[Charania] Boston Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla has won the 2025-26 NBA Coach of the Year award.
https://www.threads.com/@shams/post/DY0hMGekUKU?xmt=AQG0z-S3PbZFh1SgXt-_NEVINL42SFqHjUpsYXVlcjJGepm0RL7EGKlHwf2_nqLizy154ZM&slof=1
All these awards need to be announced before the playoffs start. Nobody cares about half the awards anymore because we’ve moved on from the regular season
Why do it when it makes sense contextually when you can do it three weeks later for engagement?
You don’t even get engagement. I haven’t heard one MVP speech since they stopped the awards night.
Truly the worst of both worlds. Part of the reason could be to give gambling apps more time to profit off the awards
This. I’m convinced at this point the NBA/NFL are run by the sportsbooks.
It’s a money focused enterprise and gambling companies have deep coffers. Helps when you run a business that’s essentially a scam where you can ban successful customers and fleece what are essentially people with a crackhead mental state. So yes, NBA/NFL are essentially run by sportsbooks.
I love how gambling has invaded every aspect of life. Truly an enrichment to the human experience!
Plus it’s the playoffs. People are engaging anyway
Wouldn’t they get more engagement when the awards are more relevant?
NBA has so much to fix, it can’t be this hard.
Bold of you to assume the NBA wants things to make sense. The chaos is the product.
Too much action going on in this comment section. Let’s call a ridiculous foul and award free throws. I love when my basketball matches because a turn based game.
Why don’t they just do it in the middle of the dead offseason, are they stupid??
I would have like a gala at the end of the season a few days before the draft like what the NHL does And announce the awards then.
The NBA did that already, it sucked
Yeah and it’s always awkward when the winner is completely out of the playoffs…how does it make sense to give awards based on the regular season in the middle of the post season?! What’s preventing them from announcing the winners the week before the playoffs?
Also why are they announcing them in this order? MVP should be LAST, not randomly in the middle.
Totally agree. It’s so silly to announce now after I just saw this guys team blow a 3-1 lead. Lessens the awards impact/significance
Look as long as we don’t get the NBA awards show they can announce them in August for all I care.
Yeah for winners in the playoffs it would’ve been nice for them to be acknowledged in front of their home crowds.
The awards show is gone, so why not just announce them right away? The attention is rightly on the WCF and the Knicks going to finals atm, so all these award recipients that are out of the playoffs already don’t get recognition.
Mazzulla probably doesn’t care and has a lifetime of being a top 5 coach ahead of him but it just isn’t fair to players for whom winning these awards is probably a huge lifetime achievement. Kinda shitty to them.
They still hadn’t handed this out?
They never will
Shits about to stay in a box on his doorstep or wherever the NBA Prime driver drops it off. Which will probably be in another area code. Mazzulla has an abundance of booby traps
Too busy watching the Town
He thinks he’s renners character but he’s the florist
Fergie the Florist is the most menacing character in the film, so that checks out.
I know one of the guys his character is based on
Does he remember who clipped his nuts?
Can confirm, was hit by a poison dart at his house delivering milk
He’ll make whoever is in charge of delivering the award marathon The Town with him for the next 24 hours
This is why it’s stupid to hold these awards back for so long, I don’t know why they do it. Now it’s bittersweet because Joe is at home eliminated from the playoffs, whereas it could have felt more meaningful if they just gave it to him when they got the damn votes in
Even from an entertainment perspective I don’t get it… why wouldn’t be want the awards and all-nba stuff announced before the playoffs start so we can see the winners playing against the “snubbed” players. Just makes for a better product and more interesting broadcast narratives. It’s baffling
We did it Joe
I don’t need it. I think it’s a stupid award. They shouldn’t have it. And it’s more about the players. It’s more about the work that the staff puts in.
Really would like to see him reject it
he would if he had any honor, because of what he said about it.
He could do the NBA equivalent of Brando’s 1973 Oscar and just send someone else to accept it on his behalf.
He should have an assistant accept it or something! It goes to the HC, but I think it’s a nice reward for the whole staff.
Have you seen the town? That’s real leadership.
What movie could he reference to commemorate the moment?
The Town. The answer is always The Town.
I don’t know. How can we even be sure he’s seen The Town?
Only time I’ve ever really cared about this aware. They’ll spend all year trying to give it to him like a process server only to have him escape every time.
My condolences Joe
Really hope and believe the pattern dies on his award. Think Brad likes and trusts him enough to give him some leeway. It’s not like there are enough good coaches out there to have a better replacement.
