Front Office Watch · 2026–27Open the live board →
Loading the current lead story…
The strategic map

The league, by phase.

Explore all 30 teams →
Loading the league map…
Where the tension is

Teams worth watching.

See the living record →
Loading current reads…
Flagship work

Reports built from the record.

Browse all analysis →
01
Launch report

The 2026–27 NBA Strategic Map

Thirty teams. Four different jobs. One league-wide strategic picture.

02
Cornerstones

Who Actually Has a Cornerstone?

Confirmed foundations, provisional bets and teams still searching.

03
Offseason

Offseason Coherence Test

Which front offices built a sequence, and which just accumulated moves?

04
Decision quality

The Good Move Trap

Why a smart transaction can still be strategically wrong.

05
2026–27

What Every Front Office Has to Prove

The evidence that should strengthen or break each team’s thesis.

How FOW thinks

Same framework. Same evidentiary rules. All 30 teams.

AI creates the first read. Correspondents and editors can challenge it. Facts, uncertainty and revision history stay visible.

Read the framework & doctrine →Become a correspondent →
2026–27 · Living strategic record

The league, as FOW sees it now.

Every team's starting strategic phase, every material decision in the current research edition, and the current FOW interpretation. This is a living record: evidence and human review can change the read without erasing what came before.

How to read this: facts and sources are the factual layer. AI Read is the current interpretation generated under the FOW doctrine. Open Question means a material limitation remains visible. Human review adds authority; it is not required for the record to be public.

Facts first

Opening phase, decisions, dates, terms, sequence and sources remain distinct from interpretation.

Interpretation is explicit

FOW says what the decision appears to do strategically, and labels the read as AI or human reviewed.

Revision is a feature

Better evidence or a stronger argument can change the current read. Later outcomes do not rewrite the original decision context.

Phase
TeamPhaseFront officeCurrent FOW readDecisionsOpen
Loading the current FOW record…
Correspondents

Know a team better than the machine does?

FOW will add correspondents at conference, division and team level. Their job is not to defend a franchise. It is to challenge the evidence and improve the strategic interpretation under one common doctrine. Division correspondents are the natural first layer: six people can add meaningful human coverage across the league.

Front Office Watch

Analysis

Arguments, strategic reports and reframes drawn from the living record.

Loading the latest analysis…

Reports & Series

Recurring FOW work
Latest
Loading published work…
How Front Office Watch Thinks

One framework. One doctrine.

The framework defines what FOW evaluates. The doctrine defines how AI, editors and correspondents are allowed to evaluate it. The value is not any one verdict. It is applying the same strategic logic and evidentiary rules across all 30 front offices.

The framework

What job is this front office actually trying to do?

FOW starts with the strategic situation, not the transaction. Each team occupies one of four phases. The phase establishes the objective, the constraints and what progress should look like before a move is judged.

The doctrine

What are we allowed to conclude from the evidence?

The same rules apply whether the first read comes from AI, Mike or a correspondent. Human expertise can improve the interpretation. It does not get to change the evidentiary standard.

The Four Strategic Phases

The job changes by phase
01
Reset
Find and confirm the foundation.
What progress looks like

Increase access to foundational talent, create conditions that reveal it, and preserve enough optionality to build once the answer becomes clearer.

Characteristic failure

Fake progress: spending assets or flexibility to look competitive before the foundation is established, or mistaking a promising candidate for a confirmed answer.

02
Assemble
Build the right team around the foundation.
What progress looks like

Add capabilities that complement the cornerstone, sequence commitments intelligently and preserve the resources required for the next important piece.

Characteristic failure

The wrong team around the right player: activity, spending or star accumulation that does not solve the actual capability gaps.

03
Calibrate
Identify the real obstacle to contention.
What progress looks like

Use playoff and high-leverage evidence to isolate the limiting problem, then make targeted changes proportionate to the gap.

Characteristic failure

Solving the wrong problem: large moves aimed at symptoms, or repeated tinkering when the actual constraint is elsewhere.

