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Coming out of their respective NBA Bubble experiences, fans of the Oklahoma City Thunder are looking at last season with more pleasure and to the future with more optimism than those of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Yet Clippers general manager Lawrence Frank was named Executive of the Year on Thursday ahead of Thunder GM Sam Presti, who finished second.
The voting was conducted based on games through March 11, the night league play was suspended due to the coronavirus.
At that point, Frank was a pretty easy pick, as he had acquired stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George while retaining key players Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, Patrick Beverly and Landry Shamet. The Clippers also acquired Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson at the trade deadline for a potential postseason run.
But looking back, there’s certainly an argument to be made that the Thunder won that George deal.
Presti, in two swoops — dealing Paul to Los Angeles and then Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets — secured a future for the Thunder with more than half a dozen new first-round draft picks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He kept the team competitive by adding veterans Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari.
His moves helped set the Thunder up not just for the future, but helped them achieve a higher winning percentage than they had the year before.
Oklahoma City lost to the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs. That was not unexpected. The Clippers, though, as title favorites, fell way shy of expectations and did not get out of the second round. Head coach Doc Rivers and the organization parted ways at the end of the season.
Suddenly, the Clippers are unexpectedly down a coach and looking at the end of their stars’ contracts with knowledge that they must be better this upcoming season. The Thunder, meanwhile, had a less abrupt ending with head coach Billy Donovan and can dcide whether to keep competing for a playoff spot or gain more assets by trading away Paul and other veteran players.
It’s not inconceivable to say that Presti should have won his first Executive of the Year Award.
Yet he would have had another challenger had voting taken place after the bubble.
Frank won the award with 61 points. Presti finished second with 41 points. Right behind him: Miami Heat president Pat Riley with 39 points.
Riley oversaw a team who added Jimmy Butler, created room for Bam Adebayo by trading Hassan Whiteside, and found roles for a group of players that helped the team reach the NBA Finals.
At the beginning of the bubble, he seemed out of the range of Frank and Presti. Months later, it may be Riley who is deserving.
Or perhaps it’s Presti.
Or maybe it truly is Frank, whose trade for George was not simply a trade for that one player — it was a trade that netted them George and convinced Leonard to sign, a bold move that put the Clippers among the top teams in the league while the Thunder were a middle-of-the-road western team who, while exceeding expectations, did lose in the first round of the playoffs.
Hindsight isn’t always 20/20, but it is fair to speculate that Presti would have gotten more love if voting took place in October than he did when the ballots were submitted.
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