SnP has made the point before that McHale was the one bringing Wittman aboard, any way you shake it that move totally did not pan out. It’s easy to talk with hindsight but let’s keep it to the fact that nobody really was excited with the appointment of Witt. Not like we predicted that he would be the worst coach in the NBA, which he is, but at least no one was excited either.

The truth is that lately some good things have happend. The problem is that it’s only a fixing of past faults.
So Kevin the GM > yes he did clean up the mess with several deals going from Blount/Davis/Hassell/Jaric to Walker/Buckner/Jaric to Miller/Cardinal/Booth, positioning us for this years draft and free agency, not overpaying our free agents and whatnot.
The problem is that Blount/Davis/Hassell and Jaric all were players that he himself acquiered. So the most he gets is “he was a bad GM but at least he cleaned up his mess after him”.

McHale the coach > If you have to take over from Witt, you’d have a hard time doing worse, no offence to the guy but he just ain’t a head coach. From the experts to the fans, we all had an average expection of somewhere in the 32-36 range. We’re playing that right now (well maybe a little better, right) so yes, he’s doing a decent to good job, but everybody knew we had talent all along, we just undervalued how much the coaching style crashed with the players, imo.
Also, I hear from people seeing the games he’s making rookie mistakes, so no way he gets coach of the year just for the “pratice is my time, the game is your time” thing. That’s too easy.

On the other hand, who is the front runner for COY? Mike Brown?

among active coaches, I believe McHale ranks 12th.