The Ringer: Top 5 NBA Executives and Coaches

[GQ Hot Dog]

Reread what I wrote, I said those who can admit to wishing their decline into existence have integrity. It's totally understandable for a rival fan to do so.

Those without integrity are the ones trying to undermine the Warriors success over the last decade by claiming it was all luck or some such BS. We've achieved what we did through great drafting, great FA signings and great coaching. You don't go to the Finals out of the stacked WC 5 years in a row without all those things and I don't think it should be too much for a fan of another team to acknowledge.

It shouldn't be hard for writers at The Ringer to acknowledge either but here we are.

Yeah I'm 100% with you. Sure we had a crap season this season, but we didn't have 2/3 of our main stars and we jettisoned a whole bunch of our team.

You can't just ignore what is arguably the best or second best 5 year run of any team in history.

I will ignore it. If you guys don’t luck into KD you might have one ring, one finals loss, and possibly that’s it.

Your most recent transaction was trading an all star in D Russ for Andrew Wiggins and you haven’t hit a draft pick in like 7 years. A main guy (West) in making those decisions is now gone.

Curry/Klay/Wiggins/Draymond don’t scare people as much as prime KD, prime Curry, Prime Klay, and prime Draymond (plus Iggy and whoever else).

Again, if it wasn’t for KD, you could be a one time champion. You deserve no more respect than any other one time champion because as far as anyone is concerned, your KD titles mean nothing to how your team is now, and it means nothing to Kerr or Myers as HC’s or GM’s.

The psychology of some Raptors fans is fascinating. You're so insecure, I'm embarrassed for your sake to witness it.

We are one of the greatest dynasties in basketball history, consecutive Finals appearances second only to the Boston Celtics when the NBA was in its childhood. It took brutal injuries to two of our starters for you to win and we still came within a couple buckets of forcing a game seven.

After all that your star still left and now it's all over for you, back to mediocrity and the treadmill. No chance to prove you belong in the conversation as a dynasty, doomed to be forgotten as a single line item among the league's great franchises with multiple championships.

[MagicBagley18]

Celtics top 5 coach top 5 gm top 5 player under 25...not too shabby

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Green font?

No I don’t....he drafted a superstar in Tatum. Fringe all star/ possible all star player in Jaylen who can be used in a trade and it’s been discussed ad nauseam about why he didn’t make certain deals. Tatum is the superstar and Tatum is the path to sustained success the next 6 years.

kawhi left for LA after winning a ring, AD never wanted to play here, meh on jimmy butler. Only 1 I regret is PG. we are golden. Every year people bury ainge and the Celtics and every year they are wrong.
Now we put everything into making Tatum the best player he can, while being a consistent well run competitive franchise- if Jaylen develops into an all Star we can keep him or trade him.

[YogurtProducer]

Yeah I'm 100% with you. Sure we had a crap season this season, but we didn't have 2/3 of our main stars and we jettisoned a whole bunch of our team.

You can't just ignore what is arguably the best or second best 5 year run of any team in history.

I will ignore it. If you guys don’t luck into KD you might have one ring, one finals loss, and possibly that’s it.

Your most recent transaction was trading an all star in D Russ for Andrew Wiggins and you haven’t hit a draft pick in like 7 years. A main guy (West) in making those decisions is now gone.

Curry/Klay/Wiggins/Draymond don’t scare people as much as prime KD, prime Curry, Prime Klay, and prime Draymond (plus Iggy and whoever else).

Again, if it wasn’t for KD, you could be a one time champion. You deserve no more respect than any other one time champion because as far as anyone is concerned, your KD titles mean nothing to how your team is now, and it means nothing to Kerr or Myers as HC’s or GM’s.

The psychology of some Raptors fans is fascinating. You're so insecure, I'm embarrassed for your sake to witness it.

We are one of the greatest dynasties in basketball history, consecutive Finals appearances second only to the Boston Celtics when the NBA was in its childhood. It took brutal injuries to two of our starters for you to win and we still came within a couple buckets of forcing a game seven.

