The Ringer: Top 5 NBA Executives and Coaches

[Jadoogar]

Eric Spoelstra? Rick Carlisle? Gregg Popovich? Was this list created in 2013 or something? What has any of these guys done lately?

Spoelstra and Carlisle have done a great job with their current rosters. Spoelstra in particular has gotten a lot out of relatively unknown guys like Herro, Robinson and Nunn, not to mention the incredible improvement by Bam.

[Jadoogar]

Anyway, back to why this was posted --- yeah OP the Raptors have sick leadership. I hope they can keep this together long term like the Spurs managed with Buford and Pop. I would agree that Ujiri is the best in the business, and Nurse belongs in the discussion(He is my clear COY this year, but I still have respect for some of the guys who have done it for longer--Pop,Spo,Doc, Carlisle).

Raptors are proving to be one of the premier franchises in the Association for sure.

I feel like Erik Spoelstra is massively overrated. When you take away Lebron, he coaches his teams up to a borderline playoff level, at best, sometimes lottery. This, despite the Heat's vaunted player development system. Spo and the Heat have bounced back this year, but that's mainly because of Jimmy Butler, who's elevated 3 franchises (Bulls, Wolves, Sixers and now Heat), so it's not really because of Spo.

Nick Nurse lost Kawhi AND Danny Green.... 2 top notch multi-position, wing defenders & starters, who are also deadly 3-pt shooters... and yet the Raptors have somehow improved this year? That's what I would have expected to see from Spoelstra.

Jimmy butler is good for sure but his stats aren't mind blowing, pretty poor shooting numbers, only 25% from three. The main reason the Heat have performed so well this year is Spo getting so much out of the relatively young supporting cast and the star turn from Bam.

[G R E Y]

Spoiler:

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.

His advanced stats are likely overselling him a bit because he usually is playing against bench units and his usage is somewhat matchup dependent, but he is an elite rim protector and not as bad on the perimeter as one might think considering he looks kind stiff.
On offense he provides no spacing whatsoever as he doesn't shoot 3s and his mid range isn't a weapon defenses concern themselves with even a little bit, but he's a great screen setter and seems content to be a roll man and put-back guy.
I really hope the Spurs lock him up long term for a reasonable deal. His game is more old school than modern, but I think he's a great fit for a young perimeter attacking offense like the Spurs seem to be building toward.

Poetl has excellent feet for a guy that tall. In San Antonio, he's quietly become a bit more solid than he was in Toronto: stronger rebounding and passing to compliment his rim protection and surprising switchability. He should be a started in this league, but he's in a pretty crappy situation in San Antonio, who needs Aldridge on the floor to provide spacing for their army of poor shooting guards. We should get to see some extended minutes from him in the bubble with Aldridge out injured.

Jakob is on the second unit because LMA is a starting calibre big who defends and shoots 3s. With Trey as the other 3 shooting big, that 4/5 combo balances out with Rudy (who shoots 3s) and Jakob (who obviously doesn't). Weird that you think Jakob is being wasted behind LMA but think it would be perfectly fine to have him as part of the TO bench again. In interviews, Jakob has several times mentioned how different things are with Spurs with respect to development and learning the sets - it's a lot to take in and takes time. He's being developed focusing from D out. In that respect, he's flourished, but he is not done developing, especially on O. He's been terrific as part of the transition movement unit.

Spoiler:

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.

But it's not luck is it? We sold KD on the project and he was into it. That's called having a great recruiting process. Was there some luck involved? Yes, of course - luck exists in every business - the Raptors likely got "lucky" with Kawhi.

You're creating a strawman - no one on this thread is arguing about "respect" or any of that crap. We're arguing about whether a warrior coach or exec should be one of the top 5 in the league and that's a no-brainer.

Let me take you where you're at - I'll still show you, you have no point.

Suppose that what you say happens - we don't get KD AND we don't win anymore titles (not that I agree with you, I'm going to take your premise and show you how you're still wrong). This is still a perennial WCF/Finals contender with one championship and 2 MVP awards and a 73 win team.

That's more than what Brad Stevens, Lawrence Frank, Sam Presti, Danny Ainge and Masai Ujiri have done in the last 5 years. Hell if anything your argument should also knock Lawrence Frank off the list, because he basically "lucked" into Paul George and Kawhi Leonard (your words not mine).

