Post by Phoenix Suns on Mar 20, 2023 15:25:22 GMT -6
Executive of the Year
Honorable Mentions: Dallas, Chicago, Washington, Boston
*Note: The Commissioner of the League has not yet officially ratified the 2020 EOTY as an official award
Dallas continued to swindle newer GMs of their picks, and draft Ja Morant. He also nabbed Porzingis by giving up RJ Barrett, although with another leg injury in the post-season, this went from heist to "did he actually win this trade" considering he has to burn a re-sign on him.
That makes me more tepid on the Porzingod trade, and re-signing Aaron Gordon to a bad contract, holding onto Myles Turner for no value, getting stuck with Otto Porter Jr.'s awful contract in a trade, and again failing to make an impact in the playoffs (albeit simulated) keeps him out of the EOTY's upper echelon. Some good cheapo signings of Carmelo and Dragic definitely make it close, though, and Ingram's jump is negated by Drummond's fall.
The most fun mention here is definitely Chicago, who has proven to be a fantastic addition to the league and went all-in Moneyball style by trading away his entire team for half the 1st round picks in the 2019 draft. Trading away Tatum as he turned into a superstar for picks that haven't returned a single stud (yet) keeps him out of the finalists, although Washington and Clarke show promise, trading for Jokic was superb, and keeping pieces like Jaylen Brown and Dejounte Murray could prove wise. Bulls has a talented, cheap, and promising roster that looks eerily similar to the Blazers three years ago, and I can't wait to see what lies in store for the Bulls going forward.
Washington is another newbie GM who was an instant asset to Guru, and begun the tall task of transforming a terrible team into a contender, making a bevvy of trades to get younger and acquire long-term assets. Getting swindled by the Mavs for two firsts takes him out of serious contention for this award, but stocking up on young guys like Harris, Wagner, Isaac, Paschall, Shamet, Looney, Fernando, and Davis are moves in the right direction. And scooping up Nunn was the second-best in-season FA signing, not to mention the legendary Darius Bazley (aka the chosen one.) Better days lie ahead for the Wizards now that they're under competent management.
Last but not least, we have Boston who makes the list drafting Tyler Herro late in the 2019 rookie draft, and looks to be an absolute stud in these playoffs. Kudos. He also grabbed Donte Divencenzo in a trade, bet on Hayward returning to form which he mostly did, and acquired some assets and young guys like Coby White and Ivica Zubac, while re-signing Julius Randle, who is still only 25.
3. Phoenix Suns
The Suns completely re-tooled after winning the 2018-2019 Championship, losing Kyle Lowry, LaMarcus Aldridge, TJ Warren, Nikola Mirotic, JJ Redick, Will Barton, Tim Hardaway, and a slew of others, with only 3 players remaining from that team heading into the 2019-2020 playoffs.
The Suns burned their 1st round pick trading away Mirotic's dead salary after he left for Europe, dumped more salary with 2nds, then went to work in Summer FA, signing a bevvy of players.
They then moved Lowry's contract and Thomas Bryant (who was picked up last season in FA) for Jamal Murray.
The coup-de-grace, however, was signing the #1 FA of the season in Devonte' Murray, while Jonathan Isaac broke out. Another blow to Phoenix came as he suffered a serious injury, with the Suns deciding to go all-in and trade him for Buddy Hield.
More win-now moves followed, trading away young guys for salary relief to then make room for the biggest trade-deadline move of the season, beating out Denver and Minnesota for Hassan Whiteside's 43 FPPG, leaving observers stunned.
With Booker and D'Lo on the final years of their rookie deal, the Suns went into the playoffs fully healthy after capturing the most 'Points For' for the second consecutive year, predictably winning the simulated playoffs during covid.
2. Philadelphia 76ers
Philly blew up his team after years of high-level contention, and launched one of the fastest rebuilds in the league's history.
The centerpiece of this rebuild was the best trade of the year, stealing Deandre Ayton and destroying Spurs entire team in the process.
In perhaps the worst trade in Guru history, Spurs gave away the best asset in the trade, on top of two 1st rounders, a (then still prized) Blake Griffin (which he wisely flipped), and Justice Winslow... for a 30 year old James Harden who costs 21m a year and trash.
Such a transformative trade is almost unheard of. But Philly wasn't done.
