<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Sam Mitchell was once voted the worst coach in the NBA in an unscientific poll of players. Tomorrow, he could be named the best coach in the league by a panel of media experts. All signs point to the Raptor coach being named the league's coach of the year for 2006-07 and being honoured before Game 2 of Toronto's Eastern Conference playoff series against the New Jersey Nets. The league announced last night it would announce the coach of the year winner tomorrow and the league likes to allow the various winners their moment in the sun in front of a home crowd. League and team sources were mum on the topic last night. However, in a straw poll of writers and broadcasters who vote on the award, Mitchell had a slight edge on Utah's Jerry Sloan and Avery Johnson of the Dallas Mavericks. In the past, the league has made sure the winner of any significant post-season award has been honoured before his team plays. Neither the Jazz nor the Mavericks play tomorrow night. If Mitchell wins, it will cap a stunning turnaround for the 42-year-old, who is in just his third season as a head coach.</div> Source: Toronto Star Sounds like he's basically won it.
Also, he was ranked the 12th best coach in the playoffs by SI: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Sam Mitchell After two odd seasons seemingly spent running the Raptors into the ground (check out Chris Bosh's minutes from this one-sided affair), Mitchell turned the corner and unexpectedly led a team in transition to a division championship. He's the likely and deserved Coach of the Year, but he'll also be manning the sideline in his first postseason. Mitchell's strengths, besides his ability to encourage his players to share the ball and find the open shooter, might lie in the surprise factor: Nobody knows what to expect from him or his team, and this could be enough to take a series.</div> Source: SI.com
lol, its interesting how he can be considered the 'deserved' Coach of the Year by SI, and also the 12th/16th best coach in playoffs. Anyway, I think Mitchell has good player relationships, but has he done a better coaching job than Avery, Sloan, Popovich, Jackson, Saunders, D'antoni, JVG, etc? Actually its hard for me to tell, my guess would be no, but how would you choose between the other 5? I have no clue how Sloan would do with the Pistons or how Jackson would do with the Jazz, or Saunders with Houston?
Just following the first round matchups, its interesting to compare the different coach of the year candidates. I think contrasting him with Don Nelson really puts things in perspective. Nelson managed to pull of an improbable upset against Dallas by adjusting his defense to shut down Dirk Nowitzki. Sam Mitchell was outcoached by Lawrence Frank when he began playing a soft zone defense on the Raps. I'll give credit to Mitchell for getting this team to buy into the same goal and system, but I don't consider him the CoY. If he does get the award, I think most of the credit should go to Bryan Colangelo.
I don't know guys. I really have to hand it to Sam Mitchell. All those coaches which teams were mentioned a while ago have all been playoff teams over the last year. 20+ wins and into the playoffs for a team that was way below .500 last year is a tremendous feat for whomever is the coach of whichever team. Yes, Colangelo is the man, but Mitchell should be part of that success, and honestly guys, nobody and I mean nobody give the best interviews for the FAN590 as Mitchell. He's hilarious. On another note: Wouldn't it be nice to anoint Mitchell as coach of the year before the fans to jack up the energy in the building before game 2. I honestly thought that we would be putting up the atlantic division banner in front of the NJ Nets particularly for game 1 since we're in the same division, it would spark the Toronto Raptors for a game 1 victory, and then anoint Sam Mitchell as coach of the year for game 2 would even be better for the city. I guess Colangelo thought differently.
<div class="quote_poster">Chutney Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Just following the first round matchups, its interesting to compare the different coach of the year candidates. I think contrasting him with Don Nelson really puts things in perspective. Nelson managed to pull of an improbable upset against Dallas by adjusting his defense to shut down Dirk Nowitzki. Sam Mitchell was outcoached by Lawrence Frank when he began playing a soft zone defense on the Raps. </div> Don Nelson has also coached in 2130 career games and never won a championship. Contrasting Sam Mitchell with Don Nelson does not put anything into perspective there at very different stages of their career. The Raptors didn't lose that game because Sam Mitchell was outcoached, the raptors lost because they got marginal efforts from guys like Graham, Mo-pete, Bargnani and Parker (first half). Bosh was in foul trouble. If that zone confounds the team for the rest of playoffs than i will blame Mitchell but game 1 was simply lack of execution on the players part IMO.
