Sam Mitchell takes the Coach of the Year award.

The Toronto Raptors head coach, Sam Mitchell, outlasted Jerry Sloan and last year’s winner, Avery Johnson to win the NBA’s Coach of the Year award. Sam Mitchell became the sixth coach in Toronto’s history to an NBA’s best, 20 game improvement in just one year. The Raptors finished the season winning 47 games(27 last year) and clinched the third seed in the Eastern division but it sure is a shame that they are gonna lose to my New Jersey Nets, and they already trail 1-0.

“It’s a great honor,” Mitchell said. “It floors you. You’re thankful. Words just can’t express it.”

Sam Mitchell received 49 first place votes and 394 total votes, the Utah Jazz head coach, Jerry Sloan, received 39 first place votes and a total of 301 and came in second.
“We recognized him for it this morning, ” forward Chris Bosh said. “But the thing I love about him is he said it was a team effort.”

The Raptors next game is tonight against the Nets(which they will lose) at 7:00 PM ET on NBA TV.

Leandro Barbosa runs away with the sixth man of the year award.

The Phoenix Sun’s guard, Leandro Barbosa ran away with the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award today. The Brazilian averaged 18.1 points per game, 4.0 assists and 2.7 rebounds per game and won the award by 309 votes. He also received 101 of the 127 first place votes. The San Antonio Spurs talented guard/forward, Manu Ginobli was second with a total of 269 points and the Dallas Mavericks guard, Jerry Stackhouse came in third with 210 total votes.

The announcement of the award came just hours after Barbosa’s Sun’s defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, 95-87 in the first game of the 2007 NBA Playoffs. Barbosa, who scored 15 straight points in the second half that sparked the Sun’s comeback win, finished the game with a personal high in the playoffs with 26 points.