Gregg Popovich was the coach of the year, but given the voters choice of the Executive of the year, they must believe the Pop's prowess is just overcoming all those boneheaded drafting and trading mistakes that R.C. Buford keeps making. Larry Bird, who was probably fleeced by Buford in a draft day trade that sent Kawhi Leonard to San Antonio, has won executive of the year.

While I don't think that Bird has done a poor job, let's not forget that Indiana didn't suck last year. It's not like he turned the Bobcats into a playoff contender. Basically, Bird got a little lucky this year, and reaped the rewards of previous years' efforts.

1. Roy Hibbert had a career year

Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal for a 4th year player to improve. But here's the thing: Hibbert was a terrible rookie, a bad sophomore, and didn't improve in his third year either:

Hibbert was an inefficient shooter, poor-to-average rebounder, and poor defender who turned the ball over a lot. Shot Blocking was the only thing he was good at. This year, he shot the ball less (when you are terrible at shooting, this helps), shot it better when he did shoot (probably from eliminating a couple of ill-advised shots per game), he turned the ball over less, he fouled less, and he rebounded more, to go from "terrible" to "pretty good, actually". Now, you can claim that Bird knew this was going to happen, but I'm not going to believe it.

2. Paul George Got better AND more minutes

Paul George has been pretty stellar this year, and has benefitted from increased playing time:

George was instrumental in the Pacers' success this year.  Certainly, Bird deserves credit for drafting Paul, since he was an extremely good rookie and has played at an all-star level this year. But do I really need to remind the voters that the award is for the 2012 executive of the year? Ever get a B on an exam and complain to the professor "But I got an A on the last one!"? No? Didn't think so.

Note that I don't think Bird was a bad GM this year at all.  Trading away Leonard is defensible if you think you've already got SF covered with Granger and George, and Hill (who also had an improved year) is certainly a big improvement over T.J. Ford.

But let's not also forget that he let Dunleavy go, and Dunleavy would be a huge improvement over Jones, Stephenson, or Leandro Barbosa.  I find it pretty ironic that he's lauded for the Barbosa acquisition because he got Barbosa so cheap; Dunleavy signed for less than $3 million, and with Barbosa you get what you pay for. And Dunleavy's stellar 2012 was not that big of a surprise:

Dunleavy has been a stellar shooter and rebounder his whole career. I've never figured out why fans dislike the guy.

Mostly, what it boils down to is that Buford drafted a guy who was good enough to replace Manu Ginobli without hurting the spurs, dumped Richard Jefferson's contract for the more favorable contract of Stephen Jackson, picked up Boris Diaw for cheap (caveat: taking advantage of Michael Jordan doesn't really set you above the pack, but still).  They finished with the best record in the NBA, and 2 of the team's starters (3 if you count green, who they "re-acquired" this year) are players Buford acquired this year. How is that not executive-of-the-year material?

I'm sure someone will chime in that Buford got lucky with how good Leonard turned out to be.  Just like the Spurs got lucky with George Hill, DeJuan Blair, Manu Ginobli, Tony Parker, and Tiago Splitter, who were all late picks.  Exactly how many years can you 'get lucky' drafting players no one else wants before some people scratch their head and ask "Maybe it's not luck. What do they know that we don't know?"

Categories: Kawhi Leonard, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs