By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 
For the Sixers in 2017-18, the team has had one massive improvement compared to the team's previous five seasons.
For one, the Sixers are in the playoffs for the first time since 2012. That's saying something.
Part of the progress is the influx of new talent and promising players, but at the end of the day, the coaching has to say something.
For some, Brett Brown still isn't the guy, more of a placeholder for another coach to come along and become some sort of "Post-Process" coach for this maturing Sixers team.
But then there are the Brett Brown truthers, who know that this guy is something special, someone worth keeping around, especially bred from the Gregg Popovich lineage.
Brown has truly emerged from the ashes, and is on the verge of completing the best season of his coaching career to date. Brown's record might show 119-283, but his worth is so much more than that.
This season has been magical, and looking at the rest of the league, there are coaches who are deserving of the Coach of The Year honor, but for one coach, he already has his opinion of who it should be.
Current Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer won the award back in 2014-15, and believes that Brown isn't just the Coach of this season, but more like the coach of the last five years, during the Process years.
With Brett Brown in the conversation for Coach of the Year, I asked the 2014-15 COY Mike Budenholzer for his thoughts: “Brett should be coach of the last five years.” Sidenote: Bud received 67 first place votes from a panel of 130 that year. (I was one of them.) Who’s your pick?
— Molly Sullivan (@MollySullivanTV) March 30, 2018
Budenholzer and his Hawks team face the 44-30 Sixers on Friday night, who are in the midst of an eight-game winning streak, something that hadn't been accomplished by the franchise since the 2002-03 season.
When it's all said and done, it's really not even close of a lock for Brown to be named the coach of the year, even though he definitely should be. By most, he isn't even considered to be a favorite. By many accounts, Celtics Head Coach Brad Stevens figures to be the frontrunner, with Rockets' Mike D'Antoni and Raptors' Dwane Casey trailing closely behind.
At least Brown has the support of other coaches around the league. It's a showing that his success, as well as his trials and tribulations, haven't went unnoticed.
