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I can’t say it any more straightforward than this, Mike D’Antoni was not the coach of the year. I mean, he was, but at least not in my humble opinion. Simply put, the MVP can not be on the team with the coach of the year. Otherwise, Phil Jackson would have won a lot more COY titles.
It has seemed over the last year like everything touched by North Carolina has turned to gold. Larry Brown won his first NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons. So did Roy Williams with the Tar Heels. Even Vince Carter has come back from the dead.
And George Karl was the media frontrunner for the Coach of the Year Award. For Karl…well, let’s just say this time it’s personal for him after being humiliated at his last job with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Karl’s record since taking over for Michael Cooper on January 27th is 32-8, a .833 winning percentage. He had the Nuggets playing strong defense, passing the ball better, griping less and believing they had a chance to beat the San Antonio Spurs.
But George Karl is not the NBA’s coach of the year, either. That honor belongs to Chicago Bulls head coach Scott Skiles. In fact, my top three, in a narrow race, would be Skiles, Indiana Pacers’ coach, Rick Carlisle and then Karl. The next tier, in front of D’Antoni, would feature Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Fratello.
It’s been a whirlwind year for Skiles. After taking over in the middle of last year’s disastrous campaign, Skiles and the Bulls began the year 0-9, prompting many to begin counting the days until the Bull’s next coach. And despite the disappointing end to the season, Skiles has the Bulls ready to go full throttle next season.
For Chicago, where others have failed Skiles has succeeded. It’s been on the defensive end, the Bulls rank first in the league in defensive field goal percentage at 42.2%, a year ago they were 12th with 43.7%. The Bulls only give up 93.4 points per game, good for seventh in the league. Last year they gave up 96.2 points per game, 18th in the league.
The Bulls are less than a middle-of-the-road team offensively, especially after losing Eddy Curry for the season. The game plan is to play 48 minutes of grind-it-out defense, featuring a lot of players who play about half the game (so they remain fresh) and then get big baskets down the stretch from leaders Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon.
So, no matter how poorly they shoot from the field on a given night, defense always keeps them in the game. And sound defense comes from sound coaching and motivation.
Skiles has them playing with confidence. Since starting 0-9 they are 49-26, they believe they can win. And sometimes psychoanalytic factors, such as confidence, are all that separates NBA teams.
I am not trying to knock Karl here. He came into a situation with a bunch of prima donnas and brought in an old school mentality, not afraid to ruffle some feathers. He lit a fire under Kenyon Martin and Carmelo Anthony, and Andre Miller is playing the best ball of his career (and also is the most underrated player in the L).
Karl’s job of inspiring the underachievers, however, was a much easier task than Skiles’ keeping the ship from sinking when the team was 0-9. The Bulls’ players must have been thinking, “Here we go again.” But Skiles put a stop to that.
Likewise I am not trying to diminish the job done by D’Antoni. Just comparing the Suns record this year versus a year ago puts him in the thick of the race. But the COY award is about doing more with less and D’Antoni has “more” than just about anyone.
The Bulls don’t have the third most talented team in the East, yet they have the third best record. This Bulls team looks familiar, their style their grind it out attitude. You know whom these Bulls are reminiscent of? The 1990’s New York Knicks.
Phineas Lambert is the founding editor of The Back Page Sports
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