04
Sustain
Preserve a real championship position.
What progress looks like

Protect the competitive core, refresh around it without disturbing what works, and prepare for decline before the window closes on its own.

Characteristic failure

Tinkering, denial or decay: spending tomorrow to protect yesterday, letting the pipeline disappear, or failing to recognize when Sustain has ended.

How a Decision Is Read

Five questions

A transaction is not good or bad in the abstract. FOW evaluates what the decision did to the team's strategic position at that moment.

01

Phase fit

Did the decision address the most important objective of the team's current phase?

02

Resource & leverage use

What was spent, preserved, created or surrendered, and was the leverage used intelligently?

03

Strategic optionality

What future choices did the move preserve, create or close?

04

Sequence fit

Was this the right move now, given what needed to happen before it and what must happen next?

05

New strategic position

After the decision, is the organization in a stronger position to solve the underlying strategic challenge?

The Editorial Doctrine

The rules do not change by reviewer

These rules govern every AI Read, Human Reviewed assessment and FOW Editor Read. They are the constraint system that makes league-wide comparison meaningful.

01

Situation before outcome

Judge the decision using what was knowable when it was made. Later wins, losses, injuries and player development are recorded separately; they do not retroactively justify the original choice.

02

Facts before interpretation

Transaction terms, timing, sources and unresolved facts are distinct from FOW's strategic judgment. Opinion must never be presented as evidence.

03

Uncertainty stays visible

If chronology, contract terms, alternatives, authority or intent are unresolved, say so. An Open Question is part of the record, not a failure to publish.

04

No invented motives or alternatives

Do not manufacture private offers, ownership instructions, medical information, rejected trades or internal intent. Infer only what the public record can responsibly support.

05

Steelman the competing explanation

When another phase diagnosis or interpretation could materially change the read, state the strongest version of it and let confidence reflect the quality of the evidence.

06

Preserve the revision trail

FOW is allowed to change its mind. Material revisions explain what changed and preserve prior interpretations rather than silently rewriting history.

Who Has Authority?

Provenance matters
AI Read

League-wide first read

AI can research, synthesize and publish a first interpretation under the FOW framework and doctrine. It cannot claim Mike reviewed it, hide uncertainty or relax the evidentiary rules.

Human Reviewed

Expert review

A correspondent or authorized editor can add evidence, challenge the phase, revise the interpretation and strengthen the counterargument. Human review increases authority; it does not rewrite facts.

FOW Editor Read

Doctrine and strategic authority

Mike owns the FOW doctrine and final editorial authority. His role is not to approve every transaction. It is to govern the lens, intervene on important judgments and evolve the framework when the evidence exposes a weakness.

Open Question

Visible limitation

A factual or interpretive uncertainty that materially affects confidence stays attached to the record until it is resolved. Publication is not certification.

Correspondent standard

Expertise improves the record. It does not change the rules.

A correspondent may cover a conference, division or team. Their job is to improve the interpretation, not defend the franchise. They may add evidence, challenge the phase, revise the strategic read and surface a stronger alternative explanation. They may not silently alter source facts, use later outcomes to justify an earlier decision, or erase prior interpretations.

That common doctrine is what allows a Celtics specialist, an AI system and an FOW editor to contribute to the same record without turning it into 30 unrelated fan sites.

The People Nobody Writes About

The Hidden Layer

Directors of scouting, player personnel leads, G League operators — the people whose fingerprints are on draft boards and roster decisions but whose names almost never appear in print. We're building the most complete public record of this layer that exists.

On sourcing: This section uses a three-tier confidence framework. CONFIRMED means verified by team directories, official announcements, or named reporting. REPORTED means sourced from credible media but not officially confirmed. INFERENCE means logical conclusion from available evidence. Most NBA media presents everything with equal confidence. We don't.