In a similar vein, in the last 5 years

1. The Spurs screwed up their relationship with their franchise centerpiece (this is on Pop too)
2. Rick Carlisle is on this list, but Steve Kerr's record in his entire time as Warriors coach is blows him out of the water. Hell Steve Kerr's record from *before* KD blows Carlisle out of the water (and that's not small sample size)
3. Kerr has 100% done better than Spoelstra.

I don't need to argue that the Warriors execs and coach are the best in the league. I just need to argue that they are better than exactly one person on either list...which isn't that hard to do.

Your ball.

Spurs 'screwed up' their relationship in the same way TO and LAL did - not caving to roster demands at too high a cost to the long-term assets of the teams, and not giving behind-the-scenes perks ie/ ownership stake demands to Duncle. It's just that PATFO had to put up with it for far longer, from at least 2016 as far as we now know. He was always going to LA from 2016 onwards. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to facilitate it and see how much extra they could get along the way.

[Jadoogar]

Myers gets exec of the year twice in the last 5 years and yet somehow he's not top 5?

Lawrence Frank is top 5 even though everyone knows that Jerry West is the decision maker in the org?

Daryl Morey is 2nd presiding over a capped out roster of players that have never and will never get over the hump and he's traded away 5 of his team's next 7 1st round picks?

These lists are mindless garbage.

Lawrence Frank should get very little credit for Kawhi. There was no recruitment at all.... Kawhi basically had his mind made up: Clippers or Lakers. He just wanted to play in his hometown and that's been consistent since he forced his way out of San Antonio. And it's debatable whether the Lakers even had a chance for a couple reasons: (a) Kawhi not wanting to team up with Lebron & (b) Steve Ballmer depositing untold millions into Uncle Dennis' (a banking executive) off-shore bank accounts.

The main credit I would give Lawrence Frank is/was accumulating the assets to allow OKC to shake down the Clips to acquire Paul George - one of the all-stars that Kawhi wanted to team with. PG13 or not, I still think Kawhi is going to the Clippers, hell or high water.

My favorite exec on this list is Presti because he Billy King-ed both the Clippers and the Rockets, two rival orgs. Everyone knows by now not to get Billy King-ed yet he did it twice in the same freakin offseason!

And since Presti did that, how do they have Frank and Morey on the list too? Morey took a bigger chance because Westbrook is a lot shakier next to Harden than George is next to Kawhi but it's still two franchises that mortgaged their futures in the most reckless way possible. Neither belong on a top 5 list.

They were fantastic trades for sure but "billy king'd" might be a little too strong. Pierce and KG were 36 and 37 respectively at the time of the trade. PG and Westbrook are basically in their prime.
No shots at Presti, he has done a fantastic job in a tough situation. Even the initial trade to get PG was awesome.

[RoyceDa59]

Can't believe the Raptors are finally one of the model franchises. Never thought this day would come. While there is some recently biased built in, it's still hard to imagine trading Masai/Nurse for any other combo.

I think Riley/Spoelstra, West/Doc, Buford/Pop, Ainge/Stevens are also great combos, and I'm sure there are others.

[cupcakesnake]

Spoiler:

His advanced stats are likely overselling him a bit because he usually is playing against bench units and his usage is somewhat matchup dependent, but he is an elite rim protector and not as bad on the perimeter as one might think considering he looks kind stiff.
On offense he provides no spacing whatsoever as he doesn't shoot 3s and his mid range isn't a weapon defenses concern themselves with even a little bit, but he's a great screen setter and seems content to be a roll man and put-back guy.
I really hope the Spurs lock him up long term for a reasonable deal. His game is more old school than modern, but I think he's a great fit for a young perimeter attacking offense like the Spurs seem to be building toward.

Poetl has excellent feet for a guy that tall. In San Antonio, he's quietly become a bit more solid than he was in Toronto: stronger rebounding and passing to compliment his rim protection and surprising switchability. He should be a started in this league, but he's in a pretty crappy situation in San Antonio, who needs Aldridge on the floor to provide spacing for their army of poor shooting guards. We should get to see some extended minutes from him in the bubble with Aldridge out injured.