He got Harry Giles for regards, dumped Josh Jackson for Schroeder, traded Schroeder and Winslow for Goga Bitadze, grabbed 9000 2nd rounders taking on salary, traded Taurean Prince for a 1st rounder, Covington and a 1st for two 1sts, and capped it off by dumping Tobias Harris for Mikal Bridges and a 1st.
Absolutely stunning work, only slightly marred by taking on 31m in dead money for a 1st rounder, but even then he moved a lot of that money for picks.
Philly now has Ayton, Collins, a stable of promising young players, and a war chest of 1st and 2nd round picks to power his team back into contention.
1. Denver Nuggets
The reviled, hideously deformed, purulent, elephant man-like Nuggets -- when not scalping RTX 3080s and pushing old ladies down stairs -- spends his time rebuilding his garbage team in the vain hopes of dethroning his archrival: the beloved, handsomely formed, prurient, elephant-like endowed Suns.
The Nuggets were the most active and prolific team this season, with nearly 40 trades and a spate of FA signings to build on his strong work the previous season.
While Denver's #15, #16, and #19 picks in the 2019 rookie draft picks failed to produce, it is still early days, and the Nuggets went out and crushed the Summer Free Agency to start the season.
Ricky Rubio for $4.5m and producing 35 FPPG was a fantastic signing, as he thrived in his new situation in Phoenix. Spencer Dinwiddie for $4m and 35 FPPG was also a home run (although KD and Kyrie's returns next season likely mean a regression back to his 27-28 FPPG averages the previous two seasons. Still good, though). Danillo Gallinari for $6m putting up 31 FPPG wasn't in the same league, but a solid signing nonetheless.
Delon Wright (21 FPPG for $5.5m x 4) and Demarcus Cousins (0 FPPG, $3m x 4), however, were massive whiffs and will haunt the Nuggets for awhile stuck with $34m in dead money.
Nuggets trading marathon began in the summer moving Fred Van Fleet's 2.5m 2.5m deal to inexplicably re-acquire the services of Evan Fournier for 6.0m 6.0m. That move was not it with VanVleet being one of the best contracts in the league. He then took on Javale McGee's 3m 3m 3m for the Suns 2019 1st, which as explained earlier has not panned out thus far.
He then moved a 2023 NOLA 1st/2023 LAL 1st for Jrue Holiday's 10m 10m. A strong win-now move although I think the value of both sides of this trade was fair. That LAL 2023 1st was swindled in an earlier trade to eat 1 year only of Norman Powell's dead money (8.5m)... that's fantastic value.
Dumping Gary Harris's abysmal 7m 7m 7m contract onto the Denver Nuggets secret second team New New Orleans Pelicans for a 1st rounder (and only having to attach OG Anunoby's expiring) is another coup. Nabbing Bam Adebayo and OG from the Mavs earlier for the 2022 Suns 1st is also a strong move.
Trading Boogie's 17m 17m 17m corpse for a bad 1st and having to include Pascal Siakam (0.5m 0.5m) and Brogdon (1.5) was necessary but nonetheless awful in terms of what was given up. Getting Lou Will for Fernando and a 2nd was a small, albeit good, move.
The big in-season trade was Jimmy Butler (12m 12m 12m 12m) for Bam's expiring. Bam is looking like a young stud superstar but Denver couldn't pay him and would have to use a re-sign on him, so while he's clearly the best asset ignoring salary and re-sign considerations, Jimmy's big contract is still a better value deal, locked in long-term. The downside is he's 31 years old, has had a lot of injuries, and plays a style of ball that doesn't age well. I consider this a toss-up and a fair trade that made good sense for his roster. Both teams benefitted.
I also very much liked his Favors/Winslow/9m dead money for Horford trade, writing that "seeing Nuggets wriggle out of both Favors and McGees dead money [...] has ruined my Christmas." This may have been a bit premature given Favors ended up being solid and a positive contract, but it was a good maneuver nonetheless.
In the following trade sending Wendell Carter Jr.'s 4-year rookie scale deal and Terrance Davis's .5m .5m .5m .5m deals for Jarrett Allen, Winslow, Satoransky, and Harell's expiring, however, I wrote that "this trade is pretty brutal for the nuggets in term of absolute value... 8 years of WCJ and Davis, both studs, on cheap deals, for rentals. bru-tal. [...] but it undeniably makes his team much stronger in the immediate". I understand better than anybody the sacrifices necessary to push your team over the line and win, and these sorts of moves are often necessary unless you're a modern Machiavelli (aka our Dallas Mavericks) constantly churning out value for 7 years until you accidentally win without even a single win-now move. Nevertheless, giving up those guys... it's hard to see this in a positive light.
