Kings coach Mike Brown has been voted the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reports.
It’s no surprise, considering Sacramento just ended the longest playoff drought among the four major sports leagues. The Kings went 48-34 in Brown’s first season as their head coach and will enter the postseason as the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed.
The Bucks’ Mike Budenholzer, Thunder’s Mark Daigneault, Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla and Knicks’ Tom Thibodeau also received votes.
This award, introduced in 2017 and named after longtime NBCA executive director Michael H. Goldberg, is voted on by the NBA’s 30 head coaches, none of whom can vote for himself. However, it isn’t the NBA’s official Coach of the Year award, which is voted on by media members and is represented by the Red Auerbach Trophy. The winner of that award will be announced later in the year.
The Suns’ Monty Williams received the award the last two seasons.
Brown was hired by the Kings after six-year stint as an assistant coach with the Warriors.