2018 Executive of the Year
Jul 18, 2018 21:10:52 GMT
Walt Frazier, Mike Krzyzewski, and 10 more like this
Post by Ian Noble on Jul 18, 2018 21:10:52 GMT
2018 Executive of the Year
Introduction: Commissioner's 2018 Address to the League
2018 Executive of the Year
SHANE BATTIER
Chicago Bulls
Second Place
Charlotte Hornets - James Kay
Third Place
Memphis Grizzlies
Fourth Place
Brooklyn Nets - Josh Barber
Fifth Place
Orlando Magic - Blake Bowman
Introduction: Commissioner's 2018 Address to the League
Dynasty Five's now been operating for a full seven seasons! We got started when Steve Nash was still marshalling the offense in Phoenix and the Bobcats played in Charlotte! But D5's popularity just keeps rising: there's a waiting list that goes on forever, Analytics shows 50k more pageviews this year than the previous D5 record (for a total of 406k pageviews since December), we've got some fantastic potential GMs just hanging around waiting and this season we had to implement a competitive GM application procedure for the first time just so we could make the most of all our coveted GM positions!
D5PN activity was also huge this year! On casual glance it looks like we had the most articles posted in a single season! In between Walt Frazier's constant and meticulous rating changes we had a superb Analytics series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) from Andrei Kirilenko, draft regrades (1, 2) from Jeremiah Hill and Alex English painted his Sistine Chapel. Post of the Year - do we have a post of the year? Well if we do it might go to Jay Z's high profile and throughly researched exposé of D5 GMs derogatory attitudes towards Nikola Mirotic, who definitely didn't opt out of his Player Option this off season after he saw how poorly other GMs viewed his talents.
2017/18 saw the inauguration of the first ever preseason D5 Cup competition which was won by the Bulls! Mid-season also saw, for an unknown reason, the sudden league-wide realization of the newly encroaching hard cap and its implications which saw league activity peak in February upwards of off season levels when low player salaries finally became seen as a thing of value! The hard cap was employed three seasons ago in order to limit the strength of superteams and promote parity but so far these affects have yet to be realized as the two infamous 2018 OKC trades, sending Demarcus Cousins and Kevin Durant to new homes, made kings of the Eastern Conference powerhouses this year. Indeed league realism would be considered dead by now if it weren't for the coincidental fact that Durant and Cousins themselves joined the already mighty Golden State Warriors in real life.
As famous/infamous as the Cousins and Durant trades were this year, trade of the year has to go to the four-team deal made right at the end of the season on 17th May which contained the marginal value 2018 LAC 1st which, a mere 3 days later, defied the odds and leapt to the top of the lottery for the San Antonio Spurs, the first time a #14 has jumped to #1 in D5 or NBA history, for the luckiest GM in the league, 1 month into his tenure, George Gervin, who eventually turned the pick into the Euro-kid who the Mavs are looking to be the next Dirk, Luka Doncic, whilst the Spurs also reclaimed their own 2019 1st whilst they were at it.
It was a year of high profile GM resignations starting with the official retirement of the longest serving GM in the history of D5, Magic Johnson, the Hassan-Whiteside-induced resignation of long-time Jazz GM, Billy King and of course new Spurs GM George Gervin began his reign after the surprise resignation of beloved D5 veteran JR Wiles. Lastly Spike Lee, punished for his inactivity, handed over the Knicks and Billy King returned to a new active role in New York, whilst Magic Johnson became the first ever D5 GM to be inducted into the Dynasty Five Hall of Fame! Magic Johnson will be remembered for his long years of service and JR Wiles possibly for his pecker size.
All-in-all I want to thank everybody for their contributions this year! D5 has been my passion through 7 seasons and after the dust has settled on this year I know I'll be impatient to get started yet again in December!
The results of the Dynasty Five Executive of the Year Award will be posted over the coming days and weeks whilst I write them up! In my analysis so far there are six contenders, two or three of which I felt were a tier ahead of the rest! We will soon see who gets to join the pantheon of D5 GMs to receive the gold wreaths! Stay tuned!