He’s not getting replaced lol
I swear I saw a thread the other day saying it got leaked by ESPN and it wasn’t Joe
Yeah it said bickerstaff got it
Bickerstaff got the NBCA Coach of the Year Award.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCA_Coach_of_the_Year_Award
It was Atkinson, but he won Analytical Coach of the Year.
Atkinson won the COTY, but by “of the year”, they meant the financial one.
They made a mistake in an article saying that Bickerstaff won it, and that got posted to reddit claiming espn leaked it
ESPN has been doing random stuff all the time. Earlier on their site it mentioned a thunder vs knicks final, they also had a header for knicks Pistons final when the cavs Pistons series was at game 5
A guy from Rhode Island coach of the year.
A guy from Maine rookie of the year.
A guy from Massachusetts will be #1 overall pick.
New England Supremacy.
Mark Daigneault and Sam Presti are both MA guys as well. From Leominster and Concord respectively. If the Thunder win again you can add them to the list.
Oh that’s fun
Also holy fuck, they were rich kids
Leominster?? Rich kid?
Listen I work in Chelsea, Mattapan and Brockton lol. Shits relative
Murderpan and Brock Vegas
Actually it was Cascadia that won.
This is what happens when you let Vermont rule Crabalachia.
Damn I want some Iggys right now
Coach of the year ❌
Staff of the year ✅
I dunno enough to separate the two but Joe is definitely a good coach…leading the team to a 2 seed after having your superstar out almost the whole year is super impressive. As far as the playoffs go…it’s a regular season award
They’re making a comment on what he said when asked about it before.
Absolutely, but the guy above was calling back to what Joe said about how he believes they should change it to recognize staff of the year. An incredible season and Joe deserves it but he really hates the award lol and I do appreciate the selflessness and the eagerness to recognize the rest of staff
Genuinely surprised JB Bickerstaff didn’t get it
I would love an explanation how he won over JB. Especially after leading the pistons, off all teams, to a first seed.
Celtics were missing their best player and were only a few games back
The Pistons gained 46 wins in two years under Bickerstaff and neither year he won coach of the year. Insane disrespect.
That’s fair, just giving an explanation like OP asked for
Two years means nothing for a single season award
Pistons had the worst record in the NBA 2 seasons ago. JB is more deserving.
Why does 2 years ago matter ? They were a mid 40s team last year.
Taking a team, with essentially the same core, from 14 wins to 60 wins matters. If anything he should’ve won it last year, but JB took Duren, Cade, Ausar, and developed them into a team that had the best record in the East this year.
The jump from 14 to 46 is irrelevent to this year. If you wanna argue he should’ve won last year that’s fair, I won’t disagree
Last year the argument was that it was harder to take a good team and make them great than take a bad team and make them good. Across the 2 years, Bickerstaff should have 1 but the goalposts are ever moving
His case for last year is much stronger than his case for this year
And see, I’ll agree on that. The problem is the previously mentioned moving goalposts.
Last year the narrative was that it was easier to make a bad team good than a good team great, so he lost it to Atkinson who made a good team great, and if that’s the criteria, fine, it should’ve been JB’s this year based on that criteria. But the narrative is different this year, and making a good team great is not the narrative for the criteria anymore.
One of the years he should’ve had it based on whichever years criteria you wanna look at, but for the opposite year.
That’s not to say Mazzulla isn’t a great coach and well deserving of a COTY award by any means, it’s a frustration with the way these awards are evaluated. There’s no consistency, it’s just a media driven narrative based on any given year.
How much of that is just a #1 pick doing normal #1 pick growth? How many wins do you think this years current celtics team should have had with JB?
It just shows the coaching improvement he has done. Especially considering no one expected the Pistons to be this good this year either. And they were in 1st place the entire year and won their conference convincingly. I get the Celtics missing their best player and overachieving, just feel like it seems silly to only count it for them when the Pistons overachieved as well and were the #1 seed the entire season. Coaching an unexpected team to the best record in the conference should’ve mattered more lol
Lots of people were high on Detroit, go back and check prediction posts before the season started or look at the pistons betting line. They were an already good playoff team that pushed the Knicks to a tight series, and their entire roster was young which comes with expected improvements.
And it’s not just the Celtics missing their best player. It’s the Celtics missing 3 of their 5 starters last year, and 2 of their primary bench guys. That’s most of their rotation, and they didn’t miss a beat.
