Capping a wildly successful first year, the Chicago Bulls' Tom Thibodeau will be named the NBA's Coach of the Year on Sunday, sources told the Tribune. A news conference with the Bulls and the NBA is set for 3:30 p.m. at the Berto Center. Thibodeau guided the Bulls to a league-best 62-20 record after 21 years as an assistant coach, establishing a defensive mindset and relentlessly pursuing the unattainable perfect game. "I've never been around a coach who works as hard and wants to win as much as him," Derrick Rose said. Thibodeau led the Bulls to the league's No. 1 seed despite major injuries to Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah. He won three Eastern Conference coach of the month awards along the way. "I don't care about any of that stuff," Thibodeau said recently. "I just want to win." It's the Bulls' first Coach of the Year winner since Phil Jackson. Read more: http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/wa...d=772&ith=0&title=Latest from Breaking Sports
It really has been a season for the ages hasn't it? A championship would turn this into 30-for-30 type fodder.
Interesting...I have it the other way around. As I've said many times, an NBA head coach can only do his job if his top players let him do it. As the team's superstar, Rose has been a coach's dream. He not only allows Thibs to coach him, he encourages it. The rest of the team just naturally has to follow Derrick's lead. Anyway, when a team is picked for the 4th seed at best and goes out and wins 62 for the best record in the league, that's the perfect recipe for a COY. Congrats, Thibs.
I expect nothing less. Rose is the messiah to most Bulls fans. They like to ignore the dominating team defense that has elevated them from mediocre to elite status.
If you're saying that I'm like most Bulls' fans, I take it as an insult and won't soon forget it. I've said it before...this year's Bulls have enjoyed their surprising success because of Rose's emergence as a truly elite player and their team defense. You can pick the order because without one, the other wouldn't have been nearly enough. As for the defense, if you believe that the secret to the Bulls' success on that end is purely an X and O thing, I consider you naive. Thibs clearly knows his shit when it comes to coaching D, but so do several other HCs and some of them are out of work because their players didn't buy in or stopped buying in. Messiah? Very dramatic. Rose is a legit stud and his rise to this status coincided with the Bulls arrival as an elite NBA team. If you want to give Thibs all or most of the credit, fine. Just keep in mind that if one day Rose wakes up and decides he's tired of Thibodeau, Thibs is toast. Truth is that it's a perfect marriage so far. The two have made beautiful music together. Personally, I'd love to have arguments about why the Bulls are a great team for another 10 or 20 years.
You know, I'm sick of people hanging on Thibodeau's jock, like he's all that.... But on to serious business, super well deserved. What a dream of a season! And no waking up just yet! Derrick's to come tomorrow.
