CHL disagreeing with you makes me sad inside, but for the life of me I can't understand all the Hammond defending.
coolhandluke121 wrote:
It's even worse than that. Literally over 90% of posters wanted to build around Jennings, Sanders, and Bogut, and now they're calling Hammond one of the worst gm's in sports because he tried to do the same thing, which is what kept them mediocre.
50% of the board wanted to tank, so on it's face that is an exaggeration. Even so, Hammond shouldn't just be graded on what mob of this board thinks. He should be graded on his performance, and his performance, given his goals, have been HORRENDOUS. Having a win now mandate in a terrible conference and only having one winning season is laughably bad.
Would most people have done better than Maggette, Jax, and Gooden? Of course. But with nothing else of consequential value to trade, they would have only done marginally better, which would have only resulted in draft picks that were about 5 spots later. They had nothing else to work with. The "win-now" vets weren't supposed to lead them to the playoffs; at best, they were supposed to be the 3rd or 4th best player on the team. Also, people scoff at re-signing Salmons and trading for Maggette, but at the time most people figure they had improved on the FTD season because they kept everybody and added a few players.
Having nothing to work with is complete and utter BS. There is a reason why this board has soooo much activity - there are endless ways and possibilities to improve this team. Hammond has consistently botched trades and FA's. There are too many what if's to go through, but since you mentioned 2010 I'll focus on that. Besides the headliner star FA's the following players were on the table that we could have gotten with out too much trouble - Matthews, Tony Allen, Kover, Barnes, Amir Johnson, Lowry. Instead at midnight we give Drew **** Gooden the full MLE after only earning the vets min the prior year.
It's just supremely hypocritical to act like Hammond is a terrible gm when most people here would have left the team in the same basic position by holding onto Bogut, Sanders, and Jennings and winning 35 to 45 games a year. The complete failure of those guys to even come close to living up to expectations for a variety of reasons is all you need to explain why the Bucks were so mediocre for so long, so if Hammond was a fool for building around them then most people here were as well. That's what it really comes down to. The vet acquisitions were pretty pointless, but that's not what screwed the franchise over. Trying to win with Bogut, Jennings, Sanders, and Redd as your best player is, and other than Redd nearly everyone else here would have gotten the same basic results, give or take a few playoff wins but no more than that.
And whose fault is it that we were building around Bogut, Jennings, Redd? Are you really going to pin that all on Kohl? Give me a break. There were many people on this board pleading to deal Redd because it was obvious he had injury issues.
Next comes the strawman argument that people are claiming Hammond is a total genius who has just been held back by meddling owners, because we have the nerve to suggest that he's not terrible. A terrible gm doesn't draft Giannis, Sanders, Tobias, LRMAM, Meeks, Leuer, Henson, and Jennings. Hammond might literally have the best draft record (relative to position) of the last 8 years, even with the Potsie pick.
This is patently absurd. Besides Giannis, his draft picks have been a dumpster fire. The relative to draft position is complete bull. You are not bound to your draft slot. Trade up, trade down, trade out. Hammond himself has traded down twice in the first round. Good teams like the Spurs target a guy and aggressively move up. Hambone trades down to get Dalembert. None of his draft picks have helped this franchise since he has been here.
His other moves are a mixed bag, but he did put together the FTD team which everyone thought would win 25 games. The franchise's biggest flaw of the last 15 years has been trying to win when they had no foundation to do so; it's the business model that was the problem, and that's not all on Hammond. Not even close. He's shown enough flashes of great scouting ability to justify keeping, even if you think he's overwhelmingly responsible for the mediocre record of the last 8 years, which I doubt.
It is all on Hammond. If you give him credit for the FTD season, you also have to give him credit for building a win now team that was the worst team in the league. Hammond had a very easy goal given to him - be a 45 win borderline round 2 team in a horrendous conference and sucked donkey dick at doing it.
