NBA: The 2-Man Race For Coach Of The Year

The regular season is coming to an end quickly, and the playoff race in the standings aren’t going to be the only exciting finish. Who will be crowned as Coach of the Year?

In terms of mind-blowing accolades, this NBA season has been one for the ages. Headlined by the dominance of both Golden State and San Antonio that should make for one hell of a Western Conference Finals matchup, there will also be another close finish for the Coach of the Year Award.

Surprisingly, this award most likely won’t go to either of the coaches from teams with the best record (Warriors head coach Steve Kerr missed the first half of the season with health issues while Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich makes greatness look routine). Instead, it will come down between two coaches who had their teams exceed well past expectations prior to this season.

Terry Stotts

The 2015-16 season for the Portland Trail Blazers was looked at as being the beginning of a rebuilding stage after losing four-of-five starters in the offseason. The general NBA fan population only knew that Portland had one hope, and one hope only: Damian Lillard.

Related Story: NBA Finals History: Ranking The Last 50 Champions

What fans didn’t know is that C.J. McCollum would have a breakout season during his third year in the league and be well in the lead for the Most Improved Player Award, averaging 20.7 points, 4.3 assists, and 3.3 rebounds per game. The duo is already being considered as one of the top backcourt couples in the league next to the juggernaut of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

More from NBA

• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
• Constructing the NBA’s perfect all-under-25 starting five
• Grading every NBA team’s highest draft pick in the last five years

Another thing fans didn’t see coming was how coach Terry Stotts would squeeze every ounce of production from key role players such as Allen Crabbe, Al-Farouq Aminu and Mason Plumlee, as well as many others.

Similar to McCollum, Crabbe had pretty much been nonexistent throughout his first two seasons but with a huge jump in playing time and Stotts putting them in positions to be successful, he is blossoming into a very respectable player coming off the bench.

Aminu has always been viewed as an elite perimeter defender that didn’t have much to offer on the offensive side, but with the majority of the attention on Lillard and McCollum, he can feast on open opportunities both from three and in transition finishing around the rim.

This being his sixth season in the league, Aminu is also having a career-year averaging 10.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game while shooting 35.5 percent from deep.

After battling back-and-forth with Brook Lopez for playing time in Brooklyn, Plumlee has found a niche in Portland with his duties of pick-and-roll sets with Lillard and McCollum. His length and athleticism make him extremely dangerous for putting opposing bigs on posters after being fed alley-oops while again, being the beneficiary of the attention locked on the backcourt duo.

And now for the most surprising thing no one saw coming from this Portland team, which is being sixth (41-36) in the Western Conference Standings with five games remaining. They are just a half-game behind Memphis for fifth place, which would make Stotts’ argument for the award even stronger.

There is no doubt that he has defined getting the most out of every player on a sub-par roster.

Brad Stevens

Ever since leaving Butler University to take the head coaching position in Boston, the vibe around Brad Stevens was that he was one of the smartest basketball minds in the league before he even coached a game. He is another great example of a leader getting the most out of his players.

Butler was once viewed as a mid-major school that more than half the population had probably never heard of, but Stevens, with the help of players like Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack, by making two straight NCAA championship game appearances.

His success has carried over into the NBA, a transition that often doesn’t go well. The NBA involves not only being a genius X-and-O wise, but also being able to juggle 15 egos at the same time. This season, his genius has been on complete display through his team’s play especially out of timeouts (something Stevens has always been known for being great at).

More from Hoops Habit

• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
• NBA Trades: The Lakers bolster their frontcourt in this deal with the Pacers

On a team comprised of role players, point guard Isaiah Thomas has been able to shine by averaging 22.3 points and 6.3 assists per game, which was good enough to earn his first NBA All-Star appearance throughout his five-year career. Although Thomas puts up the most numbers-wise, it’s a popular opinion to think that Jae Crowder is the team’s best overall player.

The impact he has on the defensive end of the floor is unmatched to go along with his respectable 14.4 point per game average.

The Celtics are currently fifth in the Eastern Conference with a 44-32 record. Just a half-game separates them and Charlotte for third place. Stevens added yet another huge asterisk next to his reasons for getting Coach of the Year by handing the Golden State Warriors their first home loss in 54 games.

To think that they accomplished this feat without Crowder, makes the asterisk on the page even bigger.

The Finish

As the regular season comes to an end, not only will the standings be something to keep a close eye on, these two masterminds will continue to try and separate from one another in the award chase.

More hoops habit: The NBA's 50 Greatest Duos Of All-Time

The Eastern Conference is much improved from recent years, but the West has always been a gauntlet that Stotts and his team are not only surviving in, but actually doing so on a routine-basis. Either way, the award will be in the hands of a great leader and mastermind when it is all said and done.