Last season, when Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams did not win NBA Coach of the Year, many of his players were not happy, so they did something about it.
This season, the Phoenix Suns were even better as they had the best record in basketball, which helped Williams get the award.
On Monday, Williams was named NBA Coach of the Year.
Williams received 458 points (81 first-place votes) from a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters. Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins finished in second place with 270 points (17 first-place votes).
According to Willians, this award is not about him but the team.
“If there’s one award that exemplifies team, it’s the Coach of the Year award because there’s not a coach in the NBA that has bad intentions for the program or the players,” Williams said. “Nobody walks in the gym saying and hope that their guys to play poorly… In order to get an award like this, it takes a lot of people.”
The Suns had a 64-18 record in the regular season, the most victories, and the highest winning percentage (.780) in a season in franchise history.
Phoenix won a franchise-record 18 consecutive games from Oct. 30 – Dec. 2, 2021. The streak included a 16-0 record in November, tied for the second-most wins in a month without a loss in NBA history, trailing only the Atlanta Hawks’ 17-0 record in January 2015.
This is Williams’ third season as the Suns’ head coach. Last season, he guided Phoenix to a 51-21 record and its first appearance in the NBA Finals since the 1992-93 season, finishing in second place in the voting for the 2020-21 NBA Coach of the Year Award.
Currently, the Suns and Mavericks’ Western Conference second-round series is tied at 2. The pivotal Game 5 is Tuesday night in Phoenix.
The voting results for the 2021-22 NBA Coach of the Year Award are below:
The New York Knicks made a tremendous turnaround this season, and because of that, their head coach Tom Thibodeau received the Red Auerbach Trophy as the 2020-21 NBA Coach of the Year, the NBA announced on Monday.
This is the second NBA Coach of the Year Award for Thibodeau, who earned the honor in the 2010-11 season with the Chicago Bulls in his first season as an NBA head coach. Now honored in his first season as the Knicks’ head coach, Thibodeau has become the first person to be named NBA Coach of the Year in his first season as head coach with two different franchises.
With Thibodeau as head coach, New York finished tied for the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference (41-31) and made the NBA Playoffs for the first time since the 2012-13 season. The Knicks won 16 of their final 20 games to complete a turnaround from last season’s overall record of 21-45.
Thibodeau received 43 first-place votes and earned 351 total points to edge Phoenix head coach Monty Williams, who finished in second place with 340 points (45 first-place votes). The 11-point difference between the first- and second-place finishers marks the smallest margin since the current NBA Coach of the Year voting format was introduced in the 2002-03 season.
Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder finished in third place with 161 points (10 first-place votes). Coaches were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote from a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters.
Thibodeau is the 10th head coach to win the NBA Coach of the Year Award more than once and the eighth to do it with multiple franchises.
New York hired Thibodeau as its head coach on July 30, 2020. Before joining the Knicks, he served as head coach of the Bulls for five seasons (2010-15) and the Minnesota Timberwolves over three seasons (2016-19).
