NBA Announces Finalists For 2022-23 Coach Of The Year Award

Mike Brown, Mark Daigneault and Joe Mazzulla have been named the three finalists for this season’s Rookie of the Year award.

On Friday night, the NBA announced the finalists for every major end-of-season award, including the three finalists for this season’s Coach of the Year.

The 2022-23 finalists for NBA Coach of the Year: pic.twitter.com/VLcx9vwZZ0

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 14, 2023

The Sacramento Kings have been this year’s “feel-good” story, as they made the playoffs for the first time since 2006, ending what was the longest active playoff drought in all of professional sports. This is why many feel that Mike Brown will be the unanimous choice for this season’s Coach of the Year award.

In his first season as the head coach of the Kings, Brown led Sacramento to a 48-34 record and the 3-seed in the Western Conference, something many thought was impossible entering the year.

Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox have both grown as All-Star talents in this league under Mike Brown’s leadership and the entire culture and energy surrounding this franchise has changed in a positive way since Brown’s arrival.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have also been a good story to follow in the Western Conference this season, as Mark Daigneault, one of the youngest coaches in the league, led the youngest group in the entire league in the Thunder to a 40-42 record.

Nobody thought Oklahoma City would even be in contention for a possible playoff spot late in the year, but they found their way into the Play-In Tournament and Daigneault deserves a lot of credit for what he had to work with.

It is hard to win in this league with young, undeveloped talents, but over the course of the year, the Thunder showed significant growth and this is a direct reflection of the job Mark Daigneault and his staff did.

Taking over for Ime Udoka this past offseason, Joe Mazzulla was initially named the interim head coach of the Boston Celtics before having the “interim” tag on his title removed in the middle of the season.

Mazzulla has kept the Celtics near the top of the Eastern Conference standings with a 57-25 record and they once again have a shot at making the NBA Finals as a result.

Change is inevitable with any new head coach, but Mazzulla has kept the philosophy in Boston the same and all of the players have really respected the job he has done leading this historic franchise. 

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