NBA Awards Go to . . .

The coach-of-the-year consideration is just as difficult, but the Celtics' Doc Rivers is my choice, narrowly, over the Hornets' Byron Scott.

Scott is undoubtedly the most underrated coach in the NBA. He led the Nets to consecutive trips to the NBA Finals, yet more credit went to Jason Kidd and a certain assistant coach with a mind for wonderful offense, Eddie Jordan. The Nets have dropped off the face of the earth since Scott left. What, it's a coincidence that he shows up in New Orleans and the Hornets start winning big?

Still, probably the toughest thing a coach has to do in professional basketball is manage egos, and anytime you have three stars as big as Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce you've got the potential for difficulty. Yet, the Celtics had none. It was Rivers who coaxed a very nice season out of neophyte point guard Rajon Rondo, who easily could have been overwhelmed in such a situation. And Rivers put ego aside -- don't you wish the Warriors' Don Nelson would try that just once? -- and turned over his defense to assistant Tom Thibodeau, and all the Celtics did was play the best defense in the league this year.

So, it's Rivers, Scott, Houston's Rick Adelman (whose team won an astounding 22 straight, 10 of them without his best player, Yao Ming), and the Wizards' Jordan (whose team could have collapsed without Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler for much of the season).

My most improved player is Orlando's Hedo Turkoglu (up from 11.8 points a game to 19.6 and the best all-court player on No. 3 seed Orlando) and my rookie of the year is Atlanta's Al Horford, who averaged nearly 10 rebounds and 10 points a game while shooting 50 percent for a team that finally came in from the wilderness to make the playoffs.

Another more difficult call is the executive of the year. Let's hope Kobe has knocked on the door of GM Mitch Kupchak and thanked him for pulling off the greatest talent heist since Red Auerbach got Kevin McHale and Robert Parish for Joe Barry Carroll when Kupchak sent nuisance Kwame Brown to Memphis for all-star Gasol. After being berated for what he hadn't done the past two years, Kupchak kept Bryant, kept young center Andrew Bynum, reacquired Derek Fisher and swapped Brown for Gasol. It's very impressive.

Yet, my vote goes to GM Danny Ainge, who reshaped the Celtics by trading for Garnett, Allen and James Posey last summer and then getting Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown after the trade deadline. The Celtics are the team that finished with the best record in the league. The Celtics are the best team going into the playoffs. When asked why he didn't stump for his own player, Garnett, for league MVP, Rivers said the other day he didn't need to, that the Celtics were playing for a more significant award, one that is shared by the team and not owned by a single player -- the Lawrence O'Brien Trophy awarded to the NBA champion, the trophy Rivers and Garnett hope to hold come June.