When you step into the NBA’s front office in 2022, you don’t have to go far before you can find a paper on business theory on the bookshelf. Concepts such as organizational culture and asset management are well established. League executives have put a lot of thought into shaping the identity of the basketball operations shop.
The NBA can be an exceptional business where winners and losers are literally determined in the competitive arena, but it’s never been like any other billion-dollar company. Please squint enough. If you remove the thunder and bobblehead dolls that sit on your desk, you can easily place the cubicle farm in its NBA front office in Silicon Valley.
The NBA’s 30 front offices are as diverse in style as the court team. Some lead executives prefer to perform set pieces with highly structured attacks, while others prefer to read and react.
The Oklahoma City Thunder front office pays attention to details that never go into the Boston Celtics consciousness that has been around for decades. The Los Angeles Lakers value tradition, but the Phoenix Suns clearly show distrust of it. Big and small decisions are made at the top of the Miami Heat organizational hierarchy, but in the Golden State, consensus is built on a more collaborative process (although owner Joracob is still his boss).
Most fans imagine how to perform the job of the general manager of their favorite team at another time. The exercise usually starts and ends with the opponent drafted in the first round of last week, or with the trades executed. ESPN’s trading machine.
However, the high-profile transactions that dominate chatter are only a small part of the portfolio. My job is not a swashbuckler or deal maker, but a basketball CEO. Anyone interested in this job should be able to answer the following questions: What kind of people do you value in your organization? Where do you want to spend your limited budget apart from your player’s salary? How much disagreement can you honestly tolerate? What is the best way to manage unhappy superstars and temperamental owners? How do you assess risk? When the real decision to build or break a franchise is at a loss, how do you collect information to make a call? Or is the information overrated when you trust your instincts?
That’s your turn! Answer the quiz while waiting for the next big signature or transaction to close, or during Doomscrolling. We visited the league to form six teams: the Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, the Boston Celtics, the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Phoenix Suns, and the Golden State Warriors.
So which front office do you need? you Run? Please answer the quiz and find out.
