Lawrence Frank named Executive of the Year
The National Basketball Association was flipped upside down last summer when the reigning NBA Final MVP Kawhi Leonard opted to leave the Toronto Raptors for the Los Angeles Clippers. Despite Leonard winning an NBA championship with the Raptors, the star wanted to be closer to home.
While most expected Leonard to join Lebron James and the Los Angeles Lakers if he wasn’t going to re-sign in Toronto, he decided to take the path less travelled and inked a deal with the Clippers. He was soon joined in Los Angeles by Paul George who was acquired in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder. They instantly became NBA championship contenders.
On Thursday, the man who pulled the strings behind the scenes and made the moves happen was named the league’s 2019-20 executive of the year. The Clippers’ president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank received a total of 10 first-place votes and a combined total of 61 points from a panel of NBA executives to win the award.
Oklahoma City Thunder executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti finished second, while Miami Heat president Pat Riley was third in voting.
“[Frank] is a passionate, dedicated, and selfless leader,” Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer said in a statement issued by the team on Thursday. “I am proud of the work he and his group are doing, and thrilled his peers feel the same way. This award is a great tribute to the hard work done by the entire front office, including our General Manager Michael Winger, Assistant GMs Mark Hughes and Trent Redden, and consultant Jerry West. Together, they have worked to develop every facet of our basketball operations department.”
Frank did not rest on his laurels after acquiring both Leonard and George though, as he went out and traded for Marcus Morris Sr at the trade deadline in a creative three-way deal that involved both the Washington Wizards and New York Knicks. The Clippers also landed Isaiah Thomas in the deal.
Although Frank assembled a team that many believed would be competing for an NBA title, the Clippers ultimately failed to get out of the second-round of the playoffs when they were eliminated in seven games by the Denver Nuggets. Both Leonard and George remain under contract next season though as the club looks to make a deeper run.
Unlike the Lakers who have dominated the NBA over the years, the Clippers have never won an NBA championship. They have never even been to an NBA final. They have just two division titles to their name and hadn’t made it past the first-round of the playoffs in the four seasons prior to this year.
With the 2019-20 NBA championship not being handed out until October as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains to be seen when exactly the Clippers will get another shot at that elusive title. The NBA is hoping for the 2020-21 season to commence on January 1st, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
