Lenny Wilkens, who guided the Atlanta Hawks to their first Central Division title since 1987 and surpassed 900 career victories this season, today was selected NBA Coach of the Year.
In winning the honor for the first time, Wilkens received 71 of a possible 101 votes from a nationwide panel of NBA writers and broadcasters, three from each league city and 20 representing the national media.Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls finished second with 16 votes. He was followed by George Karl of Seattle with eight votes, Rudy Tomjanovich of Houston with three, and Don Nelson of Golden State, Pat Riley of New York and Chuck Daly of New Jersey with one each.
In his 21st season as an NBA head coach and his first with Atlanta, Wilkens coached the Hawks to a 57-25 record, a 14-game improvement over last season's 43-39 mark. The Hawks' record matched the best in franchise history and tied Atlanta with New York for the best mark in the Eastern Conference.
The 57 victories boosted Wilkens' career total to 926, only 12 behind Red Auerbach's all-time best of 938.
At Atlanta, Wilkens inherited a team that had finished fourth in the Central Division, ranked next-to-last in the league in field goal percentage defense and was 21st in scoring defense. Under Wilkens, the Hawks set a team record for scoring defense (96.2 points allowed per game, fourth-lowest in the NBA), and allowed opponents to shoot only .455 from the field, the eighth-lowest mark in the league.