Lil Red Machine

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/04/signs_point_to_cavaliers_coach.html

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer, more hardworking guy.  He deserves this honor.  Is Mike Brown one of the elite coaches in the NBA?  Probably not.  He’s not in the same category as guys such as Gregg Popovic, Phil Jackson, and Jerry Sloan.  Did Mike Brown suddently develop skills and strategies for coaching that he didn’t have before?  Nope.

However, lets get something out in the open first and foremost: Coaching the Cavaliers is more than just giving LeBron the ball and telling him to “go get it.”  Coaching superstars is a tricky business in this league from the perspective that every single player on an NBA roster was, at some point, a superstar in their own right.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the NBA.  You have to get people to buy into a system, and identify clear and consice roles.  Noone on this roster butts heads with LeBron.  They all know he’s the guy.  He makes it easy for them to accept that.  He is one of the guys through and through.  He doesn’t act as if he’s above the team.  His personality makes it for for his supporting cast to accept their roles, and go out there and do their jobs.

Obviously, Mike Brown isn’t the sole reason for the great chemistry that is currently surrounding the organization.  It takes a total organizational committment to become this good.  Mike Brown is just a piece in the puzzle–but without good coaching, you don’t accomplish what the Cavaliers did.  He not only kept their heads above water in a season where an unbelievable amount of injuries  occured, but he made it so that the standard of excellent never wavered.  They were remarkably consistent, never losing more than 2 games in a row.

In addition to those things, he also surrendered some responsibility on the offensive side of the ball.  Critics of him recieving this award have been more than happy to point that out, but if you ask me, if takes a great coach to accept his limitations, and get people involved that can help that.  That’s him surrendering his ego a bit–and I love it.  He learned his defensive principles from Popovic, and he gives most of his effort towards that (and it shows).

This is an amazing accomplisment.  The Cavaliers have never had a season such as this, and he was a big reason why.  This will likely be the first of several awards to come for those in the organization.  The biggest prize of all–the NBA championship trophy, is the most important one.  He’ll tell you that, and the team will say the same thing.  He helped create that culture where wins means more than personal statistics.