Milwaukee Bucks: Looking ahead to potentially momentous NBA Awards
By Adam McGee
Executive of the Year
Based on the somewhat strange decision that’s been made in the first two years of the show, there’s a real possibility that Executive of the Year may not be physically presented during the broadcast.
Still, it’s almost a lock that the award’s winner will be announced at some point on Monday, and Bucks general manager Jon Horst has to be considered among the frontrunners to receive the honor.
Even without accounting for the Raptors’ ultimate championship success, Masai Ujiri may well be Horst’s primary competition for the award having acquired Kawhi Leonard and hired Nick Nurse as head coach. Unlike the rest of the awards, nominees for Executive of the Year are not announced ahead of time.
Still, Horst’s body of work last season is arguably more impressive than any of his peers considering the sheer scale of the jump the Bucks took in 2018-19.
Hiring Mike Budenholzer stands out as arguably Horst’s most important move over the course of the year, but signing Brook Lopez on a bargain deal in free agency, landing key contributors such as Pat Connaughton and Ersan Ilyasova, shedding significantly salary while also improving in sending Matthew Dellavedova and John Henson to Cleveland in exchange for George Hill, and then rolling the dice to bolster his team with Nikola Mirotic at the deadline all stand as notable achievements too.
Horst faces a pivotal week with a potentially franchise-altering free agency just ahead, but first he could become the first Bucks GM since John Hammond in 2009-10, and only the second ever, to take home the league’s Executive of the Year award.