Five years ago, Kenny Atkinson was fired from his first first NBA head coaching job. He'd overachieved with the first iteration of the plucky Nets roster that he'd been given. Brooklyn made big changes quickly though, adding Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. There were questions about how he could manage a star-driven group with championship aspirations, and he never truly got a fair shake to answer them.
What was a bitter disappointment at the time proved to be one of the best things that could have happened to him. While the Nets were imploding, he was showing how good of a coach he really was.
Atkinson was hired the following season as an assistant on Ty Lue's Clippers staff, where they made the only Conference Finals of the Kawhi Leonard and Paul George era. Next, he went to the Warriors to help Steph Curry wing a fourth ring. This past summer, he served as an assistant on Team France, who won Silver at the Olympics.
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He's kept up that string of success in Cleveland after moving back to the lead chair. The Cavs finished fourth in the East last season. They were predicted by the betting markets to finish fifth this year. Instead, they've dominated the East.
Atkinson has taken mostly the same group of players from the previous year and turned the Cavs into a juggernaut. The way he did it deserves both attention and acclaim.
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Kenny Atkinson has created the best offense in the league
The Cavs were a mediocre offense last year, ranking 16th in the league. They're No. 1 this season and No. 2 all-time behind only last season's champion Celtics. Atkinson has gotten his group buzzing by making them the best versions of themselves and installing more modern principles.
Every coach wants their teams to run more. The issue is buy-in from players. Atkinson has been able to get it on every team he's coached, dating back to his time with the Nets. A year after finishing 24th in pace, the Cavs are 11th in that stat.
Atkinson has also gotten his group shooting more 3's. Last year's Cavs weren't bad in that department, ranking eighth in the league at 37 attempts per game. This year's group is launching four more per game and No. 4 in the league.
There are some personnel reasons for the improved shooting. Atkinson was given a good shooter in De'Andre Hunter at the trade deadline. He's also unlocked Ty Jerome, turning him into a leading candidate for Sixth Man of the Year. And he's allowed Evan Mobley to let them fly.
The schematic reasons are more interesting. The departed J.B. Bickerstaff also got last year's Cavs team shooting more 3's, but he did it by keeping his shooters stationary while his star guards did their thing.
Atkinson has incorporated much more off-ball movement, installing automatic rotations as the ball is driven. That has both opened up driving lanes and better-quality shots off those drives.
That's not to say that Bickerstaff did a bad job with this roster. It's a difficult one to manage, with two talented big men in Jarrett Allen and Mobley along with two capable playmakers in Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. That's a great core four, but there are a lot of overlapping skills between them.
Atkinson has done a masterful job of staggering those players' minutes in order to maximize all four of them. He's made the two-big lineup more playable by allowing Mobley to run jumbo pick-and-rolls, leading to a big jump in skill level for Cleveland's young star.
Mobley isn't alone in that regard. Every player on Cleveland's roster has shown growth, and that's because Atkinson has put them in the best possible position to succeed.
Kenny Atkinson has maintained the Cavs' elite defense
The Cavs were already a great defensive team before Atkinson arrived, finishing seventh on that end of the floor last season. They've become a stingier group but dropped down to eighth this year because of how much the competition above them has improved.
Mobley certainly makes things easier. He wasn't healthy enough to be in the discussion for Defensive Player of the Year last season. This year, he has a good chance to win the award.
Atkinson has made the most out of Mobley and the other pieces he has, using different schemes to keep teams off-balance. The Cavs have an interesting 2-3 zone that they use to switch things up, running it at one of the higher volumes in the league. They can also go small and switchy with 6-8 forward Dean Wade at center. Or they can have massive size and rim protection with Mobley and Allen.
In addition to schematic changes, Atkinson has gotten his guards to defend much harder. Mitchell had a reputation as an awful defender with the Jazz. He's been locked in under Atkinson and making impact plays late in games. Garland had similar rumblings, mostly due to his lack of size. He's taken on the challenge when getting hunted on switches, using more physicality to prevent becoming a liability. And Jerome has become a defensive menace, racking up steals with his quick hands.
The Cavs would be a good team with any other coach in the NBA. They have a lot of talent. Fitting these pieces together to get this level of performance though has been a job well-deserving of Coach of the Year honors. Atkinson has pressed all of the right buttons. He deserves to be recognized as one of the great tacticians in the sport.