After all that your star still left and now it's all over for you, back to mediocrity and the treadmill. No chance to prove you belong in the conversation as a dynasty, doomed to be forgotten as a single line item among the league's great franchises with multiple championships.

I didn’t bring up Toronto even once, so not sure how I’m insecure.

Your dynasty was built based off a one one cap increase in which a top 2 player took the easy way out and joined your team. There was no planning by GS here (like the Clippers did for PG and Kawhi), it was simply all luck.

Warriors fans need to accept no one respects the last 3 years.

[Dollop]

Masai is legit one of the top overall assets in the NBA.

[prefontaine]

I will ignore it. If you guys don’t luck into KD you might have one ring, one finals loss, and possibly that’s it.

Your most recent transaction was trading an all star in D Russ for Andrew Wiggins and you haven’t hit a draft pick in like 7 years. A main guy (West) in making those decisions is now gone.

Curry/Klay/Wiggins/Draymond don’t scare people as much as prime KD, prime Curry, Prime Klay, and prime Draymond (plus Iggy and whoever else).

Again, if it wasn’t for KD, you could be a one time champion. You deserve no more respect than any other one time champion because as far as anyone is concerned, your KD titles mean nothing to how your team is now, and it means nothing to Kerr or Myers as HC’s or GM’s.

The psychology of some Raptors fans is fascinating. You're so insecure, I'm embarrassed for your sake to witness it.

We are one of the greatest dynasties in basketball history, consecutive Finals appearances second only to the Boston Celtics when the NBA was in its childhood. It took brutal injuries to two of our starters for you to win and we still came within a couple buckets of forcing a game seven.

After all that your star still left and now it's all over for you, back to mediocrity and the treadmill. No chance to prove you belong in the conversation as a dynasty, doomed to be forgotten as a single line item among the league's great franchises with multiple championships.

I didn’t bring up Toronto even once, so not sure how I’m insecure.

Your dynasty was built based off a one one cap increase in which a top 2 player took the easy way out and joined your team. There was no planning by GS here (like the Clippers did for PG and Kawhi), it was simply all luck.

Warriors fans need to accept no one respects the last 3 years.

lol I don't think we need to accept anything. It was pretty fun when we kicked all your asses up and down the floor for years and the basketball produced was fun to watch.

[God Squad]

Still crazy to look back that Masai turned Demar and Valanciunas (+Poetl, Delon Wright) into Kawhi and Marc Gasol (and Danny green).

Both trades were absolute fleecings. Val has been good for Memphis and the trade made sense for them, but Gasol was still expected to fetch better value than that.

Anyone watching the spurs close enough to judge Jakob Poeltl? Stats are pretty nasty and the on - off is awesome as well. Given his low minutes there has to be an issue here, but the guy grades out as a potential stud if he can sustain that for 30 minutes a game.

Shhh Raptors tryna lure him back this offseason

[God Squad]

Celtics top 5 coach top 5 gm top 5 player under 25...not too shabby

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown).
For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

[God Squad]

This made me realize that whoever owns the Raps should be getting a lot of credit but I don't even know who it is. Seems to be a group of people from what I just read by googling, but whoever is the managing owner who made call on the Masai and Nurse hires should be better known and get his due credit.

The Raptors are owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chaired by Larry Tanenbaum. MLSE happens to be run by Rogers Communications (also own the Blue Jays) and Bell Communications. These two corporations own multiple assets and control the majority of the media content.

The person who deserves credit for bringing in Masai Ujiri is none other than Tim Leiweke, sharing a similar philosophy and mindset of having a winner's mentality. Leiweke left MLSE in 2015 but set us up for success despite his short stint and it was evident we were in good hands with Ujiri. It came full circle when Ujiri said "believe in this city, believe in yourselves" most recently. I remember Leiweke talking about championships and turning the Raptors into contenders as soon as he arrived when Bargnani was still the cornerstone.

