Let’s first start out by saying what Tom Thibodeau did with the New York Knicks this season was an all-time coaching job. He took a squad that won just 21 games last year and coached them to a 41-31 record, the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference and the franchise’s first postseason appearance since 2013. He’s helped bring Knicks basketball back to relevance in the league, and it shouldn’t go unnoticed.
However, Thibodeau winning Coach of the Year over Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams seems like a mistake the closer the Suns get to capturing their first-ever championship. The latest example of why the voters got it wrong came during the Suns’ Game 2 win over the Milwaukee Bucks Thursday night. During a timeout, the cameras caught Williams encouraging young big man Deandre Ayton, who was being hard on himself while having a lackluster performance — by his own standards — in the 118-108 win.
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Ayton was hanging his head in the huddle, and Williams went up to him and gave him a speech that would make anyone want to go hard in the paint for the Suns coach.
“Look at me … you’ve set a high level for yourself, that’s why you’re down,” Williams told Ayton. “That’s great, now go reach that level. And you can reach it with force. It doesn’t have to be stats all the time. Go dominate the game with force, because you set a high level for yourself. Go dominate the game with force.”
Here’s the full video of what Williams said to Ayton:
If there was a Coaching 101 class, that video should be one of the first clips shown, because Williams handled that situation perfectly. Ayton’s known for being hard on himself when he feels like he’s not performing up to his own standards, and wears his emotions on his sleeve when he makes a wrong read on defense. But Williams knew exactly what to say to connect with him and get Ayton out of his own head.
That also isn’t the first time one of Williams’ speeches have gone viral for his ability to resonate with his players. When the Suns went 8-0 in the Orlando bubble last season to only fall short of making the postseason, Williams delivered an inspiring speech centered around telling his players “we’re not the Suns of old.” Who knew he’d be foreshadowing what was yet to come for this squad.
Williams has the utmost respect from his players, as evidenced through a Player’s Tribune article written by Ayton back in June detailing how much the players love Williams and how he’s been a key to this team’s success. But this is about more than Williams being an inspirational leader. It’s also about what he’s been able to do in a year and a half with this mostly young and inexperienced roster.
The Suns won 51 games in the regular season. It’s the first time this team has reach the 50-plus mark since 2010, which is also the last time it made the playoffs. While it can be argued that it’s not all that surprising the Suns were successful this year given their run in the bubble last year, let’s not pretend like anyone earmarked this team for an NBA Finals run.
In CBS Sports’ preseason predictions of how the Western Conference playoff picture would shake out, the general consensus was Phoenix would finish somewhere between seventh and 10th in the West, and absolutely no one predicted it would make a deep postseason run. Heck, when the Suns finished second in the West and faced the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round, I was the only one who picked them to beat the defending champs and make it to the Western Conference finals. Everything the Suns have done this season has been a complete shock to everyone covering the sport.
The same can be said about Thibodeau and the Knicks, especially considering absolutely no one picked them to even sniff the postseason. Yet when you look at the full resume of both of these teams, including the playoffs, it’s pretty clear to see that Williams probably should’ve gotten the award over Thibs. He received that honor from the National Basketball Coaching Association when it voted him 2021 NBCA Coach of the Year, and also finished with more first-place votes for the NBA Coach of the Year award over Thibodeau. However, it came down to the second- and third-place votes, which favored Thibodeau.
Again, this isn’t a knock on Thibodeau or the Knicks, but perhaps more on the timing of when these awards are doled out, because if votes were handed in today, I’m guessing the outcome would look differently in favor of Williams.
