Official Countdown Grunfeld Era-2nd SuperStar?

[montestewart]

It could be an instance of Pollin overruling EG. Hard to know, but without that knowledge, I'm left to wonder whether EG has a winning vision for team building and if so, whether he tries hard enough to sell that vision to the owner. Stlll, as we've seen with the Redskins and the Orioles (to name two obvious examples), meddling owners can kill a team, and sometimes there's not much you can do about it.

What does Abe Pollin have to do with Thibs getting the hell out of Dodge 4 days after arriving? Absolutley nothing that's what.

And you know this because...

[Zonkerbl]

Now I'm sympathetic to the argument that Leonsis was there in the meeting thinking to himself, well, I find that a persuasive argument and if I was in charge I would listen to what EG has to say. Assuming Leonsis was actually there. But that's just one of the incidents I'm talking about. Just one fact. What about all the other facts out there? There's such a consistent theme here:

The trade of the #5 pick, where Abe apparently overruled EG.

EG's inability to convince EJ to address the defensive weaknesses of the club, or to play players who could play defense, or to take defense seriously at all, and after losing all these confrontations, failing to fire EJ's sorry a$$ and hire Thibs instead. Remember Brendan Haywood taking his nameplate off his locker? EG kept Brendan around -- he knew Brendan's value -- but what happened next? Did EG convince EJ to play Brendan? No. Did EG fire EJ for insubordination? No.

Letting Arenas dictate who he signs. Letting Arenas dictate just about everything.

Not all of these things that went wrong can be Abe's fault. A lot of it has to fall on EG. Either he didn't know these were bad decisions, which I doubt, or he didn't have the cojones to try to talk Abe out of it, or he tried and failed to talk Abe out of it. Of all these sins the last is probably the least egregious, but still... EG bears the ultimate responsibility.

[Severn Hoos]

It's the same in football when an extra point is missed early in the game and that team ultimately loses by one point. Almost always the media and fans say the missed extra point cost the game but it really didn't (usually) because if they had scored the point, the other team would have acted differently if the score was tied instead of being up by one point. And the team that missed the point would act differently being down by a point instead of being tied.

ha - my favorite example of this is the infamous 5th down touchdown for Colorado. Everyone knows that it was a miscarriage of justice, and that CU should have volunteered to forfeit the game, right?

Except that the missed down marker was early in the series. And do you know what they did on the "3rd down" that should have been 4th down? They spiked the ball. Because they thought it was 3rd down. Because the marker on the sidelines said it was 3rd down.

Now, to be sure, they got an added advantage because they were able to huddle, call a play, line up, etc. But if the marker had been correct, they would have run a play - any play - on the actual 4th down. To say they should have forfeited would be to have deprived them of the opportunity to use that last play that was rightfully theirs. But it makes us feel good to denounce how "unfair" it was.

Kind of a tangent, I guess, but it struck me with the point that each decision/action affects everything that comes after it.

[thinker07]

If you do not know how to have a reasonable conversation with your boss over something you know more about, than you suck at your job.

Pure and simple. It is your RESPONSIBILITY to stand up to your boss, tactfully of course, if you know something, based on your area of expertise, that's going to affect the good of the company.

Failures fear and avoid confrontation. Jerks seek confrontation and put people off (and get fired). A successful leader communicates and influences. If EG is getting paid $4.5 million a year, more than ANY OTHER GM IN THE LEAGUE, then GOSH DIGGITY DARN IT he better say something to Abe. He better be able to talk Abe out of bad ideas. THAT IS HIS JOB.

Zonker,

I don't want to seem confrontational here, but what kind of job do you have? Is your boss reasonable? Have you ever really disagreed with your boss over something? If so, were you prepared to be fired to preserve the "integrity" of your viewpoint? I'm really not trying to be a dick, but your view isn't really the way things work. A sports franchise is almost exclusively a plaything for the owner - who is almost certainly an extremely rich person that almost always really wants what they want and don't won't to be told that they can't have what they want. Abe Polin decides what EG's job is not the fans. If the owner doesn't want to be talked out of something then the GM's job isn't to talk him out of something. Think Dan Snyder.

Just like a lawyer's job isn't to tell a client "you cannot do this or that" -- instead they say, I strongly advise to not to or you could get into serious trouble if you do it or there are real risks if you do it. But always the client chooses. Until the client proposes to break the law and put the lawyer in personal jeopardy, the lawyer generally is not prepared to get fired over it. The same with doctors. They rarely if ever say, if you don't stop smoking I won't be your doctor any more.

I'm not saying that EG made all great decisions - because he didn't, but ultimately carrying out his boss' wishes about paying certain players/drafting certain guys is what his job is.

