NBA Season Preview 2019-20: Predictions for each individual award
Executive of the Year
- Michael Winger, LA Clippers
- Trajan Langdon, New Orleans Pelicans
- Rob Pelinka, Los Angeles Lakers
We won’t hold it against you that you didn’t know Michael Winger was the general manager of the LA Clippers. Most people just assume Doc Rivers and Jerry West are pulling the strings, and our Getty Image database seems to agree, since there wasn’t a single image of Michael Winger available. If anything, credit for two of the three biggest moves of the summer should go to Kawhi Leonard, who chose to sign with the Clips and then helped orchestrate the Paul George trade.
However, given that the Clippers had the best summer of anyone and that this award has to go to someone, it’ll likely fall in Winger’s lap for adding the Klaw and PG-13 in the same offseason.
Trajan Langdon (a.k.a. “David Griffin”) could be in the running if the New Orleans Pelicans make the playoffs, since trading a top-10 superstar doesn’t always go as well as it did for NOLA. Landing Zion Williamson was pure lottery luck, but adding Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, a haul of draft picks, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Jaxson Hayes, J.J. Redick and Derrick Favors in one summer has the Pelicans’ rebuild looking up a lot sooner than anyone anticipated.
Rob Pelinka will also garner some votes seeing as how he just added Anthony Davis to LeBron James. He also did reasonably well in filling out the bench after Kawhi took his sweet time with his free agency decision. With that being said, the Los Angeles Lakers kind of fell ass-backward into AD by virtue of their franchise being located in L.A. and already having LeBron, who also joined because he wanted to live in L.A.
Elton Brand and Dennis Lindsey could sneak in there if their teams finish near the top of their respective conferences, but the star-studded rosters will likely dominate this discussion. And as fun as it’d be for James Harden and Russell Westbrook to mesh right away, Daryl Morey’s tweet probably removed him from receiving the most awkward Executive of the Year award of all time.