2024-25 NBA Awards, Part I: Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, and Most Improved Player

Picking COY, EOY, 6MOY, MIP (in case the title was too long)

Now that we’ve done the All-Whatever teams, it’s time to hand out some shiny trophies. Let’s start with the easy-ish ones, shall we? That’ll give me more time to figure out the hard categories this weekend.

Coach of the Year:

1. Kenny Atkinson, Cleveland Cavaliers

2. Ime Udoka, Houston Rockets

3. J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit Pistons

People thought the Cavaliers would be good, in the cute, maybe-they-take-a-series kind of way. Look how adorable; they think they’re contenders!

Instead, in his first year, Kenny Atkinson has turned the Cavaliers into an Eastern Conference juggernaut that is absolutely a growling threat to win the title.

Atkinson’s new offensive system, comprised of sacrificial cuts and an egalitarian distribution of offensive duties, has resulted in an offense that’s far and away the best in the league without compromising their top-10 defense.

Atkinson leans heavily upon his bench, has gotten the most out of two-big lineups with Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, ramped up the pace within the halfcourt structure, implemented heavy amounts of zone defense, and has coaxed career-best years from Mobley, Darius Garland, and Ty Jerome. It’s really hard to go from bad to good; it’s harder than that to go from good to elite, especially with a roster with superficial redundancies at key positions.

Put another way, Atkinson has unlocked a roster that seemingly hit its ceiling under another candidate to win Coach of the Year.

It’s insane that Ime Udoka is eighth in Coach of the Year odds as of this writing. The Houston Rockets finished 11th in the conference last season and made no notable changes to the roster. In the preseason, the likeliest path to them getting good involved either Alperen Sengun or Jalen Green making a superstar leap — neither of them did so. And the Rockets still can’t shoot to save their lives!

None of it has mattered. The Rockets are almost certain to finish second in the conference, with a three-game lead over the third-seeded Nuggets. It’s been a true ensemble performance helmed by the fiery coach.

Udoka gets his guys to play hard, but he’s also a clever tactician. He started stashing Alperen Sengun away from the rim to be a free safety, has turned the Sengun/Adams two-big lineup into a roaring success thanks to a surprisingly effective zone defense (and some shooting luck), and has moved Amen Thompson into all five positions at various points throughout the season. If the Rockets make a respectable playoff showing (a big if, to be fair), I think a lot of voters will regret their ballots.

The Detroit Pistons won 14 games last season. They had a losing streak twice that long! Then, JB Bickerstaff jumped on board, along with a few helpful but low-wattage veterans like Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway, and Malik Beasley (more on him later). Now, just a year out from being one of the sorriest squads we’ve ever seen in the NBA, the Pistons will be making the playoffs.

Good health has something to do with it, but Bickerstaff deserves credit for immediately implementing his classic Bickerstaffian principles to great effect. Everyone on this team has improved on defense; everyone knows their role.

The best player (Cade Cunningham) initiates almost everything. The shooters (Malik Beasley, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Simone Fontecchio) launch with reckless abandon, and the defenders (Ausar Thompson, Ron Holland, Beef Stew) are guarding their butts off.

That’s what Bickerstaff does. He has players lean into their strengths until they’re nearly caricatures of themselves. This can have its limits, which is why the Cavaliers were willing to replace him, but for a Detroit Pistons team with no identity and little hope, it’s been exactly what they needed.

Coach of the Year is the most consistently difficult award to pick, year in and year out. There are several coaches who deserve to flat-out win the award and yet don’t even make my ballot. This year, guys like Mark Daigneault (who might win 70 games!), Joe Mazzulla, JJ Redick, and Ty Lue have also done phenomenal work. I wouldn’t argue with any of them making someone’s podium.

Executive of the Year

1. Rob Pelinka, Los Angeles Lakers

2. Sam Presti, Oklahoma City Thunder

3. Trajan Langdon, Detroit Pistons

Look, I know how dumb it is to reward Pelinka for being in the right place at the right time. You could argue that Nico Harrison deserves Worst Executive of the Year more than Pelinka deserves EOY. But what do you want me to do? The Rob Lowe lookalike still brought in a 25-year-old top-five NBA player for a ludicrously low price, giving LeBron James the best teammate of his life and lighting the path forward for the Lakers franchise.

The Doncic trade overshadows everything else, but Pelinka had some other nice moves, too. Coach JJ Redick, signed in the offseason, has impressed. The Dorian Finney-Smith deal has gone even better than I expected, as DFS has become a tentpole defender and three-point spacer. Moving D’Angelo Russell in that transaction was addition by subtraction, freeing Austin Reaves to become the player he is now (more on him below). Rookie Dalton Knecht has had his struggles, but his three-point shooting has been an arrow in coach Redick’s quiver — mark my words, he’ll win the Lakers a playoff game.

Even the moves the Lakers didn’t make worked out — the team initially traded for Mark Williams but bailed at the last moment on concerns about Williams’ physical.

So, yeah, Pelinka was simply lucky to land Doncic. But he’s done plenty of other things well, too. Do I think Pelinka is a good or even above-average executive? No. But awards don’t judge the process; they judge the results, and the Lakers (currently the four-seed in the West) have hit for the cycle in this ballgame.

