Although San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich led the Spurs to a 61-21 season, he will not be winning his second NBA Coach of the Year Award for 2010-11, and it will instead go to the coach whose team came from behind to steal the league’s best record from the Spurs,
Popovich and Thibodeau had been named as the two favorites for the award for the latter part of this season and had been debated over and over, but in the end, the coach whose team is still playing in the NBA Playoffs will get the award, according to the Chicago Tribune.
What Popovich did this season, however, will hardly go unnoticed. He kept most of the same core from last season and added key pieces through the draft, summer league and signings and found a way to improve. Even more impressive was the way he changed the team’s style of play from the last decade to fit his current personnel.
Popovich will likely have even more adjusting to do as his core continues to age and the team’s younger players start taking on bigger roles.