On top of that, Detroits relatively unexpected success was the driving force for Cade’s MVP campaign. Usually in those situations a player or a coach gets credit and gets their push in their respective award, it’s rarely both. Brown was (rightfully) an afterthought for the award, and Boston straight up performed better without him in lineups composed primarily of raw, young role players simply executing the Celtics system.
Lol revisionist history everyone said Beasley leaving they would have a worse record. The Ringer had the Pistons less than the Vegas line and the Celtics over. I got downvoted for saying I believe the Pistons would be a top 4 seed.
Even at the all star break the discourse was pistons were #1 cause of their “easy schedule”
Both years we improved with no big free agency moves, it’s his impact that’s developed us into a 60 win team
Sure but no award is cumulative. The jump from last year to this year is all that matters
The Celtics have been a perennial contender in the east. The Pistons were hot ass before Bickerstaff got there.
The Celtics have been a perennial contender in the east
Okay but they entered this year without many of the players that were responsible for that (Tatum, Holiday, Porzingis, Kornet, and Horford…)
Perennial contender that got most of its players shipped out. This thread is the biggest example of hindsight, most of y’all got us finishing 14th/15th with Indiana pre-season.
Celtics preseason over under was 41.5 wins. Maybe 14th/15th in the league, not in the East.
TBF the Pistons O/U was 46.5 wins. They overachieved by 13.5 wins, the Celtics overachieved by 14.5 wins. By this metric Joe is better.
Stop it Patrick, you’ll scare them!
Celtics lost Tatum, Jrue, KP, Al, and Luke Kornet (ie 5 of the 9 in their rotation during the championship) and replaced them with Queta, Luka Garza, Jordan Walsh Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheirman and still won 56 it’s not that much of a mystery man
Yea and the pistons have a trash roster what’s your point.
He did a phenomenal job but the Pistons were already on an upward trajectory, went from 6 seed to 1 seed in a conference where 3 of those teams ahead of them last year had their star player out entirely or miss significant time (Celtics, Pacers, Bucks) this season. Meanwhile the Celtics were expected to be a play-in team at best without Tatum, and ended up finishing only 4 games behind Detroit. Idk it makes sense to me
Preseason the pistons were projected to have 46.5 wins, the Celtics 41.5. The Pistons finished +4 in wins, so I guess great work to Joe to make up that 1 win. But, Tatum came back way earlier than expected which wasn’t factored in. It’s still a team with championship culture and role players so I just don’t really see it.
Shouldn’t he get credit for that upward trajectory, though?
COTY in theory is whoever is the best coach, but in practice, it’s a ‘team that exceeded expectations the most’ award. This tends to mean that coaches have a one year ‘window’ to win, when the team makes a big improvement. After that one season, the expectation is now that the team continues playing at that level, and they aren’t any longer coach of the year candidates.
Pistons made very large leaps in both seasons, so Bickerstaff this year was competing against the higher expectations he instilled and still outperformed them.
Mazzula had a legitimate argument; I’m not doubting that. But anyone who paid attention to the Celtics’ bench unit last season should have known they weren’t going to be all that bad this season.
Yeah i woulda given it to bickerstaff all things considered..
The Tatum injury did a lot of heavy lifting I guess
And a lot of players being traded away…
But Bickerstaff is deserving too
as it should have. no other team could have done what the celtics did when their star went down for the whole season.
Any of Mazzulla, JB or Mitch Johnson would’ve been deserving given how much they outperformed preseason expectations, and the latter 2 (especially the Spurs) improved from last year.
As long as the voting is reasonably spread out, and not unanimous for Mazzula, it shouldn’t have been a surprise for any of the 3 to win.
Bickerstaff took one of the worst performing teams of all time into a 60 win 1 seed in 2 years without major moves. I dunno how that doesn’t make him a shoe-in.
Celtics over performed from expectations, sure, but it’s not like we were expecting them to be ass.
it’s actually crazy how he lost to the atkinson narrative (turning good team to great team is harder than turning bad team to good team), followed that same narrative, just to lose it again. now the only way he gets it is if they get like 70 wins smh. mitch or bickerstaff should be having this award
This is bullshit. 14 wins to 60 wins in two seasons. Back to back snubs.
He should have won it last year not this year.
This years was not as great of a coaching job as the year before.
He already had them at 44 wins and in the playoffs last.
The goal posts are always moving. When they won 30 more games. I heard it’s harder to go from good to great than bad to good and that’s why Kenny deserved it. Oh well I don’t want to see JB get fired. This is probably for the best.