There was an immediate shift in culture when Leiweke became President and CEO of MLSE that has really shaped the franchise and has been a staple of our organization ever since. He left before seeing all the fruits of his labor come together, but he in large part deserves a huge amount of the credit.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

If I recall isnt helping bring Seattle back to the NBA? If so Seattle basketball is in good hands.

[Duffman100]

Masai number 1 executive for sure, Nurse number 1 coach? Nah, I doubt it, he's probably top 5 tough. He can thank Fred Van Vleet for that perspective though, if he doesn't break out of that brutal playoff slump and the Raptors lose to the Bucks, no one is talking about Nurse as even an average coach.

Nurse is definitely top 5 and should definitely be in the conversation for top coach of the year.

Only the Celtics rivalled the Raptors for overall injuries (amongst playoff teams) and somehow the Raptors have the 2nd best record in the east, 3rd in the league.

They had to start Patrick McCaw and give Stanley Johnson playing time and they were still winning games. Nurse is incredible.

[God Squad]

TBH I'm somewhat a fan of Kerr, but Pop/Spo/Nurse/Carlisle seem comfortably ahead. Same for Bud.

Not much an argument against Nurse and Ujiri being there. I might argue against Ujiri but what the Raps have done is amazing and though I don't know if he's the best (IDK if you can say for sure anyone is) he's one of the best.

I got Ujiri #1, but have Sam Presti following. What he did to the Clippers and Rockets was amazing. Fleeced them while staying competitive.

[bondom34]

TBH I'm somewhat a fan of Kerr, but Pop/Spo/Nurse/Carlisle seem comfortably ahead. Same for Bud.

Not much an argument against Nurse and Ujiri being there. I might argue against Ujiri but what the Raps have done is amazing and though I don't know if he's the best (IDK if you can say for sure anyone is) he's one of the best.

I got Ujiri #1, but have Sam Presti following. What he did to the Clippers and Rockets was amazing. Fleeced them while staying competitive.

I'm actually probably a bit lower on Presti due to the seasons from 13-16, but he's solid as well. I've liked what the Clippers have done and Houston's been consistently successful. Same for Boston under Ainge.

[cupcakesnake]

Celtics top 5 coach top 5 gm top 5 player under 25...not too shabby

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown).
For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

While obviously the imagination of what Boston could have done (Butler, Kawhi, George and AD were all considered realistic targets within a similar time frame), Boston's caution means that they have the team that they have. That team still looks primed for a decade of Eastern Conference contender status. They core of Tatum, Jaylen and Smart are all under 25. They still have 2 extra first round picks while owning all of their own. They probably wont be able to go free agent hunting again (especially if the cap is going down), but I don't think Boston has much to be upset about. I would like to read a comprehensive story of Boston's treasure trove of assets and exactly what happened with them all. Has no one written that yet? Someone send me a link!

Anyone watching the spurs close enough to judge Jakob Poeltl? Stats are pretty nasty and the on - off is awesome as well. Given his low minutes there has to be an issue here, but the guy grades out as a potential stud if he can sustain that for 30 minutes a game.

Shhh Raptors tryna lure him back this offseason

Would be a great long term Gasol solution for them next. Long live the bench mob.

[JayMKE]

IDK its hard to rank guys by number and that's always going to lead to recency bias or on flipside uplift guys who the game passed by, I rather do tiers.

[God Squad]

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown).
For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

While obviously the imagination of what Boston could have done (Butler, Kawhi, George and AD were all considered realistic targets within a similar time frame), Boston's caution means that they have the team that they have. That team still looks primed for a decade of Eastern Conference contender status. They core of Tatum, Jaylen and Smart are all under 25. They still have 2 extra first round picks while owning all of their own. They probably wont be able to go free agent hunting again (especially if the cap is going down), but I don't think Boston has much to be upset about. I would like to read a comprehensive story of Boston's treasure trove of assets and exactly what happened with them all. Has no one written that yet? Someone send me a link!

