Scott Brooks wins Coach of the year

[oh crap]

Few teams both excited and surprised fans as much as the Oklahoma City Thunder this season. The youngest team in the league, they still managed to play excellent defense and execute well at the offensive end in a manner rarely seen in such an inexperienced squad.

Coach Scott Brooks was a big reason for that, and now he's been honored as the 2009-10 Coach of the Year, as announced by the NBA at 5 p.m. ET. He took home 71 first-place votes, 45 more than the next closest finisher.

It's a richly deserved award. After taking over for P.J. Carlesimo in the middle of last season, his positive approach has been a breath of fresh air. You could see that style pay off during timeouts in the Game 2 loss against the Lakers, when he stressed what the Thunder were doing well and said that shots would go down. They did, and the Thunder nearly took control of the series as an eight-seed before going down late.

There were other deserving choices this season, of course. Second-place Scott Skiles produced perhaps the most surprising playoff team of the season, taking a Bucks team without any true stars and turning it into one of his typically hard-nosed squads with incredible defensive intensity. My personal choice for Coach of the Year, Portland's Nate McMillan, overcame many injuries and made every iteration of his Blazers team effective at both ends of the floor. He finished in a distant third.

But Brooks is a good choice, and anything that gets the Thunder more attention is cool with me. This team needs to be on national TV as much as possible next season, and hardware like this can't hurt that goal.
Posted In: Scott Brooks, Oklahoma City Thunder

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/The...ch_of_the_year

[mogrovejo]

Brooks, Skiles, McMillan, Sloan and Spoelstra would all have been good choices.

[duhoh]

good one. now let's hope he doesn't get fired like the last few winners

[DesignatedT]

I probably would have voted Skiles 1 Brooks 2. Both very worthy though

[lil_penny]

I would of voted for the one who had the better record even with a thousand more injuries.. but that's just me.

[namlook]

Well deserved for Brooks. He has his team of very young players playing great.