[closg00]

It could be an instance of Pollin overruling EG. Hard to know, but without that knowledge, I'm left to wonder whether EG has a winning vision for team building and if so, whether he tries hard enough to sell that vision to the owner. Stlll, as we've seen with the Redskins and the Orioles (to name two obvious examples), meddling owners can kill a team, and sometimes there's not much you can do about it.

What does Abe Pollin have to do with Thibs getting the hell out of Dodge 4 days after arriving? Absolutley nothing that's what.

And you know this because...

The preponderance of available evidence is that Abe was not involved in micro-managing the Wizards, especially when he was withering away in declining health. In this particular bungled episode, the facts that are on-record, do not so-much as mention Abe Pollin. Do you have some secret information to the contrary that Abe Pollin was involved? NO!

[montestewart]

So if I can't prove it beyond a doubt with a hatful of evidence, then the opposite MUST be true. I don't even care that much. If you ever pay attention, you'd maybe notice I'm not much of an EG supporter, and I tend toward Zonkerbl's view, but I don't know what EG's marching orders were, on the micro or macro level.

[Zonkerbl]

If you do not know how to have a reasonable conversation with your boss over something you know more about, than you suck at your job.

Pure and simple. It is your RESPONSIBILITY to stand up to your boss, tactfully of course, if you know something, based on your area of expertise, that's going to affect the good of the company.

Failures fear and avoid confrontation. Jerks seek confrontation and put people off (and get fired). A successful leader communicates and influences. If EG is getting paid $4.5 million a year, more than ANY OTHER GM IN THE LEAGUE, then GOSH DIGGITY DARN IT he better say something to Abe. He better be able to talk Abe out of bad ideas. THAT IS HIS JOB.

Zonker,

I don't want to seem confrontational here, but what kind of job do you have? Is your boss reasonable? Have you ever really disagreed with your boss over something? If so, were you prepared to be fired to preserve the "integrity" of your viewpoint? I'm really not trying to be a dick, but your view isn't really the way things work. A sports franchise is almost exclusively a plaything for the owner - who is almost certainly an extremely rich person that almost always really wants what they want and don't won't to be told that they can't have what they want. Abe Polin decides what EG's job is not the fans. If the owner doesn't want to be talked out of something then the GM's job isn't to talk him out of something. Think Dan Snyder.

Just like a lawyer's job isn't to tell a client "you cannot do this or that" -- instead they say, I strongly advise to not to or you could get into serious trouble if you do it or there are real risks if you do it. But always the client chooses. Until the client proposes to break the law and put the lawyer in personal jeopardy, the lawyer generally is not prepared to get fired over it. The same with doctors. They rarely if ever say, if you don't stop smoking I won't be your doctor any more.

I'm not saying that EG made all great decisions - because he didn't, but ultimately carrying out his boss' wishes about paying certain players/drafting certain guys is what his job is.

Sigh. Let me try one more time. I shall use my powers of communication and influence on you.

Assume you are a specialist in a field, say, rocket science. Your boss, Hillary Clinton, thinks it would be really awesome to have a commercial service to charge $20 million a pop to send people to Mars. You have a number of facts at your disposal that show that this is a terrible idea. These are facts that you have been trained to interpret and understand. Your boss has not. She hired you to be the guy whose job it is to interpret these particular facts.

If you are right and your boss is wrong, and you are afraid to present those facts to your boss, then you suck and should be fired.

If you approach your boss with the facts, and you fail to convince your boss to do the right thing, then you've failed at your job. That's on you.

You don't (often) get to be rich enough to own a professional sports team by ignoring the people you hired to be smarter than you. And if I hire someone to be smarter than me, goddam it he/she better tell me when I've got something wrong before I embarrass myself in public!

And if you must know, my job, among other things, is to use what I know about economics to convince policy makers that their ideas are dumb. Usually they are policy makers in another government agency but sometimes they are my immediate superiors. I cannot think of one instance where I knew my boss was wrong about something and I did not say something about it. I did get fired for it once, but that was because I was a jerk about it. I've gotten better at it over time.

[Ruzious]

Zonk's 100% right, imo.

[gesa2]

I agree with Zonk too. Of course there are owners that override their GMs and make bad decisions. If the GM is good enough in those situations though, they find another team to work for.

I'm a family doc, and I don't fire my patients for smoking. But it's completely fair to judge me by what percentage of the time I convince them to give it up. Convincing people to change behaviors by showing them it's in their own best interest is the biggest part of my job.

Either way though, this debate is a helluva lot more interesting than the hearing "Wall sucks!" over and over!