Jakob is on the second unit because LMA is a starting calibre big who defends and shoots 3s. With Trey as the other 3 shooting big, that 4/5 combo balances out with Rudy (who shoots 3s) and Jakob (who obviously doesn't). Weird that you think Jakob is being wasted behind LMA but think it would be perfectly fine to have him as part of the TO bench again. In interviews, Jakob has several times mentioned how different things are with Spurs with respect to development and learning the sets - it's a lot to take in and takes time. He's being developed focusing from D out. In that respect, he's flourished, but he is not done developing, especially on O. He's been terrific as part of the transition movement unit.

I didn't mean to hate on San Antonio, and I in no way meant to imply that the only reason Aldridge was starting (instead of Poetl) was the necessity of shooting. Obviously LMA is San Antonio's best player. I wasn't questioning Popovic's rotation choices either or saying that Poetl not playing more is any kind of travesty. Aldridge is crucial to San Antonio on both ends. Not only because of his talent level, but because the Spurs have to constantly puzzle how to play a non-shooting/non-defending scoring guard (Demar), and a non-shooting defensive specialist (Dejounte). In theory, Poetl could play more minutes right now on a more balanced roster. Poetl has his own limitations as a non-shooter. All in all, like many, I find San Antonio is full of difficult pieces to put on a court together. In terms of a transition, does Poetl fit with Dejounte, White, Walker? I'm curious to know the hierarchy in terms of who is most valued as a building block amongst their guys 25 and under.

I also didn't say anything about adding him to Toronto's bench. Toronto's center rotation is a 35 year old pending free agent Marc Gasol, and another pending 30+ year old free agent in Ibaka. It wouldn't be surprising for them to pursue Poetl considering that he was a big part of the culture shift in Toronto along with Siakam, Van Vleet and Nick Nurse. I don't think the Raptors are going to be in a position to outbid San Antonio for Poetl's services, but it's not hard to imagine the mutual appeal there.

[sprewellchokes]

Hard to argue.
Trading for Kawhi AND Gasol was a coup for Toronto, an Nurse was masterful in the playoffs this season -- successfully mixing in aggressive zone concepts with man defense, and successfully blending Kawhi's iso skills with a team-oriented offense.
Kawhi is a great player and all, but really feels like his supporting cast, including the coaching staff, gets short shrift in that title run.

. I wouldn’t be offended by that. The Us media tried to label the team “lebron to” hoping the team fizzled out. So they can hype more inexperienced east teams in “bigger markets “ all while ignoring or discrediting the team. That didn’t work and the raptors won the championship. So their new narrative is “you’re nothing without kawhi. You’ll fade out to any opponent because kawhi doesn’t want you. Where ever kawhi goes championship follow. You are a nothing franchise again.” So of course fans that don’t follow the team will eat any narrative they make up. So here we are the raptors have two all stars, the third best record in the league and the games best coach. With a promise from the us media of a flameout. And a promise that kawhi will carry a washed pg Patrick beverly and zubac to a chip. So we’ll have to see how this all plays out.

[G R E Y]

Spoiler:

Poetl has excellent feet for a guy that tall. In San Antonio, he's quietly become a bit more solid than he was in Toronto: stronger rebounding and passing to compliment his rim protection and surprising switchability. He should be a started in this league, but he's in a pretty crappy situation in San Antonio, who needs Aldridge on the floor to provide spacing for their army of poor shooting guards. We should get to see some extended minutes from him in the bubble with Aldridge out injured.

Jakob is on the second unit because LMA is a starting calibre big who defends and shoots 3s. With Trey as the other 3 shooting big, that 4/5 combo balances out with Rudy (who shoots 3s) and Jakob (who obviously doesn't). Weird that you think Jakob is being wasted behind LMA but think it would be perfectly fine to have him as part of the TO bench again. In interviews, Jakob has several times mentioned how different things are with Spurs with respect to development and learning the sets - it's a lot to take in and takes time. He's being developed focusing from D out. In that respect, he's flourished, but he is not done developing, especially on O. He's been terrific as part of the transition movement unit.

