Sam Mitchell was honored as the National Basketball Association's coach of the year on Tuesday after leading the Toronto Raptors to a club-record-tying 47 victories and their first Atlantic Division title.
"It's a great honor," Mitchell said. "It floors you. You're thankful. Words just can't express it."
Mitchell won the Red Auerbach Trophy in a decisive vote over Utah's Jerry Sloan. He received 49 first-place votes for a total of 394 points in balloting by 128 reporters. Sloan had 301 points, followed by Dallas' Avery Johnson with 268.
Mitchell, the sixth coach in Toronto's team's history, guided the Raptors to an NBA-best 20-game improvement (27-55) over the 2005-2006 season.
Guard Anthony Parker praised Mitchell for building unity on a team that added nine new faces before the season.
"From the summer, after I signed, his focus was trying to get us all in and get the chemistry going early," he said.
"Throughout the course of the season we seemed to come together pretty nicely. Sam obviously was a huge part of that," Parker said.
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