The NBA is beginning to unveil its awards for the 2022-23 season and the Coach of the Year winner was just revealed today.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA will soon announce that Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown has won the prestigious award. The official announcement will come at some point during the NBA playoffs.
Brown’s win should be little surprise given what he accomplished this season. In his first year at the helm for the Kings, he led them to their first winning season and playoff berth since 2006, ending the longest playoff drought of any major professional sports team in the country.
In a single season Brown turned the Kings from a 30-win team that was 22 games under .500 and 34 games back in their own division to division champions and the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.
ESPN Sources: After leading one of the league’s most dramatic recent turnarounds, Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown has been voted the National Basketball Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year: https://t.co/oyb4ogbfFj
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 13, 2023
Mike Brown’s hiring in 2022 was initially met with some skepticism due to his back-to-back dismissals as head coach of the Lakers and Cavaliers in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.
But after six years as a top assistant with the Golden State Warriors and three titles, Brown was ready to take on another head coaching job. Though the Kings job was hardly the most desirable in the league.
Nevertheless, despite playing in arguably the most stacked division in the entire NBA, Brown’s Kings emerged on top.
It’s a well-deserved award for Mike Brown.