I didn't mean to hate on San Antonio, and I in no way meant to imply that the only reason Aldridge was starting (instead of Poetl) was the necessity of shooting. Obviously LMA is San Antonio's best player. I wasn't questioning Popovic's rotation choices either or saying that Poetl not playing more is any kind of travesty. Aldridge is crucial to San Antonio on both ends. Not only because of his talent level, but because the Spurs have to constantly puzzle how to play a non-shooting/non-defending scoring guard (Demar), and a non-shooting defensive specialist (Dejounte). In theory, Poetl could play more minutes right now on a more balanced roster. Poetl has his own limitations as a non-shooter. All in all, like many, I find San Antonio is full of difficult pieces to put on a court together. In terms of a transition, does Poetl fit with Dejounte, White, Walker? I'm curious to know the hierarchy in terms of who is most valued as a building block amongst their guys 25 and under.

I also didn't say anything about adding him to Toronto's bench. Toronto's center rotation is a 35 year old pending free agent Marc Gasol, and another pending 30+ year old free agent in Ibaka. It wouldn't be surprising for them to pursue Poetl considering that he was a big part of the culture shift in Toronto along with Siakam, Van Vleet and Nick Nurse. I don't think the Raptors are going to be in a position to outbid San Antonio for Poetl's services, but it's not hard to imagine the mutual appeal there.

It's ok, I was just clarifying. Sometimes people who don't follow teams as closely (I assume fans follow their own teams far more) may have more general ideas about what's going on. You are right that we're a team in transition right now in terms of playing around two mid-rangers essentially while the younger group develops. This season we saw more of the contrast in styles as the younger group flexed its muscles a bit in transition. We'll see more of it going forward as more movement, .5 passing, and transition is stressed from the G-League out.

You mentioned Jakob as part of TO bench in a subsequent post to someone else that I neglected to include in my response so it likely sort of stuck out without context. But I do think Jakob can play with DJ - who, by the way, has improved in every shooting category on more attempts this season, so he's coming along, though he's yet to play a full season as a starter in his NBA career so far - and Lonnie and Keldon et al. He already fits into the uptempo style with Derrick on the bench, and actually did start alongside LMA last season in the playoffs, but like you said roster balance necessitated his move back to the bench. I think we like him as part of that uptempo group that looks to be the next wave of players and style of play. Jakob will be a RFA so we get right to match. He's said he likes being with us and I know we like him so we'll see how things progress.

[sprewellchokes]

Legit never thought I’d see the day where my Raps would be getting the respect they (finally, after years of mediocrity) deserve. Happy for ‘em.

I admit lebron humiliated the team multiple times. But I never understood why they got clowned for the same success rate as any other eat team against lebron. But the team has the second best success rate behind the warriors during their run. But at the end of the day they have the same amount of rings as lebron had with Cleveland. So those losses to lebron meant nothing short or long term.

[cupcakesnake]

Jakob is on the second unit because LMA is a starting calibre big who defends and shoots 3s. With Trey as the other 3 shooting big, that 4/5 combo balances out with Rudy (who shoots 3s) and Jakob (who obviously doesn't). Weird that you think Jakob is being wasted behind LMA but think it would be perfectly fine to have him as part of the TO bench again. In interviews, Jakob has several times mentioned how different things are with Spurs with respect to development and learning the sets - it's a lot to take in and takes time. He's being developed focusing from D out. In that respect, he's flourished, but he is not done developing, especially on O. He's been terrific as part of the transition movement unit.

I didn't mean to hate on San Antonio, and I in no way meant to imply that the only reason Aldridge was starting (instead of Poetl) was the necessity of shooting. Obviously LMA is San Antonio's best player. I wasn't questioning Popovic's rotation choices either or saying that Poetl not playing more is any kind of travesty. Aldridge is crucial to San Antonio on both ends. Not only because of his talent level, but because the Spurs have to constantly puzzle how to play a non-shooting/non-defending scoring guard (Demar), and a non-shooting defensive specialist (Dejounte). In theory, Poetl could play more minutes right now on a more balanced roster. Poetl has his own limitations as a non-shooter. All in all, like many, I find San Antonio is full of difficult pieces to put on a court together. In terms of a transition, does Poetl fit with Dejounte, White, Walker? I'm curious to know the hierarchy in terms of who is most valued as a building block amongst their guys 25 and under.