[Severn Hoos]

And if you must know, my job, among other things, is to use what I know about economics to convince policy makers that their ideas are dumb. Usually they are policy makers in another government agency but sometimes they are my immediate superiors. I cannot think of one instance where I knew my boss was wrong about something and I did not say something about it. I did get fired for it once, but that was because I was a jerk about it. I've gotten better at it over time.

Zonk - I do agree your post, especially that the employee's job is to speak truth to his/her boss, regardless of the consequences. That said, when you make your best case and the boss still goes the other way, what do you do? (I know in your previous post, you said that you failed, which I agree with.) But practically, do you?

A) Quit
B) Refuse to carry out the order (which should rightfully result in your termination)
C) Ignore it and hope it goes away
D) Do it anyway but complain about it behind your boss' back
E) Follow the direction, and do your best to promote the positive without undermining your organization

Again - I'm not arguing that any of this happened in EG's case, nor that he did all that he could to persuade Abe to take a certain course of action. But IF he did all that, and Abe still said "Do ______" as a direct order, I don't think he would be obligated to quit over it unless it was (as my former boss used to say) illegal, immoral, or unethical.

In other words, re: the bolded part of your statement above, there's a world of difference between "say(ing) something about it" and Quitting - or refusing an order, which has the same net effect.



(By the way, my course of action is regrettably all too often D, so I am living in the biggest glass house you ever saw on this one....)

[Knighthonor]

I know I am going to get flamed for saying this. And I understand and accept the flame.

but anybody ever stop and think about, the interesting things about being fans of a failing sports franchise?

sometimes it can be interesting for the underpowered teams to beat the top teams.

also getting number 1 draft picks also can be exciting.

[montestewart]

I know I am going to get flamed for saying this. And I understand and accept the flame.

but anybody ever stop and think about, the interesting things about being fans of a failing sports franchise?

sometimes it can be interesting for the underpowered teams to beat the top teams.

also getting number 1 draft picks also can be exciting.

Yeah, there's something to that. My favorite time following this team was when they won the championship. I liked the teams led by Webber and Arenas more, because they won more. I'd rather they beat the Lakers or Thunder in the championship.

[Zonkerbl]

And if you must know, my job, among other things, is to use what I know about economics to convince policy makers that their ideas are dumb. Usually they are policy makers in another government agency but sometimes they are my immediate superiors. I cannot think of one instance where I knew my boss was wrong about something and I did not say something about it. I did get fired for it once, but that was because I was a jerk about it. I've gotten better at it over time.

Zonk - I do agree your post, especially that the employee's job is to speak truth to his/her boss, regardless of the consequences. That said, when you make your best case and the boss still goes the other way, what do you do? (I know in your previous post, you said that you failed, which I agree with.) But practically, do you?

A) Quit
B) Refuse to carry out the order (which should rightfully result in your termination)
C) Ignore it and hope it goes away
D) Do it anyway but complain about it behind your boss' back
E) Follow the direction, and do your best to promote the positive without undermining your organization

Again - I'm not arguing that any of this happened in EG's case, nor that he did all that he could to persuade Abe to take a certain course of action. But IF he did all that, and Abe still said "Do ______" as a direct order, I don't think he would be obligated to quit over it unless it was (as my former boss used to say) illegal, immoral, or unethical.

In other words, re: the bolded part of your statement above, there's a world of difference between "say(ing) something about it" and Quitting - or refusing an order, which has the same net effect.



(By the way, my course of action is regrettably all too often D, so I am living in the biggest glass house you ever saw on this one....)

E. Don't agree on the direction my current organization is taking but am working on a project to help them carry out the wrong decision more efficiently. I did say my piece though.

[thinker07]

If you do not know how to have a reasonable conversation with your boss over something you know more about, than you suck at your job.

Pure and simple. It is your RESPONSIBILITY to stand up to your boss, tactfully of course, if you know something, based on your area of expertise, that's going to affect the good of the company.

Failures fear and avoid confrontation. Jerks seek confrontation and put people off (and get fired). A successful leader communicates and influences. If EG is getting paid $4.5 million a year, more than ANY OTHER GM IN THE LEAGUE, then GOSH DIGGITY DARN IT he better say something to Abe. He better be able to talk Abe out of bad ideas. THAT IS HIS JOB.

Zonker,

I don't want to seem confrontational here, but what kind of job do you have? Is your boss reasonable? Have you ever really disagreed with your boss over something? If so, were you prepared to be fired to preserve the "integrity" of your viewpoint? I'm really not trying to be a dick, but your view isn't really the way things work. A sports franchise is almost exclusively a plaything for the owner - who is almost certainly an extremely rich person that almost always really wants what they want and don't won't to be told that they can't have what they want. Abe Polin decides what EG's job is not the fans. If the owner doesn't want to be talked out of something then the GM's job isn't to talk him out of something. Think Dan Snyder.

