FanHouse JeffBower

This is precisely what New Orleans general manager Jeff Bower was not going to be able to do: drop salary in the tighest NBA climate in decades. But lo! the Hornets are actually on the precipice of slipping under the luxury tax threshold. On Wednesday, the team traded Rasual Butler to the Clippers for practically nothing; L.A. used part of its Zach Randolph trade exception.

While the Clips get an able back-up wing that, yes, New Orleans could have used, the Hornets sit $4 million closer to the tax line. For every dollar over the threshold a team sits come June 30, said team must pay $1, which is then spread among the teams under the line. Before trading Tyson Chandler for Emeka Okafor and Butler for squat, New Orleans was some $10 million over the tax line. Now the team is less than $4 million away from escaping the tax.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Celtics.com, via TrueHoop. Ever wonder how the NBA schedule gets made? It sounds ... complicated.

2. Hornets 24/7. I appreciate Hornets 24/7 giving love to underappreciated general manager Jeff Bower, but I strongly disagree with the implication that dude isn't sexy. See him here with Julian Wright? BASKETBALL ROCKSTAR. Forget Peja, they need to start giving out Bower-on-a-Stick.

3. Ball Don't Lie. Requiem for Darius Miles.

4. Yahoo! The Bobcats are losing money, but Robert Johnson insists he won't sell.

5. Free Darko. It's February in the Every Game Preview. (Also, I have broken the binding on Free Darko's book. It's amazing.)

6. Straight Bangin'. A Knicks fan embraces the ability to laugh with his coach instead of at his coach.

The NBA named their Executive of the Year today, and not surprisingly, the prize went to the Celtics' Danny Ainge. The Celtics were able to go from one of the worst teams in the league a season ago to the team with the most regular season wins this year, a feat that's worth recognizing to some extent. But as our headline states (sentiment courtesy of Matt Moore), Ainge was really more lucky in getting Garnett (by way of his relationship with Kevin McHale) than he was skillful in pulling off any amazing deal.

The alternatives to Ainge though aren't really that exciting either. The Lakers' Mitch Kupchak finished second, largely because he didn't acquiesce to Kobe's off-season trade demands, and because he was able to get Pau Gasol from Memphis for Kwame Brown. As great as that deal was though, Mitch wouldn't have even pursued it had Andrew Bynum not gone down with a knee injury. Still, Kupchak is the one who put together this Laker roster over several seasons, and now that it's all come together, he seems like the logical choice.

One final note on this award, and that's the fact that inexplicably, third place went to Hornets' GM Jeff Bower. Now, either the people who vote for this award are completely lazy, or they simply don't know what they're talking about. The only difference between this year's Hornets roster and the one from last season is the addition of Morris Peterson and Melvin Ely. So those guys are the reason NOLA has the Spurs down 3-2? I don't think so. Plus, Bower didn't even draft Chris Paul or Davd West, so how he can receive so much credit for the team's success this season is beyond me.