Mike Budenholzer was named NBA Coach of the Year Tuesday, and he learned of the news in a wonderful way.
The Atlanta Hawks organization reached out to Bud’s former mentor Gregg Popovich and asked the San Antonio Spurs coach if he wanted to call his former pupil to inform him of the good news. Pop did and made the call to his former employee.
Prior to becoming the Hawks’ head coach last season, Budenholzer spent 19 seasons in the Spurs organization. He started off as a video coordinator and worked his way up to lead assistant under Pop.
He was very grateful towards Pop when accepting the award.
“This award has a permanent spot on his desk in San Antonio,” Budenholzer said of Popovich via the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “He shares it every couple of years and lets us take a picture with it. I might be able to sneak back into his office and put it back down.
“I was very, very fortunate to be so close to a coach who has done so much for our league, done so much for so many coaches and shared so much with me. I can’t even begin to articulate how thankful I am and all the things I’ve learned. The thing that Pop did for me, and did for a lot of coaches, is he let me coach. It seems really simple. That is part of the beauty of being around Pop. Sometimes the things that are most successful are very simple.”
Bud led the Hawks to a 60-22 regular season, which was the best record in franchise history. The team went 17-0 in January and won 35 of 38 games at one point during the season. The squad improved 22 games from the previous season, which was Bud’s first on the job.
Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
