NBA Awards: Why Mike Budenholzer Should Win Coach of the Year
By Shane Young
As the official NBA Awards are set to be handed out next week, the Coach of the Year honor has a few worthy candidates. Does Mike Budenholzer deserve to take it home?
It’s important to realize something. There’s literally no better job Steve Kerr could do in the Bay Area for him to receive my pick for this award. Grabbing more than 66 wins in a season should always warrant a head coach the prestigious honor, unless there’s someone a little more deserving.
Kerr has the most undeniable and impressive resume of all 30 coaches this season alone, and the records are through the roof. None bigger than him achieving the most ever wins by a rookie head coach.
The most glorified names on coaching Mt. Rushmores took a good chunk of time before they won this many games. Phil Jackson won 55 games during his rookie year in 1989-90, Gregg Popovich won 17 games in the injury-filled 1996-97 season, Larry Brown won 50 in 1976-77, and the highly-respected Pat Riley won 50 with the Lakers in 1981-82. Kerr’s start (67 wins) is somewhat of a dream, therefore many ballots could have him taking the crown.
In the most dramatic and wide open season we’ve had in NBA history, there’s an extenuating circumstance. Mike Budenholzer, head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, is more justified for Coach of the Year in 2014-15. There’s two primary reasons for it.
While Kerr is an X’s and O’s mastermind compared to Mark Jackson, he did inherit a brilliant group, filled with budding players. This was Stephen Curry‘s 6th season and Klay Thompson‘s 4th, placing both star guards right at the perfect time of career explosion. Had Kerr taken over when they were still extremely young and inexperienced, he would have a little more work to do. Thompson was already maturing as a two-guard defender, and I like to believe Curry already had all the offensive tools for an MVP-type season.
It’s not to say that anyone could walk into Golden State and coach this group, but it relieves tremendous pressure when your backcourt is already snapping records for most 3-pointers made in a season. In the last two regular seasons, Curry and Thompson have made 1,009 combined 3-pointers — the most ever by two teammates in a two-year span.
Taking over the Hawks in 2013-14, Budenholzer hasn’t had the luxury of coaching superstars with such ridiculous power. Sure, Kyle Korver was the league’s best outside shooter at 49.2% with 221 3-pointers, but he isn’t the type of player to go for 40+ in a game (Curry has three times) or scorch a team for 37 in one quarter (Thompson on Jan. 23).
Instead, Budenholzer has had to change the culture of the team. He’s had to bring structure, togetherness, balance on both ends of the court, and creativity. He carried over everything he learned through his 17 years as an assistant with the Spurs, and it’s paid off during his first sole gig.
The hardest challenge in professional sports is showing dramatic change in a short amount of time. That’s why you admire teams in baseball or football when they complete the “worst to first” task — it requires the strongest resiliency possible.
While the Hawks didn’t go from the absolute worst in the East to first, there was a major transformation in less than a year. Budenholzer was able to get the injury-depleted Hawks to the playoffs as the eighth seed in 2014, and nearly knocked off the slumping Indiana Pacers in the first round.
One year later, he’s led the team to an unthinkable 7-game lead over the East’s second seed, LeBron’s Cavaliers. It’s been a 22-win turnaround, as Atlanta won just 38 games last season (under .500) and was mediocre at home (24-17).
Now, sitting at 60-20, Atlanta has been the primary topic of the East since December. They earned the league’s highest winning streak of the year, claiming 19 straight wins from Dec. 27 to Jan. 31. For that month stretch, the Hawks racked up an assist percentage of 69.3% (1st overall), a defensive rating of 97.2 (3rd), and an effective field goal percentage of 54.1% (2nd).
Sure, the absence of Al Horford for 59 games last year had something to do with the underachieving 38 wins.
Having your All-Star center return after a year-long pectoral injury is going to affect the huge 22-game turnaround, but it’s safe to say nobody expected the Hawks to escalate past 50 wins in 2014-15. There’s only two East squads this season with 50+ victories, and if you would’ve told an NBA audience that statement in October, they would’ve automatically said Chicago and Cleveland. Nevertheless, it’s been the franchise record-setting Hawks running away with home-court.
Budenholzer has been able to incorporate key components of the offense he taught in San Antonio, and it’s helped Korver and Paul Millsap thrive in their individual roles. Coaching against the triangle offense for so many years, Bud has been able to install portions of the triangle into his motion offense. That’s what makes Atlanta’s attack the most dangerous, because they have the most variation of any current NBA offense.
Earlier in the season, Budenholzer expressed to BBALLBREAKDOWN just how much the triangle has altered his coaching:
"“I think the triangle offense was a big influence on me,” Budenholzer said. “I think of all the success Coach (Phil) Jackson had with the Bulls and Lakers, and that was when I was in my young, formative age, and we were trying to beat those teams. I think there’s a lot of solid, fundamental basketball principles (in the triangle) that every coach or every offense can steal from.”"
