Coach(es) Of The Year? One Viral Tweet Pitches An Idea To Tweak This NBA Award

Awards season is right around the corner for the NBA, and when it comes to Coach of the Year, there’s no shortage of worthy contenders.

Every now and then, there’s discourse about coaches being snubbed for this award. That could very well be the case this year, but if veteran writer Kelly Iko had his way, the number of snubs would be significantly reduced.

How? On Monday, Iko tweeted an interesting suggestion to make this happen. “I’ll say it again: The NBA needs to consider replacing Coach of the Year with All-Coaching First Team,” Iko posted on X. “The way the award is currently presented doesn’t do enough justice to some of the work being done around the league.”

On paper, it sounds a bit ridiculous to adopt the concept of a “First Team,” which takes its cue from the five-person lineup that a basketball squad needs to have on the floor. Coaches, of course, are not players. But, from the perspective of giving due recognition to multiple tacticians who have done an excellent job, this idea does make sense.

Thus far in the 2025-26 season, the Detroit Pistons’ JB Bickerstaff has gotten both analysts and oddsmakers thinking that he’s the favorite to win Coach of the Year. Make no mistake about it: The Pistons are not a bandwagon pulled solely by the extraordinary talents of Cade Cunningham. Bickerstaff has gotten this squad to commit on the defensive end while also getting their offense humming nicely. The Pistons’ comfortable perch on top of the Eastern Conference standings can be attributed in large part to Bickerstaff’s coaching.

Bickerstaff deserves his flowers, but so do Joe Mazzulla and Charles Lee. At the start of the season, critics were counting out the Jayson Tatum-less Boston Celtics, yet Mazzulla (with plenty of help from Jaylen Brown) had this proud franchise piling up wins and seizing the No. 2 spot behind Detroit even before Tatum came back. Similarly, hardly anyone thought that the Charlotte Hornets would amount to anything, but Lee led the charge as the Hornets went on an unexpected nine-game winning streak earlier in 2026.

Plus, there’s the brilliance of Mitch Johnson with the San Antonio Spurs, the breath of fresh air that is Mike Brown in New York, the splendid performance of Darko Rajakovic in Toronto…

That’s six worthy candidates, and there are a few more names that deserve consideration. Moving forward, maybe NBA Commissioner Adam Silver should give Iko’s suggestion some serious thought.