Why are these great players horrible GM's and Owners?

[cmw17]

Anyone who blames GMs for getting unlucky on very high picks is an idiot because its all luck.

it is DEFINITELY not all luck. Its the job of a talent evaluator to look at a player and see 1) if he will excel at the NBA level and 2) will he be a good fit and excel with our team. It has littel to do with luck. Luck is winning the draft lottery, not choosing the right draft pick.

[siydee]

thread title is like saying: why are apples so horrible when they try to taste like oranges?

[DanielBoone]

Anyone who blames GMs for getting unlucky on very high picks is an idiot because its all luck.

it is DEFINITELY not all luck. Its the job of a talent evaluator to look at a player and see 1) if he will excel at the NBA level and 2) will he be a good fit and excel with our team. It has littel to do with luck. Luck is winning the draft lottery, not choosing the right draft pick.

You realize GMs and owners arent talent scouts right? A GM's job is to use what his talent evaluators tell him to find what fits the team, and the owners just write checks. In Jordans case he is a little more involved in the basketball operations but neither he or Higgins (cats GM) are off at college games and combines and camps looking at players

[cmw17]

Anyone who blames GMs for getting unlucky on very high picks is an idiot because its all luck.

it is DEFINITELY not all luck. Its the job of a talent evaluator to look at a player and see 1) if he will excel at the NBA level and 2) will he be a good fit and excel with our team. It has littel to do with luck. Luck is winning the draft lottery, not choosing the right draft pick.

You realize GMs and owners arent talent scouts right? A GM's job is to use what his talent evaluators tell him to find what fits the team, and the owners just write checks. In Jordans case he is a little more involved in the basketball operations but neither he or Higgins (cats GM) are off at college games and combines and camps looking at players

The talent scouts advice the GMs, but the GMs make the decisions and the Owners sign the checks. So the GM needs to do his own evaluation based on many things, including what the Scouts tell em. But the main point is, it has very little to do with luck like you said. Luck is winning the lottery, not choosing who will play for your team. That's not luck, thats making a good decision based on several factors. Luck may be that a great player was passed up by stupid GMs and he fell all the way down to your pick. But to say choosing a player is "all luck" is flat-out ridiculous.

[DanielBoone]

The talent scouts advice the GMs, but the GMs make the decisions and the Owners sign the checks. So the GM needs to do his own evaluation based on many things, including what the Scouts tell em. But the main point is, it has very little to do with luck like you said. Luck is winning the lottery, not choosing who will play for your team. That's not luck, thats making a good decision based on several factors. Luck may be that a great player was passed up by stupid GMs and he fell all the way down to your pick. But to say choosing a player is "all luck" is flat-out ridiculous.

so if Evan Turner is a bust like he looked like in summer league (not saying he will be), the sixers were stupid to pick him over Cousins? It was the wrong pick? even though every team would have chosen him there? That makes the sixers owner and GM bad?? Everyone is a hindsight expert

[GameOver25]

Turner says he was winded in the summer league, we'll see once the season begin..

[DanielBoone]

Turner says he was winded in the summer league, we'll see once the season begin..

I was using him as an example.

[Jimmy76]

its kind of the same reason that intellectuals dont make good political leaders they're really two seperate (though somewhat related) skillsets

[cmw17]

so if Evan Turner is a bust like he looked like in summer league (not saying he will be), the sixers were stupid to pick him over Cousins? It was the wrong pick? even though every team would have chosen him there? That makes the sixers owner and GM bad?? Everyone is a hindsight expert

Turner was a bust in the summer league cause he wasn't in shape, and he literally said that himself. But yes, if he turns out to be a bust, it is definitely not by bad luck. Bad luck would be if he gets injured and misses his first season like Oden and Griffin did. If he is healthy and sucks, it is not bad luck by the Sixers, it's bad decision making.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

its kind of the same reason that intellectuals dont make good political leaders they're really two seperate (though somewhat related) skillsets

For some reason you and Scum are the only two people to get this relatively simple answer. Everyone else is busy arguing about Joe Dumars.

[DanielBoone]

so if Evan Turner is a bust like he looked like in summer league (not saying he will be), the sixers were stupid to pick him over Cousins? It was the wrong pick? even though every team would have chosen him there? That makes the sixers owner and GM bad?? Everyone is a hindsight expert

Turner was a bust in the summer league cause he wasn't in shape, and he literally said that himself. But yes, if he turns out to be a bust, it is definitely not by bad luck. Bad luck would be if he gets injured and misses his first season like Oden and Griffin did. If he is healthy and sucks, it is not bad luck by the Sixers, it's bad decision making.

what do you not get about the FACT that EVERY GM would have picked him there?!! The lottery is more or less set weeks in advance every year, they even invite the players the come so they can be there because they KNOW who the top picks are. Maybe a guy or two drop due to health concerns but thats about it. Yes I am saying the lottery is 90% luck because you never really know how a guys game is going to translate from dominating high school and college kids to going up against the best of the best 82+ games a year. You don't know what you're talking about, stop looking at hindsight.

