Kenny Atkinson named NBA Coach of the Year, beating former Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff

CLEVELAND — Kenny Atkinson’s new team won its first 15 games and never looked back. Atkinson was always in the driver’s seat for, and eventually won, NBA Coach of the Year this season.

Atkinson, 57, was the first coach in league history to win 15 games in a row at the start of a season with a new team and just the fifth to win at least 64 in his first campaign with a franchise — in this case, the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs held the NBA’s top offense and set team records for proficiency on that side of the ball, and they were just the second team in league history to reel off three winning streaks of at least 12 games in the same season.

The 2024-25 NBA Coach of the Year is… Kenny Atkinson! #NBAAwards pic.twitter.com/6AvyikvExc

— NBA (@NBA) May 5, 2025

Atkinson defeated J.B. Bickerstaff, Cleveland’s coach from last season who now leads the Detroit Pistons, and the Houston Rockets’ Ime Udoka to emerge as the league’s top coach. Atkinson earned 59 out of 100 possible first-place votes from media members covering the NBA; Bickerstaff was second with 31 first-place votes. The award was announced Monday on TNT before Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks.

It would be a happier time for Atkinson if his Cavs didn’t lose Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semis to the Indiana Pacers on Sunday — “I’d rather beat Indiana,” Atkinson quipped before Game 1 — or if Cleveland’s injury report for Game 2 wasn’t littered with stars.

But coach of the year is a regular-season award and Atkinson earned at least a brief moment of reflection for steering the Cavs through a historic season. Cleveland’s 64 wins were the second most in team history and tied for fourth most by a coach in his first year with a team.

“I knew in training camp, I knew after the second day of practice — I came back to the coaching staff, we’re in our coach’s locker room — and we’re just all blown away at the skill level, the competition level, the unity and, quite honestly, our leadership with our best players,” Atkinson said after receiving the award Monday on TNT. His family showered him with confetti while he did the interview.

“When you have all those things in place, you knew you had something special going,” Atkinson said. “And then, of course, we start out 15-0, right? And we got off to that blazing start, and that just confirmed what we saw in training camp.”

Cleveland dismissed Bickerstaff following a second-round exit at the hands of the eventual champs, the Celtics, last season. Specifics were in short supply, as it was a hard decision to explain given that the Cavs had improved each year under Bickerstaff, but it was clear to insiders a new direction was needed given the relative lack of confidence star Donovan Mitchell had in Cleveland’s coach last season.

The Cavs’ search came down to James Borrego and Atkinson, at the time an assistant in Golden State, and with the front office split on who to hire, team owner Dan Gilbert overruled the Borrego faction and ordered up Atkinson.

Atkinson, a former head coach in Brooklyn, had spent the past several seasons working under Tyronn Lue in Los Angeles, Kerr in San Francisco and Vincent Collet in Paris with Team France.

Atkinson immediately connected with Mitchell, flying to L.A. to sit with him over lunch after Mitchell’s skills camp for youths with Adidas concluded. He worked to rebuild Darius Garland’s confidence playing alongside Mitchell and created ways for Evan Mobley to thrive on offense and play more effectively with center Jarrett Allen.

After going winless in the preseason, the Cavs shocked the NBA by going on their first historic winning streak, becoming just the fourth team ever to win its first 15 contests. Cleveland’s streak was snapped in dramatic fashion — a three-point loss to the Celtics at TD Garden on Nov. 19. But it avenged that loss on Dec. 1 with a thrilling four-point win over Boston at home, eventually forging a 2-2 split that had many envisioning an Eastern finals matchup between the two teams.

Cleveland’s next long streak, this one a 12-gamer, began on Dec. 13 and included a huge win at home over the West’s top team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. And the Cavs’ longest streak in team history — 16 consecutive wins — started the game before the early February trade deadline and lasted through mid-March.

By season’s end, the Cavs won 14 more games than they did the season before with only one new rotation player — De’Andre Hunter, added at the trade deadline. Yes, backup point guard Ty Jerome missed all but two games last season and starred off the bench this season, but Atkinson’s fingerprints were all over the team’s dramatic improvement with mostly the same players.

The Cavs led the NBA in scoring (121.9 points per game) and in offensive rating (121 points per 100 possessions), and were second in field goal percentage, 3-point percentage, 3s per game and point differential. They set at least 10 team records on offense under Atkinson, including, but certainly not limited to, scoring at least 140 points in four games.

“He’s kind of helped produce a positive environment, made guys comfortable to grow into who they are and given them the confidence and the ability to be themselves,” Cavs forward Max Strus said about Atkinson. “When you give guys confidence like that and keep using positive reinforcement, letting them kind of build into who they are as a person and a player, guys are going to be more comfortable.”

As for Bickerstaff, well, he landed softly. The Pistons hired him almost immediately, and all he did was oversee arguably the greatest turnaround year over year in NBA history. The Pistons became the first team to more than triple its win total during an 82-game season, going from the worst team in the NBA in 2024 to the No. 6 seed in the East. Detroit also made the playoffs for the first time since 2019 and franchise cornerstone Cade Cunningham enjoyed easily the best season of his career, making the All-Star Game for the first time under Bickerstaff.

Udoka piloted a Rockets team built with no superstars but many young, hungry players and a few tested veterans to the No. 2 seed in the West. Houston finished 11th in the conference in 2024.

(Photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)

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