Just like a lawyer's job isn't to tell a client "you cannot do this or that" -- instead they say, I strongly advise to not to or you could get into serious trouble if you do it or there are real risks if you do it. But always the client chooses. Until the client proposes to break the law and put the lawyer in personal jeopardy, the lawyer generally is not prepared to get fired over it. The same with doctors. They rarely if ever say, if you don't stop smoking I won't be your doctor any more.

I'm not saying that EG made all great decisions - because he didn't, but ultimately carrying out his boss' wishes about paying certain players/drafting certain guys is what his job is.

Sigh. Let me try one more time. I shall use my powers of communication and influence on you.

Assume you are a specialist in a field, say, rocket science. Your boss, Hillary Clinton, thinks it would be really awesome to have a commercial service to charge $20 million a pop to send people to Mars. You have a number of facts at your disposal that show that this is a terrible idea. These are facts that you have been trained to interpret and understand. Your boss has not. She hired you to be the guy whose job it is to interpret these particular facts.

If you are right and your boss is wrong, and you are afraid to present those facts to your boss, then you suck and should be fired.

If you approach your boss with the facts, and you fail to convince your boss to do the right thing, then you've failed at your job. That's on you.

You don't (often) get to be rich enough to own a professional sports team by ignoring the people you hired to be smarter than you. And if I hire someone to be smarter than me, goddam it he/she better tell me when I've got something wrong before I embarrass myself in public!

And if you must know, my job, among other things, is to use what I know about economics to convince policy makers that their ideas are dumb. Usually they are policy makers in another government agency but sometimes they are my immediate superiors. I cannot think of one instance where I knew my boss was wrong about something and I did not say something about it. I did get fired for it once, but that was because I was a jerk about it. I've gotten better at it over time.

All of that is fine if you have a reasonable boss. And you don't get to define what your job is - your boss does. Maybe they don't want you to argue incessantly with them when they've decided to choose a different path than you'd propose. Some bosses aren't dumber than you they simply disagree with your judgement or they have a different agenda or they have to serve a different master, or they are more comfortable taking bigger risks than you are. If you work in the federal government then you have certain protections kind of sort of provided by civil service rules. But in the government someone got elected and that person appointed someone else and so on and ultimately after you provide your best advice they are the ones on whom's desk the buck stops.

I don't know how high a level you work at or how complex of issues you work on. My experience in policy has taught me that many of the thorniest issues are not black and white. It isn't easy to know for sure exactly what the best solution is or how things will turn out. Maybe you work on issues where you do have that clarity - then I take everything back. Everything I've seen is less obvious.

And the big thing -- some issues are more important to take a hard stand on than others. Is someone proposing to allow defective baby car seats onto the market? Or is someone proposing to buy paper from a vendor where it would cost 11% more than purchasing it a different way? Every circumstance is different - obviously. Whatever the case, basketball trades and draft picks don't rise to the level of public safety, national security, proper use of taxpayer money, corruption etc. Those players and picks are hobbies for a lot of us and things for us to get excited about but that doesn't mean that someone should sacrifice their job security because the fans love Tim Tebow or whatever.

We don't know anything about who said exactly what to who inside the owners suite at Verizon, but Polin was clear about his strong affection for Gilbert and his desire to retain him. Polin was a wallflower someone suggested? Really? The guy that flat out fired Micheal Jordan. He wanted desperately to win at the end of his life and I believe that EG undertook his actions while carrying out Polin's wishes.

[hands11]

Don't put words in my mouth guys. I'm not making assumptions -- I'm coming to conclusions via inference based on the facts before me.

Fact: EG is the one who was hired to know what is the correct basketball decision.
Fact: It is his job to use his communication skills to influence his boss.
Fact: If the organization makes a bad decision because EG failed to convince Abe about something, that is EG's fault.

Full stop. Consider the trade of the #5 pick. Either Abe didn't trust EG's judgement and ignored his advice, which is EG's fault, or EG didn't have the cojones to step and say something, which is EG's fault. Or EG genuinely thought trading the #5 pick was a good idea, but that would contradict the other facts that I have in front of me, which are that generally EG has made good trades and is a good evaluator of talent.

On the Thibs thing, to me it looks like EG thought Thibs was a better coach than EJ -- that's why he gave Thibs a two year contract, and EJ only one. Is there any other way to interpret that? The correct approach then, if you truly think that Thibs is better, is to fire EJ and hire Thibs. He was too cowardly to do this and tried this crazy two year contract thing, going over EJ's head. That's just not the right way to do it. Fire EJ and hire Thibs, if you think Thibs is what your organization needs.

