But after Bickerstaff won the Best Coach award last season, his teammates saw Zhang Yang carrying flowers and a fruit basket to congratulate the head coach, and they followed suit.
As rookies like Rondo and Millsap saw the big names buying these, they also got flowers and fruit baskets.
After Bickerstaff finished receiving all the visitors, he looked at the room full of flowers and fruit baskets, feeling both pleased and overwhelmed.
Jordan arrived at the general manager’s office, saw a pile of gifts, and laughed, "Wow, Bernie, you’re really loved by the players, getting so many gifts. Here’s this for you, congratulations on winning Best Coach and Best Manager."
Bickerstaff took the gift from Jordan... thinking to himself, "Damn."
The gift was accepted, but wouldn’t he have to reciprocate when Jordan’s birthday or something came around? He was still working under Jordan, and the return gift would have to be at least a bit more expensive.
Or should he just resign? He had already won Best Manager, and his management career was quite fulfilled... No, he hadn’t won a championship yet, so he had to endure.
Bickerstaff: "Jack led the charge with these nice little gifts, so I don’t have to worry about buying something too expensive to give in return."
Jordan’s forehead crinkled with a few lines of frustration, thinking, "I give you a big golden Rolex and you’re still not happy?"
He hadn’t thought about reciprocating until now; whether to reciprocate depended on how one managed situations... Of course, if there was no reciprocation, his broad-mindedness would definitely remember it.
Now, he etched it in his memory, planning to invite Bickerstaff to his next birthday party or his son’s, determined to get his gift back.
Seeing Jordan’s expression, Bickerstaff felt much better and said, "Too many small gifts can be a headache, Flowers are fine; my wife loves them, she’ll be happy if I take them home, but too many fruit baskets, and our family eats just one a week. We have over twenty, can’t even give them all to the neighbors."
Jordan: "Why not share them with the assistants and trainers... But I didn’t expect you to win Best Coach for two consecutive years, and at the same time Best Manager. Winning Best Coach and Best Manager consecutively, that’s a record, isn’t it?"
Bickerstaff: "I hadn’t expected it, I was sure it was going to be the Raptors. They went from having the first draft pick to topping the Atlantic Division with 47 wins, even better than our performance last season, what a surprise..."
Jordan and Bickerstaff were both surprised and astonished, and so were players like Zhang Yang and Felton.
They too had thought the Raptors would definitely sweep these two awards, as the Raptors had ’replicated’ their last season’s performance.
From 26 wins last season to 47 this season, the Raptors had a bigger increase in wins than their Bobcats’ jump from 45 to 56 wins.
During the lunch break, Zhang Yang and Felton saw on the internet that the media, netizens... and even the voters were surprised.
Normally, Best Manager and Best Coach weren’t very popular awards, otherwise they wouldn’t have been announced just before the playoffs started.
But this year was different, retaining the title of Best Coach, something unprecedented in NBA history!
The closest were Mastermind Riley and Crazy Scientist Nelson, both of whom achieved the great accomplishment of Best Coach three times in a decade, with the latter winning twice in three years.
Moreover, Bickerstaff historically achieved the feat of winning both Best Manager and Best Coach in the same season!
Before this, no one had achieved such a feat, nothing even similar, because he was the first in NBA history to serve as both the head coach and general manager (Larry Bird became the Pacers’s head coach in 1997, while also serving as an executive manager with decision-making authority but not formally as the general manager; he stepped aside after losing the championship in 2000 for a while, returning to the Pacers in early 2002 to continue serving as an executive manager, trading back the man who broke Jordan’s rib, officially taking over as general manager in the summer of 2003, first firing Isaiah Thomas and inviting Rick Carlisle to join...).
Popovich served as president and head coach, not as general manager, without handling player transactions; Ginobili, Parker, and Scola were all picked by RC Buford.)
There had been rumors that Bickerstaff was actively looking for a successor, which the media and fans understood. He was getting older and gradually couldn’t keep up with the dual roles of general manager and head coach.
The media and fans were also very interested in who would be the next head coach of the Bobcats, for any unemployed coach, the Bobcats with their ’Four Youngsters’ was a dream team... Little did they expect Bickerstaff, just as he was about to step down from his coaching role, achieved such an incredible feat!
After more than 30 years in the business, reaching the pinnacle of his coaching career just as he was about to renounce his coaching position, Bickerstaff’s initially judged ’quirky’ coaching career suddenly turned into a ’legend-filled’ professional journey.
His 1987 achievement of leading the 39-win Supersonics to the Western Finals, his 1994 leadership of the Nuggets’ Black Eight Supersonics... these achievements were once again touted by fans.
In the forum, someone captured several images from new blogs posted by voting journalists.
A journalist from Columbia Broadcasting also known as Ally Fannie stated, "I voted for Bickerstaff. Everyone is praising the Raptors for their progress this season, they are indeed great, but in my view, the Bobcats are even better. They were already a surprise last season with their 45 wins, this season they’ve made huge progress on that, clinching the top spot in the East."