It would have been different if Sengoon was Hakeem and Luka came along........Hakeem is another caliber. Then Luka becomes AD......
There's no doubt Stone has been very lucky, from the Nets Big 3 implosion to the Suns Big 3 implosion to all the lottery successes (didn't get Wemby but Amen may be just as good). The top picks he drafted these past 4 years were all consensus picks, nothing really stood out. The lower picks (Sengun, Eason, Whitmore) were good. He should get the credit. He made some bad lower picks like Christopher, Garuba, and Tyty. He's also lucky in being saved by circumstances such as the Oladipo contract falling through, and KPJ being forced out by his own stupidity. The KPJ pet project was pretty bad. And don't forget that he wanted to compete with the likes of Wood, Oladipo, and Wall (aka WOW). He did well in hiring Udoka, getting FVV (also saved by Udoka not signing Harden to a full max), Brooks and Adams. So he has done some good things. But I'd say luck is the most important factor. But to be fair, a lot of team building is luck, especially the draft.
Kpj hitting his gf definitely helped a ton, things might look really different if that didn’t happen.
I'm going to play devil's advocate on the Pelinka take and say that I don't know if you should give out Executive of the Year to somebody just because another GM was an absolute moron and gave away a superstar to them. Any GM would do what Pelinka did. I guess credit for not giving up more assets in the deal, but even that doesn't seem that hard when dealing with an absolute moron like Nico, and being gifted a situation where you're not bidding against anybody? For me the award should be given to the guy who made the craftiest moves, the best under-the-radar pickups, that sort of thing. You're looking for the "Billy Beane from Moneyball" of the season, not the GM of a darling major-market franchise that gets everything falling into their lap. And for me, that would be Langdon from Detroit this season. Absolutely turned that franchise around. Good head coach hire, smart moves to fix their spacing, did a good job in a bad draft. Turned around a dumpster fire franchise in one offseason. Yes, a lot of the talent they already had, but being able to mold that into a winning team is something they weren't able to do until they hired him.
80% of their turn around is on Cade making that leap. Luka got traded to the Lakers because Pelinka happened to be the Lakers GM. If Pelinka was the GM of Pistons Luka would be a Piston right now for Ausar and Jalen Duren.
I agree that's a lot of it, but I also think the moves they made really improved their spacing and helped Cade make the leap. A lot of the problem before was that every team knew that if they stopped Cade Detroit's offense was already done. Suddenly with Beasley and Hardaway Jr they actually had shooters that could burn other teams. Also, as I said--a good head coaching hire. Always liked Bickerstaff and clearly he was just what they needed.
Hiring a good coach isnt that hard majority of coaches in the NBA are good coaches. If they hired Vogel I am sure they would still be good. Detroit had capspace and they used it to sign players I mean thats not rocket science either. In fact they kinda fumbled they paid Tobias Harris 26M when nobody wanted him.
In a closed competing system like the NBA, in terms of making deal, your smart is also the stupidity of the other GMs.
You are overthinking this. In the end awards should be just based on results, or it would get so convoluted there's never really a winner. Just like if the Rockets win the championship because Curry, Draymond, Luka, LeBron, SGA, Chet, Jalen Williams, Tatum, Brown all gets mysteriously injured right before they play the Rockets, that's still a championship even if one can easily argue the Rockets were not the best team this season.
I'd consider a championship a completely different thing from an award like this. Awards are given out based on perceived merit; championships are the end result of a competition. If it was just based on the results like you say, the MVP should always be the best player on the best team, the DPOY should always be the best defender on the team with the best defense, and so on. But it's not, we recognize individual merit and when people perform well in their position.
I don't see why he should get much credit for saying yes to a moron who only wanted to deal with him - AD was supposedly the only player the Mavs wanted. Easy to say yes, any one of us arm chair GM's say yes to that trade in an instant. Stone has gone from 22, 41 to 52 wins in a three year span .... and a #2 seed that no one saw coming - even the most optimistic here were thinking they might be a play in team in a stacked west. It should be a clean sweep - Executive of the year Stone, Coach of the year Ime and MIP, first team All Defense & DPOY Amen. (Wemby didn't play enough games to qualify?)
So you think the moves stone made in the last calendar year (drafting reed is the only move that had anything to do with the roster) is more significant and better than trading for luka? I would have to disagree. Previous seasons have nothing to do with this award, completely irrelevant,
From ESPN's Tim McMahon and Ramona Shelburne: "Harrison decided early on, team sources said, that the best way to trade a player of Doncic's caliber was to pick the trade that he wanted, rather than open up the process, to avoid Doncic and his agent exerting their own leverage. It would also avoid the crippling fan backlash that might influence the deal." Nico Harrison literally never planned to take Luka to the open market. Pelinka didn't convince him of ****. He went to a team with incredibly limited assets and got about as much as he could get from them. They didn't have many picks. They didn't have many young players. And they only had two stars to choose from. All Pelinka deserves credit for is having a positive relationship with Nico Harrison going back several decades and managing to keep it quiet. But he was, in essence, still just lucky as hell that Nico was that stupid. He won the lottery. That's all. And I don't think he deserves an award for that. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...-together-los-angeles-lakers-dallas-mavericks And if you want more proof that Pelinka didn't talk Nico Harrison into being quiet about it, Harrison reportedly reached out to the Wolves in an attempt to get Edwards and the Bucks in an attempt to get Giannis before he settled on AD. Again, Pelinka just got lucky. https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/ne...c-trade-giannis-antetokounmpo-anthony-edwards And finally, how did Ainge get hoodwinked? He got Hood-Schifino for two second rounders. That's the deal he wanted and he got it. Why does he even care if helps the Lakers facilitate that trade? The Jazz aren't on that timeline. It makes zero difference to them as an organization.