2018 Executive of the Year
SHANE BATTIER
Chicago Bulls
"Dynasty Five is more than just a game... Dynasty Five gives [GMs] a sense of being at home. It has become a place where they can be who they are and just interact with a community that has the same passion for basketball." p70, Dynasty Five: A Fantasy Grounded in Reality, 2016, Shane Battier
Shane Battier's 132 page thesis from 2016 was an inspiring contribution to the D5 legacy, the most thorough analysis of what makes us what we are here at D5, drawing from the experiences of fellow veteran GMs from around the league at the time and helping further to cement what we've all built here. It therefore gives me great pride to welcome the architect of the thesis to the stage as winner of the most prestigious award in our community, the 2018 Executive of the Year Award!
It's been a transcendent year for Battier's Bulls. Just when you thought a trio of Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler and Chris Paul was dominant enough GMing, Shane Battier stepped it up to yet another level this past year and put together what is now the most highly rated team in the history of Dynasty Five!
The foundations of this year's Chicago superteam stretch back to the Summer of 2016: considering how many years pro Kawhi has ahead of him, signing him is probably still the highest-profile poaching of a player from any team in the history of D5. It instantly catapulted the Bulls back into the stratosphere of D5 teams, having never really left that rarefied air in the first place!
This year the Bulls re-entered the season as one of the favourites to win the East as usual. Injuries derailed that possibility but, towards late February and within 3 weeks of one another, Shane Battier made two trades that elevated the Bulls to a higher level on the D5 stage! Long time Bulls legend Chris Paul, who had been with the team since July 2012 and won the MVP in 2013, was traded in exchange for a point guard six years younger as their trading partner, the Denver Nuggets, looked to capitalise on short term contention by moving John Wall out of town. It's a trade most GMs would consider a loss for former EOTY Alex English, a guy labelled the most knowledgeable GM in the league during March's GM Survey, which is a rare feat indeed! Acquiring John Wall gave the Bulls a big-3 of 26 year old (91) John Wall, 26 year old (95) Kawhi Leonard and 28 year old (89) Jimmy Butler!
The real game-changer though was obviously the acquisition of Demarcus Cousins from OKC. Demarcus may be injured but how high are the ceilings of Gary Harris and Julius Randle? How did Shane Battier manage to also include the albatross contracts of Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo? At what point did Shane say "I need your 2021 2nd Rounder or this deal is off"? When GMs play jedi-mind-tricks it really puts them a tier above the competition. At 27 years of age (93) Demarcus Cousins not only gave the Bulls the most elite roster in the league on paper but he also formed part of a core big-4 who still have the majority of their careers ahead of them! As has already been said elsewhere in this Awards thread, the trade stretched the boundaries of realism and it also leaves up and coming re-builders like my own Celtics team wondering exactly when our title-window will open! Trades such as this one, and Kevin Durant joining Charlotte, were the motivation behind Bryan Colangelo starting to blow up his contending Raptors - and that's a Top 4 team in the East in some level of desperation! The level of GMing shown by Shane Battier has caused a "sea-change" in the way the league operates and how GMs approach the prospect of building a contender! Never before in league history would you have thought that the Nuggets and the Warriors of the West would be glad to be in that conference!
Of course the flip-side of this was that everyone except Jimmy Butler was injured this year! Cousins, Kawhi and Wall were all on the IR for the majority of the regular season, the advances made by the Bulls will not be seen even until early next season when Demarcus Cousins is finally scheduled to return. Kawhi was an enigma all year, absent from the best run franchise in the NBA until being traded to Toronto IRL. Whether all of these changes translate into success is still yet to be seen! Shane Battier recognised the injuries and, outside of his big-4, gutted his support roster for the remainder of the regular season, presumably to increase the value of his draft pick, and the Bulls still made it to the Eastern Conference Finals anyway - somehow upsetting the under-performing Bucks in the semis!
As the off season rolled around, on top of all that's been mentioned already, Shane Battier still possessed his own draft pick and used it to take on board promising youngster Josh Okogie at #22 whilst also strengthening his bench at a discount with veteran David West signing for the league minimum! Where there was still a hole however was Center and, as if Chicago's starting lineup wasn't stacked enough already, Dwight Howard was poached from the Boston Celtics for the full MLE, making (90) the average rating of a Chicago Bulls starter!!
Next season, with a healthy team taking the court, the Chicago Bulls occupy an elite place amongst the elite teams of D5. When D5 was created - this is the kind of team we were all dreaming about creating: Shane Battier has put together a team that's stacked at every position, a monster among monsters, the highest rated team ever to take the court, young enough to contend for years and cause GMs like me to despair for how I'm going to compete!
