2026-27 NBA Coach of the Year Odds: Darko Rajakovic Set as Favorite; Will Hardy, Nick Nurse Lurking

Coaching is an essential part of the puzzle for NBA teams looking to win the Finals each season, and the defending champion New York Knicks showed that by hiring Mike Brown and letting Tom Thibodeau go a year after making the Eastern Conference Finals.

The result? The Knicks won their first championship in 53 years.

Now, Brown didn’t win the Coach of the Year award in the 2025-26 season, but he’s a perfect example of a coach that elevated a team from good to great in a singular season. That’s the essence of the Coach of the Year, which is usually one of the tougher honors to predict before a season.

Why?

Well, the Coach of the Year market is wide open entering the 2026-27 season, as only one team has a coach set at shorter than 10/1 to win this award.

NBA Coach of the Year Odds

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

Darko Rajakovic: +800
Will Hardy: +1000
Nick Nurse: +1000
Rick Carlisle: 1200
Erik Spoelstra: +1200
Chris Finch: +1200
Micha Nori: +1400
Sean Sweeney: +1500
Dusty May: +1500
Brian Keefe: +1800
Ime Udoka: +2000
Mitch Johnson: +2200
Quin Snyder: +2500
Mike Brown: +2500
J.J. Redick: +2500
Tiago Splitter: +3000
Steve Kerr: +3000
Mark Daigneault: +3000
Kenny Atkinson: +3000
J.B. Bickerstaff: +3000
David Adelman: +3000
Charles Lee: +3000
Jordan Ott: +3500
Joe Mazzulla: +3500
Tuomas Iisalo: +4000
Jordi Fernandez: +4000
Taylor Jenkins: +5500
Tyronn Lue: +6000
Jamahl Mosley: +8000
Doug Christie: +8000

There seem to be two clear paths to winning this award:

Coaching the team that runs away with the best record in the NBA
Coaching a team that clearly exceeds expectations in the regular season.

For example, Joe Mazzulla won the first Coach of the Year award of his career for guiding Boston to 56 wins and the No. 2 seed in the East even with Jayson Tatum (Achilles) out for most of the season. This path (exceeding expectations) is also what helped Mike Brown (2022-23), Kenny Atkinson (2024-25) and Tom Thibodeau (2020-21) win this award this decade.

Meanwhile, coaches like Monty Williams (2021-22 with Phoenix) won this award after continuing a team’s ascension and posting a high-win season (64). Phoenix had been to the NBA Finals in the 2020-21 campaign before Williams won the Coach of the Year the following season.

Toronto’s Darko Rajakovic enters the 2026-27 campaign as the favorite to win this award, as the Raptors are expected to take a step forward in the East with Kawhi Leonard now on the roster. Last season, Toronto was the No. 5 seed in the conference and had a top-five defense, making the jump from a lottery team to a clear playoff team.

Utah’s Will Hardy (+1000) is also near the top of the odds board with the Jazz sitting at +130 to make the playoffs this season. Hardy and the Jazz have been tanking for multiple seasons, but after drafting Darryn Peterson, Utah appears to have some legs as a fringe playoff team in the West.

The odds show us that there isn’t a clear favorite in this market just yet, and usually the Coach of the Year candidates really start to take shape over the first month or two of the season once it becomes clear which teams are already exceeding expectations.

If there’s one dark horse to look at, I believe it’s Charles Lee with the Charlotte Hornets. Last season, Charlotte ended up No. 5 in offensive rating and No. 8 in net rating, riding a huge second half run to a play-in tournament berth.

Coming into this season, the Hornets seem primed for a step back after trading LaMelo Ball, but Lee could change that narrative by guiding this team to a playoff berth in the East. The talent on the Hornets is there with Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, Naz Reid, Coby White and others, and the Hornets could be a team that exceeds expectations in a big way to put Lee on the map in this market.

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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Find Peter Dewey's NBA betting record here (futures included). You can also follow my daily plays on BetStamp here.

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