Cleveland's Kenny Atkinson was announced Saturday as the winner of the National Basketball Coaches Association's coach of the year award, after leading the Cavaliers to a 64-win season and the No. 1 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs.
The NBA will also give out a coach of the year award in the coming weeks. The NBCA has done its own separate award since 2017 named for Michael H. Goldberg, the organization's first executive director.
It is voted on by the league's 30 head coaches. The NBCA does not release voting totals, but revealed that four other coaches — Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault, Houston's Ime Udoka and former Denver coach Michael Malone also received votes. Malone was fired by the Nuggets with three games left in the regular season.
“Kenny Atkinson has long been respected by his peers as an innovative and humble servant to the game,” said Rick Carlisle, the coach of the Indiana Pacers and the NBCA's longtime president.
The Cavaliers had the second-best record in the league this season behind Oklahoma City, and became the second team in league history to have three separate winning streaks of at least 12 games.
“Coaching the game of basketball has been an amazing journey for me and my family, and to be recognized by my peers for a job well done this season is extremely humbling,” Atkinson said. “I’ve had the pleasure of coaching some amazing players over my career and I would not be in this position without their commitment and sacrifice for the greater good of themselves and the Cleveland Cavaliers.”
Daigneault won the award last season. Other winners include Mike Brown in 2023, Monty Williams in 2021 and 2022, Mike Budenholzer and Billy Donovan in 2020, Budenholzer in 2019, Dwane Casey in 2018 and Mike D'Antoni and Erik Spoelstra in 2017.
Atkinson and the Cavaliers take on Spoelstra and the Heat in an Eastern Conference first-round series that starts in Cleveland on Sunday.
The NBA will release its coach of the year finalists — along with finalists for six other major awards — on Sunday night.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press
