunately, since they have went away from that, the Spurs haven't looked that great..he continues to play favorites, especially Bonner-Blair..

Jackson shouldn't even be in consideration, Lakers have underachieved, and they win primarily due to their size, obviously..

Doug Collins deserves consideration, he has maximized the results from the talent on the team IMO..

[baseline bum]

And Dick Jefferson is not MVP.

[timtonymanu]

It has to go to Thibs. Who expected the Bulls to have a better record than Boston and Miami and close to having HCA through the rest of the playoffs?

[ChuckD]

COY is a flavor of the month award, and frequently a death sentence to that coach. Just look at the winners from the last 10-11 years. I think only Pop is still coaching where he won the award.

[Warlord23]

COY is a flavor of the month award, and frequently a death sentence to that coach. Just look at the winners from the last 10-11 years. I think only Pop is still coaching where he won the award.

Yeah man. Pop would've had 7 or 8 rings if he had a better superstar. Fuck Tim Duncan's weak-ass game. Pop is basically Red Auerbach and Vince Lombardi rolled into one smug, pockmarked package.

[DMC]

When Bud jumps off the bench and holds his hands over his head to tell the team "arms up on defense", that's a sign something's not working. Pop started slowing the offense not long after the break. I have no idea why he did that, unless it was wearing out his starters.

[DMC]

COY is a flavor of the month award, and frequently a death sentence to that coach. Just look at the winners from the last 10-11 years. I think only Pop is still coaching where he won the award.

Teams that have had those improvements to win COY haven't gotten good enough to win the championship. That doesn't mean they didn't improve. If the team is going to win, it has nothing to do with whether or not Pop gets COY. I would rather him get the award than anyone else in the league.

[TD 21]

Thibodeau easily deserves it, it's not even close IMO..Chicago has a superstar in Rose, but their system has been the key to their success IMO..

Pop actually did a great job earlier in the season, when he turned the Spurs into a running team, knowing that it would be the only chance to beat LA and to maximize the weapons on this team..unfortunately, since they have went away from that, the Spurs haven't looked that great..he continues to play favorites, especially Bonner-Blair..

Jackson shouldn't even be in consideration, Lakers have underachieved, and they win primarily due to their size, obviously..

Doug Collins deserves consideration, he has maximized the results from the talent on the team IMO..

I agree that Jackson shouldn't and won't merit consideration. My point was that even if he did, he'd never be seriously considered with that team unless they won at least 70.

[Obstructed_View]

According to Lakerfan, LA has the best player in the history of the league, the sixth man of the year, the best power forward in the league, and the best center in the league. With all that talent, Jackson's lucky to have his job with how badly they've underperformed this season.

[duncan228]

Popovich a perfect example of what Coach of Year should be (http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/fran_blinebury/04/07/coach-of-the-year-pick/)
Fran Blinebury
NBA.com

More than any of the other annual awards, Coach of the Year always seems to honor the surprises over the superlatives. It is the one category that tends to say more about the voters than the candidates themselves.

How else can you explain Phil Jackson with 11 championship rings and just one Coach of the Year trophy?Isn't winning the most games what it's all about? So shouldn't the achievement of excellence carry more weight than exceeding our expectations?

Then there are the instances when those two lines on the graph converge to deliver the best of both worlds. That's why the pick for 2011 is Gregg Popovich.

Last spring, when the Suns put the finishing touches on a 4-0 sweep of San Antonio in the West semifinals, virtually nobody could have envisioned the Spurs having the best record in the league the next season.

Nobody, that is, except Popovich. All he had to do was chuck the offense that had delivered four championships in a dozen seasons and take the core of his team in a completely new direction.

Gone was the pound-it-inside and grind-it-out offense that ran through Tim Duncan and had made the Spurs as reliable -- and predictable -- as a Swiss watch. Gone was a style of play that was showing cracks like the seams of a Boeing jet. In its place was an up-tempo game that insisted on a faster pace in transition and thrived on taking -- and making -- the first open 3-pointer.

First, Popovich spent a good portion of the offseason in the gym with Richard Jefferson. He tweaked Jefferson's game and re-ignited his confidence after a first season in San Antonio that was widely regarded as a bust. Then he arrived at training camp and let the Big Three of Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker know that he was altering the script that they'd long since committed to memory.

And how did that work out?

"Fine," said Ginobili, who has started more games this season (77) than he has in any other season in his career. He -- and not Duncan -- is the primary option in the Spurs' offense for the first time, too.

"If you're asking any player if he wants to play more minutes, maybe get more shots, have the chance to do more things, I think they'll be OK with that."

"He's Pop," said Parker, who was turned loose to push the pace and score in transition more than ever before. "You don't ask questions. You just do it."

