Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd 3rd in Coach of the Year vote
By Phil Watson
Jason Kidd, who engineered a 26-win turnaround and led the Milwaukee Bucks back to the NBA Playoffs one season after a franchise-worst 15-67 campaign, finished third in voting for the NBA Coach of the Year award.
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Results were announced Tuesday by the NBA, with Mike Budenholzer, the second-year coach of the Atlanta Hawks, narrowly edging out rookie coach Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors for the honor.
The Warriors and Hawks finished with the best records in the NBA, each setting franchise records for victories. Golden State finished 67-15 while Atlanta was 60-22—the lone 60-win teams in the NBA.
Kidd, 42, came to the Bucks in late June after one year as head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Milwaukee traded second-round picks in 2015 and 2019 to secure Kidd’s release from his contract with the Nets.
The initial hiring was awkward—former coach Larry Drew didn’t learn he was being replaced until after the deal to acquire Kidd was done—but the results were positive.
Kidd became the first coach in NBA history to lead two different teams to the postseason in his first two years as a coach in the league. Milwaukee finished sixth in the Eastern Conference with a 41-41 record and currently trail the Chicago Bulls 2-0 in their first-round series.
Mar 28, 2015; Milwaukee, WI, USA; Milwaukee Bucks head coach Jason Kidd goes over a play with guard Michael Carter-Williams (5) in the second quarter at BMO Harris Bradley Center. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
His career mark in the regular season is 85-79 and his teams are 5-9 in the playoffs. Kidd directed Brooklyn to a seven-game first-round series victory over the Toronto Raptors last season before the Nets were dumped by the Miami Heat in five games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Prior to that, Kidd put together a Hall of Fame-worthy resume as a player over the course of a 19-year career that included two stints with the Dallas Mavericks as well as stops with the Phoenix Suns, New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks.
He retired following the 2012-13 season and was hired to coach the Nets just a week later.
Kidd shared the 1994-95 Rookie of the Year award with Grant Hill of the Detroit Pistons and later helped the Mavericks to the 2011 NBA title. He is second all-time in assists and steals in NBA history and led the league in assists five times.
The 10-time All-Star was no stranger to dramatic turnarounds, either, finishing second in the Most Valuable Player voting in 2001-02 behind Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs after directing New Jersey to a 52-30 mark and the franchise’s first-ever appearance in the NBA Finals—the first of back-to-back trips for the Nets.
New Jersey had finished 26-56 the season before and improved by 26 games the next year after Kidd arrived.
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It was apparently a magic number—that is the same improvement realized by Milwaukee this season.
Budenholzer received 67 of the 130 first-place votes cast and finished with 513 points. Kerr got 56 first-place nods and 471 points.
Kidd was a distant third with one first-place vote and 57 points, but the award has rarely gone to coaches with teams outside the upper echelon of the NBA in recent years. The last time it went to a coach with a team finishing with fewer than 50 wins was in 2006-07, when Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell won the award.
Gregg Popovich of the Spurs (three), Brad Stevens of the Boston Celtics (two) and Tom Thibodeau of Chicago (one) received the other first-place votes. Half of the coaches in the league—15—received at least one vote.
Don Nelson is the only Bucks coach to be honored, winning the award in both 1982-83 and 1984-85.