The Ringer: Top 5 NBA Executives and Coaches

[SF_Warriors]

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

Yup, and that third BKN pick was used to trade for a big name, and we all saw what happened where the player left as a FA. Worse case scenario keeping both tatum and brown is that the celts have two young all star caliber wings to build around. All in all, not too shabby. Worse case scenario trading for a Kawhi or AD is that they play for the celts for a season then walk.

[Curmudgeon]

I just want to know why Mike Budenholzer doesn't get more respect. He is easily a top 5 coach. I would put him ahead of Nurse and Spoelstra for sure, and possibly ahead of Stevens.

[Pennebaker]

Any list about GMs or coaches that doesn't include LeBron or Rich Paul is invalid.

sigh this tired old trope again?

Do star players and agents have tons of power? Of course they do. Are they coaches or GM's? Of course not.

I don't think this is true when it comes to LeBron and Klutch. They're something new. He's not an average star player, obviously, or even an average mega-superstar player. He is the first player in history to have his kind of internal influence.

[CIN-C-STAR]

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.

I get what you're saying in terms of offensive fit and personnel, but he could do a lot worse than having Tim Duncan as a coach and mentor. As you said, he's already shown significant improvement in his time here, and I do think he's a great fit for the defensive scheme even if the offense is clunky and congested.
And the young guys are showing improvement in terms of shooting. Both Murray and White are showing signs, Walker looks to be a pretty decent shooter and should be getting consistent minutes soon, and Samanic projects a viable stretch 4.
Rebuilds take time, especially when your picks come mid-to-late first round

[Jay 20]

How could this list not have anyone from the Warriors? Sure we've just had a **** season (due to injury), but why should that erase the last 5 years of total dominance?

Your team just traded for Andrew Wiggins and then finished dead last, somehow doing significantly worse than the Knicks or Cavs, and you think your coach and/or team executive should be ranked top 5?

Absolutely. Their success came with players who were injured all year. Put any GM/Coach from that list in charge of the same Warriors team this year and you'd get the same result.

[Jay 20]

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.

Can't the same thing be said about the Raptors? They traded for one year rental Kawhi and then he left. It's quite possible they'll win one championship and not even get back to the Finals, yet they own both top spots.

[Fairview4Life]

I just want to know why Mike Budenholzer doesn't get more respect. He is easily a top 5 coach. I would put him ahead of Nurse and Spoelstra for sure, and possibly ahead of Stevens.

Unjustly maligned for repeated regular season success but playoff failures, basically. His ranking vs. Nurse in particular is almost entirely a product of this season's playoffs not happening yet. Nurse gets the shine of coaching a Kawhiless team to a better regular season record but didn't have a chance to fail in the playoffs this year, and Bud didn't have a chance to win the title this year, so he's still saddled with the very good regular season team but can't make it to the finals label.

[Cactus Jack]

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.

Can't the same thing be said about the Raptors? They traded for one year rental Kawhi and then he left. It's quite possible they'll win one championship and not even get back to the Finals, yet they own both top spots.

Did luck play a role in the Warriors success? Absolutely.

Did luck play a role in the Raptors winning the title? Absolutely.

Both are well run.

The Raptors somewhat lucked into Kawhi (being available) & Warrior injuries. But they still won.

The Warriors lucked into having cap space the same Summer that Durant was a free agent.

Sometimes you need a little luck to go your way.

Spoiler:

OKC isn't unlucky btw. They're just cursed.

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

You couldn't be more wrong.

Much respect.

[Doctor MJ]

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

Spo's Heat have maintained a strong culture after the loss of the Heatles. Contrast that with the Cavaliers. Yes having Pat Riley as Exec helps, but Riley chose Spo for a reason.

Carlisle's Mavs just racked up the single highest ORtg season in history with a young core that is just learning how to play together.

Pop's backups continue to perform exceptionally well. There's every reason to think he'd be coaching the team to contention if he had actual stars on his team. (How we blame Pop and Buford for wasting time with Aldridge/DeRozan is a different story, I don't think anyone thinks they have a lot more to give and Pop is just failing to get it out of them.)

[Texas Chuck]

Any list about GMs or coaches that doesn't include LeBron or Rich Paul is invalid.

sigh this tired old trope again?

Do star players and agents have tons of power? Of course they do. Are they coaches or GM's? Of course not.

I don't think this is true when it comes to LeBron and Klutch. They're something new. He's not an average star player, obviously, or even an average mega-superstar player. He is the first player in history to have his kind of internal influence.

I'm not denying Lebron's influence. It's immense. As is Rich Paul's--though he's hardly unprecedented from an agent standpoint.

I'm saying they aren't GM's and they definitely aren't coaches. Chris Paul is much closer to a coach than Lebron and he's not even close.

Now I realize he was just going for a cheap laugh, and I should have let it go. It's past played out but I shouldn't have felt the need to police him. That's my bad.

[MrPerfect1]

Any list about GMs or coaches that doesn't include LeBron or Rich Paul is invalid.

Lebron is an awful GM. He regularly overpays old players and friends. Fortunately, Lebron the Agent has good connections to save Lebron the GM

[PistolPeteJR]

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.

