The Hawks' Mike Budenholzer has won the Coach of the Year award. Budenholzer has won this honor due to the Hawks' franchise best 60-22 record and leading the team to the best record in the Eastern Conference. He is the first Hawks coach to win this award since Lenny Wilkins in the 1993-94 season.

Budenholzer won two coach of the month awards this season. These accolades come one year after the Hawks lost Al Horford to a pectoral injury that cost him the entire second half of the 2013-14 season and slipped Atlanta from the third to the eight seed.

Budenholzer runs a Spurs-like offense where its roots come from his 19 year stint in San Antonio. 17 of those years were as an assistant coach to Greg Popovich. This offense has resulted in all five Hawks' starters averaging double figures this season and even earned all of them the player of the month award for the month of January. The Hawks had the best month ever in pro sports in a span of a month as they went 17-0. They also had a 19 game winning streak which began on December 26th.

Coach Budenholzer also coach the NBA All-Star Game in New York City. The Hawks were well represented as they sent four all-stars. Among them were Jeff Teague, Al Horford, Kyle Korver, and Paul Millsap. The Hawks also won their first ever Southeast division title.

Budenholzer has achieved numerous accolades in Atlanta this season and the postseason will give the answer as to if the Hawks can finish out this magical season with the team's first ever championship in Atlanta.

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About the author
Yuriy  Andriyashchuk
20 and from Atlanta. A die hard Atlanta sports fan(Hawks,Falcons, Braves). Also a University of Nevada-Las Vegas journalism major. Huge fan of southern rap/hip hop.