The Career Path

How scouts become GMs
01
Video / Analytics
Film study, data work, player development entry roles
02
Regional Scout
College conferences, pro leagues, international coverage
03
G League GM
Running a roster, owning player ID and development decisions
04
Director / AGM
Managing draft boards, trade analysis, cap strategy
05
GM / President
The public face. Credit and blame flow here regardless of source.

Named Profiles

Updated as sourcing improves
Miami Heat · Assistant GM / VP Basketball Operations
Adam Simon
Longest-tenured senior evaluator in the Heat system
CONFIRMED — role & tenure REPORTED — scouting centrality
Career Path
Joined Miami as Director of Player Personnel → GM of Sioux Falls Skyforce (Heat G League affiliate) → VP Basketball Operations / AGM under Riley and Elisburg. One of the longest-serving senior evaluators in the league.
Fingerprints
Miami's undrafted and late-picked player pipeline — Udonis Haslem, Tyler Johnson, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent — is the product of a scouting and development system Simon has been central to across multiple roster generations.
Why this matters: Riley and Elisburg get all the credit. Simon is the evaluation layer that finds the players Riley develops and Elisburg signs. In Phase 2 and 3 operations, this person is as important as the GM. He is almost never written about.
Cleveland Cavaliers · Director of Scouting
Brendon Yu
Charge GM → NBA Director of Scouting — textbook hidden layer trajectory
CONFIRMED
Career Path
G League player development → GM of the Cleveland Charge → Director of Scouting for the Cavaliers. Classic internal promotion: demonstrated roster construction ability at the G League level, elevated to run the NBA draft board.
What to Watch
Yu is the prototype for the next generation of NBA GMs — evaluators who come up through G League operations before moving to the NBA level. Cleveland's strong recent drafting (Garland, Mobley, Mitchell trade) reflects the quality of the evaluation infrastructure he's now running.
Trajectory: If Cleveland's draft performance holds, Yu is an AGM candidate within 2–3 years. This is the career path to watch.
Cleveland Charge · General Manager
Liron Fanan
2025–26 G League Basketball Executive of the Year
CONFIRMED
Career Path
Joined Cleveland as Director of G League Player Development (2018–19) → Assistant GM (2020–21) → Charge GM (2023–24). The G League Executive of the Year award is voted on by G League coaches and GMs — direct peer validation of her evaluation and roster construction work.
Significance
Fanan is one of the clearest examples of a hidden layer evaluator whose work shows up first in G League rosters and only later at the NBA level. The award is as close to a "peer scouting reputation" marker as exists in this layer — voted by the people who compete against her.
Chicago Bulls · Director of Scouting
Gary Sacks
Status uncertain — regime change in progress
CONFIRMED — role IN FLUX — retention TBD
Background
Longtime front office executive with prior roles including VP/Basketball Operations with the Clippers. Oversees Chicago's scouting department under the AKME regime. Career predates Karnišovas — suggesting some organizational continuity independent of the fired leadership.
The Key Question
Does Chicago's incoming GM bring their own Director of Scouting — or retain Sacks? This single decision signals whether the rebuild is genuinely fresh or cosmetically reshuffled. New GMs typically bring at least one trusted evaluator at the Director level within their first offseason.
Watch: Track whether Sacks is retained, reassigned, or replaced. It's a leading indicator of how much the new GM trusts the existing evaluation infrastructure vs. wanting to rebuild from their own network.
Chicago Bulls · Director of International Scouting
Ivica Dukan
Long-tenured European evaluator in Chicago's system
CONFIRMED
Long-tenured international scout with deep European connections, has held roles including Director of International Scouting and Special Assistant to the GM. His European network predates and survived multiple regime changes in Chicago — suggesting organizational recognition of his sourcing value independent of any particular GM. One of the few hidden layer figures with genuine institutional continuity in a notoriously unstable front office.
Denver Nuggets · Director of Scouting
Drew Nicholas
Former professional player turned trusted evaluator
REPORTED
Played a decade of professional basketball overseas before transitioning into front office work. Named Director of Scouting for Denver, where he has been described by league figures as a trusted and impressive evaluator. Denver's front office under Connelly and now Tenzer has been quietly respected for finding value — Nicholas is cited as a meaningful contributor to that reputation.
Pattern: Former international players turned evaluators (Nicholas, Langdon at NOP) represent a distinct archetype — they bring court-level understanding of pro basketball at a level domestic college scouts often lack. Worth tracking as a sourcing pattern.
Oklahoma City Thunder · Scouting System
The Invisible Machine
OKC's extraordinary draft track record — Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, Adams, SGA, Holmgren, Williams — is attributed almost entirely to "Presti and the Thunder front office" in public coverage. Named scouts responsible for specific picks are essentially invisible in the public record. This is either because Presti has been extraordinarily effective at keeping credit centralized, or because OKC has genuinely built a collective evaluation culture where the system outperforms any individual. Both interpretations are worth exploring.
What we know: OKC explicitly claims to have produced more future GMs than any other organization since 2010 — suggesting a strong internal talent-development culture that extends to front office personnel, not just players. Acie Law is one named OKC evaluator on a rising trajectory. The full scouting staff remains largely unnamed in public reporting.
Confidence level: INFERENCE — Any attribution of specific OKC picks to specific scouts is speculative. We describe it as "the Thunder's scouting system" until stronger sourcing emerges.
This Section Is Incomplete By Design

