An NBA general manager is the CEO of the NBA team even though a lot of teams actually do have a CEO too. Not only do they handle team construction but literally everything down to how much stadium parking should cost.
A lot of times teams will separate the duty of running the business and roster construction by hiring a president of basketball operations. A lot of the time they are one in the same.
Bob Meyers of the golden state warriors and James Jones of the suns have both the title president of basketball operations and gm.
I would imagine if I were at that level I’d become a bit of a control freak too.
Sometimes one individual will be both the coach and the general manager. Don Nelson 1976 became the Head coach and General Manager of the Milwaukee Bucks. Now that's what I call taking accountability for the success of your team.
General Managers have to know everything there is to know about the salary cap and exceptions to the salary cap when signing players. They also have to know how to negotiate with agents and players without upsetting them.
For example Sean Marks GM of the nets offered kyrie Irving a 250 million dollar 5 year contract extension before the 2022 season that had a games played contingency.
This started a shit storm in the offseason, causing kevin durant to request trade that was ultimately denied and request to fire sean marks and head coach steve Nash which was also denied.
General Managers also have to handle personnel issues. Let’s take what happened with Ime Udoka the coach of the Celtics summer of 2022. Ime Udokah was having an affair with a female staff member of the Celtics. Which was against organizational policy. I really don’t want to get into the details of that story, but Brad Stevens, GM of the Celtics was the one who ultimately had to punish Udoka with a one year suspension.
General managers and their scouts are also responsible for their draft picks.
Not to beat a dead horse but let’s take the case of Luka Doncic in the 2018 draft. Vlade Divac the then GM of the kings chose Marvin Bagley with the number 2 pick while Luka was still on the board. Luka is now a three time all nba player and Marvin Bagley I think is in Detroit. Divac stepped down from his position at the Kings in 2020.
What are general managers’ backgrounds? How did they get into this job? Well 70% of the current general managers at least played college basketball and 30% of them actually played in the NBA.
Another journey to the general management position is through being a scout for a team. 43% percent of general managers scouted for an NBA team before becoming a general manager. Masai Ujiri the current gm of the toronto raptors was actually an unpaid scout for the Orlando Magic at one point. Apparently he’d have to pay for his own accommodations or crash with another scout on his road trips. All that money floating around the league and a scout can’t get a room at a motel 6? Come on Orlando Magic.
Daryl Morey didn’t work in basketball at all before becoming the vice president of operations for the celtics. He had gotten his MBA from MIT and was working at Ernest Young as a consultant. Morey has been an NBA GM for 15 years and he’s only 50.
This became a problem when an upset fan left a death threat on a voicemail of Oklahoma city thunder after Sam Presti the General Manager traded away russell westbrook and paul george in 2019.
Also in 2004 Magic fans were so upset with manager John Weisbrod after he traded Tracy Mcgrady to the Rockets he had to go into hiding.
Allegedly there was death threat taped to his front door.
Before I end this I want to talk about Masai Ujiri again and his trade for Kawhi Leonard that got him and the toronto raptors a championship.
Personally I think trades are more of a testament to the quality of a GM than recruiting a free agent. I think Free agents typically either go where they want to live or they go to the highest bidder, but a trade is only in control of the two GMs.
That’s why when Ujiri traded DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a protected 2019 first-round pick for Kawhi Leonard and Danny green it really showcased boldness and instinct.
Kawhi only had one year left on that deal and he had a bum knee. Demar derozan was beloved by fans and wanted to be a lifelong raptor. This had to be hard for him and if it didn’t work out, I’m sure he would have been canned really quick and the city wouldn’t have let him live it down. It did work though. Kawhi Leonard played 60 games that season and the raptors won the finals. Ujiri looked like a genius. Another big move he did that off season was fire Dwayne Casey and replace him with Nick Nurse. Dwayne Casey had just won coach of the year too.
If you want to know more about GMs check out my video about tanking.
I talk about Sam Henkie’s tenor at the sixers better known as the process along with a bunch of other stories of tanking.