Atlanta Hawks' Mike Budenholzer named NBA coach of the year

Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer was named NBA coach of the year for the 2014-15 season, the league announced Tuesday morning.

Budenholzer finished with 513 points, edging Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr by 42 points. Budenholzer received 67 first-place votes, 58 second-place votes and four third-place votes and Kerr had 56, 61 and eight for 471 points.

Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd finished third followed by Boston's Brad Stevens, San Antonio's Gregg Popovich, Houston's Kevin McHale and Chicago's Tom Thibodeau.

It was expected to be a close race between Budenholzer and Kerr because both were excellent this season. Kerr took over for Mark Jackson, who was popular with players and led the team to 51 wins last season. Kerr led the Warriors to a franchise-record 67 wins this year.

Budenholzer, in the eyes of voters, was a tad more impressive. The Hawks won just 38 games last year and Budenholzer propelled them to a franchise-record 60 wins – a difficult-to-accomplish 22-game swing.

Though the Hawks had four All-Stars this season (Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap, Al Horford), they don't have a superstar, and Budenholzer has implemented a fun style of basketball based on sharing the ball offensively and strong individual defense.

"A 'philosophy' sounds more profound and complicated than anything we're doing," Budenholzer told USA TODAY Sports in February. "I do believe in guys playing ball, making reads and making decisions and playing off each other and covering for each other.

"Big-picture, that's something we're embracing and encouraging — playing together and playing with confidence and opportunities and sharing with your teammate.

"It's not that complicated."

He has the support of his players, too.

"I've always felt a majority of coaches are either players' coaches but they're not good X's and O's guys or they're super-heavy on the X's and O's but they have a hard time relating to players," Korver said. "There's some exceptions but not a lot. Bud is the best I've ever been around who gets both the locker room and X's and O's.

"He very quickly earned everyone's respect by both his approach to the game and competitiveness he shows, his desire to win and how he treats you every day. He never plays mind games with you. He's so up-front. Everyone knows where they stand at all times."

Budenholzer also found himself as the head of the team's basketball operations department when general manager Danny Ferry took an indefinite leave of absence after he made racially insensitive comments culled from a scouting report about Luol Deng during a front-office discussion about free agents.

Budenholzer steeled the team and stressed one way to win back the support of the community was with winning basketball.

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