Popovich did it by casting an undrafted rookie (Gary Neal) and the unheralded forward (Matt Bonner) in roles as his long-range bombers. The change has resulted in the Spurs leading the league in 3-point shooting (39.9 percent). He allowed the unpredictable, irrepressible Ginobili to do whatever he could and, in the process, shrewdly kept the minutes down on the soon-to-be 35-year-old Duncan. Yet the former two-time MVP still produces at crunch time.

The Spurs did it by racing out to a 13-1 start and were practically leaving vapor trails in their wake when they were 29-4 on New Year's Day. If not for Duncan spraining an ankle and a spate of nagging injuries that briefly sent Parker and Ginobili to the bench with him, the Spurs would have avoided the late six-game, two-week long swoon and might have set a franchise record for wins. Still, a 3-0 finish to close the season and they'll at least tie the club record of 63 wins set in 2005-06.

The fact that all of this was a surprise to so many is just an extra for Pop. It's the excellence that should matter.

The Contenders

Phil Jackson, Lakers: It's always easy to look at the smirk, listen to the often condescending tone in his voice and nod at the rosters full of names like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant and say that anybody could do it. But anybody hasn't. If this truly is Jackson's NBA swan song, it's a great final pass. He brought the Lakers from the doubts of Christmas and the black clouds of February to a 17-4 post-All-Star break record that has re-established the two-time defending champs as the team to beat.

George Karl, Nuggets: For his next trick, maybe Karl will saw a lady in half. It's been nothing short of magic the way Karl managed to keep Denver together through the 'Melo-drama that was the first half of the season. Before they shipped Carmelo Anthony to New York, Karl's team had the No. 1 offense in the league. Since the trade and since the All-Star break, the Nuggets have had the No. 1 defense and a 16-5 record.

Doug Collins, Sixers: Give Collins credit not just for where the Sixers are, but how they got there. It would have been easy for him to stubbornly stick to his philosophical guns when his sputtered to a 3-13 start. But he recognized the situation and tossed all that he had brought from previous stops in Detroit and Washington and reworked the Sixers from the ground up. They're not just fun to watch, but good.

Tom Thibodeau, Bulls: If ever a team needed an identity, it was the Bulls. Thibodeau has given it to them in spades with the defense that had made him one of the top assistants in the league for years. He juggled a lineup through early-season injuries and he inspired Derrick Rose to become a leader and then turned him loose on the basketball world. When Michael Jordan recently said there could be six more championships coming to Chicago, he wasn't kidding.

Nate McMillan, Blazers: You just mark it down on the calendar every year. The season is barely under way and the Trail Blazers are hit by a spate of injuries that should make them crumble. Except McMillan won't let them. He's got LaMarcus Aldridge playing like an All-Star, Brandon Roy accepting a secondary role, and the Blazers heading into the playoffs as a team most foes don't want to meet.

Rick Adelman, Rockets: Another year when Yao Ming breaks a bone in his foot. Another year when the Rockets have to cobble together a star-free lineup. Another year when Adelman conjures up a share-the-ball, push-the-pace offense and, more important, doesn't allow his team to quit. The fact that this bunch is in the West playoff race to the final week says enough. It should say to Rockets management to come to their senses and re-sign him.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/fran_blinebury/04/07/coach-of-the-year-pick/

[DMC]

Is it proper to say "former two time MVP"? Tim is a two time MVP. He's not the current MVP, but it seems strange to say "two time" and then say "former". I guess saying "two time MVP" infers that he's the MVP currently.

[ducks]

rick is overated with the rockets
they play hard but not having ming is a cop excuse people keep using
ming has not been with them for over 2 years

[ducks]

nate is overrated to
every year it is they are going to do something and have not
always they are playing well without oden
duh he has played like maybe 82 games and has been in the league 5 or so

[ffadicted]

Tom Thibodeau or get the fuck out

[Hoops Czar]

Pop definitely deserves coach of the year. The Spurs were projected to slide in as the eighth seed with less than 50 wins. Instead the Spurs bolster the best record in the western conference with 60+ wins. Some projected the Spurs to miss the playoffs altogether.

[ShoogarBear]

Is it proper to say "former two time MVP"? Tim is a two time MVP. He's not the current MVP, but it seems strange to say "two time" and then say "former". I guess saying "two time MVP" infers that he's the MVP currently.

Probably is more gramatically correct to say "two-time former MVP".

[ShoogarBear]

Pop definitely deserves coach of the year. The Spurs were projected to slide in as the eighth seed with less than 50 wins. Instead the Spurs bolster the best record in the western conference with 60+ wins. Some projected the Spurs to miss the playoffs altogether.

Pop did a great job, reservations on their playoff readiness aside. But the Spurs' health played big role in that, too. I didn't see any serious, knowledgeable person predict the Spurs missing the playoffs.

It's just that Thibodeau did an even better one. Chicago having one of the top two records in the league after 41 wins last year is phenomenal.