Bickerstaff received the Michael H. Goldberg NBCA Coach of the Year Award in April. So they are both recognized!
This is for 2018 Brad Stevens
do u mean 2017?
Nah D’Antoni was a respectable winner that year compared to Dwane Casey. 2018 was when Hayward and Kyrie went down but the team didn’t miss a beat.
oh that’s true, i thought u had meant 2017 for making a system that made a 5’ 9” guard a scoring machine and 1 seed over prime bron. but 2018 holding its own down an all star and even moreso in the playoffs down 2 all stars was impressive
The team hasn’t missed a beat for quite a while now since Brad Stevens joined the organization
The discourse in this sub is so funny because everyone is talking about how it’s ridiculous Joe won, when if you went back to the end of the regular season, everybody was talking about how insane it was that Joe had led the Celtics to the #2 seed. It’s a regular season award and people here seem to be forgetting that
Thats why releasing this award now makes absolutely no sense. Everyone forgets that it’s a regular season award. The team that was suppose to be tanking, ended up getting a second seed. Then they somehow were called the favorites in the east at one point to come out, only to be upset by the Sixers. So in reality it makes it look like he didn’t deserve it due to the post season but he overly achieved in the regular season.
Nobody cares less than him
Analytically Joe cares the least about awards.
They need to give these awards out before the playoffs so they don’t end up this hilarious
Oooooh he’s gonna hate thiiiiisss 😂
Joe could’ve used this as bulletin board if we were still in the playoffs.
“They only gave me this fucking thing because they didn’t believe in your guys’ talent. Whose car we taking?”
If only his crazy ass was our coach and not Kenny “we analytically won” Atkinson smh
Oh god he’s gonna strangle somebody over this
Lmao. this is just gonna piss him off
From second row Joe, to Coach of the Year.
Don’t understand how JB didn’t get it but ok
The celtics played 90% of the season without their best player, they lost 3 other key players in Holiday, Horford, and Kristaps, and they still won 56 games and were the 2 seed. it really isnt that hard to see why Mazzulla won the award idk how you dont understand it
Detroit vs Everybody
JB not getting this award is genuinely shocking.
People were amazed he got the Celtics to #2 in the regular season. Now they’re shocked he won Coach of the Year for… getting the Celtics to #2 in the regular season.
JB just has to go 82-0 if he wants it. Simple
Mazzulla doesn’t give a fuck lmao
Atkinson won analytically
Out coached by Nick Nurse lmao
All 3 choices are fair. I think Both Spurs and the Detroit’s coaches deserved it.
Analytically Atkinson won the COTY
JB robbed
Joe is gonna b livid! He hates this award so much
Well deserved. Doing what he did with Tatum injured for most the season is amazing. Plus, he’s hilarious
The Detroit Pistons won 60 games this year.
The Celtics won 56 with a center rotation of Neemias Queta and Luka Garza
Duncan Robinson was 2nd in minutes this year for the Pistons. The Celtics have have had 11 consecutive winning seasons. The Pistons went from 14 to 60 with in two seasons and won a playoff series for the first time in 18 years. The Celtics were a 2nd apron team until they traded Simons.
The San Antonio Spurs won 62 games this year.
Mission Accomplished
Amazing hahaha
idk what more JB could’ve done to win it one of these two years
I wonder what Kenny Atkinson analytics 📈 say about this
Analytics say price of cancun has been going up
I’m just happy Charles Lee finished fourth in voting
so the “Bickerstaff” spoiler was a fucking lie!
Bickerstaff got robbed thanks to some idiot on ESPN
Congratulations to Analytic Coach of the Year Kenny Atkinson
I guess that makes sense. I wasn’t expecting the Celtics to go anywhere without Tatum for most of the season.
I guess this was the year JB should’ve led a team with low expectations to the playoffs. Last year was the year he should’ve gotten the one seed.
The Pistons could go 82-0 next year and they would find an excuse not to give COTY to JB. It’s pretty pathetic, really. lol
We’re a week away from the finals and we’re just finding out who the COTY is. This is ridiculous.
NBA awards timing might be the worst in history.
You have 82 games.
After 72 games everybody knows what they are going to vote. You might have two or three awards that you have to think.
But after the last game, you cannot spend more than two days to decide.
This is 2026. We have like 30 years of eMails. It takes you a couple of hours to know the results.
This is less than amateur.
