2023-24 NBA Coach of the Year Midseason Odds
After finishing as the runner-up for NBA Coach of the Year in 2023, Mark Daigneault is the betting favorite heading into the All-Star break with his Oklahoma City Thunder in second place in the Western Conference with the third-best record in the league.
The coaches of four of the five top teams by record in the NBA find themselves among the favorites with roughly 30 games remaining in the regular season. Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch (+225) has the second-best odds, followed by Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff (+400) and Los Angeles Clippers skipper Tyronn Lue (+450). Joe Mazzulla’s Boston Celtics are running away with the best record in the league, but he’s in a distant sixth place with long odds (+2000) following a third-place COTY finish after his first year at the helm.
Daigneault’s Thunder (37–17) are three wins away from tying their 2022-23 win total and on pace for their best season in a decade. Oklahoma City and Boston are the only two teams that rank top five in both offensive and defensive rating and the Thunder are second in net rating behind the Celtics. It’s been years of steady improvement in OKC under Daigneault and finally all that potential and all of those picks have been transformed into a Western Conference contender.
OKC is on pace for its best record in a decade under the tutelage of Daigneault.
Alonzo Adams/USA TODAY Sports
The Thunder are on pace to win 56 games and smash their preseason win total of 44.5. Oklahoma City hasn’t had a winning season since 2019-20 and hasn’t won 50 games since 2015-16. One of the youngest teams in the league is now also one of its best. The oldest player in the starting lineup is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a 25-year-old MVP candidate.
In two full seasons in Minnesota, Finch has taken the T-Wolves to the playoffs twice as a play-in team. It looks like this time around, Minnesota (38–16) will be the one drawing a play-in team in the first round as the best team in the West heading into the All-Star break. The Timberwolves boast the No. 1 defensive rating in the NBA and the third-best net rating in spite of their middle of the pack offense. Minnesota is also already four wins shy of last year’s win total and on pace for its best finish in 20 years.
Bickerstaff’s Cavaliers (36–17) are on pace for an even better year than 2022-23, which saw Cleveland win 50 games for the first time since LeBron James’s departure. The Cavs rank just behind the Timberwolves in defensive rating and net rating and their 17–8 road record is the best mark in the league.
Cleveland entered the New Year with an 18–14 record and is an NBA-best 18–3 since then to climb to the No. 2 seed in the East. The Cavaliers have improved every year under Bickerstaff and their 55-win pace would give them their most wins since 2015-16, the season they won their first and only title.
Lue’s tenure in Los Angeles got off to a hot start with a Western Conference Finals trip in 2020-21. Since then, the Clippers missed the playoffs entirely and then were bounced in the first round. A newly formed Big 3, with James Harden joining Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, has L.A. on pace for its best season since the height of Lob City. The Clippers are third in the NBA in offensive rating and fifth in net rating and, like the Cavaliers, they’ve come to life in 2024 with a 17–5 record to ascend to third place in the West.
Those four coaches make up the top tier of COTY contenders with the Indiana Pacers's Rick Carlisle (+1400), a one-time winner, Mazzulla (+2000) and New York Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau (+2500), a two-time winner, in the next group. In recent years, the award has gone to a coach who led a team well past preseason expectations, like Mike Brown with the Sacramento Kings last season, or to an impressive regular-season record, like Monty Williams the season before with the Phoenix Suns. Daigneault, Finch, Bickerstaff and Lue all seem to meet both criteria.
2023-24 NBA Coach of the Year Odds
Mark Daigneault +163
Chris Finch +225
J.B. Bickerstaff +400
Tyronn Lue +450
Rick Carlisle +1400
Joe Mazzulla +2000
Tom Thibodeau +2500
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