NBA Coach of the Year odds preview: Celtics’ Joe Mazzulla is favorite, but don’t fade Tom Thibodeau, others

Coach of the Year is among the NBA’s more narratively-driven awards. Consider the following: the 2022-23 and 2023-24 Sacramento Kings were nearly identical in almost every respect. The 2022-23 version won two more games and had a net rating 0.8 points higher, but it also dealt with a few more injuries after having an unusually healthy 2022-23 campaign. Their roster continuity was almost perfect. Eight Kings played more than 1,000 minutes during the 2022-23 season and all eight of them were on the roster for the entire 2023-24 follow-up. On paper, these were two extraordinarily similar seasons. After the first, Mike Brown won Coach of the Year unanimously. After the second, he did not receive a single vote.

It’s not as though Mike Brown was a significantly worse coach in his second season with the Kings. The goalposts had just moved. The Kings were supposed to be bad when Brown arrived. They were supposed to be good in his second season. They slipped a few seeds because the conference got better and they weren’t quite as healthy, but otherwise, the quality of his coaching can’t be said to have declined. The novelty of his narrative had just worn off. The Kings had already ended their postseason drought. This is what you have to remember where Coach of the Year is concerned. We’re looking for a story.

It has to be a certain kind of story, of course. There are really only eight plausible candidates for this award when the dust settles because every winner since Scott Brooks in 2010 has led a top-four seed, and nine of those 13 winners have been No. 1 seeds. But once you trim the field down to those winning teams, the winner almost always comes from an unexpected team. Oklahoma City’s preseason win projection was 44.5 a season ago. They won 57 and became the youngest No. 1 seed in history. This is the model we’re looking for. Every winner since Gregg Popovich in 2014 has outperformed their over/under line by at least 10 wins except for Nick Nurse in 2020, who would have had the season not been suspended by COVID-19. We’re either looking for coaches who lead an unexpected team to a top seed or coaches who have a chance to lap the field and win more than 60 games. This award has never had a repeat winner, so Daigneault, like Brown a year ago, is likely facing an uphill battle.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the odds for the 2024-25 Coach of the Year award and try to pick the best bets on the board.

The favorites

The following candidates opened with odds no longer than +1000

Joe Mazzulla (+900) seems likely to be a victim of his own success. Boston won 64 games a year ago. Only 28 teams have ever done so (or hit the shortened-season equivalent). The only teams to repeat the feat are the 2015-17 Golden State Warriors and 1996 and 1997 Chicago Bulls. Kristaps Porzingis is hurt to open the year, and Al Horford is now 38. Boston remains as dangerous as ever in the playoffs. Their regular season is likely to be a bit more normal. If it isn’t? Mazzulla becomes the runaway favorite. Mark Daigneault (+1000) isn’t a strong bet for the same reasons, and his win a season ago works against him here. You can win this award going from great to historic. Monty Williams did in 2022, for instance, but it’s a relatively rare feat.

That leaves Nick Nurse (+1000) among the favorites. He falls in the “not a great bet, but not a terrible one” category. Say you believe that Joel Embiid and Paul George are going to be healthy enough for Philadelphia to beat its projected win total by double digits. These are actually the longest odds you’re going to get on any bet that really takes advantage of that faith. Joel Embiid is +650 to win MVP. Philadelphia is +500 to win 60 games. The 76ers are +450 for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and +900 for the best record in the NBA. Therefore, if you’re a pro-Philly bettor, Nurse is a more profitable way to cash in on that belief. I just can’t advise trusting the health of Embiid or George at 10-to-1. Watch this line as the season progresses, though. There may be momentary dips based on short-term injuries that help your odds.

