As revealed by the NBA Thursday afternoon, Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst finished fourth in NBA Executive of the Year voting this season.
After more than 15 months, Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst is no longer the reigning NBA Executive of the Year.
Thursday afternoon saw the NBA reveal that L.A. Clippers general manager Lawrence Frank has been voted this year’s NBA Executive of the Year. Meanwhile, Horst finished with the fourth-highest amount of votes and finished behind runner ups in Sam Presti of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Pat Riley of the Miami Heat, along with Frank.
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The fact that Horst came away with 39 total votes, including three first-place votes, was certainly interesting to see, admittedly.
Of course, that’s where it’s important to mention that voting applied to the regular season before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the 2019-20 campaign in mid-March.
Given the Bucks’ overwhelming success throughout the portion of the season, it’s more understandable that Horst was rated so highly by his peers.
After all, Horst and the Milwaukee Bucks’ front office had a herculean task of trying to keep the band together last offseason.
Following their run to the Eastern Conference Finals last year, the Bucks had numerous core pieces like Malcolm Brogdon, George Hill, Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton hitting the open market.
Brogdon ultimately proved to be one player too many for the Bucks to bring back and given the outcome of this strange season, that particular move has and continues to loom over the organization moving forward. With that said, moving on from Brogdon shouldn’t take away from the work that Horst achieved in maintaining the Bucks’ foundation, all of which improved upon the results the Bucks had over the regular season year over year.
Of course, there wasn’t the radical change of bringing in head coach Mike Budenholzer that completely transformed the organization’s performance and outlook like the year before. Along with that, the Bucks made ancillary moves to fortify their core around Giannis Antetokounmpo on down, such as bringing in Kyle Korver, Robin Lopez and Wesley Matthews.
That couldn’t contrast more to the offseason that Horst and the Bucks at large are embarking on now, especially after falling out of the Eastern Conference Semifinals in humiliating fashion down in the bubble.
In many ways, this offseason will prove to be Horst’s greatest challenge as Bucks GM for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is being able to secure Antetokounmpo’s long-term services upon offering him his supermax extension later this fall.
What happens for the Bucks this offseason remains to be seen, but it’s safe to say that Horst’s work in maintaining the team’s standing near the top of the league was recognized by his peers this year.