He didn't make moves very often but when he did - they were devastating! Congratulations to the first ever Filipino GM to take the gold wreaths, your 2018 Dynasty Five Executive of the Year: Shane Battier!
Trading:
Signing:
Drafting:
Planning:2017 Team
Robin Lopez
Julius Randle
Kawhi Leonard
Jimmy Butler
Chris Paul
2018 Team
Dwight Howard
Demarcus Cousins
Kawhi Leonard
Jimmy Butler
John Wall
Second Place
Charlotte Hornets - James Kay
Second place is awarded to last year's winner, James Kay!
After a GM wins Executive of the Year their record for contention in future EOTYs is wiped clean, so to speak, meaning their candidacy for any future EOTYs is dependent upon everything they do after their previous win, and yet here is Mr James Kay who won Executive of the Year last season! The reason for this is obvious to anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention: Kevin Durant.
As if the Hornets couldn't be enriched any further their big-3 of Westbrook, Middleton and Paul George became a big-4 this year with the addition of Kevin Durant in the second of two "kingmaking" trades by Kevin Hollis that will characterise the Eastern Conference for pretty much all of the foreseeable future! If it weren't for the real-life Golden State Warriors superteam we'd have stretched the realms of realism to embarrassing lengths this year. It's why we have the hard cap encroaching yet further in upon us next year - although it's also worth noting that at the time Charlotte acquired Durant they were actually within the 150% boundary that will arrive next off season!
The roots of the Durant deal go back to July last year when, in another solid trade deal, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope left in exchange for Dallas's 2018 1st (#6 Wendell Carter Jr.). Josh Jackson and the Sacramento 2018 1st (#20 Aaron Holiday) were acquired from fellow Durant-suitor Ian Noble as Brandon Ingram left town, and these three assets, along with Al Horford, formed the centrepiece of the package sent to OKC.
What else can you say about James Kay's efforts this season? Promising youngster Tony Snell arrived in exchange for some assets of questionable value and was re-signed. Khris Middleton saw possibly the strongest competition of any free agent this year but was also re-signed, somehow the Hornets landed the league's biggest discount and re-signed Robin Lopez, they even managed to retain Nerlens Noel and poached George Hill from the Celtics to shore-up their bench!
The fact is: the Hornets have not put a foot in the wrong place on their road to constant improvement. Surely as time continues James Kay will once again climb this leaderboard and find himself back on top someday. The Hornets are just as good as any other team in the league and reached the Finals for the second time in their history this year, falling only to the similarly mighty Warriors. The Bulls in the East are their contemporaries for elite status but the status of Chicago's Demarcus Cousins and Kawhi Leonard still remains in doubt, on their day the Charlotte Hornets are the best team in the league and it's thanks to the guidance of James Kay. Congratulations again to Mr Kay who, in terms of all-time excellence, currently shares the podium with some of the best to ever contribute here at D5, it's only last year's EOTY win that keeps him off the very top this year.
Trading:
Signing:
Drafting:
Planning:2017 Team
Nerlens Noel
Serge Ibaka
Paul George
Khris Middleton
Russell Westbrook
2018 Team
Robin Lopez
Kevin Durant
Paul George
Khris Middleton
Russell Westbrook
Third Place
Memphis Grizzlies
Coming in at third place in this year's EOTY race is Mr Draft-Day-Supreme, Jeremiah Hill!
Jeremiah Hill's eminently remarkable string of superstar draft picks continued this year with one of the most underrated trades of all time as he traded down from the 8th spot to 10th and landed none-other than superstar Donovan Mitchell, picking up an additional #18 John Collins along the way, both of whom ended up looking a lot more promising than #8 Zach Collins who left town for Utah!
What made the Donovan Mitchell trade remarkable is that, when judging Jeremiah Hill's record in the past, whatever you think about Jeremiah's uncanny drafting skill there is an argument for the element of dumb luck in the selection of #39 Nikola Jokic in 2014, in 2015 the selection of Karl Anthony Towns was almost unanimous at #1, but the trade for the Donovan Mitchell pick is a different story and should be respected as an absolute theft in a trade with two other veteran GMs! Andrei Kirilenko may have netted Zach LaVine from the deal but he was also the man parting with Pick #10, whilst Billy King effectively left the room empty handed! LaVine eventually became part of the deal for Kristaps Porzingis for the Nets, Zach Collins rode the bench all year in real life, but John Collins starred often for the IRL Hawks whilst Donovan Mitchell might be the best 2-guard to get drafted since James Harden!
