Globe and Mail: Babcock's legacy

[WD-40]

Edit: Another public warning for calling people names.

[BigBurd]

...Babcock's track record wih the Raps...

Positive:

- Signing Calderon on a cheap 3-year deal attaining his Bird Rights (he managed to use the MLE to sign Calderon, Bonner, and Sow to cheap Bird-right-attaining deals)

-NOT Signing fan-favorite Matt Bonner to a mutiyear deal (which is what the media kept pushing for and vilifying Babs for not doing)

-Drafting Roko Ukic and Uros Slokar with throwaway 2nd rounders

-Drafting Charlie V with the 7th pick. (A lot of people/media were pushing for Gerald Green and he ignored them)

-Trading away Rafer's contract for the shorter term Mike James

-Hiring the Smitch

Great summary, and I'm really glad you mentioned the Mike James move. His whole handling of our desperate PG situation was excellent IMHO. As I think about a few of those moves I can't help but notice many of the "good/popular" GM theme's coming through.

During his first FA season he got arguably the best possible person for our starting PG & coaching jobs. He explicitly said each of these guys would have to grow in their new roles. It just so happened they didn't grow together. It was a risk, but you don't want a GM who won't take risks, you want one who can effectively correct problems when they occur, especially if you want them to "buy low" all the time.

Babcock needed to give Rafer the big contract and starting spot to secure his services, and after it didn't work out he mitigated the conflict next year, the long term cap effect, and improved our team by landing Mike James who had a near all-star stats and a much shorter contract. I kind of see that as "admiting" your wrong, which it seems many GM's can't do.

While managing the PG with "big name" FA situation he had also thought outside of the box by bringing in Calderon and drafting Ukic. It also took commitment to an ideal to draft "the best available player" in Charlie V - and that may not have been possible if Babcock hadn't addressed the PG situation a bit.

[Michael Bradley]

So Babcock had one great positive move in Caldy, one great negative move in the Carter trade, and a bunch of neutral/debatable moves after that.

I think that sums it up. It's quite alarming how people consider Babcock's best move a complete fluke (Calderon), while his worst move (Carter) is treated like the norm, when neither of those moves presented any sort of pattern with his decision making. He wasn't consistently churning out Calderon's, nor was he continually selling low and mismanaging assets. Both were two extremes, mixed in with general neutrality. When you factor that he didn't even last 20 months on the job, and the worst move was really a rare situation, it makes the sample size even more inconclusive.

I think this is just a case of one move being so universally disliked that it has clouded the rest of his tenure to many fans, whether warranted or not. I wonder if those same people will discredit Colangelo's successes just because Bargnani has been floundering and TJ Ford may be chronically injured (and was never consistently superior to his back-up in the first place)? Probably not.

[Southward1]

he wasn't a bad gm, but he wasn't good.

http://www.hoopshype.com/general_manage ... abcock.htm

Signing Jose and Alston are the only moves I'd classify on good to great

Signing Alston because it was the money he was worth and they just traded him for Mike James

Draft charlie isn't a good move, because he wasn't the best player available. Granger and Bynum are better him, he falls under the category of players like jack, garcia, lee...etc. not saying it was a bad pick.

Graham's a bad draft pick, he's useless and is too old to have any upside. Outside Hodge, every player in the first round taking after joey was better then him.

The vince trade is terrible

He was dumb to take Hoffa. He obviously just looked at stats before drafting him.