Judging NBA general managers actually isn’t that simple

Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets will win the NBA’s Executive of the Year award, and he will deserve it. He convinced Chris Paul, an extraordinary point guard still in his prime, to force a trade and join another ball-dominant guard in James Harden to take a run at the seemingly unbeatable Golden State Warriors.

The fit has worked beautifully: the Rockets have been beyond brilliant when both CP3 and Harden play, and Houston has the best record in the NBA. Morey pulled off the biggest coup of a summer that also involved Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, and Paul George being traded. He deserves that Executive of the Year award.

Here’s the thing: every team in the league would have traded for Paul had they known he was available. He wasn’t available to all those teams — he wasn’t even really available to his incumbent team, the LA Clippers. Morey deserves credit for convincing Paul to make himself available to the Rockets, a process that included building such an excellent team before CP3 came available. Landing Paul was a multi-year project.

All free-agent or trade victories are like that. The Celtics’ Kyrie Irving win is owed directly to Danny Ainge’s amassing of draft picks and good players on great contracts. To land stars outside the draft, you have to do other things right first.

But Morey didn’t uncover something no one else could in chasing Paul. Everyone knows Paul is a future hall of famer who would make any team much better. There’s no real surprise in the result, only shock at the acquisition.

Is that more impressive than beating other team executives at a game everyone is available to play?

Compare Morey’s victory with, say, Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri’s work at the 2016 NBA Draft.

The Raptors had the No. 9 pick, owing to a trade Ujiri made with the New York Knicks to send Andrea Bargnani to NYC for multiple picks, including an unprotected 2016 selection. Toronto used that pick on Austrian big man Jakob Poeltl, who has become an increasingly impressive reserve for Toronto at age 22.

With their own No. 27 pick, Ujiri took Pascal Siakam, who played at New Mexico State, well outside the visage of most analysts. Off the heap of undrafted players, Ujiri grabbed Fred VanVleet, an undersized lead guard who played at Wichita State. Siakam and VanVleet, like Poeltl, have become key bench players for a first-place team with one of the most successful benches in the league.

What’s more: VanVleet’s emergence and the success of 2015 late-first Delon Wright allowed Ujiri to trade a good backup point guard in Cory Joseph to nab C.J. Miles in a sign-and-trade. Miles has been valuable to Toronto’s bench’s success, and the Raptors only got him because Ujiri had drafted so well. These minor victories are especially impressive when you look at how they influence the broader picture of a first-place team.

What’s more is that any team, for all intents and purposes, could have had the 2016 NBA Draft that Ujiri gave the Raptors. There was nothing obvious about any of his moves: Poeltl was not a consensus top-10 pick, Siakam wasn’t a surefire first-rounder, and VanVleet went undrafted. But the Raptors’ scouting excellence pulled those diamonds out of the hill of gravel. That they did so helped put an already good team into a position to legitimately fight for an NBA Finals bid.

Landing Paul is a big, bold stroke that everyone would do, but only one or two executives could do. Plucking up Poeltl, Siakam, and VanVleet in that 2016 draft are more precise, small strokes that everyone could do, but only one executive did. What’s more impressive?

This debate is not unique to the team-building ranks. An award like Coach of the Year deserves similar inquiry.

Mike D’Antoni appears the favorite for fitting Harden and CP3 together in brilliant fashion. It seems fair to say most NBA coaches would be able to produce a good team and very good offense if granted those two players. (To be fair, D’Antoni has had other successes coaching this team, including developing Clint Capela, which has been critical.)

But what about Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, who has again conjured a better-than-average team out of a middling roster littered with players who’d never sniff the court for Houston? What about Doc Rivers, who has kept the Clippers in the playoff race with a litany of G-League graduates and an assortment of cast-off veterans? What is more worthy of the highest praise: winning big with great players, or finding success with fringe ones?

This question does not have an easy answer. History suggests Morey and D’Antoni will sweep these awards due to the Rockets’ supreme excellence. (Given that Harden should and will win the NBA MVP, commissioner Adam Silver could be in Houston all April and May.)

But it’s worth considering other perspectives on what excellence means in team-building and coaching. We often focus on the biggest successes instead of the most impressive.