In North America, coaching and managerial awards can often garner almost as much attention as those handed out to the players themselves. This might seem a tad unusual to those from other countries who don’t know very much about American sporting culture, but things have been this way for a long time.
In this year’s NBA season, the Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka has opened as the odds-on favorite to win the 2023 NBA Coach of the Year trophy. His price has dropped a little since then, currently sitting at +800, but most observers still believe he is likely to come out on op when the decision is made later in the season.
The Competition
Udoka took the Celtics all the way to the Finals in the 2022 season, his first as head coach of the team. As we all know, things didn’t quite go his way in the final game – the Golden State Warriors took the Championship – but there is every reason to believe we will see another stunning season from the coach in 2023.
We’ll start off with the odds according to sports betting on Unibet Canada, to make it easy for all of you who wish to place a bet online. There are now ten coaches in the top-ten with odds of +2,000 or lower:
+800 Ime Udoka
+1,000 Chris Finch
+1,000 Willie Green
+1,000 Jason Kidd
+1,000 Tyronn Lue
+1,200 Dwayne Casey
+1,200 Erik Spoelstra
+2,000 Chauncey Billups
+2,000 Mike Brown
+2,000 Steve Kerr
The Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd was the second favorite when the odds were first announced, but as you can see from the list above, he has quickly been joined by several other coaches near the top of the leaderboard. Surprisingly, last season’s winner, Phoenix Suns HC Monty Williams, has already dropped out of the top ten despite opening at +1,200. We could well see a reversal of this in the coming weeks, however – people are expecting great things from Udoka and the Boston Celtics in 2023, but the competition will be tough.
About Ime Udoka
When Udoka joined the Celtics at the start of the 2022 Eastern Conference’s second seed, he quickly
transformed the team. The Celtics beat preseason favorites Brooklyn in the opening round of the playoffs before taking out 2021 champions the Milwaukee Bucks. It was unfortunate for Udoka to lose 4-2 against the Warriors in the Finals, but he has a new secret weapon for the 2023 season – Malcolm Brogdon.
Udoka is no doubt hoping that Brogdan will be the missing piece of the puzzle that he needs to back up Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart. During the last season, Brogdan averaged 19.1 points with 5.1 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game.
Furthermore, the rumor is that Udoka also intends to sign veteran star player Danilo Gallinari after he was made a free agent by the San Antonio Spurs, potentially making for an even more devastating combination on the court.
A Challenge from Jason Kidd?
Ime will have one major hurdle to jump if he does want to collect the NBA Coach of the Year award in 2023, and that comes in the form of Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd. Kidd headed up the Mavericks in the regular season last year and managed a stunning regular season record with 20 games above the .500 mark. Statistical analysis shows that Dallas was also the second-best defensive team in the NBA last year too. This set a record for the Mavericks, who had never managed to finish higher than 4 th in defensive statistics.
