HOUSTON – In a vote of their peers, Houston’s Mike D’Antoni and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra were named co-recepients of the inaugural Michael H. Goldberg National Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year Award.
“I paid my membership dues,” D’Antoni joked.
Turning serious, he called the award “humbling.”
“It’s good,” he said. “Erik does an unbelievable job from where they came from and how he had to coach them. They all do a great job. Pop (Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) could win it every year.
“I’ll take it the way I think you should, that everybody should: If you’re not fired by the middle of the year, you’ve done a hell of a job.