Anyone watching the spurs close enough to judge Jakob Poeltl? Stats are pretty nasty and the on - off is awesome as well. Given his low minutes there has to be an issue here, but the guy grades out as a potential stud if he can sustain that for 30 minutes a game.

Shhh Raptors tryna lure him back this offseason

Would be a great long term Gasol solution for them next. Long live the bench mob.

Of course Boston has nothing to be upset about. But out of all there picks you named the only ones that matter Tatum and Brown. None of the others amount to anything. I'd even argue Ainge has been mediocre at drafting as if late. I would love a detailed write up on the "Boston War chest" because I was definitely a believer. Anyways there still in good position for fleecing Philly while taking their guy Tatum (DA gets A+). They have their star to build around.

[mademan]

While obviously the imagination of what Boston could have done (Butler, Kawhi, George and AD were all considered realistic targets within a similar time frame), Boston's caution means that they have the team that they have. That team still looks primed for a decade of Eastern Conference contender status. They core of Tatum, Jaylen and Smart are all under 25. They still have 2 extra first round picks while owning all of their own. They probably wont be able to go free agent hunting again (especially if the cap is going down), but I don't think Boston has much to be upset about. I would like to read a comprehensive story of Boston's treasure trove of assets and exactly what happened with them all. Has no one written that yet? Someone send me a link!

Boston is being critiqued and punished based on expectations. There was some redemption with the Tatum breakout this season, but turn the clock back 2 years ago and they were a cant miss dynasty to be. Went to 7 games without Kyrie/Hayward and Tatum and Brown put on a show in the playoffs. They were expected to win the East pretty handily but have been, at best, the 3rd best over the past 2 seasons.

In a vacuum, Brown/Tatum is near as good a young core you'll find in the league. It's just a far cry from what they were poised to be

[MagicBagley18]

Celtics top 5 coach top 5 gm top 5 player under 25...not too shabby

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown).
For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

So except for the top 3 picks one whose a franchise superstar player potentially and the other with all star potential (who both were obtained in the Brooklyn deal) he drafted crap players- ok. many “fans and analysts “ thought they were doomed when kyrie and horford left yet here we are 3 games behind your mighty raptors with just as good as a chance to go to the finals.

Totally disagree that kemba Walker Jayson Tatum and brown aren’t quality players. that’s not even close to being true. As far as Brooklyn goes on paper yes they should be really really good. Unfortunately on paper doesn’t mean anything as Celtics fans know because injuries and other things come into play.

Lastly you talk about all these wasted assets- trading for a rental of AD is a wasted asset. Trading for kawhi who was never going to stay = wasted asset. So again your just not being consistent. Also completely disregarded that he did use assets to get kyrie- who left yet here we are still in the conversation and will be for several more years to come bc of Tatum

[MagicBagley18]

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown).
For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

While obviously the imagination of what Boston could have done (Butler, Kawhi, George and AD were all considered realistic targets within a similar time frame), Boston's caution means that they have the team that they have. That team still looks primed for a decade of Eastern Conference contender status. They core of Tatum, Jaylen and Smart are all under 25. They still have 2 extra first round picks while owning all of their own. They probably wont be able to go free agent hunting again (especially if the cap is going down), but I don't think Boston has much to be upset about. I would like to read a comprehensive story of Boston's treasure trove of assets and exactly what happened with them all. Has no one written that yet? Someone send me a link!

Anyone watching the spurs close enough to judge Jakob Poeltl? Stats are pretty nasty and the on - off is awesome as well. Given his low minutes there has to be an issue here, but the guy grades out as a potential stud if he can sustain that for 30 minutes a game.

Shhh Raptors tryna lure him back this offseason

Would be a great long term Gasol solution for them next. Long live the bench mob.

Exactly...also talking about wasted assets and the saying he didn’t trade for 1 year rentals is so hypothetical.

