Mark Jackson Gets Coach of the Year, Dis

The people who voted for the NBA coach of the year just don't respect what Mark Jackson has done for the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors are now playing in the Western Conference semi-finals, but our story begins in off season.

Mark Jackson with Stephen Curry

Coming off a 23 win season, Jackson's first as head coach, the Warriors returned just 6 players from the preceding year. One was Richard Jefferson, who played in just 22 of the lockout shortened 66 game season, and another was Andris Biedrins, who made $9 million to play in 47 games.

During the 2011-2012 season, the team traded away 21.9 point per game maker and fan favorite Monta Ellis, along with Ekpe Udoh and center Kwame Brown for Andrew Bogut, who was injured at the time, and would miss 50 games during this season. Golden State also let Nate Robinson walk, (and you can't tell me it was about money 'cause he made less than a million) and you know what he's done for the Bulls this year! And by the way, the Warriors cut Jeremy Lin at the beginning of last season.

Jeremy Lin

So Jackson, in his second year as head coach, took a team with no center, a guy in Stephen Curry who played in only 26 games in 2012 because of nagging ankle injuries, two other guys who sit the bench, David Lee, Klay Thompson, and Brandon Rush. Then, Rush gets hurt in a pre-season game at the beginning of the year and didn't play a minute this season.

And yet Jackson got almost zero votes for coach of the year. And by almost zero I mean three! George Karl won the award.

He earned 62 first-place votes, finishing ahead Miami’s Erik Spoelstra (24 first-place votes), New York’s Mike Woodson (6) and San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich (11). Frank Vogel (3), Lionel Hollins (6), Mark Jackson (3), Tom Thibodeau (2), Kevin McHale (1), P.J. Carlesimo (1), Vinny Del Negro (1), Larry Drew (1).

What did the Warriors do this year? They won twice as many games as they did in 2011-2012 (47) and are arguably the most exciting team that isn't known as the Miami Heat left in the playoffs.

George Karl

Karl is not 59 votes better than Mark Jackson. I blame the voters and the Warriors for this debacle. I blame the voters for ignoring Jackson's accomplishments and the Warriors for not promoting Jackson as coach of the year. When the team was about to clinch a playoff spot, the first one since 2007, who did I hear on the radio and see in the newspaper sharing time with Jackson: Assistant coach Mike Malone, and GM Bob Myers.

I also blame the media for virtually ignoring Jackson. For example, the media loves Doug Collins. How do I know? As the Sixers went down in proverbial flames this year, the media didn't blame Doug Collins, it blamed Andrew Bynum for being injured. The Bleacher Report says Collins cannot be blamed for the Bynum trade.

Doug Collins

Even though management made the trade? And Philly.com blamed everyone and everything, but Collins for the Titanic like season. Can you image what the media would have said about Collins if the Sixers had had the kind of season the Warriors are having?  Winning the Coach of the Year award, like every other NBA award voted on by the media, is about convincing them for whom to vote. Karl did a great job this year, and deserved to get the award, but Mark Jackson proved, is proving, he deserved more than 3 votes. Sadder still, is the reality that the people Jackson works for didn't think enough of him to get enough voters to even look in his direction.