I also didn't say anything about adding him to Toronto's bench. Toronto's center rotation is a 35 year old pending free agent Marc Gasol, and another pending 30+ year old free agent in Ibaka. It wouldn't be surprising for them to pursue Poetl considering that he was a big part of the culture shift in Toronto along with Siakam, Van Vleet and Nick Nurse. I don't think the Raptors are going to be in a position to outbid San Antonio for Poetl's services, but it's not hard to imagine the mutual appeal there.

It's ok, I was just clarifying. Sometimes people who don't follow teams as closely (I assume fans follow their own teams far more) may have more general ideas about what's going on. You are right that we're a team in transition right now in terms of playing around two mid-rangers essentially while the younger group develops. This season we saw more of the contrast in styles as the younger group flexed its muscles a bit in transition. We'll see more of it going forward as more movement, .5 passing, and transition is stressed from the G-League out.

You mentioned Jakob as part of TO bench in a subsequent post to someone else that I neglected to include in my response so it likely sort of stuck out without context. But I do think Jakob can play with DJ - who, by the way, has improved in every shooting category on more attempts this season, so he's coming along, though he's yet to play a full season as a starter in his NBA career so far - and Lonnie and Keldon et al. He already fits into the uptempo style with Derrick on the bench, and actually did start alongside LMA last season in the playoffs, but like you said roster balance necessitated his move back to the bench. I think we like him as part of that uptempo group that looks to be the next wave of players and style of play. Jakob will be a RFA so we get right to match. He's said he likes being with us and I know we like him so we'll see how things progress.

Yeah I think I said 'Bench mob for life', but I was just alluding to the final Demar/Casey year in Toronto where a Nick Nurse cultured bench lineup of Siakam/Poetl/CJ Miles/Delon Wright/Van Vleet were one of the best lineup in basketball and started a culture change in Toronto build around hyperactive defense and ball movement.

I really like the young guards in San Antonio, and admit to being a little frustrated at them not being able to spread their wings a bit more next to Derozan. I'm definitely watching the shooting. I think White can be/already is a solid shooter. I'm just not sure if he'll get to the point where his shooting becomes an actual plus. Dejounte flashed serious improvements from the midrange, as promised. But it's hard to imagine him punishing defenses going under screens that much. I'm not quite ready to have an opinion on Lonnie Walker besides acknowledging the speed and athleticism. I admit I didn't see Keldon Johnson play this year. Maximizing this group of players seems like they'll need a whole lot of shooting in the forward spots.

[HotelVitale]

Hard to argue. Trading for Kawhi AND Gasol was a coup for Toronto, an Nurse was masterful in the playoffs this season -- successfully mixing in aggressive zone concepts with man defense, and successfully blending Kawhi's iso skills with a team-oriented offense. Kawhi is a great player and all, but really feels like his supporting cast, including the coaching staff, gets short shrift in that title run.

. I wouldn’t be offended by that. The Us media tried to label the team “lebron to” hoping the team fizzled out. So they can hype more inexperienced east teams in “bigger markets “ all while ignoring or discrediting the team. That didn’t work and the raptors won the championship. So their new narrative is “you’re nothing without kawhi. You’ll fade out to any opponent because kawhi doesn’t want you. Where ever kawhi goes championship follow. You are a nothing franchise again.” So of course fans that don’t follow the team will eat any narrative they make up. So here we are the raptors have two all stars, the third best record in the league and the games best coach. With a promise from the us media of a flameout. And a promise that kawhi will carry a washed pg Patrick beverly and zubac to a chip. So we’ll have to see how this all plays out.

I get that in general, but it sort of seems like you're exaggerating it beyond recognition. Did the US media really go around abusing the Raptors like dominatrixes? Or were they more like 'Kawhi was the undisputed best player in the whole league in last year's PO and he sort of carried them through much of the PO, so his departure seems like it's going to set the team way back.' I like the Raptors and would much rather see them succeed than many other good teams, but them being good this year was a surprise to me because it was a surprise--their role players are playing better than ever and the team is cohesive on both ends of the court in ways that differ from earlier. Just give them credit for that improvement and observe that people slept on them, no need to claim the 'national media' (not a monolith) was blindly abusing them so they could sell more ads. (Also Toronto is a pretty massive market and the Raps have a huge following, the media that actually makes money now is all online, so it seems like they'd have a lot more to gain by hyping up TOR fans than by blasting them and promoting like Milwaukee or Denver.)

