NBA Coach of the Year: 5 Early Frontrunners for the 2018-19 Season

#4 Mike Budenholzer

Atlanta Hawks v Detroit Pistons

Another man straight out of the San Antonio Spurs coaching stable, Mike Budenholzer has been one of the league's best player coaches ever since taking charge of the Atlanta Hawks in 2013. The 48-year-old has parted ways with his franchise of 5 seasons and taken over a group of really talented players with the Milwaukee Bucks organization over the course of this summer.

The reason why Jason Kidd was fired was because he could not put all the elite athletic talent he had on his team to the best use defensively. While the Bucks gave up corner 3s at an untenable rate and routinely failed to make the required defensive rotations in pick-and-roll scenarios, Coach Bud's spell at Atlanta has shown us that these are simple adjustments that he can make pretty quickly into training camp.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has come back every single year for the last 5 years as a markedly better player. He is an average jumpshot away from being regarded alongside the likes of Kevin Durant and LeBron James as the best player in the world, and he was reportedly quite happy with the appointment of Mike as Kidd's successor in the head coaching role.

Budenholzer led a team of fringe All-Stars and capable role players to a 60-win record in his second season with the Hawks. With Khris Middleton rising into that second scorer's role, a capable point guard rotation of Brogdon and Bledsoe, Tony Snell as a capable shooter in that bench role and having added Ersan Ilyasova and Brook Lopez to what was ostensibly the worst center rotation in the league, the Bucks have quietly been supplementing Giannis' supporting cast.

If the Bucks crack 55-60 wins, as they very well could in this version of the Eastern Conference, there is no reason why Budenholzer can't win a second Coach of the Year award in 6 seasons as a head coach. The team definitely has the potential to do so.