<div class="quote_poster">Drunkballer Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Don Nelson has also coached in 2130 career games and never won a championship. Contrasting Sam Mitchell with Don Nelson does not put anything into perspective there at very different stages of their career. The Raptors didn't lose that game because Sam Mitchell was outcoached, the raptors lost because they got marginal efforts from guys like Graham, Mo-pete, Bargnani and Parker (first half). Bosh was in foul trouble. If that zone confounds the team for the rest of playoffs than i will blame Mitchell but game 1 was simply lack of execution on the players part IMO.</div> I agree the majority of the blame goes to the players but you have to note that Mitchell isn't good at taking a team into a timeout and calming things down so to speak. Regrouping through a timeout or two could have done us wonders. Lawrence Frank (although i think he's over-rated) did a great job pressing the stop button and calling a timeout at any point where we had some serious momentum.
Source: Mitchell Will Be Named Named Coach Of The Year <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">National Post - Sources have confirmed Sam Mitchell will be named the NBA's coach of the year. The National Post has learned that Mitchell has edged other strong contenders such as Utah's Jerry Sloan and Dallas's Avery Johnson. "We had a lot of [new] guys, we had a language barrier at the beginning of the year, we had so many obstacles that we had to overcome," Toronto's lone All-Star, Chris Bosh, said Monday before the results of the vote were revealed. "We had to gel quickly as a team. And for Sam to put us in an environment where we could function, and create an offence where everybody can touch the ball and share the ball and get open shots, that was tough on his part."</div> Link
<div class="quote_poster">Drunkballer Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Don Nelson has also coached in 2130 career games and never won a championship. Contrasting Sam Mitchell with Don Nelson does not put anything into perspective there at very different stages of their career. The Raptors didn't lose that game because Sam Mitchell was outcoached, the raptors lost because they got marginal efforts from guys like Graham, Mo-pete, Bargnani and Parker (first half). Bosh was in foul trouble. If that zone confounds the team for the rest of playoffs than i will blame Mitchell but game 1 was simply lack of execution on the players part IMO.</div> Well its a moot point now, but I think you missed what I was trying to argue. I was comparing Nelson and Mitchell in terms of CoY candidates. My point was that Nelson clearly has a much bigger impact on his team than Mitchell does. IMO, he deserves more credit for his role in the Warriors' 8-game improvement and playoff berth than Mitchell does for the Raptors' turnaround, because they were much more dependent on his coaching ability. Our success this year is more an argument for Colangelo winning EoY.
ESPN.com just reported Sam Mitchell the winner of the award. I congratulate him on all his success and it's a very nice story considering he was supposed to be a lame duck coach. Mitchell's success this year probably helps the Suns, before this season the Raptors were rumored want to fire Mitchell at the end of this season and hire Suns assistant Marc Iavaroni, who has been important in the Suns success. I don't want to take anything away from what he has done, but this award kind of annoys me. This award goes to coaches of teams who do better than expected, even from teams who barely break .500. Hubie Brown won it even though the Grizz were only 4th in their division, Doc Rivers won it even though the Magic didn't make the playoffs, Del Harris won it though the Lakers were only 5th in the West. Jerry Sloan has won 50+ games 11 times, though hasn't ever won a CoY award. Phil Jackson has 9 Championships and 1 CoY award. In the last 34 years only 2 CoY winners also won the Championship (Gregg Popovich in 02-03 & Phil Jackson in 95-96). I'm not saying the coach of the champion is always the best coach, but the coach of a team who surpasses the media's expectation isn't always the best coach either. Earlier in the year I'd have said Sloan should've gotten it, but Utah collapsed and the coach of the year shouldn't have allowed that. So I think Avery Johnson or Mike D'Antoni should've gotten it. Mitchell did a great job, the Raptors did better than anybody expected and they won their division, etc. But 8 teams had a better record than 47-35, plus one could make a case that Toronto was in the East, in a weak division, and Colangelo may have had more to do with their success. But as that's the way this award is given out, congratulations to Sam Mitchell and the Raptors.
sam did his job but they could have just given it to brian (Corenjello? ?); it's all because of him that raptors are what they are now...i think nba should have seen how bad the raptors were last year without BC but with sam mitchell and this year with BC and sam mitchell...it's a totally different team because of BC.. sam should be awarded the most improved instead or something..
Dawg Van Gundy Got Robbed Palya He Was Defeintly The Better Coach Gettin His Team 50 Wins After All Those Injuries Bee Who The Hell Is Sam Mitchel Dawg Its All About Jeff To Da Van Gundy Baby Holla Back
^ You can at least give your opinion some merit by justifying it... I've read a couple of your posts and I think you'd benefit a lot more in this forum if you actually put forth the effort to write something somewhat gramatically correct, because honest to god I can type using my face and have more legibility in my posts. Well anyway, I think, or rather I know that Mitchell isn't the best coach. Until the guy can draw up a simple offensive set that doesn't involve the pick and roll I'm not quite a believer just yet.