[sprewellchokes]

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.

. I honestly don’t understand the Ainge/Stevens hype. It looks like if he can’t fleece you he ain’t trading. Since pierce the only all stars he drafted was rondo and Tatum. Then he holds on to picks/prospects to long then misses players like pg ad and kawhi. One division title and one conference finals appearance in 10 years makes u the best? And who started the Stevens is the new poppovich? Was it Bill Simmons or another one of those Boston espn guys?

[sprewellchokes]

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.

haha cute story now you can go back to watching lottery balls. Sorry for interrupting you.

[Vampirate]

This thread is pretty much a brag thread.

I don't know how you;d rank coaches or executives because a lot of it depends on luck and even the best coaches and executives make mistakes, it's inevitable.

What I will give you are the top coaches and top executives I respect the most, not in any order
(going mostly off of rep and team success).

Coaches

Rick Carlisle
Brad Stevens
Mike Budenholzer
Gregg Popovich
Eric Spolestra
Quin Snyder
Steve Kerr
Nick Nurse

Honorable mentions

Mike D'Antoni
Doc Rivers
(and a little to Dwayne Casey I guess)

Executives

Danny Ainge
Daryl Morey
Jon Horst (had to look up the name lol)
Pat Riley
Jerry West
R. C. Buford
Masai Ujuri
Sam Presti
Chris Wallace (had to look up the name lol)

Honorable mentions

Bob Myers
Utah Jazz President and/or GM (whomever gets credit)
Denver Nuggets President and/or GM (whomever gets credit)
Lebron James

[sprewellchokes]

Hard to argue. Trading for Kawhi AND Gasol was a coup for Toronto, an Nurse was masterful in the playoffs this season -- successfully mixing in aggressive zone concepts with man defense, and successfully blending Kawhi's iso skills with a team-oriented offense. Kawhi is a great player and all, but really feels like his supporting cast, including the coaching staff, gets short shrift in that title run.

. I wouldn’t be offended by that. The Us media tried to label the team “lebron to” hoping the team fizzled out. So they can hype more inexperienced east teams in “bigger markets “ all while ignoring or discrediting the team. That didn’t work and the raptors won the championship. So their new narrative is “you’re nothing without kawhi. You’ll fade out to any opponent because kawhi doesn’t want you. Where ever kawhi goes championship follow. You are a nothing franchise again.” So of course fans that don’t follow the team will eat any narrative they make up. So here we are the raptors have two all stars, the third best record in the league and the games best coach. With a promise from the us media of a flameout. And a promise that kawhi will carry a washed pg Patrick beverly and zubac to a chip. So we’ll have to see how this all plays out.

I get that in general, but it sort of seems like you're exaggerating it beyond recognition. Did the US media really go around abusing the Raptors like dominatrixes? Or were they more like 'Kawhi was the undisputed best player in the whole league in last year's PO and he sort of carried them through much of the PO, so his departure seems like it's going to set the team way back.' I like the Raptors and would much rather see them succeed than many other good teams, but them being good this year was a surprise to me because it was a surprise--their role players are playing better than ever and the team is cohesive on both ends of the court in ways that differ from earlier. Just give them credit for that improvement and observe that people slept on them, no need to claim the 'national media' (not a monolith) was blindly abusing them so they could sell more ads. (Also Toronto is a pretty massive market and the Raps have a huge following, the media that actually makes money now is all online, so it seems like they'd have a lot more to gain by hyping up TOR fans than by blasting them and promoting like Milwaukee or Denver.)

