J-Speaks: Suns Head Coach Wins 2021-22 Kia Coach of the Year

 

Three years ago, the Phoenix Suns were a team in the cellar of the NBA. They turned to a former player who spent the previous few seasons as an assistant coach to turned them around. They just missed the playoffs in the NBA’s restart in Orlando, FL in 2019-20 seasons. They made the playoffs after a little over a decade absence making it to The Finals. This season, they earned the best record in not just the Western Conference but the entire NBA and their leader on the sidelines got a well-deserved honor for what he and his team did in the 2021-22 regular season.

On Monday, Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams was named the Red Auerbach Trophy recipient as the 2021-22 Kia NBA Coach of the Year as he helped guide the Suns to a single-season franchise record 64 wins, going 64-18 in regular season. They compiled an identical 32-9 mark at home and on the road in also setting a franchise record with a .780 winning percentage. They registered the third most road victories and third-best winning percentage on the road for a single-season in NBA history.  

Williams, who won the Michael H. Goldberg Award as the National Basketball Coaches Association Award recipient for the second straight season joined the late Lowell “Cotton” Fitzsimmons (1988-89) and Mike D’Antoni (2004-05) as the three head coaches in Suns history to earn Coach of the Year.  

The Suns under their third-year head coach went 47-0 in the regular season when leading after three quarters, the most such victories without a loss in a season in the 24-second shot clock era (1954-55).

Williams, who was the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans (formerly Hornets) from 2010-15 and was an assistant coach with the Portland Trail Blazers (2005-2010) and Philadelphia 76ers (2018-19) and associate head coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder (2015-16) received 81 first-place votes from a global panel of 100 sportswriters and broadcasters. Finishing second behind Coach Williams was Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins, who received 17 first-place votes. Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra finished third with one first place vote.  

All three finalists for Kia Coach of the Year are currently emersed in journeys in trying to get the Conference Finals with the Suns and Grizzlies trying to reach that next to last playoff series in the West, while the Heat are trying to do the same in the Eastern Conference.

Coach Williams’ squad also set a franchise single-season record with 18 straight wins from Oct. 30, 2021-Dec. 2, 2021, included a perfect 16-0 mark in November 2021, which tied for the second most victories for a single month without a defeat in NBA history. Only bested by the Atlanta Hawks by one game with a 17-0 record in January 2015.

The Suns glistening start to this season earned Coach Williams NBA Western Conference Coach of the Month in October/November 2021 and January. It also earned him and his coaching staff of Randy Ayers, Mark Bryant, Bryan Gates, Jarrett Jack, Brian Randle, Michael Ruffin, and associate head coach Kevin Young a spot to coach Team LeBron in the 2022 NBA All-Star Game back in February

News of Coach Williams winning Coach of the Year was broken on Twitter by All-Star starting guard Devin Booker, who broke the news to his 1.1 million followers on Twitter, which he said @DevinBook, “Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams has been voted the NBA’s COY, book tells sources. A formal announcement is expected later today.”

On the Suns Twitter page on May 9 @ Suns, they honored Coach Williams by saying, “Leadership, Mentorship. Companionship. Congratulations, Coach Monty Williams, on earning the 2021-22 NBA Coach of the Year.”

At Suns practice on Monday, Coach Williams was presented with a special edition 75^th Anniversary commemorative trophy composed of a solid crystal basketball, featuring the NBA 75 log 3D laser etched and suspended within its center by Lisa Keeth and his five of his six children. He will be gifted the Red Auerbach Trophy at a later date.

“I’m just grateful that you guys allow me and the staff to coach you guys the way we do,” Coach Williams said in thanking his players at the Suns practice facility on Monday. “The connection that we have. The family atmosphere, everybody back here that makes all of this work and having my family be a part of this. This is so stinking cool, you know. I love you guys. I appreciate it. But this is us.”

In the spirit of that togetherness, love and appreciation for each other, Coach Williams and the entire team, his family and other family members of the Suns players and coaching staff posed for a picture with Coach Williams in the middle holding the commemorative 75-Year Anniversary ball.

This was a proud moment for not just the Suns collective family but for Coach Williams who on Feb. 16, 2016 lost his first wife and mother of his five children Ingrid, who died from injuries that happened in a car accident in Oklahoma City, OK after her car was struck in a head-on by another vehicle that had crossed after it lost control.

In talking with the “Inside the NBA” crew, Williams dawning a hat that represented one of his main sayings that he has used on a plethora of occasions as Suns head coach “ Well Said is better than Well Done” said of receiving Coach of the Year from his new wife and kids “humbling” as well as with his players and coaching staff.