The hidden layer is genuinely hard to cover. These people don't give quotes, don't appear on panels, and aren't tracked anywhere systematically. What you see above is the most complete public record we've been able to build — and we're transparent about its gaps.

If you work in an NBA front office, cover the league, or have sourced information about directors of scouting or player personnel leads, we want to hear from you. This is the coverage gap worth closing.

Framework · The Hand

Poker Concepts

The most important question in front office analysis isn't "was this a good trade?" It's "given the hand this GM was holding, was this the right move?" These are the eight concepts we apply to every decision in the database.

The Nuts

Having an unbeatable hand

Recognizing when you hold maximum leverage and extracting accordingly. When Paul George requested a trade specifically to the Clippers — and LAC needed him to secure Kawhi — Presti held the nuts. He had the only asset the Clippers needed.

FOW use: Moves where the GM correctly identified and exploited maximum leverage.
Playing Opponent's Cards

Evaluating from the other side

Most bad trades happen because a GM evaluates only their own hand. AK evaluated Giddey's abstract value. Presti evaluated what Giddey was worth to OKC — which had collapsed. The information asymmetry was the trade margin.

FOW use: Trades where one side failed to model the other team's actual situation and motivation.
Implied Odds

Betting on future value

Sometimes a move looks bad on immediate return but the future value justifies it. Presti trading Ibaka to Orlando looks modest — until you trace the pick chain that eventually produced SGA. Evaluating moves only on immediate return misses the compounding entirely.

FOW use: Asset chain moves and picks traded at apparent discount where the downstream value was the real prize.
Bankroll Management

Not overcommitting the stack

You can make the right decision on every individual move and still destroy the franchise by overcommitting. GMs who trade too many first-round picks to win now are violating bankroll management. Presti's refusal to compromise his pick portfolio through the bridge era is textbook bankroll discipline.

FOW use: Asset management decisions — when GMs preserved or depleted their portfolio relative to their window.
Fold Equity

The credible threat

Sometimes the leverage isn't in the trade itself — it's in the credible threat of an alternative outcome. Presti's OKC had fold equity in the Giddey situation: they could credibly move Giddey to the bench, let the extension standoff play out, and make Chicago feel the cost of inaction.

FOW use: Negotiations where one side's leverage came from a credible outside option, not just the asset itself.
Position Advantage

Acting last with more information

Acting last — with more information — is a structural advantage. Presti consistently engineers situations where he waits for other teams to reveal their desperation before making his move. LAC needing George to get Kawhi told Presti everything he needed to know about their leverage.

