Gregg Popovich, notorious for his unique and hilarious on-court interviews, was recognized for the third time as Coach of the Year. The season was wrought with injuries and a losing battle with Father Time, but Pop was able to keep the 50 win standard and even ended up with the league's best record.

This time, Pop was gracious with his speech. This excerpt from ESPN: "This award with Coach Auerbach here belongs to a lot of people. I'm honored and very thankful.

He rightfully acknowledges the players: "When you win an award, it gets down to the players. Players do the work, and players do the winning. They've been unbelievable for me, allowed me to coach them for a long time, and without their play, their diligence and their professionalism, I know this wouldn't happen."

While what he said was accurate, we must not forget that some of his key players like Danny Green and Patty Mills were shunned by other teams. The Coach of the Year knows how to maximize their talent.

He was also a guiding force in recovering from one of the biggest heartbreaks in basketball. "The way we lost in the Finals wasn't an ordinary loss; it was pretty devastating. We decided that we needed to just face that right off the bat at the beginning of the season and get it out of the way. Don't blame it on the basketball gods or bad fortune or anything like that."

"The Miami Heat beat us and won the championship, and that's that and then you move on. In all of our lives, there are many things more important than winning or losing basketball games. That's the perspective we had to take, and our team showed great maturity and resilience in being able to do that and set it aside yet again. So I'm very proud of them for that."

Lest we forget, Popovich is part of one of the greatest organizations in professional sports. It's not an accident that he has stayed this long in his position: "It's a volatile job, and all of us know that. R.C. [Buford, the Spurs' GM] and I have been fortunate to have been here so long together with an owner who lets us do our job and shows patience, understanding of how this all works. And in that regard, we know how fortunate we've been. So I can't overstate that."

The Phoenix Suns' coach Jeff Hornacek took second place. He was a favorite for the award because of their surprising season. In a Suns.com video, he read some of the pre-season predictions for his team wherein they were predicted to get just 16 wins. The Suns fell short of a playoff spot in the competitive Western Conference despite a record of 48-34. That's 300 percent their predicted total and ten wins more than Atlanta's 38 which was enough to qualify them for an East playoff spot.