Geez this is long (and I skipped a ton of lesser trades)...
Another big trade came in the form of giving up Al Horford for Kevin Love to get an extra year of value. I wrote at the time I thought it was a tough trade to judge, and don't really have a lot to add. It was fine.
The sheer amount of moves made was staggering. It's difficult to evaluate someone who traded more than the rest of the league combined, especially against Philly, who made fewer trades but arguably didn't lose any and created more value -- but didn't make the playoffs.
What's impressive is that Nuggets managed to juggle taking on dead money for picks during the summer and still managed to turn all those moves around and contend for a championship through FA signings and trades. He made wayyyyyyy more mistakes than Philly, but he also managed to finish #2 in Points For and #1 in the Standings. We've awarded Theoretical Value awards in Discord to teams like the Blazers, and when they finally turn the corner with all those rookie scale deals and potential, they end up disappointing. While Philly churned out more value overall, I think Nuggets produced 70% of of that value and competed at a high level.
Philly and Suns stayed mostly mistake free, so despite the smaller volume the impact of those moves are all massive when you're not taking Ls. Nuggets won more FAs and trades than anyone, but also lost more FAs and trades than anyone, not dissimilar to Brett Favre being the all-time leader in touchdowns and interceptions. But Nuggets still threw more TDs than interceptions, and the end-result was serious value creation and championship contention, something Philly lacks.
The results speak for themselves: #1 in the standings and #2 in points for. I honestly believe the Suns were out of reach for the Nuggets heading into the playoffs given the win-now trades he made at the deadline, but this is an EOTY thread, not a championship thread, and the Suns were a much better team heading into the 2019-2020 off-season, and the Nuggets did an excellent job closing the gap. Philly created more value, made fewer mistakes, and has as strong of a case for EOTY, but for me, going from missing the playoffs to the #1 seed pushes him over the top for me. I wouldn't argue anyone choosing the 76ers, though, they're just as worthy.
Honorable Mentions: Dallas, Chicago, Washington, Boston
*Note: The Commissioner of the League has not yet officially ratified the 2020 EOTY as an official award
Dallas continued to swindle newer GMs of their picks, and draft Ja Morant. He also nabbed Porzingis by giving up RJ Barrett, although with another leg injury in the post-season, this went from heist to "did he actually win this trade" considering he has to burn a re-sign on him.
That makes me more tepid on the Porzingod trade, and re-signing Aaron Gordon to a bad contract, holding onto Myles Turner for no value, getting stuck with Otto Porter Jr.'s awful contract in a trade, and again failing to make an impact in the playoffs (albeit simulated) keeps him out of the EOTY's upper echelon. Some good cheapo signings of Carmelo and Dragic definitely make it close, though, and Ingram's jump is negated by Drummond's fall.
The most fun mention here is definitely Chicago, who has proven to be a fantastic addition to the league and went all-in Moneyball style by trading away his entire team for half the 1st round picks in the 2019 draft. Trading away Tatum as he turned into a superstar for picks that haven't returned a single stud (yet) keeps him out of the finalists, although Washington and Clarke show promise, trading for Jokic was superb, and keeping pieces like Jaylen Brown and Dejounte Murray could prove wise. Bulls has a talented, cheap, and promising roster that looks eerily similar to the Blazers three years ago, and I can't wait to see what lies in store for the Bulls going forward.
Washington is another newbie GM who was an instant asset to Guru, and begun the tall task of transforming a terrible team into a contender, making a bevvy of trades to get younger and acquire long-term assets. Getting swindled by the Mavs for two firsts takes him out of serious contention for this award, but stocking up on young guys like Harris, Wagner, Isaac, Paschall, Shamet, Looney, Fernando, and Davis are moves in the right direction. And scooping up Nunn was the second-best in-season FA signing, not to mention the legendary Darius Bazley (aka the chosen one.) Better days lie ahead for the Wizards now that they're under competent management.
