Warriors GM Myers voted executive of year
OAKLAND, Calif. — Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers won the NBA’s executive of the year award Friday after assembling a roster that rolled to a franchise-record 67 wins and earned the league’s top playoff seed.
Myers received 13 first-place votes and 82 total points from a panel of fellow executives. Cleveland’s David Griffin was second with eight first-place votes and 69 points. And Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer, who has overseen basketball operations since general manager Danny Ferry’s racially charged comments, finished third with four first-place votes and 36 points.
Myers was a sports agent at the Wasserman Media Group when Warriors owner Joe Lacob hired him in 2011 to be Golden State’s assistant general manager. He was promoted a year later to replace GM Larry Riley, and he has quickly asserted himself as one of basketball’s brightest minds.
Most of Myers’ best work with the Warriors came before this season, when he didn’t make any trades. He has surrounded star Stephen Curry with a talented roster that has made three consecutive playoff appearances and could compete for championships for several years.
Myers engineered the trade-deadline deal in March 2012 that netted center Andrew Bogut and sent Monta Ellis to Milwaukee. He drafted Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes, and he pulled off a series of complicated trades in the summer of 2013 that cleared salary-cap space to sign Andre Iguodala.
Myers also inked Curry to a $44 million, four-year contract extension before the 2012-13 season. Back then, the deal looked like a major risk for the Warriors, considering Curry was coming off his second surgery on his troublesome right ankle. Now Curry is the MVP favorite, and the contract looks like one of the NBA’s best bargains.
This offseason, Myers helped hire Steve Kerr after the team fired Mark Jackson as coach. He also signed Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa to shore up the backup guard spots.
But his best move might have been the one he didn’t make.
Myers chose not to include Klay Thompson in trade talks with Minnesota for Kevin Love, who ultimately landed in Cleveland. The Warriors signed Thompson to a four-year, near-maximum extension of $70 million before the season. Thompson made the All-Star team for the first time and has blossomed into one of the league’s best two-way shooting guards.
Myers has had some misses, to be sure, though none of them are on the current roster. Among those moves that didn’t work out: signing Toney Douglas, drafting Nemanja Nedovic, acquiring Jordan Crawford and using the amnesty clause to cut Charlie Bell in an attempt to sign restricted free agent DeAndre Jordan, who stayed with the Los Angeles Clippers.
But Myers has minimized mistakes along the way, and it’s a big reason the Warriors are one of the title favorites. Golden State hosts Memphis in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday.
The Warriors have not reached the conference finals since 1975-76, a year after they won their only championship in the Bay Area.
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