The Best & Worst of Ernie

[nate33]

We could have signed him to the same deal at the exact same point even without the trade. This trade is *not* among the good things EG has done. I think the decision to re-sign Gortat was fine; that *was* a good decision.

I disagree with this thinking. I believe that the fact that Gortat had a chance to play a full year as a Zard and with Wall and Co. made all the difference in the world in terms of him signing a long-term deal with the Zards. If Gortat had hit the free agent market without having played in DC I think the chances of the Zards signing him last summer was 50/50...at best.

Really? Is there any indication anywhere that someone over-bid us last off-season, but Gortat stayed with us all the same -- instead of taking more money? I don't think so.

In other words, when he was unrestricted, looking at his one and only chance at the biggest contract of his life, he took the team that gave him the most $$ for the longest time. As any sensible guy would.

This ain't college. This ain't the Olympics. This is business. This is *professional* basketball, and Marcin is a professional. It's no different than if he was working for a bank or a computer company. Or, rather, it's only different for *us* -- for fans.

In any case, the only reason we made *the trade* was because we were in crisis, and our FO had no backup plan. That much is obvious in that we wound up having to take on every bad contract Phoenix wanted to dump in order to do the trade. You can't call a trade like that "good." Tho, again, you can say Gortat is a good player -- that he is.

Had we made a trade for him a year earlier -- i.e. *instead of* trading for Okafor!! -- it could have been done in a less one-sided way. Might have been a good trade.

FWIW, since we were resigning Gortat, we had the option to give him a 5-year deal. If we had never traded for him, we would only have been able to offer him a 4-year deal. I don't know how that played into the negotiations. He may have cost more on a per-year basis under a 4-year deal.

[DCZards]

I think you have that backwards. Usually if you know your competitor *wants* to do something, you try to disrupt it, you don't back away. Certainly you try to make it as costly as possible.

But there were no other offers as far as anyone can tell from the usual sources -- of course that could be incorrect. But it does look that way.

Again, I *like* Gortat. That doesn't make *the trade for Gortat* a good one.

It may be that a team's strategy is to disrupt what their competitor wants to do as far as signing a particular free agent. But another strategy--and maybe a better one--may be to use that same time, energy and resources to pursue a free agent that you have a better chance of signing in order to improve your team.

[payitforward]

I didn't say anything about "strategy," Zards -- just that it's in the nature of competition to try to disrupt what your competitor wants to do. If you are guarding a guy who likes to go right, Zards, what do you do, do you let him go right? While thinking about what you're going to do when you get the ball?

There's plenty of "time, energy and resources" available to do many things, so of course you are looking for the best players for your team as well.

Key point was: we traded for Gortat because we were in a crisis -- no one to play C. No one to start, and not enough functional talent to take up a lot of minutes. We were in this crisis the day before the season was to start!! We were in this crisis, because we were relying on an older player with a pretty good history of injuries. We were in this crisis because Ernie put us in this crisis.

As a result, we waaaay overpaid to rent Gortat for a season. Phoenix had us by the throat, they knew it, they took advantage of the fact -- as any team would have.

How could anyone classify that under the list of "good" things Ernie G. has done? No, sorry.