Other than his triangle aspects, Budenholzer has been able to make life easier for Kyle Korver.
Having Korver set more screens early in the offense this season has made everything flow perfectly. When a shooter sets many screens himself (before flaring out the 3-point arc), it catches the defense off guard and keeps the process moving. With your shooters standing still and just letting the action come to them, it doesn’t give them enough space or time to make a play. Budenholzer has employed a great use of pin-down screens, along with creative action off the pick-and-roll.
With Atlanta’s moving parts making it hard for defenses to keep up, Budenholzer has helped create so many looks for Korver in rhythm:
Above, you can see Korver set a back screen on Taj Gibson, trying to free up teammate Paul Millsap. Instead, it’s just used as a fake, since the initial plan was to get Korver in motion. The back screen makes Jimmy Butler (Korver’s defender) believe that Atlanta is trying to get Millsap a touch. Butler sags back to put a hand on Millsap, and you see exactly what it does for Korver. It gives him time and space to run his route.
The Hawks then use a down screen by DeMarre Carroll, which slows Butler down a bit. Then, Al Horford finishes off the play with the strongest screen, stopping Butler’s progression completely.
Korver has been given these type of looks all season:
In this sequence, Korver’s defender (Terrence Ross) is a lot more aware of Atlanta’s plan. He sticks tighter to Korver, but doesn’t have enough to fight through the Millsap screen or final Horford screen. As a result, Korver has the cleanest and most wide open look possible.
Since Budenholzer took over, Korver’s screen-setting has been the key to most perimeter looks. Most of the action Korver is getting rarely happened before Bud altered the offense:
Korver’s back screens (especially the one above) always get his defender thinking differently. Instead of following Korver for the entirety of the play, defenders think they can help off him, and contain rolls to the basket. Here, Millsap creates miscommunication from Utah and he gets double-teamed in the paint. Korver fakes left, and spins right to the 3-point arc. There’s nobody within five feet of him when he executes screens this way.
Before Bud arrived, Larry Drew didn’t have a clear direction of where he was taking Atlanta’s offense. From 2010-11 to 2012-13, the Hawks were always more than respectable defensively. That wasn’t the area that called for immediate attention. However, their ranks in offensive rating for those three years were 21st, 16th, and 18th before Drew’s tenure was over.
This season, Budenholzer’s constant urgency for his team to succeed (especially vs. the West) has allowed Atlanta to reach equilibrium. Scoring 106.4 points per 100 possessions, Atlanta has risen to 6th in offensive rating, a 12-spot jump from last year. Allowing just 100.6 points per 100 possessions, they’re also placed 6th in defensive rating, eight spots better than their rank last year.
Currently, there are only four teams that own a top-10 ranking in both offensive and defensive rating. Three of them are the Spurs, Warriors, and Trail Blazers. The other is Atlanta, and Budenholzer will always be too modest to take credit for any of it.
In terms of making a huge change from last season, the Hawks have enhanced their averaging point differential by +6.0 points this year. They were one of the few teams that squeaked into the playoffs last year with a negative point differential — the truest testament of how weak the East proved to be. The Warriors have also improved their margin of victory, upping their point differential by +5.3 points since 2013-14.
Budenholzer and Kerr have the strongest arguments for Coach of the Year, followed by the surprising jobs Brad Stevens and Jason Kidd have done. Leading the Celtics to the playoffs way ahead of schedule will win a few Eastern Conference voters over, especially those close to the Boston area. Kidd took Milwaukee from a 15-67 record to 41-41 this season (a 31.7% difference in winning percentage). Heading into the East playoffs as a six-seed gives Kidd a great rationale for winning it, but the award usually goes to a coach of a top-tier team.
Out of all awards, this is likely the one that needs to be decided after the playoffs … not before. Too many significant coaching decisions, in late-game situations, occur throughout the postseason. Often times, we either harshly criticize or rave about certain coaches for choices they make during deep playoff runs (Scott Brooks with OKC). So, this award would be better off waiting until June, when we can see how these playoff coaches react and adapt to important situations.
Budenholzer is the regular season pick, though, because Atlanta’s East tyranny came completely out of left field. Golden State’s domination has been a little easier to understand, with the defensive reputation they’ve gained over the last three years and the offensive explosion of the backcourt.
While voters will probably look at the Warriors’ 11-game lead in the (harder) West and give Kerr more love, Budenholzer’s refurbishing of the Atlanta offense should steal some attention.
Instead of the Eastern Conference playoffs going through Quicken Loans Arena or the United Center this year, home-court belongs to Phillips Arena. Budenholzer is the prime reason for it.