We told you this was coming and now it is official:
Denver’s GM Masai Ujiri has been named NBA Executive of the Year in a vote of his peers.
Gary Sacks of the Los Angeles Clippers came in second, Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets finished third.
Ujiri was the guy who walked into the Nuggets job just as Carmelo Anthony was forcing his way out of Denver. Ujiri handled that about as well as could be done — he got a big package of players in return (Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, JaVale McGee) and then made some smart secondary trades such as turning Felton into Andre Miller and using a first round pick as part of the Andre Iguodala deal.
The result is a young, rebuilt team that won a franchise record 57 games and looks like a team on the rise — and we mean team, there are no ball dominating superstars on the roster.
Ujiri got 8 first place votes and finished well ahead of the pack with 59 points. The next six finishers in the race were all clustered between 28 and 23 points (in order of finish): the Clippers’ Sacks; the Rockets’ Morey; The Knicks’ Glen Grunwald; the Heat’s Pat Riley; and the Warriors Bob Meyers.
Rob Hennigan got one first place vote for his handling of the Dwight Howard disaster, Kevin O’Conner of Utah got a couple second place votes, and Billy King of Brooklyn got two seconds and one third.