My NBA Awards ballot: picking every NBA award for the 2023-24 season
By Ben Handler
Coach of the Year
This was one of the toughest awards to give out as there were so many worthy candidates. The aforementioned Joe Mazzulla did an amazing job managing a Celtics team full of new faces on the court and on the bench.
JB Bickerstaff had the Cavs looking like the second-best team in the East for months even while missing multiple stars. Tom Thibodeau got a banged-up, undermanned Knicks team to 50 wins and the two seed in the Eastern Conference. Chris Finch revamped the Timberwolves and has had them playing historically elite defense all season long.
But for me, this ultimately came down to two names, Jamahl Mosley and Mark Daigneault. Mosley has his Orlando Magic team way ahead of schedule and playing over their heads with stars in their early 20s. He has this team completely bought in on defense and has managed to find enough offense to keep this team in the hunt for a top-four seed all season and positioned well to win a playoff series.
Then you’ve got Daigneault, who took a team that didn’t even make the playoffs last season and led them to the number one seed in a loaded Western Conference. He also pulled it off with a rookie big man as a defensive anchor and a second-year player who wasn’t even drafted in the top 10 as the number two option on offense.
It has been nothing short of incredible how Daigneault has managed this team and kept them consistent on both ends while compensating for a lack of size and a ton of depth. In a stacked field, he’s more than deserving.