2022-2023 Executive of the Year Awards

[Minnesota Timberwolves]

Basketball Guru 2022-2023 Executive of the Year Awards

Welcome friends, to the 2022-23 Executive of the Year Award. The wait is over, and I’m excited to finally have forced myself to continue this great tradition in our league. When this award was last handed out, at the end of the 2020-21 season, Basketball Guru’s Commissioner Emeritus/dormant god-emperor Mavs wrote in his sign-off, “The single most defining aspect of Basketball Guru in 2021… is that the quality of GMing has really reached new heights. Gone are the days of an easy lowball for an emerging star that has formed many of the great roster cores of years past, there is no easy route to the top any more..” and I don’t think I can do better than to echo that sentiment here, at the beginning of our 23-24 campaign. Two years later, we are enduring an unprecedented era of both stability and competence among our GMs. As a person who refuses to spend money on fantasy basketball, I can tell you I have yet to encounter another free league that has anything like our level of buy-in, and as your current commissioner I just want to thank you all for your continuing to be here and do this with us. It’s not like I can say this is a league that runs itself, but I can’t say enough about how nice it is not to have to worry about searching for replacement managers who have what it takes to hack it with us.

A few things have changed though, as franchises have pushed in their chips and others have cashed out, and this past season saw both teams that reached the finals do so for the first time in their franchise histories. It’s little surprise we’ve got some new teams here in the EOTY club, too, but first--

Honorable Mention: Philadelphia 76ers

I’m almost sure Sixers got a vote only because they had the temerity to vote for themselves in the poll I did earlier this summer, but I thought I’d give them a shout-out for managing to acquire Chet Holmgren, Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker and Jaylen Williams *and* manage to have it go badly enough they were in a position to draft Scoot. If it doesn’t go a lot better this season, we may need to have a real discussion about if Guru Sixers has disturbed an ancient burial ground or something. Anyway.

Runner up: Milwaukee Bucks

I was joking about Sixers, but the Bucks have been arguably the most cursed franchise across the history of Basketball Guru, so it’s pretty great to see them put together a title run. Bucks started with a solid draft (I don’t know that anyone was out on Jabari Smith after his rocky start, but it is nabbing Walker Kessler in the second round that really makes this one pop), and followed it up with the splashy off-season free agency acquisitions of Steph Curry and Christian Wood. But perhaps no move better characterizes Bucks’ turn around season than finally saying goodbye to Paul George, a move that factually returned Kevin Porter Jr. and the room to make those splashy off-season signings but has the vibes of lifting a curse. Bucks followed this with some light work during the season (a nice trade for Chris Paul, signing Tyus Jones twice, etc.), but it was this excellent off-season that set up this stellar season. Nice work, Bucks!

2022-23 Executive of the Year Winner: Washington Wizards

Wizards ran a textbook “pushing in the chips” season. A stockpile of picks years in the building (and a couple of solid young players, including 2022 draft hit Andrew Nembhard) were exchanged for the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Damian Lillard, Jimmy Butler, OG Anunoby and Devin Booker in a series of moves that took advantage of the year’s most prominent franchise detonations and instantly transformed this squad into one to watch out for. Wizards supplemented this core with an off-season free agency class that clearly centered around distressed/undervalued assets (Gordon Hayward, Russel Westbrook, Daniel Gafford), and a regular season free agency group that reads like riding a series of waves (Max Strus, Caleb Martin, Jordan Goodwin, Aaron Nesmith). All in all, it was a very well executed all-in season that came up just short—not the first time that’s happened around here, certainly not the last. This is a well deserved EOTY, and I look forward to watching what looks like an interesting off-season for the Washington Wizards franchise.

Belated: 2021-22 Executive of the Year Winner: Phoenix Suns

Tying up some loose ends, I’m going to officially ratify the 2020 EOTY. I’d also like to formally name Phoenix Suns the 2021-22 Executive of the Year. Outside of this past season’s extremely committed tank-job, the Suns have always been a top tier organization in our league, but this was a season where they did particularly good work. Most notably, a series of trades sent out Talen Horton-Tucker, Ivica Zubac, Kevin Love, the pick that would become Moses Moody and a couple of seconds for the opportunity to draft Scottie Barnes, Alperen Sengun and Franz Wagner. Most of these trades were hands down wins (especially with hindsight), but the one that reads the most like a called shot was moving from #11 to #10 at the cost of a 2nd rounder to nab Sengun over Moody. All of this to say, Suns absolutely smashed this draft, setting the franchise up to be competitive long after that iteration of their core ages out (hindsight again: or were traded away), but also putting the team in a position to level out after a rocky start and contend for the title.

…while I am making these retroactive decisions to help smooth over the continuity of one of our prestigious traditions, I am not going to do the research to decide a runner-up for the 2021-22 season. The prospect of doing so nearly prevented me from doing this at all. I hope when the graphic is updated for our league history book, Suns puts that ridiculous Time “Person of the Year: YOU” cover there, or something equally goofy.