Colangelo voted NBA's top exec for second time NEW YORK -- Bryan Colangelo, the Toronto Raptors' president and general manager, was chosen as the NBA's Executive of the Year for the second time Monday. Colangelo received 20 votes to nine for Houston Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson, who finished second in the voting of 45 league executives. Colangelo also won the award in 2004-05 with the Phoenix Suns, and his father, Jerry, won the award four times. After 15 years with the Suns, Colangelo joined the Raptors on Feb. 28, 2006 and began overhauling the roster of a franchise that won only 27 games the previous season and missed the playoffs for the fourth straight time. "Without the move to Toronto this is likely not to happen," Colangelo said from Toronto. "Generally it's when you start with very little or in a bad situation and you turn it into something that you get the opportunity to make such dramatic and wild changes like we did. Fortunately for us, a lot of the moves that we made worked out this year and it resulted in us turning around the franchise." Building around forward Chris Bosh, Colangelo added Andrea Barganani with the first pick in the 2006 draft and signed Anthony Parker and forward Jorge Garbajosa from Europe. Colangelo also swung trades for guard T.J. Ford, center Rasho Nesterovic and forward Kris Humphries. The revamped roster tied a franchise record with 47 wins and captured its first Atlantic Division title before losing to the New Jersey Nets in the first round of the playoffs. "This award is somewhat bittersweet given that we're not playing right now," Colangelo said. "We've got changes to make. We want to make the roster better and we want to compete in the East for years to come." "The fact of the matter is there's a lot of work to do," he added. "We find ourselves division champions and that's probably a surprise to everyone, but that's not good enough. We want to get to the point where we can advance in the playoffs and build things." The award, presented by The Sporting News, comes after Sam Mitchell was honored as coach of the year last month. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2869882
It was a great year for CD, IMO he did a great job putting this roster together. I thought the Battier deal was the number 1 move of the NBA offseason and if Yao is 100% or if Luther and Juwan would of shown up in the playoffs we would be the team 1 win away from the WCF. Heck I thought Span would of been good if he got playing time at PG and CD had not only a deal in place for Mike James but a second deal that would of sent Lucus to Denver for a young PF. Nice job CD, here is to many more years with the Rockets as an advisor.
he did an outstanding job considering the options we had I was against the Battier trade but was proved wrong congrats to CD
Considering our MLE grouping of Vspan/Wells/Novak/JL3 completely bombed and the fact we didn't make any inseason trades, it is amazing CD got 2nd. I guess league executives absolutely LOVED the Battier for Gay/Swift deal. I guess that also shows the value GMs around the league put on Battier. I am kind of amazed CD got more votes than Mullin considering the in-season trade that got that team to the playoffs.
More about career recognition and pleasant farewells than actual job during the season IMO. But still nice to know he's held in high regard around the league.
We have 2nd best GM, top Coach of Year candidates, two second team NBA, yet, we cant get out of first round... On the other hand, Dirk hides everything Anyone had the mocking of Dirk on ESPN? That was funny.
