NBA Rumors: San Antonio Spurs RC Buford Hailed As Executive Of the Year for 2015-2016 Basketball Season

By Jenn Loro - 11 May '16 09:42AM

San Antonio Spurs general manager RC Buford has been officially honored as NBA's Executive of the Year for the 2015-16 season after securing 77 points in the recently conducted voting by fellow executives.

Rounding out the top five executives include Portland Blazers' Neil Olshey with 63 points, Golden State Warriors' Bob Myers with 38, Masai Ujiri of the Toronto Raptors with 18, Rich Cho of the Charlotte Hornets with 17. As per Sports Illustrated, Olshey reportedly had more first-place votes among executives with 10 than Buford. Nevertheless, the award will be Buford's second following his previous NBA Executive title in 2013-14.

While the Spurs GM did quite a remarkable job in the front office, he is not the executive type who glorifies himself with statements of grandeur. Coach Gregg Popovich would happily do it for him anyway.

"The best way to put it would be to say we'd be lost without him," the legendary coach said as quoted by ESPN. "His organizational abilities, his foresight, his ability to plan ahead of time and make judicious and wise decisions is off the charts. We would have had a hard time keeping this together for this long if he wasn't here."

Demonstrating his executive leadership, Buford scrambled together a highly credible roster of talents that gave the franchise its best record to date (67-15) according to NBA.com. For 17 seasons in a row, the team accrued at least 50 wins. The team also consistently holds the Southwest Division title for the past six seasons and even matched 1985-86 Boston Celtics' regular season record at home with 40-1.

Buford started out his executive journey by joining the Spurs in 1988 and spending four years as an assistant coach. After assistant coaching stints with Los Angeles Clippers and University of Florida, he went back to San Antonio to serve in various capacities like head scout, director of scouting, assistant general manager and finally as GM in 2002.

He also assumed other executive positions such as president of Spurs Sports & Entertainment which includes an oversight administration of WNBA's San Antonio Stars, the NBA Development League's Austin Spurs and the San Antonio Rampage of the American Hockey League.