Lakers veteran Jared Dudley did not hold back about the Executive of the Year voting results.
The Los Angeles Lakers are currently one win away from being crowned NBA Champions and have the two best players of the NBA Finals. In fact, heading into the NBA Playoffs, the Lakers boasted two of the five-best players to be participating in the Orlando bubble.
That is quite the accomplishment. An accomplishment that might typically earn an accolade for team building, but that is not the case. The NBA revealed the voting for the Executive of the Year Award for the 2019-20 season only for Lakers general manger Rob Pelinka to finish seventh. Yes, seventh.
Veteran forward Jared Dudley took exception to the voting resuls and was not afraid to let his opinion be known on Twitter in a rant that we cannot help but appreciate.
This is a Joke right???? Over Rob Pelinka??? Stop it!!!! AD trade, signing Dwight Howard, Avery Bradley, and the best trade deadline move was signing Markieff Morris. Oh yeah and the Lakers was the best team in the west and 2nd overall.. Said we gave up to much for AD 🤷🏽♂️ https://t.co/TypX0geBEe
— Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) October 8, 2020
To clarify for Mr. Dudley: Lawrence Frank is not the only one that was voted above Rob Pelinka. So did Sam Presti (Oklahoma City), Pat Riley (Miami), Jon Horst (Milwaukee), Masai Ujiri (Toronto) and Zack Kleiman (Memphis).
Okay, okay, okay. There are some things we have to dive into.
First of all, Frank was voted as the Executive of the Year for landing Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, presumably. A) That did not work out very well in 2020 (don’t forget: they blew a 3-1 lead) and B) Sam Presti finished second for being on the other end of the same trade.
What Sam Presti did in flipping Russell Westbrook and Paul George was amazing. Presti got a future all-star in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and seven future first-round picks for two years of Paul George. Somehow he is getting recognized for getting a great haul while Frank is also getting recognized for overpaying for Paul George.
Pat Riley and Jon Horst are fine. I can live with that. Masai Ujiri is riding the coattails of that bold Kawhi Leonard trade and didn’t really do anything this past year to earn more votes than Pelinka and Zack Kleiman made one good draft pick in Jaren Jackson and had Ja Morant fall in his lap.
We have to agree with Jared Dudley here. Not only did the Lakers get Anthony Davis (and a NBA Finals berth because of it) but they also saw the potential in several veteran free agents that other executives simply did not want.
Avery Bradley, Dwight Howard and Markieff Morris, like Dudley stated, have all been fantastic. Pelinka took a chance on all three and it paid off, even if Bradley did not re-join the team in the bubble.
At the end of the day, these awards do not really matter much, the only one that does is the NBA Championship. However, that does not make it any less ridiculous.