Last but not least, we have Boston who makes the list drafting Tyler Herro late in the 2019 rookie draft, and looks to be an absolute stud in these playoffs. Kudos. He also grabbed Donte Divencenzo in a trade, bet on Hayward returning to form which he mostly did, and acquired some assets and young guys like Coby White and Ivica Zubac, while re-signing Julius Randle, who is still only 25.
3. Phoenix Suns
The Suns completely re-tooled after winning the 2018-2019 Championship, losing Kyle Lowry, LaMarcus Aldridge, TJ Warren, Nikola Mirotic, JJ Redick, Will Barton, Tim Hardaway, and a slew of others, with only 3 players remaining from that team heading into the 2019-2020 playoffs.
The Suns burned their 1st round pick trading away Mirotic's dead salary after he left for Europe, dumped more salary with 2nds, then went to work in Summer FA, signing a bevvy of players.
They then moved Lowry's contract and Thomas Bryant (who was picked up last season in FA) for Jamal Murray.
The coup-de-grace, however, was signing the #1 FA of the season in Devonte' Murray, while Jonathan Isaac broke out. Another blow to Phoenix came as he suffered a serious injury, with the Suns deciding to go all-in and trade him for Buddy Hield.
More win-now moves followed, trading away young guys for salary relief to then make room for the biggest trade-deadline move of the season, beating out Denver and Minnesota for Hassan Whiteside's 43 FPPG, leaving observers stunned.
With Booker and D'Lo on the final years of their rookie deal, the Suns went into the playoffs fully healthy after capturing the most 'Points For' for the second consecutive year, predictably winning the simulated playoffs during covid.
2. Philadelphia 76ers
Philly blew up his team after years of high-level contention, and launched one of the fastest rebuilds in the league's history.
The centerpiece of this rebuild was the best trade of the year, stealing Deandre Ayton and destroying Spurs entire team in the process.
In perhaps the worst trade in Guru history, Spurs gave away the best asset in the trade, on top of two 1st rounders, a (then still prized) Blake Griffin (which he wisely flipped), and Justice Winslow... for a 30 year old James Harden who costs 21m a year and trash.
Such a transformative trade is almost unheard of. But Philly wasn't done.
He got Harry Giles for regards, dumped Josh Jackson for Schroeder, traded Schroeder and Winslow for Goga Bitadze, grabbed 9000 2nd rounders taking on salary, traded Taurean Prince for a 1st rounder, Covington and a 1st for two 1sts, and capped it off by dumping Tobias Harris for Mikal Bridges and a 1st.
Absolutely stunning work, only slightly marred by taking on 31m in dead money for a 1st rounder, but even then he moved a lot of that money for picks.
Philly now has Ayton, Collins, a stable of promising young players, and a war chest of 1st and 2nd round picks to power his team back into contention.
1. Denver Nuggets
The reviled, hideously deformed, purulent, elephant man-like Nuggets -- when not scalping RTX 3080s and pushing old ladies down stairs -- spends his time rebuilding his garbage team in the vain hopes of dethroning his archrival: the beloved, handsomely formed, prurient, elephant-like endowed Suns.
The Nuggets were the most active and prolific team this season, with nearly 40 trades and a spate of FA signings to build on his strong work the previous season.
While Denver's #15, #16, and #19 picks in the 2019 rookie draft picks failed to produce, it is still early days, and the Nuggets went out and crushed the Summer Free Agency to start the season.
Ricky Rubio for $4.5m and producing 35 FPPG was a fantastic signing, as he thrived in his new situation in Phoenix. Spencer Dinwiddie for $4m and 35 FPPG was also a home run (although KD and Kyrie's returns next season likely mean a regression back to his 27-28 FPPG averages the previous two seasons. Still good, though). Danillo Gallinari for $6m putting up 31 FPPG wasn't in the same league, but a solid signing nonetheless.
Delon Wright (21 FPPG for $5.5m x 4) and Demarcus Cousins (0 FPPG, $3m x 4), however, were massive whiffs and will haunt the Nuggets for awhile stuck with $34m in dead money.
Nuggets trading marathon began in the summer moving Fred Van Fleet's 2.5m 2.5m deal to inexplicably re-acquire the services of Evan Fournier for 6.0m 6.0m. That move was not it with VanVleet being one of the best contracts in the league. He then took on Javale McGee's 3m 3m 3m for the Suns 2019 1st, which as explained earlier has not panned out thus far.