[cmw17]

so if Evan Turner is a bust like he looked like in summer league (not saying he will be), the sixers were stupid to pick him over Cousins? It was the wrong pick? even though every team would have chosen him there? That makes the sixers owner and GM bad?? Everyone is a hindsight expert

Turner was a bust in the summer league cause he wasn't in shape, and he literally said that himself. But yes, if he turns out to be a bust, it is definitely not by bad luck. Bad luck would be if he gets injured and misses his first season like Oden and Griffin did. If he is healthy and sucks, it is not bad luck by the Sixers, it's bad decision making.

what do you not get about the FACT that EVERY GM would have picked him there?!! The lottery is more or less set weeks in advance every year, they even invite the players the come so they can be there because they KNOW who the top picks are. Maybe a guy or two drop due to health concerns but thats about it. Yes I am saying the lottery is 90% luck because you never really know how a guys game is going to translate from dominating high school and college kids to going up against the best of the best 82+ games a year. You don't know what you're talking about, stop looking at hindsight.

How is it the GM's concern what other GMs would/wouldn't have done with his draft pick position? that is 100% irrelevant and no one will look back and say yeah, well, everyone else would have done that. When you look back and see the Wizards picking Kwame, that's all on them. When you see the clippers picking Candy man, that's all on them, no one will look back and say, yeah but... that's just immature thinking on your part. They made the mistake, they will live with it, forever, regardless of what others would have done. You are the one who has no clue what you're talking about. You literally said it's "All luck" which was an epic mistake. With that in mind, why pay a GM so much money? Why even have a GM? Why even scout? if the answers are so blatantly obvious like you say, then one person can just pick who they want from the draft and then just see how much "luck" they'll get with his play. horrible, man. Once and for all, Winning the lottery is all luck, picking a draft pick based on where you landed in the lottery is a calculated decision, and not luck. You'll never win this argument, so don't waste your time.

[DanielBoone]

How is it the GM's concern what other GMs would/wouldn't have done with his draft pick position? that is 100% irrelevant and no one will look back and say yeah, well, everyone else would have done that. When you look back and see the Wizards picking Kwame, that's all on them.

TONS of people say that. It's only armchair GMs with 20/20 hindsight criticizing picks made 10 years ago based on future potential that think like you. I'll say it again, EVERY TEAM would have picked Kwame. Draft positions are luck (whether by ping pong balls, season injuries that lead to a bad team etc). Therefore, the fact that the Wizards ended up with Kwame was LUCK. BAD luck. You have to be stupid to not see that. Busts aren't a failure of the team, it's a failure of the player, these guys have been scouted since they were 12, people who know way more about basketball than you or me are the ones who determine what players will be lottery picks.

A GMs job is far far greater than picking lottery picks. Hell, thats probably the easiest part of their job. Go back and look at the mocks compared to the real draft, youll see that any average joe could have used mocks alone and came out as well as any average GM. The first 5 and usually more picks are usually set in stone, and the rest shuffle around a few spots but rarely does someone fall dramatically from their projected range for any reason other than health. The NBA draft is not a science.

[G35]

Because they didn't draft Shaq, Kobe, Duncan, or Wade.

Developing a winning sports franchise might be one of the most difficult things ever to do. Because it's more based on luck than your ability to draft/develop talent.

No matter how good you are if you didn't get the #1 pick then you aren't getting a Shaq or Duncan.

Even with the #1 pick you can be unlucky and fall into a crappy draft.

Look at how Joe Dumars went from shining star to idiot with the Darko pick.

Jerry West was not nearly as successful in Memphis as he was in LA

McHale was just unlucky that he got caught making a deal under the table which is probably more common than we think ~wink wink Miami~


It kills me how RC Buford and Gregg Popovich are looked at as some sort of saviors when in reality they were damn lucky that DRob got hurt and they were able to draft Duncan. Furthermore they were lucky he had loyalty and wasn't looking to be a megastar somewhere else like the just about every other star. Otherwise the Spurs would not have 4 titles. No way no how....

[cmw17]

How is it the GM's concern what other GMs would/wouldn't have done with his draft pick position? that is 100% irrelevant and no one will look back and say yeah, well, everyone else would have done that. When you look back and see the Wizards picking Kwame, that's all on them.

TONS of people say that. It's only armchair GMs with 20/20 hindsight criticizing picks made 10 years ago based on future potential that think like you. I'll say it again, EVERY TEAM would have picked Kwame. Draft positions are luck (whether by ping pong balls, season injuries that lead to a bad team etc). Therefore, the fact that the Wizards ended up with Kwame was LUCK. BAD luck.

Regardless of whether other teams would or would not have made the decision, the Wizards made their decision based on many different things and a lot of time and calculation on Kwame's abilities. dude, you need to get yourself a dictionary and look up the word luck. Cause you clearly don't have a clue what the term means. They didn't get Kwame by luck, they had a very long time to sit down and make a caluclated decision to CHOOSE him. They got the #1 pick by luck of the draw, then they made a calculated decision to have him on their team. There is a monumental difference. If you can't see that, then I'm not gonna waste my time trying to show you.

[DanielBoone]

It kills me how RC Buford and Gregg Popovich are looked at as some sort of saviors when in reality they were damn lucky that DRob got hurt and they were able to draft Duncan. Furthermore they were lucky he had loyalty and wasn't looking to be a megastar somewhere. Otherwise the Spurs would not have 4 titles. No way no how....

I agreed till here. Like I said, I don't judge a GM based on his ability to draft in the lottery because imo its all luck, I judge them based on finding diamond in the rough players in the late first/2nd round. And Buford has been great in that regard.