Warriors general manager Bob Myers didn’t do much this year.
Which is why he won the NBA’s 2015 Executive of the Year.
His most noteworthy decision of the year was not trading Klay Thompson for Kevin Love, and Golden State mostly stuck with a roster built in previous seasons. This is a hard award to assess annually, because team-building is done long-term.
But apparently, voters – executives from the league’s 30 teams – decided the time was right to honor Myers.
For what it’s worth, Myers made good moves this year, too. He hired Steve Kerr and surrounded the first-time coach with quality assistants, and Shaun Livingston was a nice addition.
David Griffin, who positioned the Cavaliers to be appealing enough for LeBron James to return home, finished second (and would have had my first-place vote). Griffin also traded Andrew Wiggins for Kevin Love (the verdict isn’t yet in) and rounded out Cleveland’s roster midseason by trading for Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert.
The Hawks’ Mike Budenholzer finished third for doing I don’t know what. Getting votes because executives were salty about not being able to vote for Danny Ferry?
Go further down the results, and it basically becomes a participation ribbon. Seven executives got first-place votes, and 18 made someone’s top three.
Here’s the full voting with executive, team (first-place votes, second-place votes, third-place votes, points):
- Bob Myers, Golden State (13-5-2-82)
- David Griffin, Cleveland (8-7-8-69)
- Mike Budenholzer, Atlanta (4-5-1-36)
- Danny Ainge, Boston (1-3-2-16)
- Gar Forman, Chicago (1-2-3-14)
- Neil Olshey, Portland (2-1-1-14)
- Daryl Morey, Houston (0-2-2-8)
- Stan Van Gundy, Detroit (1-0-0-5)
- Sam Presti, Oklahoma City (0-1-1-4)
- Dell Demps, New Orleans (0-0-3-3)
- Flip Saunders, Minnesota (0-1-0-3)
- John Hammond, Milwaukee (0-1-0-3)
- Mitch Kupchak, L.A. Lakers (0-1-0-3)
- Sam Hinkie, Philadelphia (0-1-0-3)
- Chris Wallace, Memphis (0-0-2-2)
- Dennis Lindsey, Utah (0-0-2-2)
- R.C. Buford, San Antonio (0-0-2-2)
- Masai Ujiri, Toronto (0-0-1-1)