The middle of the pack

The following candidates opened with odds between +1000 and +2000

There are 10 coaches in this range. Let’s construct our Coach of the Year stories for each of them:

• Jamahl Mosley (+1200): “Orlando maintains its elite defense but takes a major step on offense.” Plausible, but unlikely without adding another creator.
• Taylor Jenkins (+1300): “Memphis bounces back from its year from hell and gets right back to the top of the Western Conference standings.” This one has my attention, especially because it gives voters a chance to give Jenkins back credit for the two No. 2 seeds he already earned. The roster is different enough from those teams that he’ll get plaudits for figuring it out, if that is indeed what happens.
• Ime Udoka (+1300): “Wow! The young Rockets are a playoff team a year or two earlier than expected!” I can see Houston getting to the top six. The top four seem steep to me, considering how many young players they still need to play for long-term planning purposes. I wouldn’t mind having a Udoka ticket, but he’s not someone I’d build a portfolio around.
• Tom Thibodeau (+1300): “New York is finally the Mecca again, and look at Thibs adjusting to life without his centers!” Yea, this is a runaway narrative if it happens. There are going to be thinkpieces about OG Anunoby defending centers and Josh Hart picking up a dozen odd jobs related to the thin center situation. If you’re a Knicks backer, Thibodeau is probably the best way to bet that.
• Chris Finch (+1300): “The Timberwolves took the 2022 Suns leap from great to historic!” Unlikely. The offense just isn’t there. Finch is the same sort of candidate Brown was last season. He had his chance already, but unlike Brown, he didn’t get a trophy for it. The bar is going to be too high now. He won’t get credit for the improvement that has already come.
• Willie Green (+1700): “The Pelicans are finally a contender, and they’re doing it without a center!” Yup, love this one. Can you tell I have an affinity for teams with unusual rosters? Most media folk do, and media folk vote. It’s easier to construct a narrative when the roster hands it to you on a silver platter, and it’s worth noting that between C.J. McCollum’s return and Brandon Ingram’s injury, the Pelicans had the NBA’s third-best net rating last season. That’s nearly a four-month sample. The Pelicans have elite basketball in them, and there will be coaching credit available if they play at that level, given how odd this roster is.
• Gregg Popovich (+1700): “Wemby has arrived! The Spurs are already a playoff team!” That should answer your question. If the Spurs overperform, it will be because of Victor Wembanyama. Besides, Popovich is a three-time winner. Nobody is itching to give him a fourth trophy. You know who voters are itching to award?
• Erik Spoelstra (+2000): “The best coach in the NBA has never won this award. It’s time. Erik Spoelstra has made lemonade with yet another flawed Heat roster.” If you buy into the idea that Jimmy Butler is going to be more available in the regular season and you trust Heat culture to produce another role player or two to replace the ones they’ve lost, I buy this one. I wouldn’t take it, but the story is easy enough. Spoelstra is long overdue. If it’s close, he wins.
• Michael Malone (+2000): “Jokic is the best player in the world, and Calvin Booth’s young players panned out.” I’m out here. Any overachieving Nuggets season ends with a Jokic MVP, and Coach of the Year-MVP combos are relatively rare. We’ve only seen four in the past 20 years, and there’s been so much coverage of the apparent rift between the coaching staff and the front office over Denver’s youth movement that if those young players ultimately do succeed, it’s likely viewed as more of a front office victory than a coaching win.
• J.J. Redick (+2000): “The podcaster knew what he was talking about after all!” Look, I’m not going to touch this. I’m not a Lakers believer at all. You’re relying on a second consecutive outlier health season from both LeBron James and Anthony Davis. But if you do buy the Lakers? The story here is so easy to imagine. The Lakers were so poorly coached a year ago that even plucking the low-hanging fruit with similar health could lead to four or five more wins, and four or five more wins in last year’s standings lead to a No. 4 seed. Redick will know how to work the press, and voters are going to eat up the story of one of their own thriving as a coach. Again, I’m out on the Lakers. If you’re in? This is one of the better ways to bet them. If he’s a real candidate, voters are going to look for reasons to take him.

If your favorite is in this group, just try to imagine what the story is going to be. Unlike, say, Mazzulla or Daigneault, we don’t necessarily know what a runaway success for many of them looks like. Know what it would take for your candidate to stand out and assess how likely that scenario ultimately feels.

The long shots

The following candidates opened with odds longer than +2000

There are four candidates here with fairly similar cases that all opened with the same odds (+2500). They are Mike Budenholzer, Rick Carlisle, Jason Kidd and Doc Rivers. Their team win total projections are all between 47.5 and 50.5. Effectively, that means we’re looking for a candidate within this group who defies expectations and pushes into the high-50s. One of them inevitably does it. There’s just no easy way of figuring out who it will be.

