Steve Kerr named NBA’s Coach of the Year!
2016.04.26 – Golden State Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr has been named NBA Coach of the Year and the recipient of the Red Auerbach Trophy.
The league announced today. Kerr is the third coach in Warriors history to earn the honor, joining Don Nelson (1991-92) and Alex Hannum (1963-64).
Kerr and assistant coach Luke Walton, who served as interim head coach while Kerr recovered from back surgery complications, led the Warriors to an NBA-record 73 regular-season wins in 2015-16 (73-9, .890), eclipsing the previous mark of 72 wins set by a 1995-96 Chicago Bulls squad that featured Kerr as a key reserve.
The Warriors, who set a then-franchise-record with 67 wins in Kerr’s first season at the helm in 2014-15, saw a six-game improvement in the win column in 2015-16 and joined the Bulls as the only teams in NBA history to earn at least 65 wins in consecutive campaigns.
In addition to setting the single-season wins record, the Warriors established a new NBA-mark for single-season road wins with 34 and won their first 36 home games to give them an NBA-record 54-game regular-season home winning streak dating back to the 2014-15 season.
Golden State became the first team in NBA history to go an entire regular season without losing consecutive games and the first to go an entire campaign without losing to the same team twice.
Steve Kerr named NBA’s Coach of the Year (video from KNBR Radio)
Steve Kerr named NBA’s Coach of the Year (video from KNBR Radio)
Under the NBA Coach of the Year guidance, the Warriors led the league in scoring (114.9 points), field goal percentage (.487), three-point percentage (.416), assists (28.9), point differential (+10.8) and offensive rating (112.5 points per 100 possessions) while becoming the first team in league history to hit 1,000 three-pointers in a single season with an NBA-record 1,077 triples.
Golden State raced out to a 24-0 start to the 2015-16 campaign, the best record to begin a season in professional sports history, and extended its regular-season win streak to 28-straight games dating back to the previous season, the second-longest win streak in league annals.
Both Walton (October/November) and Kerr (March) were honored with Western Conference Coach of the Month accolades during the season, with the NBA Coach of the Year earning the award for a franchise-record third time in his career.
A six-time NBA champion as a player and coach, Kerr holds an overall regular-season record of 140-24 (.854) in two seasons with Golden State.
He received 64 first-place votes for the Coach of the Year Award and 381 total points from a panel of 130 sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada.
Coaches were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote.
Kerr finished second in the voting for the award in 2014-15, behind Atlanta’s Mike Budenholzer.
Read more at: Golden State Warriors Media Services / More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA
JEstevez@EMIsportsCentral.com
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