It's an insider's article, here it is copy and pasted: Welcome to #NBAfrontofficerank, our first #NBArank for management. OUR PREDICTION ENGINE These NBA front-office rankings are powered by ESPN Forecast. We're continuing our rankings with a look at the league's owners. We'll reveal our final two categories -- presidents/general managers and coaches -- on Thursday and Friday. (Our ranking of all 30 teams' overall management was revealed Tuesday, and can be seen here.) We asked our ESPN Forecast panel to rate every owner, basketball decision-maker and coach from 0 to 10, and we asked the panel to tell us how important each role is. In particular, we asked the voters to rate each team's ownership in terms of their performance in guiding the franchise to overall on-court success, both in the short and long term. From there, we simply calculated the ratings to determine the best and worst owners in the NBA. Here's what we found. For a detailed explanation of our findings, click here. RANK TEAM RATING 1 San Antonio Spurs Spurs Sports & Entertainment, Peter Holt 9.16 2 Dallas Mavericks Dallas Basketball Limited, Mark Cuban 8.48 3 Miami Heat Miami Heat Limited Partnership, Micky Arison 8.43 4 Boston Celtics Boston Basketball Partners LLC, Wyc Grousbeck 7.75 5 Houston Rockets Rocket Ball, Ltd., Leslie Alexander 7.41 6 Indiana Pacers Pacers Sports & Entertainment, Herb Simon 7.18 7 Golden State Warriors GSW Sports LLC, Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber 6.66 8 Brooklyn Nets ONEXIM Sports and Entertainment, Mikhail Prokhorov 6.61 9 Chicago Bulls Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership, Jerry Reinsdorf 6.52 10 Portland Trail Blazers Vulcan Inc, Paul Allen 6.41 11 Oklahoma City Thunder The Professional Basketball Club LLC, Clayton Bennett 6.23 12 Memphis Grizzlies Memphis Basketball LLC, Robert Pera 6.09 13 Utah Jazz Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment, Greg Miller 5.77 14 Los Angeles Lakers The Los Angeles Lakers, Inc., Family trust managed by Jim and Jeanie Buss 5.45 15 Sacramento Kings Vivek Ranadive 5.36 16 Orlando Magic RDV Sports Inc, Richard DeVos 5.34 17 Toronto Raptors Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Larry Tanenbaum 5.11 18 New Orleans Pelicans New Orleans Hornets NBA Limited Partnership, Tom Benson 5.11 19 Denver Nuggets Kroenke Sports Enterprise, Josh Kroenke 5.09 20 Washington Wizards Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Ted Leonsis 4.73 21 Philadelphia 76ers Philadelphia 76ers Inc, Joshua Harris 4.57 22 Atlanta Hawks Atlanta Spirit LLC, Bruce Levenson and Michael Gearon Jr. 4.43 23 Phoenix Suns Suns Legacy Partners, Robert Sarver 4.36 24 Detroit Pistons Palace Sports & Entertainment, Tom Gores 4.36 25 Minnesota Timberwolves Minnesota Timberwolves Basketball Limited Partnership, Glen Taylor 3.98 26 Milwaukee Bucks Milwaukee Bucks Inc, Herb Kohl 3.95 27 Cleveland Cavaliers Cavaliers Operating Company, Dan Gilbert 3.82 28 Charlotte Bobcats Bobcats Sports & Entertainment, Michael Jordan 3.41 29 Los Angeles Clippers LAC Basketball Club, Inc., Donald Sterling 3.36 30 New York Knicks Madison Square Garden Inc, James Dolan 2.14
Why is that so hard to understand that Donald Sterling and Dolan are last. Or are you trying to make a joke? Now, making Jordan 28th is something I might not admit to his face.
Did not know of his racist history...nor how long he's owned the Clips for... The Clips have been putrid my whole life, granted, but right now he's shelling out major bucks for a lot of big name players.
Also putting the miami heat in the top 5 is a joke. The only reason miami has a good team is because of geography, not business savvy.
Not to mention Paul Allen just won the Super Bowl, too. I assume some of the issues with the Rose Garden had him drop...and the Jailblazer's era, maybe unfairly so
http://elitedaily.com/sports/where-the-hell-are-the-portland-jail-blazers/ I didn't know they were this bad.
The Raptors ownership should be much higher. MLSE was sold a few years ago, new owners, big pockets, yet they don't interfere with the basketball side of things and give Ujiri full control. I don't know where exactly to rank them, lots of good owners. Besides, it's early. But they are definitely not no.17. By the way, Clay Bennett's cheapness led to OKC losing Harden. I'm surprised he's so high in this poll.
Les tries. Always looking to improve team whether it be for money or winning. Good owner. Glad he's getting top 5 praise.
The Lakers are 14 simply because of Jerry Buss. The current ownership of Jim & Jeanne are 25th at best.
By the way, to correct OP a little, this isn't an insider article. It's one of a series of 'free' polls on espn, kind of like how they rank players every year. They ranked teams by owners (Les is ranked no.5) http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10710924/2014-nba-front-office-rankings-owners GMs (Morey at no. 5) http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10711364/2014-nba-front-office-rankings-top-executives coaches (McHale at no.13) http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10717235/2014-nba-front-office-rankings-coaches And then they combined those 3 to get overall front office ranking (Rockets at no.7) http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10708140/2014-nba-front-office-rankings Overall, take it for what it's worth, it's just a bunch of espn and blogger people filling out a poll. But it somewhat reflects general media perception, I guess.