With a springboard of Towns, Jokic and Mitchell the Grizzlies are already contending with the best teams in the league; they overcame the higher seed Rockets in the first round and this year they're the only team to take the champions to a full 7-game series - the only playoff series with more pageviews than the D5 Finals themselves!
Outside of the Donovan deal there's not been a great deal else to talk about for the Grizz this year, although the fans must be hyped on a level never seen before in Memphis. There's been a raft of trades (1, 2, 3, 4) and signings (1, 2, 3), with the most notable being Tyreke Evans installation as filler at small forward and the most questionable being youngster Jawun Evans leaving in exchange for Jerryd Bayless, also I'll never get tired of reminding Jeremiah of our draft-day trade for Jamal Murray, but none of that really matters in the context of having put together possibly the fastest rebuild from bottom-of-the-lottery to contender in the history of D5.
Of all the teams who have been through a rebuild here at D5 Jeremiah Hill's Memphis Grizzlies stand out as the quickest road from cellar to success. KAT, Jokic and Mitchell are a championship calibre squad even without any further additions and they have the youth to last the rest of the decade! There's also few GMs as active and involved as Jeremiah: in our GM Survey he ranked as 4th most active and 2nd most knowledgeable, 2nd most likely to have the best team in 2 years and 2nd most likely to have the best team in 5 years! No further hyperbole is needed! All that now remains is for the Grizzlies 2018 1st Rounder, Dzanan Musa, to become a superstar franchise player for the Brooklyn Nets in real life and leave everyone here at D5 scratching their heads in amazement!
Trading:
Signing:
Drafting:
Planning:2017 Team
Nikola Jokic
Karl Anthony Towns
Ersan Ilyasova
Matthew Dellavedova
Marcus Smart
2018 Team
Nikola Jokic
Karl Anthony Towns
Tyreke Evans
Donovan Mitchell
Marcus Smart
Fourth Place
Brooklyn Nets - Josh Barber
For the third year in a row Andrei Kirilenko is in contention but falls short of the big prize and comes in this year at Fourth Place!
Barber's Nets have been rebuilding since Blake Griffin left town two years ago when, amongst a group of young potentials, this year's team leader Devin Booker made his way to Brooklyn and now spearheads the team rebuild!
Two other heralded young prospects joined the Nets when Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine took their talents to Brooklyn but, unsatisfied, Andrei Kirilenko combined them with two 1sts this year in what is the defining trade of his team's season, thrashed-out over several weeks with Hanamichi Sakuragi, buying-low on the injured Kristaps Porzingis to provide the 1 & 2 Porzingis/Booker pairing of two young franchise players that has characterised so many successful rebuilds throughout the years of D5! The price was high: over a tandem of two trades (1, 2) the Nets essentially shipped Wiggins, LaVine, Jrue Holiday, Willie Cauley-Stein and their 2020 1st Rounder all in exchange for Kristaps, but so far proven he's not only a real-life franchise player for the Knicks, he's also been a bit of a sim-god when he was playing for the D5 Cavs!
Andrei Kirilenko earns his spot in this year's rankings not just because of the quality of his managing but because of the boldness and intensity of his rate of trading throughout the year: Josh builds his team like Picasso paints his canvas - and with even more overt filthy imagery! The Nets made more trades than any other team this year, so many I'm not even going to list them all, and characteristic of the Barber Style of Trading is what I'm going to call "switcheroo trades" - series of trades which, when combined, show that Andrei Kirilenko is able to sometimes get something for nothing! There's this quadruplet (1, 2, 3, 4), completed just a few days ago, in which Josh essentially receives Justise Winslow for three distant 2nd Rounders. Or there's this switcheroo (1, 2) in which he would've had the Spurs 2021 1st for two of his 2nds if it weren't rejected! These are the kinds of trades that are just too satisfying not to look back upon!
