If we’re rank­ing pro­fes­sion­al sports exec­u­tives in the Den­ver metro, there’s a clear 1A and 1B.

The Avalanche’s Joe Sakic and the Nuggets’ Tim Con­nel­ly have con­struct­ed exact­ly the sort of slow, mea­sured builds that pro­duce sta­ble, long-term contenders.

Both fran­chis­es are set up for years of rel­e­vance, and both did it the right way — iden­ti­fy­ing and devel­op­ing tal­ent through the draft, and sup­ple­ment­ing that tal­ent through trades and free agency.

But, sad­ly, even the best-laid plans can turn to rubble.

Tim Connelly — B-

Such was the case last week­end when Con­nel­ly was left at the altar by Jera­mi Grant.

The Nuggets did every­thing right: Trad­ing for a worth­while play­er at an accept­able cost (a first-round pick), giv­ing him an oppor­tu­ni­ty to shine with a promi­nent role dur­ing a deep play­off run, and then match­ing the high­est offer he received on the free-agent market.

Yet Grant still decid­ed to leave … for Detroit.

It’s not just that Grant went against a decades-long dias­po­ra, mov­ing from Den­ver to Detroit. It’s that he did it to join a clear­ly infe­ri­or team that’s nowhere close to con­tend­ing in the mean­ing­ful way the Nuggets did just two months ago.

Nobody could’ve seen that com­ing. Not the Grad­ing the Week staff. Not the Kroenkes. And cer­tain­ly not Connelly.

Are the Nuggets bet­ter than they were a week ago? No. But luck­i­ly they’ve already tak­en care of the hard part: Acquir­ing a pair of super­stars in Niko­la Jokic and Jamal Mur­ray, and lock­ing them up long-term.

Because of that, Con­nel­ly gets a pass.

 

Jeff Bridich — D+

We’ll give the Rock­ies gen­er­al man­ag­er this much: At least he took ques­tions from Col­orado media this past week.

That qual­i­fies as a step in the right direc­tion for Bridich, who went full J.D. Salinger on us after Col­orado put the fin­ish­ing touch­es on a sec­ond straight dis­ap­point­ing sea­son this September.

Sure, the media con­fer­ence call was a hasti­ly put-togeth­er affair, sched­uled hours before the world checked out for the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day. And, yes, Bridich didn’t answer all of the ques­tions posed to him, even with­out any­one bring­ing up the ele­phant in the room — name­ly, that star third base­man Nolan Are­na­do can bare­ly stand the sight of him.

But, he did wish every­one a Hap­py Thanks­giv­ing. So, plen­ty of hol­i­day cheer from a 43-year-old exec­u­tive who’s tak­en his fair share of shots from fans and media alike over the years. There’s some­thing acute­ly bizarre about the man respon­si­ble for the first back-to-back play­off appear­ances in Rock­ies fran­chise his­to­ry being as reviled as Bridich is.

It’s gonna take a while for us to fig­ure that one out. Maybe we can talk about it on Christ­mas Eve?

CU Buffs — A

The CU Buffs received quite a bit of guff in this space for their inabil­i­ty to put togeth­er a pop-up Rocky Moun­tain Show­down when the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose a week ago.

But give cred­it where cred­it is due: To have a home game vs. San Diego State lined up and sched­uled with­in hours of the sched­uled vis­it to USC being can­celed was a tri­umph in orga­ni­za­tion and ingenuity.

It may not be a Rocky Moun­tain Show­down, but it is Buffs football.

And giv­en how hard that’s been to come by this fall, we’ll take what­ev­er crumbs they can give us.