Congratulations to Coach McHale. Well deserve it. Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer won the COY honor, edging Warriors coach Steve Kerr. Mchale won 13 points, all out of 13 third place votes. Notably, Fran Blinebury, Sam Amick, and Hubie Brown voted for him. Feigen went for Pop at the 3rd place. UPDATE:
I really like the guy; if only his major flaws - inability to call plays, developing rookies - weren't such deal breakers.
I put this in the Dish thread but it should probably go here... http://official.nba.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/04/Coach-of-the-Year-Results.pdf Jonathan Feigen voted... 1) Kerr, Steve -- Golden State 2) Budenholzer, Mike -- Atlanta 3) Popovich, Gregg -- San Antonio Matt Bullard voted... 1) Kerr, Steve -- Golden State 2) Budenholzer, Mike -- Atlanta 3) Popovich, Gregg -- San Antonio McHale's 3rd place votes came from... Adrian Chavarria of KEYH 850 AM Brian Davis of Fox Sports Oklahoma Chris Marlowe of Altitude Sports & Entertainment Fran Blinebury of NBA.com Hubie Brown of ESPN Israel Guttierez of ESPN.com Jack Armstrong of SportsNet/TSN Joel Meyers of Fox Sports New Orleans Michael Wilbon of ESPN Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com Sage Steele of ABC Sports Sam Amick of USA Today Steve Buckhantz of Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic McHale finished 6th overall.
Such an ignorant post. It is normally not the head coaches job to develop rookies. That is typically left to assistant coaches. Kerr and Budenholzer did such a wonderful job developing all those rookies... extreme sarcasm here if you can't tell. Regardless, it is all a moot point, because the Rockets organization has developed plenty of rookies during McHale's tenure. Rendering your post even more ridiculous.
Yep. Don't quite understand the conception that McHale can't develop young players. In McHale's 4 years in Houston thus far, the team have been developing the drafted players quite well. These are the new drafted players that the Rockets have kept on the roster for at least one year since the 2011 draft: Marcus Morris Chandler Parsons Royce White Terrence Jones Isaiah Canaan (from Phoenix Suns) Clint Capela Nick Johnson (from New York Knicks)
I can't believe I'm saying this, but 6th place is way too low. Kerr and Budweiser deserve the top 2 spots(you can interchange them since both are deserving), but after that I honestly don't know anyone who did a better job given the hand he was dealt this season combined with the expectations going in. McHale deserved to be no lower than 3rd place. And if he leads the Rockets to another season like this next year, he may actually win the thing.
I think there's always a "surprise" factor in the COY voting. Extremely few, if any, of the media had predicted the kinds of success of either the Warriors or the Hawks, or even Bucks the jump from 15 wins last year to making the playoffs this year led by Jason Kidd.
Developing rookies?! Are you kidding me? You ever heard of Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Clint Capella, Patrick Patterson and Chandler Parsons?
The Warriors and Hawks were huge surprises this year, and like I said, their coaches deserve to be in the Top 2. Kidd did do a great job in Milwaukee as well especially given that they lost Parker in the first half of the season. I think you could put a small asterisk next to him since the Bucks play in the East, but he still deserves props. But c'mon. Winning 56 games and the Southwest Division which based on the results looks like arguably the strongest division from top-to-bottom in the history of the NBA. And doing this despite a rocky offseason, Dwight and T-Jones each missing at least half the season, and losing D-Mo and Bev for the year?
The "doesn't develop/play rookies" is just a cliche at this point. There was a camp here that said it about Van Gundy, they said it about Adelman. Yet all those teams had at least one or two rookies that played significant roles. I think we actually do a great job developing not just our draft picks but all the guys in our system.
The sentiment probably arises from Marcus Morris, Troy Daniels, (maybe Royce White?). Also McHale rarely played these guys as rooks in the regular season.
Mchale was forced into dveloping some of those guys. He didn't play them until he had no other choice (Donatas Motiejunas). With Parsons it was either Bud or Parsons they were both young players it's not like he had a real vet that could take his place. But I think overall that particular statement about Mchale is false, whether his hand was forced or not he still developed rookies.
I'm not at all surprised that Feigan did not place Kevin McHale top 3. He actually watches rockets games and knows that its Harden leading this team to its current record. I'm glad he can look past the homerism.
And how come this is related to how good a coach is in young player development? If playing the rookies a lots will be a factor for a successful coach, I think your vote for COY will be Brett Brown?