Mike Budenholzer won Coach of the Year in his second Hawks season and his first Bucks season. He’s going to get the easy stuff right and that’s going to create wins on the margins. It’s just not clear that there is a Coach of the Year amount of juice left to be squeezed out of this team. Can he turn the Suns into high-end rim-protectors without a point-of-attack defender in their starting lineup? Kevin Durant is a sorely underrated rim protector. He’s also about to turn 36. How far can he take Phoenix’s shot-selection with players that so aggressively seek out mid-range looks? And how much does any of this matter if one or two of the stars can’t stay healthy? There are just too many questions here for not enough upside.

Kidd’s Mavericks are the best team of the bunch. They also tend to start slowly as Luka Doncic works his way into shape. They’re also facing the awkward question of whether or not they should start Klay Thompson. In pure basketball terms, they shouldn’t. Last year’s team thrived starting Derrick Jones Jr. next to Doncic, Kyrie Irving, P.J. Washington and a center. Dallas became an elite defense with that formula, and Naji Marshall is this year’s Jones analogue. The Thompson version of the team would be elite offensively, but couldn’t stop a nosebleed on the perimeter. He’s just such an accomplished veteran that convincing him and the team that last year’s formula makes more sense will probably be a prolonged process. I expect Dallas to get there. It just probably won’t happen overnight. If we get to the beginning of the preseason and Marshall starts? Grab Kidd odds. But if I’m betting on a team that tilts heavily towards offense and away from defense, I’d rather do it in the thinner Eastern Conference.

The Bucks are too old for my taste. It’s a shame, too, because their rim protection creates a high enough offense floor to tell an easy story: “Damian Lillard returns to form, Giannis Antetokounmpo is incredible, the Bucks are the No. 1 offense and the No. 12 defense and Doc Rivers returned sanity to a team Adrian Griffin nearly ruined.” There will be contrarian takes about how undeserved the past Rivers criticism has been if this plays out. I just can’t trust Milwaukee to stay healthy enough for this. If I’m backing an all-offense Eastern Conference outfit, it’s going to be the younger one.

Tyrese Haliburton got hurt on Jan. 8. Pascal Siakam made his Indiana debut on Jan. 19. As successful as the Pacers were in the playoffs, the best version of last year’s team was the one from November and December that was running teams off of the floor based on historic Haliburton shot-creation numbers. If the Pacers have that version of Haliburton plus Siakam and anticipated growth from their other younger players, they have a chance to be a regular-season monster. Rick Carlisle hasn’t won this award in 22 years. There would likely be some good will behind getting an extremely well-respected coach his second trophy, and what he does well is so visually apparent. You can’t always tell how some coaches keep their teams consistently prepared. But Carlisle rolling out four-guard lineups or devising a defense that sacrifices the rim to prevent 3’s? That stuff is on the surface. It’s easy for voters to latch onto. So Carlisle is my favorite pick out of that foursome.

But my favorite pick in this range? That would be Kenny Atkinson (+3500). By all means, continue doubting the two-small-guards and two-non-shooting-bigs lineup construction in the playoffs, but remember, the regular season is about strengths. Weaknesses don’t come into play as much until the playoffs. Cleveland has a high offensive ceiling purely because they have two high-end shot-creators (Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland), and they have a high defensive ceiling purely because they have two high-end rim-protectors (Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen). Cleveland punted away the No. 2 seed last season, and that was despite injuries to Garland and Mobley. They had the No. 1 defense as recently as the 2022-23 season. The offense didn’t have enough shooting in that season and it wasn’t healthy enough this season. The former was rectified in the 2023 offseason. The latter will hopefully be rectified over the course of this season. The narrative is easy to construct. “Kenny Atkinson put the pieces together on a roster everyone wanted to break up!” He’s even reuniting with the center, Jarrett Allen, who was at least partially responsible for getting him fired in Brooklyn. Atkinson wanted to start Allen. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving seemingly preferred Deandre Jordan. This is a story voters can latch onto.

I just can’t see any of the other coaches on the board winning enough to meaningfully enter the race. Maybe you could talk yourself into Steve Kerr (+3500) if Stephen Curry and Draymond Green have perfectly healthy seasons, but what are the odds of that? Every other team appears capped at the Play-In. If you don’t think a team can at least reach a No. 4 seed, don’t bet their coach.