Miami Heat: NBA Coach Of The Year Voting Presents Interesting Paradox

The Miami Heat have business to take care of on Tuesday evening. Welcoming the Philadelphia 76ers back to the FTX Arena in Miami, they’ll try to, once again, grab momentum in their second-round NBA Playoffs series and a lead on the Philly team at 3-2.

While that is Tuesday’s business, there was some general NBA business handled, so to speak, on Monday. The NBA would officially hand out their NBA Coach Of The Year honors.

The award would go to Monty Williams of Phoenix, as noted above.

A totally deserving coach of the honor, he led his Phoenix Suns to the best record in the league by a wide margin.

If you take a peep at the overall standings from the regular season, where the Miami Heat finished third overall at 53-29 and 11 games back of the first placed Suns, the second-placed team was still eight games back in the Memphis Grizzlies.

That’s a pretty wide margin. Speaking of margins though, there is something a little awkward about the vote count.

Miami Heat: NBA Coach Of The Year Voting Presents Interesting Paradox

When you take a peep at Erik Spoelstra, third in the voting, the fact that he only received one first placed vote should stick out. That’s not all of it though, with this interesting thought presented by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press, there seems to be something fishy going on.

At the very least, there is a befuddling line of thinking being put on display by the voting.

The mathematical calculations of it all aren’t the most complex or most interesting thing, but it is worth a quick explanation. Based on the tallies above, there were 100 available voters.

There are 100 of each of the first, second, and third-placed votes, a tally easily figured out by adding up each vote of each type submitted. The most interesting thought also involves this same math but is the point that Reynolds makes above.

Williams received 100 total votes when you add up his 81 first, 17 second, and two third-place votes. That’s 100 percent of the voting pool.

Spo, however, only received 36 votes total, compiled of his lone first, 16 second, and 19 third-place votes. Here’s where the rabbit hole gets even deeper and further to the point made by Reynolds above.

Miami Heat: Will Spo Ever Win The NBA Coach Of The Year Award?

The Eastern Conference of the NBA was widely regarded as the tougher conference this season. So, how come is it that the coach that won that conference isn’t the NBA COY, but at least a coach worth 100 percent of the voter pool between all of his votes combined?

Now, one could point back to the fact that Williams and his Suns beat the entire league, record-wise, by such a large gap that it accounted for the easier conference, but there is a counter there too. When you aren’t playing the best teams every night, it’s easy to rack up wins.

Again, Williams was deserving of the award, so this isn’t or wasn’t that. However, you also have to bring yourself to the conclusion that Coach Spo will never win the thing, where he has deserved to on, at least, seven occasions or more.

That’s what this is. It’s a highlighting of the mere hypocrisy and paradoxical nature that these narratives, especially the ones in sports, can sometimes be filled with.

The same voters, media members, that make up the storylines, are the same ones bucking the narratives they create in other facets. Consistency—is it too much to ask for?