Ok don’t get me wrong mazzulla did a fantastic job, but where’s the consistency? Mazzulla and bickerstaff last year both over performed with a struggling side. Atkinson last year and bickerstaff were the top seed.
It’s true that nobody thought Celtics would be in the playoffs, but that’s because they were expected to tank, not because people didn’t believe a team with white, brown, and Pritchard could function by themselves
He got meaningful contributions from a whole bunch of guys nobody ever had on their radar. “Expected to tank” was because of the roster that he got 50+ wins out of. He won this by a landslide because it wasn’t close and it’s not because hundreds of COY voters are Celtics fans.
An NBA team made the finals before the coach of the year was announced. They need to stop delaying this. Release everything before the playoffs
Oof, ouch for anyone that saw the “leak” and bet on Bickerstaff lol
Detroit can’t have shit, huh. 🤔
Mazzulla did a fantastic job but the way they move the goal post just from last year is annoying
why though
Celtics were expected to be a .500 level play-in team at best, with many expecting they’d be even worse. Lost 3 starters from the year prior. Despite that they were the 2 seed, and their best minutes were the minutes where they had all of their role players plugged in and executing the C’s system.
Why do you think
NBA awards are silly
Is there a reason these awards are staggered out like they are? The NFL just hands them all out at once
Can’t argue with it since it’s a regular season award but losing to the Sixers like that almost makes me feel like they should take it away. Knowing him, he doesn’t care about it anyway.
At least Mazzulla isn’t going to lose his job but man they really should consider having COTY and executive of the year take the postseason into account. Wild having an expired take award.
The disrespect to Mitch Johnson
I hope they record him being handed a trophy, so we get to see an all-time meltdown
Jaylen gonna interpret this as a slight against him
Mazzulla had 62 first place votes JB 29 Mitch Johnson 9
deserved
i just don’t get it
bickerstaff can lose it in 2022 cuz turning a 22 (really 25) win Cavs team into a 44 win team after adding Evan and Jarrett isn’t as impressive as the Suns increasing in win total and leading the league with 64 wins after a finals run (this one wasn’t much of a snub tho since he did coach the year before)
then he loses it cuz getting the awfully mocked pistons from a rotten 14 win season (ironically, spearheaded by Monty williams) into a 30 game win increase into a secured playoff spot as the 6 seed by adding “tobias harris” isn’t as worthwhile as atkinson turning the decent Cavs into a dominant team with 64 wins (sure….)
and now, bickerstaff has developed ausar into an all defense team player, duren a all star and 20⁄10 guy (postseason should not matter), and cade into an all nba first team guard with 60 wins leading the East all year — just to lose to a guy that decreased in wins, for turning his less than stellar roster into a strong regular season record (which was also bickerstaff’s case just last year)
Sure do love seeing regular season awards announced late into the playoffs
3 60 win teams and not one of them had COTY? Lol okay voters
Bickerstaff robbed again
These announcements make post-season success stand out. They need to be announced way earlier.
Congrats to him, but if it took into account post-season, lmfao.
Lots of coaches were deserving
Took long enough for them to announce it. Silly from the NBA that they didnt do it before the MVP.
Not the Pistons coach? Interesting
im glad JB didnt win. its bad juju
Lame. Like okay Tatum was hurt but they still had a great team.
Meanwhile Vegas had the Spurs at 44 wins and Mitch Johnson coached up 20 year olds into a 62 win title contender.
LOL the voters are mentally challenged, like seriously brain damaged because they do not agree with me.
Did Bickerstaff do something wrong to not win this OR last year? that’s insane.
That’s BS. Bickerstaff
Congrats on coach of the year after you got eliminated from playoffs 24 days ago 😂 the awards scheduling is so dumb
Well, bright side is half our sub wants Joe gone, so maybe the curse will kick in lol
(I’m not one of those people, I think he’s earned a couple down years before they consider moving on from him)
Also, surprised Johnson or Bickerstaff didn’t get it
Team subs are the absolute worst.
This is just going to piss Joe off tbh.
Damn, sometimes these awards hitting in the post season just makes them embarrassing. Either give them out at the end of the regular season or (I like this less) have them account for the entirety of the year.
Boston media mafia
The awards should be announced during the play-in week. Milking this to the end of the season is garbage.
Should have been Mike Brown!
Analytically he had a great year
A woman’s neck is spared
Omg they gotta make the ceremony prime time shit, we have the slots now that the east is wrapped up
Will he accept it?
MY KING