HOUSTON – During tonight’s inaugural NBA Awards on TNT, Houston Rockets head
coach Mike D’Antoni was named NBA Coach of the Year for the 2016-17 season as
selected by a global panel of sportswriters and broadcasters. He is the third
coach in franchise history to win the award, joining Tom Nissalke (1976-77) and
Don Chaney (1990-91).
This marks D’Antoni’s second Coach of the Year award, having won in 2004-05
after leading Phoenix to a franchise-high tying 62 wins. He is the eighth coach
in NBA history with multiple Coach of the Year honors and joins Gregg Popovich
as the only ones who are active.
In his first season as head coach of the Rockets, D’Antoni guided the team to a
55-27 mark after Houston went 41-41 in 2015-16. The 55 wins tied for the
fourth-most in franchise history. The Rockets clinched a playoff spot on March
14, 2017 after not securing one until the regular season finale in 2015-16.
D’Antoni was named Western Conference Coach of the Month in December after
Houston went 15-2, tying for the most wins in a single month in franchise
history.
D’Antoni engineered an offense which set the NBA record for the most 3-pointers
made in a single season with 1,181. Houston finished second in the league in
scoring with 115.3 points per game, tying for the second-highest scoring average
in franchise history. The Rockets scored at least 130 points 12 times in
2016-17, marking the highest single season total by any team dating back to
1992-93.
During his time in Phoenix, the Suns posted the NBA’s three-highest single
season totals for 3-pointers made from 2004-05 through 2006-07. Prior to
2004-05, only three teams had more than 700 3FGM in a single season. Since
D’Antoni’s final season with Phoenix in 2007-08, 73 teams have hit at least 700
3-pointers in a single season, including 25 of the 30 teams in 2016-17.
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