Sam Presti took last year’s top seed and improved them, addressing physical weakness with beefeater Isaiah Hartenstein and adding wing depth (and arguably the league’s top perimeter defender) in Alex Caruso. I also loved what rookie guard Ajay Mitchell was showing early in the year before he was lost for the season.

No team is better set up for success in the present or the future, a miraculous balance to strike.

Langdon gets the credit for hiring JB Bickerstaff to provide accountability and defensive backbone, and he helped juice the team’s offense through the addition of the aforementioned veterans (especially Beasley). He also poached Fred Vinson, the legendary shooting coach — several Pistons are having a career year shooting the ball, including Cunningham.

It was tough to exclude Cleveland’s Koby Altman, who hired Atkinson and made a big trade for De’Andre Hunter that could reap major playoff dividends.

Sixth Man of the Year

1. Malik Beasley, Detroit Pistons

2. Payton Pritchard, Boston Celtics

3. De’Andre Hunter, Cleveland Cavaliers

I’ve beaten this drum all year, but it’s still not fully appreciated how good Malik Beasley has been from deep. He’s getting up more than nine triples per game and lacing 42% of them. That combination of volume and accuracy has only ever been matched by one man: Steph Curry.

Beasley is also having the best defensive season of his career (the Bickerstaff effect!), which helps keep him on the court at the end of games, where he closes more often than he doesn’t.

It’s hard to overstate how much Beasley’s shooting lubricates the Pistons’ offense. His gravity sucks in defenders, opening driving lanes for Cunningham. He takes shots that would get less-successful players committed to an asylum:

Bonus points for the swashbuckling shimmy that accompanies every big three.

Payton Pritchard has become one of the most bloodthirsty shot-hunters in the sport, abandoning all pretense of being a point guard to sprint around looking for a sliver of an opening. I love it. He’s also an uncanny finisher at the rim, utilizing his shoulders like tiny bulldozers to open up space. Watch as he shoves the much larger Kris Murray to the wrong side of the basket, opening up room for an easy layup:

On a different team, Pritchard might have an Austin Reaves-level explosion in him, but he’ll have to settle for being an irreplaceable piece on the NBA champions.

De’Andre Hunter is technically the leading scorer of all Sixth Man candidates, and he deserves plaudits for his own long-range exploits: 17 points per game on the season, including 41% from deep on six attempts per game. He’s also the best on-ball defender of the group, and like Beasley, he’s been closing games, too. However, his individual stats have taken a bit of a hit since he came to Cleveland, and it’s hard to disentangle his bench impact from Ty Jerome’s.

Apologies to Jerome, having an unreal shooting season of his own, and Naz Reid, who has had an even better year this season than last for the Timberwolves.

Most Improved Player

If you’re new around these parts, understand that I view MIP differently than many. I despise the idea of giving MIP to a top pick in his first couple of seasons. I’ve used this example many times, but remember when voters ludicrously gave the trophy to Ja Morant, and he cared so little that he literally mailed it to teammate Desmond Bane?

Top-three picks are supposed to be destined for bigger and better things. Like Sixth Man, MIP is something for the tier of players below superstar; it’s not meant to be MVP Jr.

So no, Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley won’t make my ballot, even if their objective level of improvement has been huge. They are supposed to be this good!

Before we begin, I want to shout out Norman Powell, who would have been the clear-cut winner but will not make the NBA’s 65-game requirement. His absence opens a path for his teammate.

1. Ivica Zubac, Los Angeles Clippers

2. Austin Reaves, Los Angeles Lakers

3. Christian Braun, Denver Nuggets

Ivica Zubac has been a revelation this year. He’s made enormous strides on both ends of the floor. Defensively, he went from a good rim protector to someone earning consideration for DPOY (I made his defensive case myself in my All-Defensive Team column).

Offensively, his improvement has been just as notable. He’s creating more of his own offense than ever before, and he’s tremendously boosted his volume while suffering only a slight dip in efficiency (in fact, he’s shooting a career-high at the rim). The Clippers still have a league-median offense when he plays without James Harden, which feels preposterous given the lack of secondary creation on the Clippers’ roster.

Austin Reaves is a very close second. He’s maintained elite offensive efficiency despite a career high in usage. I’m even more impressed that he’s not only survived but thrived with the addition of Luka Doncic, who I thought would eat into his opportunities.

It doesn’t show up in the raw free throw attempts, but Reaves is one of the league’s great foul-drawers on a rate basis. He punishes stupidity with a Chris Paul-level savagery:

And while Reaves will never be a DPOY candidate, he’s dramatically improved on that end from last year’s ugliness.

Christian Braun has more than doubled his scoring average from last season, a far more significant increase than in his minutes played.

He’s been absolutely incredible in the paint, shooting 71% at the rim and a surprisingly efficient 46% in the short midrange. Add it up, and he’s shooting a whopping 15% better on two-pointers than last season despite nearly doubling his field goal volume. (Playing more with the greatest passer of our generation helps!)

He, too, has leveled up his defense to the point that he’s Denver’s best perimeter option (by necessity as much as his own merit).

I discussed Braun a little more here but left out a critical part of the story. Braun is a Bullet Bill in transition, where he boasts the best combination of volume and accuracy in the league.

Honorable mentions go to Ty Jerome, Dyson Daniels, Tyler Herro, and Payton Pritchard.