[HotelVitale]

Celtics top 5 coach top 5 gm top 5 player under 25...not too shabby

but you hope ainge does something with his assets.. right now it's starting to feel like he had poor asset management when he stock piled so many picks but didnt use them to get a big name.. it'll seem that way if he doesnt end up getting deep into playoffs.

Danny Ainge definitely wasted his assets. Many fans and analysts thought they'd be the team to beat in the future with all the draft picks they stockpiled. Those same assets turned into mostly crap players not including (Tatum, brown). For instance Brooklyn for all there asset trading are right back in the playoff hunt and have been before Kyrie and KD. Boston while good don't have the ceiling the Brooklyn has because they couldn't parlay their assets into quality players.

This is a weak argument, both the reasoning and the actual facts. The reasoning of judging a GM based on results alone is pointless--so much of actual outcomes is luck and unforeseeable things, and the only way to actually talk about this is judging the moves that were made at the time based on what people knew then. Masai for example shouldn't get mega points for trading for Kawhi while Ainge gets hit for not trading for him: Masai's decision was incredibly simple since the Spurs were willing to swap Kawhi+Green for a problematic player that TOR was half looking to move on from (Derozan) and some other non-essential assets. IIRC Ainge was asked for Tatum and Brown, or something like that (my Sixers were told 'Simmons or Embiid or no deal'). And the Nets have done a nice job but they just got mega-extraordinary lucky that KD chose them, they deserve some credit for clearing things up for that possibility but it's much much more a luck thing (and the benefit of being in NYC) than a fully earned move.

Also Ainge's assets whittled down largely for things that have nothing to do with him: MEM and SAC should've given him top 5-8 picks each of the last two years, and both of them had some of strangest one-year turnarounds we've seen in the last 20 years. That's just really bad luck. Also BOS got Kemba Walker for nothing and kept all their assets, pretty good work if you ask me. Also I'm not sure why you're praising BKN for being a bad 8th seed a few times and not seeing how Ainge has kept BOS mostly deep into the PO for like 12 years now, despite things like Kyrie kickin rocks for non-basketball reasons and Hayward snapping his leg as soon as he got there.

[Cactus Jack]

This made me realize that whoever owns the Raps should be getting a lot of credit but I don't even know who it is. Seems to be a group of people from what I just read by googling, but whoever is the managing owner who made call on the Masai and Nurse hires should be better known and get his due credit.

The Raptors are owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment chaired by Larry Tanenbaum. MLSE happens to be run by Rogers Communications (also own the Blue Jays) and Bell Communications. These two corporations own multiple assets and control the majority of the media content.

The person who deserves credit for bringing in Masai Ujiri is none other than Tim Leiweke, sharing a similar philosophy and mindset of having a winner's mentality. Leiweke left MLSE in 2015 but set us up for success despite his short stint and it was evident we were in good hands with Ujiri. It came full circle when Ujiri said "believe in this city, believe in yourselves" most recently. I remember Leiweke talking about championships and turning the Raptors into contenders as soon as he arrived when Bargnani was still the cornerstone.

There was an immediate shift in culture when Leiweke became President and CEO of MLSE that has really shaped the franchise and has been a staple of our organization ever since. He left before seeing all the fruits of his labor come together, but he in large part deserves a huge amount of the credit.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

If I recall isnt helping bring Seattle back to the NBA? If so Seattle basketball is in good hands.

Leiweke (His company) is building the arena in Seattle. But yes, he's part of the NHL group (New Expansion team) along with his brother (Tod), who is the CEO.

Leiweke wants to bring the NBA back to Seattle. But they are primarily focused on Hockey (2021 Expansion) at the moment. When the NBA finally decides to expand, then the NBA will be back. Leiweke a big reason why (1st-NHL, 2nd-NBA).

[Cactus Jack]

Execs:
1. Jerry West

It's not a debate folks.

2-5 in some order:

Masai
Morey
Ainge
Riley


Trying to rank coaches is kind of dumb. Talent wins in Basketball.