The Red Auerbach trophy, also known as Coach of The Year award, is given to the best coach of the NBA regular season every year alongside the other seasonal awards such as Most Valuable Player, Most Improved, etc. and every year, it’s just as difficult as the last. Why is it so difficult? Because everyone has their own values and guidelines that helps them define what "best" means, mixed with a little bias, resulting in differing opinion. But, by setting common guidelines we can objectively decide who is most worthy of the honorary award.
Team Expectations
This one is very simple, what were the team’s expectations prior to the season? This can be summarized by looking at each of the candidate’s teams Vegas over/under for total wins in the regular season. The team that stands out here most is the Sacramento King’s, who totaled just 27 wins last year, being set at 25 wins total and currently being at 34, but unfortunately, to the dismay of Kings and Nuggets fans alike, they will not be making the playoffs this year and this almost assuredly keeps Dave Joerger out of the race. Next up, Kenny Atkinson’s Brooklyn Nets and Doc Rivers’ Los Angeles Clippers, being set at 32.5 and 37.5 wins respectively, are currently at 38 and 44 wins (also respectively) making them 6 wins above their total and likely more to come before the season ends. Then the final two serious candidates, Michael Malone and Mike Budenholzer, had their teams over/under setting at 48 while their teams set at 49 (2nd in the Western Conference) and 55 (1st in the Eastern Conference) wins currently, meaning all candidates exceeded their over/under, but Mike Budenholzer edges out the others being 7 over and it likely to stay that way. However, this leads us to our next guideline, how much credit can the coaches actually take for their team’s success?
How Much Credit Can They Take For The Team’s Success?
This is most subjective, but it is important to ask, how much did their coaching actually help their team exceed expectations? In Mike Budenholzer’s case, he had the help of leading MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo and all of the perks that come with having a 6’11" freak of nature power forward complete with elite passing and an unstoppable drive to the rim on his team. That is not to say however, that you could put any coach on this roster and it’d do just as well, as proven with Jason Kidd’s stint with the Bucks last year where they had the 9th ranked offense and 19th ranked defense. Mike Budenholzer set up a system allowing their defense to jump all the way up to 1st in the entire league and improve their offense’s efficiency to 5th best in the league. In Michael Malone’s case, it is similar as he has a Top 10 MVP candidate in Nikola Jokic, however he does have much more glaring weaknesses that require a good coach to allow their defense to be 10th in the league while maintaining the 3rd best offense in the league. Kenny Atikinson and Doc Rivers have no MVP candidates however, Doc Rivers doesn’t even have an all star like the Nets’ D’Angelo Russell, but still boasts the 10th best offense with a little help from a monstrous bench, which gives Doc the edge in this guideline, leaving us with one final question.
How Much Adversity Did They Face?
A good coach, one deserving of such a prestigious award, cannot falter in the face of adversity. Not only that, but they must rise to the occasion and come out on top. Michael Malone is the best example of this, with Denver missing the second most games due to injury, with Brooklyn somewhat close behind, Clippers behind them, and Bucks facing the least amount of games missed. This graphic explains it better than I could. (courtesy of https://www.mangameslost.com)
The Nuggets have had quite a few injured players on their roster such as Isaiah Thoams, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Michael Porter Jr. who they expected to miss games, and others like Gary Harris, Will Barton, and Paul Millsap, all starters who missed significant time unexpectedly, then of course after playing their backups so much, they got injured as well such as Juancho Hernangomez and Trey Lyles. Michael Malone obviously takes the cake here, however it certainly can’t easy for Kenny Atikinson dealing with injuries to such talented players like Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert. The Bucks also recently lost Malcolm Brogdon and Nikola Mirotic, so it will be a good test of how Mike Budenholzer responds in such a situation. Another form of adversity to keep in mind is the average age of the team. Nuggets have an average age of 24.7 years, Nets 25.6, Clippers 26.8, and Bucks 27.7.
In The End
As always, the award is never an easy choice when there are multiple extremely deserving candidates, however I believe in such a close situation, the edge should go to the higher record(s), leaving Michael Malone and Mike Budenholzer. Since the Nuggets are the second seed in a stacked Western Conference and Bucks are the first seed by a wide margin in the Eastern Conference, it is still a tossup there, leaving YOU and whoever votes on the award, what they value the most. Personally, I believe it should go to Michael Malone for the sheer amount of injuries they’ve endured, alongside being the 4th youngest team, and being the 1st/2nd seed in this year’s Western Conference after making minimal changes to the core of the team from last year being a 9 seed.