Then there's just plain old ripoffs such as receiving Bam Adebayo for Alex Len and Washington's 2019 1st for Jahlil Okafor.
All of these trades occurred whilst the Nets retained their draft picks and this year that meant Brooklyn was able to also add falling #2 pick Marvin Bagley at #5 in exchange for Trae Young and an increasingly devalued Spurs 2021 1st. Whilst it's still too early to see where this deal could be headed in the future, Trae Young has had a high-volume but also high-cringe Summer League season so far whilst Marvin Bagley could be the next Kings centerpiece.
Josh is, and has been, one of the foremost active GMs in the league since he started and it's clear there are very few with his enthusiasm and intensity for the game! As mentioned earlier in my Address To The League, Barber's series of Analytics articles were truly fascinating to read up on! And the GM Survey from mid-season ranked him #1 Trader in the league, not just for this year but also the entire history of D5! He's also the joint-2nd most active! For a prize that's based primarily on trading skill it's unfortunate that Andrei Kirilenko will have to wait until another year because his Nets are part of a major trend to bring strength back to the Eastern Conference!
I personally feel that the Second, Third and Fourth Placed GMs in contention this year are extremely close to one another! These write-ups have been finished for a day or two now and I've instead spent many hours deliberating whether Josh should be at least Second Place but in the end, in terms of weighing up the positives and negatives throughout the year, Josh comes in at fourth place! Congratulations again Andrei Kirilenko! One day you'll hear your name called last!
Trading:
Signing:
Drafting:
Planning:2017 Team
Willie-Cauley Stein
Domantas Sabonis
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Devin Booker
Zach LaVine
2018 Team
Marvin Bagley
Kristaps Porzingis
Justise Winslow
Devin Booker
Yogi Ferrell
Fifth Place
Orlando Magic - Blake Bowman
After the last two seasons the Orlando Magic might no longer be last on the list of all-time D5 team wins. Blake Bowman's method might charitably be described as "management via neglect" but a mantra of staying-the-course has eventually paid off and you have to imagine that fans in Orlando are ecstatic about the team that's been put together after 7 long years as the league's cellar dwellers!
A year ago one of the most underrated trades of the year saw Victor Oladipo, rated 79, join Orlando in exchange for two first rounders. In real life Oladipo left OKC for Indiana and the rest is history: his rating jumped twice (1, 2) in one season and is now borderline superstar at 88! Add the offensive star of Victor Oladipo to (Blake Bowman 2013 draftees) Rudy Gobert's defense and Dennis Schroder's playmaking and you have the formation of one of the league's finest a young teams of potential future all-stars!
Possibly the best way to improve upon the trio of Gobert - Oladipo - Schroder would be to find a complimentary "3&D" wing of the same age group, who shoots the lights out from range, plays good perimeter defense, and doesn't mind taking a back seat to other stars: Otto Porter, by far the number 1 player satisfying all those categories, was wrestled from the Cavaliers by Blake Bowman this off season and should definitely be considered the biggest 'poached player' of the relatively-quiet 2018 off season! With Otto's outside shooting, Oladipo's constant all-around threat, Gobert and Millsap's interior brick-wall and Schroder's playmaking in just two fell moves this year Blake Bowman's Orlando Magic have vaulted themselves from the doldrums of yesteryear and into an elite group of teams atop the Eastern Conference!
Blake's method has at times been suspect, bowing to popular pressure Kris Dunn was selected at #3 in 2016 who was traded for a few months of Derrick Favors who was turned into 36 year old Paul Millsap. 2017 draftee Justin Jackson is a lacklustre player even for the real-life Kings, Orlando's #3 pick in 2014 turned out to be Joel Embiid for the Celtics and, even when acquiring Victor Oladipo a year ago - one of the two draft picks turned out to be #1 pick DeAndre Ayton! But now's the time to focus instead on the fact that Blake Bowman has been a part of Dynasty Five since 2010 - since Blake was 14 years old! He's one of the longest tenured GMs in the league and he's finally built a team that can compete amongst the absolute best!
Trading:
Signing:
Drafting:
Planning:2017 Team
Rudy Gobert
Boris Diaw
Evan Fournier
Kris Dunn
Dennis Schroder
2018 Team
Rudy Gobert
Paul Millsap
Otto Porter
Victor Oladipo
Dennis Schroder