He then moved a 2023 NOLA 1st/2023 LAL 1st for Jrue Holiday's 10m 10m. A strong win-now move although I think the value of both sides of this trade was fair. That LAL 2023 1st was swindled in an earlier trade to eat 1 year only of Norman Powell's dead money (8.5m)... that's fantastic value.
Dumping Gary Harris's abysmal 7m 7m 7m contract onto the Denver Nuggets secret second team New New Orleans Pelicans for a 1st rounder (and only having to attach OG Anunoby's expiring) is another coup. Nabbing Bam Adebayo and OG from the Mavs earlier for the 2022 Suns 1st is also a strong move.
Trading Boogie's 17m 17m 17m corpse for a bad 1st and having to include Pascal Siakam (0.5m 0.5m) and Brogdon (1.5) was necessary but nonetheless awful in terms of what was given up. Getting Lou Will for Fernando and a 2nd was a small, albeit good, move.
The big in-season trade was Jimmy Butler (12m 12m 12m 12m) for Bam's expiring. Bam is looking like a young stud superstar but Denver couldn't pay him and would have to use a re-sign on him, so while he's clearly the best asset ignoring salary and re-sign considerations, Jimmy's big contract is still a better value deal, locked in long-term. The downside is he's 31 years old, has had a lot of injuries, and plays a style of ball that doesn't age well. I consider this a toss-up and a fair trade that made good sense for his roster. Both teams benefitted.
I also very much liked his Favors/Winslow/9m dead money for Horford trade, writing that "seeing Nuggets wriggle out of both Favors and McGees dead money [...] has ruined my Christmas." This may have been a bit premature given Favors ended up being solid and a positive contract, but it was a good maneuver nonetheless.
In the following trade sending Wendell Carter Jr.'s 4-year rookie scale deal and Terrance Davis's .5m .5m .5m .5m deals for Jarrett Allen, Winslow, Satoransky, and Harell's expiring, however, I wrote that "this trade is pretty brutal for the nuggets in term of absolute value... 8 years of WCJ and Davis, both studs, on cheap deals, for rentals. bru-tal. [...] but it undeniably makes his team much stronger in the immediate". I understand better than anybody the sacrifices necessary to push your team over the line and win, and these sorts of moves are often necessary unless you're a modern Machiavelli (aka our Dallas Mavericks) constantly churning out value for 7 years until you accidentally win without even a single win-now move. Nevertheless, giving up those guys... it's hard to see this in a positive light.
Geez this is long (and I skipped a ton of lesser trades)...
Another big trade came in the form of giving up Al Horford for Kevin Love to get an extra year of value. I wrote at the time I thought it was a tough trade to judge, and don't really have a lot to add. It was fine.
The sheer amount of moves made was staggering. It's difficult to evaluate someone who traded more than the rest of the league combined, especially against Philly, who made fewer trades but arguably didn't lose any and created more value -- but didn't make the playoffs.
What's impressive is that Nuggets managed to juggle taking on dead money for picks during the summer and still managed to turn all those moves around and contend for a championship through FA signings and trades. He made wayyyyyyy more mistakes than Philly, but he also managed to finish #2 in Points For and #1 in the Standings. We've awarded Theoretical Value awards in Discord to teams like the Blazers, and when they finally turn the corner with all those rookie scale deals and potential, they end up disappointing. While Philly churned out more value overall, I think Nuggets produced 70% of of that value and competed at a high level.
Philly and Suns stayed mostly mistake free, so despite the smaller volume the impact of those moves are all massive when you're not taking Ls. Nuggets won more FAs and trades than anyone, but also lost more FAs and trades than anyone, not dissimilar to Brett Favre being the all-time leader in touchdowns and interceptions. But Nuggets still threw more TDs than interceptions, and the end-result was serious value creation and championship contention, something Philly lacks.
The results speak for themselves: #1 in the standings and #2 in points for. I honestly believe the Suns were out of reach for the Nuggets heading into the playoffs given the win-now trades he made at the deadline, but this is an EOTY thread, not a championship thread, and the Suns were a much better team heading into the 2019-2020 off-season, and the Nuggets did an excellent job closing the gap. Philly created more value, made fewer mistakes, and has as strong of a case for EOTY, but for me, going from missing the playoffs to the #1 seed pushes him over the top for me. I wouldn't argue anyone choosing the 76ers, though, they're just as worthy.