Mike Brown Named Coach of the Year

The Cavaliers have only played a single playoff game but they're already picking up the hardware: Mike Brown presented with the Red Auerbach Award honoring him as the NBA's coach of the year at a press conference in Cleveland earlier this afternoon.

From Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

This season Brown led the Cavs to a franchise-record 66 wins, the first division title in 33 years, and the first No. 1 seed in franchise history. In February, Brown became the second coach in team history to coach in the the All-Star Game. He was also named Eastern Conference Coach of the Month three times.

He did it by creating a trust-first mantra that he showed by delegating some powers to his assistants and key veteran players. It was a risk that paid off in a massive way in the regular season.

The fact that Brown "delegated" so much responsibility to his staff was the primary reason why FanHouse writers voted him second (behind Stan Van Gundy) in our informal polling last week. Cavs assistant John Kuester, elevated to a so-called "offensive coordinator" role before the season, turned a moribund offense into one of the league's most potent.

Should Brown deserve the credit for the work of his top assistant? We voted "no," but the rest of the media answered with a resounding "yes" -- Brown received 55 first-place votes and 355 total points; the next highest tallies were 15 first-place votes (Nate McMillan) and 151 total votes (Rick Adelman).

In hindsight, though, Windhorst makes a good point: it was a huge risk to put so much trust in the hands of an assistant, and not allowing an ego to come in the way of a team's goals is certainly the mark of a good leader. I was highly critical of Brown entering the offseason last year solely because of his inability to improve the offense; he did what it took to make sure that wasn't an issue this year, and it paid off in spades.

Besides, it's not like this was unprecedented; would Phil Jackson have won nine rings without Tex Winter's triangle offense? Would Doc Rivers have won this award last year without defensive guru Tom Thibodeau? Probably not. All in all, it's hard to quibble with the voting: Brown is as deserving of the honor as anybody in recent years.