Pat Riley recently lamented the state of sideline fashion nba As it relates to coaches. He wants them to start wearing suits again Instead of the athleisure look that was adopted during the pandemic and became the informal dress code. It’s a pretty solid old-man-fist-shake-in-the-cloud thing from someone who wasn’t that long ago made fun of being washed. Furthermore, he is a coaching legend who has earned the right to weigh in on these specific matters.
Tyler Herro is not Pat Riley. But, Like many people are not coachesHerro felt compelled to voice his opinion regarding Riley’s opinion. Like Riley, Herro wants coaches to start wearing suits again. “Tell the coaches to do a little more,” he offered, “wear a little tougher clothes, put some swag in it.”
This is from someone who could benefit from a little less pretense thrown into it. (The Spacesuit-meets-sweatsuit And orange vegan leather The shape was something like this)
But it’s the “do a little more” part that bothers. Vein! It’s hard enough for trainers without worrying about the fashion police. you have rick carlisle here Running cover for Pacers’ decision to field tanksIme Udoka avoiding questions About Kevin Durant’s alleged burner accounts, and poor JJ Redick being forced to start an underprivileged center. delusions of grandeur.
The point is that coaching is not easy. In honor of what could be a daunting task, we’re going to rank the five coaches who appear to be in the running for 2026 NBA Coach of the Year honors as the regular season ends.
{Voice of Extreme Awards Show Presenter) Here are the nominees for Excellence in Coaching this season.
fanduel Odds of winning Coach of the Year: +3500
Do you know the last time the Hornets were good or even good-around? Of course you don’t do that. Nobody does. They might as well have been Bobcats at that time. Who can remember?
The Hornets have not made the playoffs in a decade. They have not been able to get out of the first round since 2002. In the organization’s 37 years of existence they have never gone deeper than the second round. The bar is extremely low in Charlotte.
Lee has managed to help the Hornets clean up this season. The Hornets are currently the No. 10 seed in the East and on an upward trend. Charlotte is still a game under .500 (30-31), but when it wins, crushes opponents by ridiculous margins. And lately it’s been winning more than it’s losing. Since January 22, the Hornets have gone a league-best 14-3 and are second in net rating.
It helps that Brandon Miller is healthy after missing several games to start the season, and the Hornets took advantage of that when they selected Kon Nueppel with the fourth overall pick in the draft. Nueppel (-170 at FanDuel) now has better odds than Cooper Flagg to win Rookie of the Year honors, leads the entire league in 3-pointers, and is flirting with a 50/40/90 shooting season in his first year. And last week he broke the NBA rookie record for most 3-pointers in a season — with 22 games still left.
Lee has also managed to get LaMelo Ball to buy into the Hornets system. After demoting Ball to the bench for a period of time, Lee re-introduced him into the starting lineup. Since rejoining the main group, Ball’s worst ‘me-first freelancer’ tendencies have (mostly) been avoided in favor of going with the team flow. Now if only Lee could do it teach the ball to drive.
Coach of the Year Odds: +4500
The Suns won 36 games last season, missed the playoffs, traded their best player and future Hall of Famer, and fired their head coach for the third consecutive year. Then they hired a novice to patrol the shore on behalf of an owner who famously doesn’t go about losing (Even though Sans has done a lot of it under his watch).
This should have been a disaster. Instead, Ott has turned the Suns into one of the pleasant surprises of the season. Phoenix has somehow climbed to seventh place and is two games behind lakers For six seeds. In the busy Western Conference, this is an achievement that few thought was possible.
Under Ott, the acquired taste of Dillon Brooks became a key component of the Suns’ success. (Brooks was averaging a career-low 20.9 points before suffering a recent hand injury. He is expected to miss 4-6 weeks.) Devin Booker and Grayson Allen have both missed time with injuries. Jalen Green has played just 12 games in Phoenix since being acquired in the Kevin Durant trade, due to injury. And the center rotation of Mark Williams and Oso Ighodaro is thin in the extreme. And yet despite those limitations, the Suns are three games ahead Warrior The seventh seeds are two wins away from equaling last year’s win total with almost a quarter of the season still left to play.
Coach of the Year Odds: +900
By any measure, the Spurs are ahead of schedule. san antonio just rattled 11 straight wins before their streak was broken at Madison Square Garden Over the weekend. The Spurs have a comfortable 5.5 game lead for second place in the West. They’ve gone 4-1 against the defending champions this season, and overall they’re 24-11 against teams ranked .500 or better. Last week, against pistonHe added another statement win to his season full of highlights.
Of course, all of this is possible mainly because Mitch Johnson has the privilege of training Victor Wembanyama. Even on nights when he’s not extremely efficient on offense, Wembey can still dominate proceedings – just as he did in Detroit.
The Spurs have not reached the playoffs in seven seasons. There is a common ideology that teams need to learn to win in the postseason before making deep runs. Not surprisingly, he has the third-best chance of jumping over the line and winning the championship this season.
Such rapid growth and high expectations can mess with the collective heads of a low-lying team. Not Spurs. They’re all fairly well-balanced — who seems like an extension of Johnson himself. the man is steadfast. He’s a perfect fit in San Antonio.
Coach of the Year Odds: +450
From ineffective to Majula which is…unique. let’s go with Anokhe.
It was believed that this would be a lost season in Boston. Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles in the 2025 playoffs. The Celtics then traded away Jrue Holiday, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Luke Kornet as cost-cutting measures. Beyond Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard, Mazzulla isn’t left with much to work with – or so many of us thought.
near Muzulla Channel your inner Han Solo Beat the odds against them this season and dig deep into their coaching bag. Eleven different Celtics have an average playing time of at least 15 minutes. The mix-and-match combinations vary greatly from night to night. One of my favorite activities is to check Boston’s box score after each game to see what beautiful Mind Majulla prepared the composition that evening. Last week against the Suns, with Brown unavailable, he started White, Sam Hauser, Neemias Kweta, Ron Harper Jr. and Baylor Shearman. They used seven people from the bench. The Celtics won by 16. The whole operation defies the seriousness of basketball.
At first glance, most of the roster appears to be a little south of average. But under Mazzulla, they have replaced some pieces into a fundamentally sound team that makes the right plays more than it doesn’t. The hard-playing Celtics don’t get beat often themselves, which gives them a chance to win more nights. As a result, they are in second place in the Eastern Conference and top the list of teams that no one wants to play in the postseason.
And, hey, they might get Tatum back soon too. ok, joe?
Excellent. No note.
1. JB Bickerstaff, Detroit Pistons
Coach of the Year Odds: -320
What a comeback story. Two years ago, the man took Cavaliers Reached their first Eastern Conference Semifinals in six seasons – notably without LeBron James – and got fired for the effort. He then arrived in Detroit to take over a team that was, at the time, a basketball backwater that had won 14 games before his arrival and set a record for most consecutive losses in a season.
Bickerstaff last season turned the Pistons into the first team in NBA history to more than triple their win total from year to year. All he has done this season is lead the Pistons to the top of the Eastern Conference standings. Detroit ranks second in point difference and defensive rating. It has the best winning percentage in the NBA against teams .500 or better and in clutch games. The Pistons have a legitimate MVP contender in Cade Cunningham. They dominate the paint most nights, and they not afraid of having physical relations. (Complimentary.) D-troit basketball is back in a big way, and Bickerstaff helped make it possible.
