The Amazingly Sucky Michael Jordan as GM thread?

[penbeast0]

Dat2u made the comment in the EG thread that the best thing about EG is that he isn't an idiot GM like Wes or MJ (paraphrased). Wes, sure, one of the worst 3 GMs in NBA history. Nash, Ferry, amazingly sucky, I couldn't agree more.

Jordan, I have some issues with. His comeback as a player was ego driven (and bad for the franchise's long term playing success . . . though a nice boost for the bottom line), but as a GM, he cleared a lot of the bad contracts of the Wes Unseld disaster years, even managing to dump Juwan Howard (which I would have though impossible!). His team wasn't a winner but he cleared the aging mediocrities off it and brought in some young bodies.

Now, on the other side of the equation, he (a) made the aforementioned comeback pushing the team to mediocrity for 2 years instead of stockpiling young talent to go with Kwame/Hamilton, (b) he traded Hamilton for Stackhouse, (c)he drafted Kwame Brown (though to be fair, the other choices being talked about here were Curry, Chandler, Battier, and Eddie Griffin . . . only Chandler could be considered even a mediocre pick especially at #1.

How do people feel about the Jordan years? Was he good, bad, or so-so as a GM?

[truwizfan4evr]

lol owell hes the best player ever

[Wizards2Lottery]

MJ was the Eddie Jordan of General Mangers. Dude was allergic to young talent and would ride the veterans to death.

[nate33]

Dat2u made the comment in the EG thread that the best thing about EG is that he isn't an idiot GM like Wes or MJ (paraphrased). Wes, sure, one of the worst 3 GMs in NBA history. Nash, Ferry, amazingly sucky, I couldn't agree more.

Jordan, I have some issues with. His comeback as a player was ego driven (and bad for the franchise's long term playing success . . . though a nice boost for the bottom line), but as a GM, he cleared a lot of the bad contracts of the Wes Unseld disaster years, even managing to dump Juwan Howard (which I would have though impossible!). His team wasn't a winner but he cleared the aging mediocrities off it and brought in some young bodies.

Now, on the other side of the equation, he (a) made the aforementioned comeback pushing the team to mediocrity for 2 years instead of stockpiling young talent to go with Kwame/Hamilton, (b) he traded Hamilton for Stackhouse, (c)he drafted Kwame Brown (though to be fair, the other choices being talked about here were Curry, Chandler, Battier, and Eddie Griffin . . . only Chandler could be considered even a mediocre pick especially at #1.

How do people feel about the Jordan years? Was he good, bad, or so-so as a GM?

Jordan didn't really dump Juwan. He traded Juwan for a couple of other crappy contracts (Loy Vaught and Christian Laettner). It would have helped our cap situation if he had let Laettner expire, but instead, he resigned him.

The Kwame draft was reasonable given the general concensus at the time.

Larry Hughes was a pretty good pickup for the MLE (though it only paid off after EJ took over and put Hughes at SG).

The Rip trade was a disaster.

The Oakley signing was a disaster.

The only truly inspired move he made was to trade a late first round pick for Haywood.

[keynote]

I wonder what kind of player Kwame would've been had Jordan not broken his psyche. Was he inherently damaged goods, or did Jordan the delivery man drop the package off the back of a truck on the way to the Verizon Center?

That aside, Jordan gets too much credit for "clearing Wes's contracts off the books." Those contracts were all finite, and were going to expire anyway. Jordan didn't field a competitive team in its place, so how much time/cap space did he really save?

I guess with the shift to the new board format, we've lost the pages and pages of threads devoted to assessing Jordan's tenure, but here's my take:

- he stunk as a talent evaluator in the draft (Dixon, Jeffries, Hayes, Kwame, etc.)
- he traded away our best young piece in Rip for an older player incompatible with a needed rebuilding effort.
- his return as a player prolonged the rebuilding timeline.
- he hired Leonard Hamilton.
- his return as a player likely hindered the development of young talent.


On the plus side, I do give him credit for acquiring Haywood. Still, Haywood + selling out arenas during his Space Cowboys reunion tour doesn't change any of the negatives above.

[miller31time]

Dat2u made the comment in the EG thread that the best thing about EG is that he isn't an idiot GM like Wes or MJ (paraphrased). Wes, sure, one of the worst 3 GMs in NBA history. Nash, Ferry, amazingly sucky, I couldn't agree more.

