"One of the pettiest things I’ve ever seen" - Brian Windhorst on the Miami Heat not winning Executive of the Year in 2011

The Miami Heat surprised the league in the 2010 offseason after they acquired in-their-prime stars LeBron James and Chris Bosh to form a Big 3 with Dwyane Wade. Things didn't go as planned because they struggled to start the 2010-11 campaign before finally finding their footing.

Miami ended the regular season with a record of 58-24, second in the Eastern Conference and third in the league. For some reason, Brian Windhorst thought that should have been enough for Heat president Pat Riley to secure the 2011 NBA Executive of the Year award instead of sharing it with the league-leading Chicago Bulls .

"One of the pettiest things I've ever seen in 20-some years covering the NBA was the Heat not winning Executive of the Year the year they signed Bosh and LeBron," Windhorst said .

The Bulls technically won EOY

Former Bulls general manager Gar Forman and Riley tied with 11 votes each for the EOY prize, making them co-recipients of the award. However, as Windy noted, Chicago technically won because former vice president of basketball operations John Paxson received three votes.

For some reason, some of the panel put Paxson's name on the ballot. If those votes were tallied into Forman's, the Bulls would have won.

Still, Windhorst being salty about how the voting turned out is a bit odd. Of course, Miami was probably deserving to be a co-recipient of the trophy, considering how tricky it was to navigate the cap space and bring in two maximum contract-worthy players while holding onto its incumbent superstar.

However, the Bulls' 2010 offseason moves, which included signing Tom Thibodeau, adding Carlos Boozer via sign-and-trade, and re-signing Joakim Noah, helped the squad run to the top of the league standings and notch 62 wins for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.

So, it seems Chicago's top brass actually deserved the Executive of the Year award more.

Related: "That's not a goal I want to achieve. That's not something I think I'll be good at" - Allen Iverson on why he would never want to be a coach

The Heat got their vengeance

Maybe Windhorst took the 2011 playoffs into consideration when he offered his viewpoint about the award.

The Heat and Bulls figured in the Eastern Conference Finals. Many fans eagerly anticipated the matchup to see how Miami planned on stopping Derrick Rose and solving Chicago's vaunted defense. In addition, Miami got swept in their regular-season series 3-0.

As it turned out, James and company were no match for the top seed in the postseasons. They finished the series in five games, hounding Rose to shoot just 35.0% from the field.

That marked the first of four consecutive trips to the Finals for the Heat, where they clinched two titles. They probably would rather have the Larry O'Brien trophies than be the sole winner of the Executive of the Year prize.

Related: "They had ice sculptures, everything" - How Pat Riley treated the Heat players and their families after the 2006 championship