As a Raptors fan, the reason is simple:

Because Raptors fans in general kept acting and talking a big game about how LeBron was going down EVERY SINGLE YEAR. In other words, you wanna climb to the rooftops and beat your chest? The “splat” will be loud.

[PistolPeteJR]

What else accounts for willfully ignoring the league's most successful franchise of the last decade? People trying to wish the Warriors decline into existence without any rational basis for it being so.

Well of course many of us want them to decline. We are fans of teams competing with them. That doesn't mean we have no integrity.

And believe me nobody is ignoring them. We just don't have your myopic focus on them, which again seems really reasonable.

You seem to feel persecuted here and I assure you the Warriors aren't victims of some conspiracy of hate. It's going to be okay.

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.

But what FO rep for the Warriors was largely responsible for all of these feats?

I believe he’s in LA now doing his thing for Ballmer.

[California Gold]

Daryl Morey? For what?

He built good rosters only to limit their winning by getting in his own way instead of bringing in a coach and letting them play their own system. Daryl "No Midrange" Morey.

Definitely not ahead of the 4 other GMs that are on that list, that's for sure.. don't care what regular season win % anyone posts.

[GQ Hot Dog]

Well of course many of us want them to decline. We are fans of teams competing with them. That doesn't mean we have no integrity.

And believe me nobody is ignoring them. We just don't have your myopic focus on them, which again seems really reasonable.

You seem to feel persecuted here and I assure you the Warriors aren't victims of some conspiracy of hate. It's going to be okay.

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.

But what FO rep for the Warriors was largely responsible for all of these feats?

I believe he’s in LA now doing his thing for Ballmer.

Why do you say that? From what I understand West was high on Klay and that was his contribution.

Figuring out the deal for Iguodala was Myers, Draymond was Myers, Barnes was Myers(probably the best option where we picked other than Middleton who got picked 30+ picks later) and we did get a chip with him starting.

Curry and trading Monta for Bogut was Larry Riley(although I'm guessing trading Monta was a consensus decision).

Before you go and give all the credit to West, apparently he had his heart set on Dion Waiters in the 2012 draft.

[dhsilv2]

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.

That's just a silly line of thinking. As great as Duncan was, he wasn't the guy drafting Parker and Manu or the other crazy late round army the spurs drafted over the years. Also Duncan is still with the spurs, you can't really call him gone.

[greg4012]

I just want to know why Mike Budenholzer doesn't get more respect. He is easily a top 5 coach. I would put him ahead of Nurse and Spoelstra for sure, and possibly ahead of Stevens.

Maybe if we're talking regular season only

[Curmudgeon]

We'll see about Budenholzer. Until last year, he did not have a roster capable of winning a championship. Last year they lost the ECF because Nurse had a superstar who had been there before, and Milwaukee's star had not. I don't think he was outcoached by Nurse. This year may be a different story. Barring the unforeseen, Nurse will have to get past Stevens first, and that is going to be a very, very tough series for the Raptors.

[PistolPeteJR]

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.

But what FO rep for the Warriors was largely responsible for all of these feats?

I believe he’s in LA now doing his thing for Ballmer.

Why do you say that? From what I understand West was high on Klay and that was his contribution.

Figuring out the deal for Iguodala was Myers, Draymond was Myers, Barnes was Myers(probably the best option where we picked other than Middleton who got picked 30+ picks later) and we did get a chip with him starting.

Curry and trading Monta for Bogut was Larry Riley(although I'm guessing trading Monta was a consensus decision).

Before you go and give all the credit to West, apparently he had his heart set on Dion Waiters in the 2012 draft.

Hm, I’m going to go with the proven guy who came in and did a stellar job (as he does wherever he goes), unless you can prove otherwise. Proof is nice in conversations like these, you know.

For example: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.si.com/.amp/nba/2015/06/11/jerry-west-klay-thompson-kevin-love-deal

[GQ Hot Dog]

But what FO rep for the Warriors was largely responsible for all of these feats?

I believe he’s in LA now doing his thing for Ballmer.

Why do you say that? From what I understand West was high on Klay and that was his contribution.

Figuring out the deal for Iguodala was Myers, Draymond was Myers, Barnes was Myers(probably the best option where we picked other than Middleton who got picked 30+ picks later) and we did get a chip with him starting.

Curry and trading Monta for Bogut was Larry Riley(although I'm guessing trading Monta was a consensus decision).

Before you go and give all the credit to West, apparently he had his heart set on Dion Waiters in the 2012 draft.

Hm, I’m going to go with the proven guy who came in and did a stellar job (as he does wherever he goes), unless you can prove otherwise. Proof is nice in conversations like these, you know.

For example: https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.si.com/.amp/nba/2015/06/11/jerry-west-klay-thompson-kevin-love-deal

That's exactly what I claimed for West, you're not refuting anything I said.

As for the rest of what I said, those of us that follow the Warriors have read all the articles and interviews over the years that reveal who was responsible for each move. You have no basis to disagree with me. You found an article that agrees with what I said, why don't you go find one that disagrees otherwise you have nothing to say.