Jordan, I have some issues with. His comeback as a player was ego driven (and bad for the franchise's long term playing success . . . though a nice boost for the bottom line), but as a GM, he cleared a lot of the bad contracts of the Wes Unseld disaster years, even managing to dump Juwan Howard (which I would have though impossible!). His team wasn't a winner but he cleared the aging mediocrities off it and brought in some young bodies.

Now, on the other side of the equation, he (a) made the aforementioned comeback pushing the team to mediocrity for 2 years instead of stockpiling young talent to go with Kwame/Hamilton, (b) he traded Hamilton for Stackhouse, (c)he drafted Kwame Brown (though to be fair, the other choices being talked about here were Curry, Chandler, Battier, and Eddie Griffin . . . only Chandler could be considered even a mediocre pick especially at #1.

How do people feel about the Jordan years? Was he good, bad, or so-so as a GM?

Jordan didn't really dump Juwan. He traded Juwan for a couple of other crappy contracts (Loy Vaught and Christian Laettner). It would have helped our cap situation if he had let Laettner expire, but instead, he resigned him.

The Kwame draft was reasonable given the general concensus at the time.

Larry Hughes was a pretty good pickup for the MLE (though it only paid off after EJ took over and put Hughes at SG).

The Rip trade was a disaster.

The Oakley signing was a disaster.

The only truly inspired move he made was to trade a late first round pick for Haywood.

Agreed. I'd also like to add that when reviewing a GM's job, you can't look for a guy that makes the right decision half the time and the wrong decision half the time. That's not what an average GM does. An average GM, in my book at least, makes more good moves than bad. A bad GM is 50/50 or worse and a good/great GM basically never makes an egregiously bad move.

[keynote]

Dat2u made the comment in the EG thread that the best thing about EG is that he isn't an idiot GM like Wes or MJ (paraphrased). Wes, sure, one of the worst 3 GMs in NBA history. Nash, Ferry, amazingly sucky, I couldn't agree more.

Jordan, I have some issues with. His comeback as a player was ego driven (and bad for the franchise's long term playing success . . . though a nice boost for the bottom line), but as a GM, he cleared a lot of the bad contracts of the Wes Unseld disaster years, even managing to dump Juwan Howard (which I would have though impossible!). His team wasn't a winner but he cleared the aging mediocrities off it and brought in some young bodies.

Now, on the other side of the equation, he (a) made the aforementioned comeback pushing the team to mediocrity for 2 years instead of stockpiling young talent to go with Kwame/Hamilton, (b) he traded Hamilton for Stackhouse, (c)he drafted Kwame Brown (though to be fair, the other choices being talked about here were Curry, Chandler, Battier, and Eddie Griffin . . . only Chandler could be considered even a mediocre pick especially at #1.

How do people feel about the Jordan years? Was he good, bad, or so-so as a GM?

Jordan didn't really dump Juwan. He traded Juwan for a couple of other crappy contracts (Loy Vaught and Christian Laettner). It would have helped our cap situation if he had let Laettner expire, but instead, he resigned him.

The Kwame draft was reasonable given the general concensus at the time.

Larry Hughes was a pretty good pickup for the MLE (though it only paid off after EJ took over and put Hughes at SG).

The Rip trade was a disaster.

The Oakley signing was a disaster.

The only truly inspired move he made was to trade a late first round pick for Haywood.

What he said.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about Hughes. Let's not forget that Jordan signed Hughes to be the PG of the future(!).

Jordan had a mixed track record drafting second rounders, too. Steve Blake was a good pick, but Grizzard, Mike ("who?") Smith were clearly not. I'm not sure whether JCN was a good pick or a bad one, but it's unclear whether Jordan appreciated the extent to which JCN was encumbered by his hometown buyout provisions. We'll see whether we ever get decent value out of that pick.

[Kanyewest]

Nobody has brought up how Jordan drafted Juan Carlos Navarro which has ultimately given the Wizards that much talked conditional 1st round pick. That conditional 1st round pick has actually been thrown in at least 1000 time in trade ideas by posters on this board. By the way, I can't see a trade that would hinge on the inclusion of that conditional 1st round pick from Memphis which is more likely to turn into a 2nd rounder.