Williams also acknowledged how “enjoyable” it was to share this moment with the group of people that as he said “grind” with you in the players, coaching staff, and support staff every day.

“And to think about the effort it took to get two of my kids had to fly in early today and they snuck into town and my boys got out of school. Chris [Paul] and Book and all the guy’s kind of knew and I had no clue. It just speaks to the care factor that we have not only on our team but throughout the league,” Williams said. “I have a respect for the brotherhood that we all have and you saw that in our gym. But I think it’s something that we all shared throughout the NBA.”

Three years ago, the Suns were a mess with no direction and no hopes of getting out of their own way. Coach Monty Williams came into the picture and through hard work, tough love, determination, and diligence, the Suns since the 2020 restart in Orlando, FL have gone an incredible 123-39 over the last three regular seasons.

It also helped that Coach Williams has the dynamic foursome of perennial All-Star Chris Paul, who he coached in the early part of his career in New Orleans, Booker, Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges along with the likes of Jae Crowder, Landry Shamet, Bismack Biyombo, JaVale McGee, Cameron Johnson, and Cameron Payne, especially this season.

When asked by O’Neal, a former Suns player how coaching today’s NBA player is different from when he was a player in his nine-year NBA career (1994-2003) with New York Knicks, San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, Orlando Magic and 76ers, Coach Williams laughed and said that a lot of less “expletives” are used in today’s coaching.

He added that this generation’s NBA players is not any different than those that came before them.

“They want to get better. They want to be in an environment where they’re allowed to be themselves but they also want to be pushed,” Williams also said. “I spent a lot of time thanking our guys for, you know allowing me to push them the way I do. I’ve been told that I’m pretty demanding. But I know it’s my responsibility to, you know, get the most out of our players. I had that with Pat Riley, Jeff Van Gundy, Doc Rivers, Pop [Gregg Popovich]….I feel it’s a responsibility of mine to, you know, put people in position to be the best version of themselves.”

Barkley, Hall of Famer and one of the best to every play for the Suns, which he did from 1992-96 and current Phoenix, AZ resident asked how the Suns this season put together the record they have over the last two regular seasons, particular this past regular season with their best players on the roster having missed a lot of games due to injuries, illness and COVID-19 protocols, Williams said that he “firmly” believes that he and his coaching staff because they have a “high care factor” and that they spend a ton of time in player development where they put the roster in situations that they might face in the game so that nothing takes them by surprise.

Williams added in answering Barkley’s question that his job is to “not mess it up,” which he learned a long time ago from Coach Popovich in his time with the Spurs first as a player for two seasons (1996-98) and as a coaching intern with the Spurs on their 2005 title team.

“Whenever a guy does well, allow him to do that in the game without changing his game too much” Williams said. “I think I failed at that miserably my first time around in New Orleans. I spent a lot of time trying to change a guy’s game, and sometimes that can mess with that player’s confidence. Here in our program, we try to take the strengths and use them within the system. And I feel it’s my job to take a guy’s strengths and make them fit it to what we do and try to enhance some of the weaknesses without taking away their confidence or having them thinking on the floor.”    

Along with having players that allow Coach Williams to coach them, he also said that he has a five children that have allowed them to father them, particularly after the passing of their aforementioned mother Ingrid.

“All six of my kids have been a huge blessing to me,” Coach Williams said.

There are very few times in life where two entities find there way to each other and when they come together, good things happen for all involved.

Three years ago, the Phoenix Suns hired head coach Monty Williams to be their leader on the sidelines to return them to being a playoff perennial. His hiring along with the acquisition of perennial All-Star Chris Paul two off-seasons ago and the stellar continued progression of Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton and the solid play of their teammates has returned the Suns to not just being a playoff perennial but a team that is on the cusp of competing for their first title in franchise history.

Whether that journey is reached this late spring or this summer, they have positioned themselves to make that dream a reality because of the steady leadership, tough love at times but the respect and determination that head coach Monty Williams has brought to the Suns as well as his maturity to being a better head coach than he was in his first stop with the now New Orleans Pelicans. That is one of the main reasons he was named the 2021-22 Kia Coach of the Year.

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 5/9/2022 www.nba.com story, “Monty Williams of Phoenix Suns Wins 2021-22 Coach of the Year;” 5/10/2022 7 p.m. TNT’s “NBA Tip-Off,” presented by Carmax With Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021-22_Phoenix_Suns_season; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Williams; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Coach_of_the_Year_Award.