Denver Nuggets Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri is the recipient of the 2012-13 NBA Basketball Executive of the Year award, the NBA announced today.
Ujiri was instrumental in assembling an ensemble cast -- nine players averaged between 8.0 and 16.7 points and Denver's bench ranked second overall in scoring (41.3 ppg) -- that finished with the league's fourth-best record (57-25, .695) and secured the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. Denver's league-best 38-3 (.927) mark at Pepsi Center tied for the 14th best home mark in league history.
Over the summer, Ujiri augmented Denver's roster by acquiring Andre Iguodala from Philadelphia in a four-team, 12-player deal, and he re-signed JaVale McGee and Andre Miller. Since joining the Nuggets front office prior to the 2010-11 season, Ujiri has drafted Kenneth Faried (No. 22 overall in 2011), and in addition to Iguodala, McGee and Miller, has acquired Corey Brewer, Wilson Chandler, Ty Lawson, Danilo Gallinari and Kosta Koufos via trades.

A native of Zaria, Nigeria, he is the first African-born general manager for an American major league sports team.
The son of a doctor mother and a hospital administrator/nursing educationist father, Ujiri originally played soccer as a youth before focusing on basketball. His interest with basketball started as a 13-year old playing with friends on outdoor basketball courts in northern Nigeria. This interest would be fed by American sports magazines and VHS tapes of NBA games or basketball movies. He admired Hakeem Olajuwon, an NBA star who was born in Nigeria.
Ujiri grew to be 6-foot-4 and emigrated to the United States to play two years of basketball at Bismarck State College, then transferred to Montana State University-Billings, though he left the latter school after one semester. He spent six years playing professionally in Europe, making 5000USD a month. After ending a professional playing career in 2002, Ujiri worked as a youth coach in Nigeria. During an NBA summer league game in Boston, he met David Thorpe, who eventually introduced him to college coaches. In 2002, Ujiri was accompanying a young Nigerian player to a draft tryout in Orlando when he impressed Magic scouting director Gary Brokaw, who then introduced Ujiri to coach Doc Rivers and GM John Gabriel. Ujiri then became an unpaid scout for the NBA's Orlando Magic, paying his own way when he had to and sharing rooms with scouts or players when he could.
Jeff Weltman, then a young Nuggets executive, introduced Ujiri to Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe, who then hired Ujiri on salary as an international scout. After four seasons there, he was hired away by Bryan Colangelo of the Toronto Raptors as their Director of Global Scouting. Ujiri became the Raptors' assistant general manager in 2008, and returned to the Nuggets in 2010, when he accepted his position as executive vice president in charge of basketball operations. In 2013, he was named the NBA Executive of the Year.
Ujiri has also been the director of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders Africa program, which promotes basketball throughout the continent. He also conducts two camps, one for the top 50 players of Nigeria, which is sponsored by Nestle Milo, and another for African big men, which Ujiri sponsors himself with help from Nike.