Yea but we have to admit after that game 7 shot the raptors narrative was set in stone. Kawhi apparently was the only reason they were champs. Even though kawhi kept praising his teammates whenever interviewed. And when kawhi became hobbled, the narrative was already stamped. But when the raptors went on that 26-3 run against the bucks(while kawhi sat) that was the trajectory for the team. In the finals all the role players stepped up. And kawhi was more of a decoy in the finals tbh
Kawhi to me is like kd. A hired assassin that gets u over the hump. He’s not giannis or lebron where you build up or tear down your franchise over.
I still believe the media didn’t view the raptors with any rational thinking. Was such a stable franchise with their core still intact and a great head coach. Gonna fall apart because their one year rental superstar left? Was this team really stop believing in themselves because kawhi left?
To some fans the raptors were a cool story. That got carried by kawhi. And took advantage of injuries. But to fans that truly follow the team. They view them as a model franchise that redeemed themselves. And witnessed a Jordan like playoff run by Leonard. I just feel you can’t have it both ways. If you blame and clown a franchise for losing to lebron. Then you turn around and discredit their success to injuries or give it to someone who was there the shortest time
To some people they’re a one year wonder. But to me they’re like the spur or warriors. They won their first title and got discredited. The spurs (99) because of the lockout. Warriors(2015) because of injuries and that seems like the trajectory the raptors franchise is going. Not the 2019 cavs like people are projecting.

[SF_Warriors]

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.

Of the three nets picks he got from trading KG and PP, two of them are all star level talents at age 23 and 21, and one was used to trade for an all star point guard in kyrie. What assets did he waste exactly? The kings pick from the fultz trade was 14th and yea if he wouldve drafted brandon clarke they would be sitting pretty but if you would tell me those three nets picks would be used to draft two all star level wings and trade for a then 25 year old all star point guard, I would have been fine with that.

If he would have used tatum plus assets to trade for kawhi or AD, I can almost guarantee you they would have walked in FA. I would not have traded tatum and assets for butler or George, especially knowing PG wanted to go to LA.

He maybe could have gotten Butler for brown and assets, but would you rather have a 23 year old jaylen brown or 30 year old jimmy butler who was a pending free agent? Easy decision there.

Although I felt he could have gone all out and ended up with an AD, Butler, Kyrie big three which would have been very interesting.

[StojkoVrankovic]

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.

Brown/Tatum are Nets draft picks obtained from the KG/Pierce trade. Brown just signed an extension and was in contention for the all star team this season.

Tatum is signing a max this summer and is a stud.

That is amazing asset management

[Anticon]

Sadly, that was likely their "reasoning".

Looking at the list it is hard to determine the recency bias. With Lawrence Frank and Sam Presti in the top 5, that's a clear indicator of the work done in the past season. But Daryl Morey is #2, and he's clearly seen better years in terms of home runs (trading Chris Paul all those picks/swaps for a debatable worse player in Westbrook still is a head scratcher to me. Not so much getting Westbrook, but what they agreed to give up to get him).

The Spurs have been on a bad run for a while. Starting with that Pau Gasol contract ... it's been pretty bleak for the Spurs. The Kawhi/Danny Green trade was awful. The whoopsie trading away Davis Bertans to make room for Marcus Morris was a little embarrassing. I like the trio of guards they drafted (Dejounte, White and Lonnie), but that's about it.

Buford/Pop built the most impressive sustained consistency of any franchise in sports. But I don't think not having Buford as a top 5 executive in 2020 is a reason to completely dismiss the ranking.

While I think the spurs have made some bad decisions, given the context of those decisions, I'm not overly negative on them either. Their goal to contend vs rebuild was imo wrong, but given that stated goal their trade grade out fine. They have killed in in the draft. If RC isn't a top 5 guy, I'm sorry but his resume is just too good.

The Spurs as an organization need to prove themselves post-Duncan. Until then, it's unlikely theyll get much recognition.

[Anticon]

Legit never thought I’d see the day where my Raps would be getting the respect they (finally, after years of mediocrity) deserve. Happy for ‘em.

I admit lebron humiliated the team multiple times. But I never understood why they got clowned for the same success rate as any other eat team against lebron. But the team has the second best success rate behind the warriors during their run. But at the end of the day they have the same amount of rings as lebron had with Cleveland. So those losses to lebron meant nothing short or long term.

Everyone lost to LeBron, but no one lost quite like the way we lost.

I was at many of those games and I can still feel the desperate hopelessness of it.

[VancouverRaps]

Momma we made it