Rob Mahoney

Honestly, a lot happening over there, so fully justified.

I want to say for Missoula, like not only the jump and the management in terms of wins and expectations while not having Jason Tatum for a lot of this season, but Kyle talked about like the offensive rebounding revolution in the NBA earlier.

I think reinventing the Celtics as part of that process.

This was not just like we come in and we play the way we play.

they dramatically overhauled a lot of their offensive style and specifically the pursuit of the second chance opportunity.

So it's like he has, you know, the narrative case, he has like the basketball act, like in the weeds case, he clearly is like such a great motivator with these guys and understands what buttons to push when, um,

And on the JB side of it, JB would be great.

The Pistons have made a clear jump.

There is something, though, about if Cade is healthy, he's on the MVP ballot.

Jalen Duren might be the most improved player.

Asar Thompson's going to get some votes for certainly first-team all-defense, if not defense player of the year ballot, maybe in that third spot.

If all those things are true...

isn't this just kind of a young team getting a little older and more seasoned?

JB is doing a good job within that.

But as far as the most competitive cases for coach of the year, I do wonder about stuff like that.

I think Mitch especially in terms of empowering enough guys to make the Spurs one of the deeper teams in the league and then managing all that depth, really impressive for a coach like Mitch Johnson.

I admittedly had trouble with Charles Lee and Quinn Snyder, I think deserves a nod here as well, as two guys who had incredible in-season turnarounds for their teams.

But do you also hold it against them that they were not good to start the season?

They were still the coach when the Hornets and the Hawks were bad, but they've been so great over the last couple of months.

I don't know what to do with all that.