FOW use: Trades where one GM had informational advantage by waiting — and another revealed weakness by acting first.
Tilt

Decisions driven by emotion

Making moves based on external pressure or emotional reaction rather than the actual situation. The Carmelo Anthony signing is Presti on tilt — Durant's departure created pressure to make a statement, and the result was an ill-fitting, expensive mistake. Nico Harrison's Luka trade has tilt written all over it.

FOW use: Reactive moves where ownership pressure, star demands, or narrative pressure overrode basketball logic.
Bad Read

Misreading the situation

A Bad Read is a sober, non-emotional mistake — the GM simply misread what the situation demanded. The wrong player taken in the draft. The wrong second star signed. The wrong phase identified. Not tilt, just an incorrect assessment of the hand. Most Phase 3 mistakes are Bad Reads, not Tilt.

FOW use: Analytical failures — draft misses, wrong free agent fit, misidentified cornerstone — where the process was sound but the read was wrong.
Every move in the database is tagged

Every move in every GM's ledger is assigned one of these eight concepts — the poker lens most relevant to how the decision was made or why it succeeded or failed. Those tags feed directly into the five-metric scores. Asset Extraction in particular is heavily informed by positional play, implied odds, and bankroll management.

Explore the live board →
Audio · The Front Office Watch

The Podcast

In-depth conversations on NBA front office decisions, GM philosophy, and the roster construction moves that define franchises.

MIC

Launching soon

The Front Office Watch podcast is in production. Subscribe to get notified when the first episode drops.

Free Newsletter

The strategic record, when something changes.

Phase changes, franchise-shaping decisions, important revisions to the FOW read, and the strongest disagreements around the league. No need to follow 30 teams every day.

Join Free

Get the changes that matter.

When the living record materially changes, or when a decision deserves a deeper strategic read, you’ll hear about it here.

What This Is

About The Front Office Watch

Most NBA coverage follows players, games and outcomes. Front Office Watch follows the strategic record created by the people building the teams.

Every franchise starts from a different position. FOW records that starting phase, the material decisions that follow, what those decisions cost or preserve, and how the strategic position changes over time.

The first interpretation is an AI Read generated under one common FOW doctrine. It is published as a working strategic assessment, not represented as Mike Brady’s personal judgment. Facts, sources and material uncertainty stay distinct from interpretation.

Human review strengthens the record rather than gating it. Mike can revise important calls, and FOW will add correspondents at conference, division and team level. Their job is to challenge the evidence and improve the interpretation, not defend a franchise.

The public can also challenge a read or supply missing context. Contributions do not silently overwrite the canonical record; useful disagreement becomes evidence for revision and, over time, a path to trusted correspondent roles.

The underlying strategic model — start with the team’s situation, then judge each decision against the job the front office actually had — is explained in the FOW framework.

Front Office Watch was created by Mike Brady. The doctrine is his; league-wide coverage does not depend on him personally reviewing every move before it can be useful.

2026-27 Move Ledger

Phase Fit Type Player / Asset Cost / Mechanism Stakes Running
2026-27 Season
Live Strategic Record

All 30 teams, their starting phase, material decisions and current FOW read.

Explore the live board →
FOW Framework

The strategic doctrine behind the live record and every decision read.

Read the framework →
Related

More analysis from The Front Office Watch.

All Analysis →
Live Strategic Record

All 30 teams, their strategic starting point, material decisions and current FOW read.

Explore the live board →
The Profile

The published verdict built on this research.

About Dossiers

Every GM profile is built on a sourced research dossier. We publish the receipts.

Explore all teams →
Correspondent application

Help improve the record.

Correspondents cover a conference, division or team under the same FOW doctrine. Application does not grant direct publishing access; accepted correspondents can propose revisions within their scope.

Improve the record

Challenge, correct or add context.

Your submission becomes a proposed contribution. It cannot overwrite the public record directly. Useful contributions can become reviewed revisions with attribution.