You simply cannot blame Abe Pollin for EG's mistakes. It is EG's responsibility as a leader to talk Abe out of bad ideas. It happens all the time -- people higher up than you in the hierarchy come up with a truly bad idea. If you are a good leader, you have the communication skills to broach the subject with your superior properly, make your case, and talk him/her out of it. If you are too scared to do this, or fail at it, you are not good at your job.

You arguement falls apart right there. I counter that with, EG job is to present and argue for things. Owners make the final call. He can either do it or leave. I say EG know Abe wasnt going to be around forever so he didnt leave. He waited it out. Seems to have worked for him because he was retained by the new owner.

[hands11]

If you do not know how to have a reasonable conversation with your boss over something you know more about, than you suck at your job.

Pure and simple. It is your RESPONSIBILITY to stand up to your boss, tactfully of course, if you know something, based on your area of expertise, that's going to affect the good of the company.

Failures fear and avoid confrontation. Jerks seek confrontation and put people off (and get fired). A successful leader communicates and influences. If EG is getting paid $4.5 million a year, more than ANY OTHER GM IN THE LEAGUE, then GOSH DIGGITY DARN IT he better say something to Abe. He better be able to talk Abe out of bad ideas. THAT IS HIS JOB.

Zonker,

I don't want to seem confrontational here, but what kind of job do you have? Is your boss reasonable? Have you ever really disagreed with your boss over something? If so, were you prepared to be fired to preserve the "integrity" of your viewpoint? I'm really not trying to be a dick, but your view isn't really the way things work. A sports franchise is almost exclusively a plaything for the owner - who is almost certainly an extremely rich person that almost always really wants what they want and don't won't to be told that they can't have what they want. Abe Polin decides what EG's job is not the fans. If the owner doesn't want to be talked out of something then the GM's job isn't to talk him out of something. Think Dan Snyder.

Just like a lawyer's job isn't to tell a client "you cannot do this or that" -- instead they say, I strongly advise to not to or you could get into serious trouble if you do it or there are real risks if you do it. But always the client chooses. Until the client proposes to break the law and put the lawyer in personal jeopardy, the lawyer generally is not prepared to get fired over it. The same with doctors. They rarely if ever say, if you don't stop smoking I won't be your doctor any more.

I'm not saying that EG made all great decisions - because he didn't, but ultimately carrying out his boss' wishes about paying certain players/drafting certain guys is what his job is.

And living to fight another day which he is.

And this is no revisionist history. I said all of that way back when Abe was still in charge.

[Ruzious]

Wow, there's some sad people out there. Obviously you pick your fights, but if you just lay down when it matters... you're not doing your job. I could also say you're being a pussy, but I think that's obvious to everyone.

[verbal8]

And if you must know, my job, among other things, is to use what I know about economics to convince policy makers that their ideas are dumb. Usually they are policy makers in another government agency but sometimes they are my immediate superiors. I cannot think of one instance where I knew my boss was wrong about something and I did not say something about it. I did get fired for it once, but that was because I was a jerk about it. I've gotten better at it over time.

Zonk - I do agree your post, especially that the employee's job is to speak truth to his/her boss, regardless of the consequences. That said, when you make your best case and the boss still goes the other way, what do you do? (I know in your previous post, you said that you failed, which I agree with.) But practically, do you?

A) Quit
B) Refuse to carry out the order (which should rightfully result in your termination)
C) Ignore it and hope it goes away
D) Do it anyway but complain about it behind your boss' back
E) Follow the direction, and do your best to promote the positive without undermining your organization

Again - I'm not arguing that any of this happened in EG's case, nor that he did all that he could to persuade Abe to take a certain course of action. But IF he did all that, and Abe still said "Do ______" as a direct order, I don't think he would be obligated to quit over it unless it was (as my former boss used to say) illegal, immoral, or unethical.

In other words, re: the bolded part of your statement above, there's a world of difference between "say(ing) something about it" and Quitting - or refusing an order, which has the same net effect.



(By the way, my course of action is regrettably all too often D, so I am living in the biggest glass house you ever saw on this one....)

E. Don't agree on the direction my current organization is taking but am working on a project to help them carry out the wrong decision more efficiently. I did say my piece though.

I agree that a GM has to follow the general wishes owner to some degree. I think the 2009 "draft" for the Wizards illustrates my biggest issue with EG.

It is pretty clear that he was under orders to improve the team immediately. However the moves he made adding Miller/Foye/Oberto were the wrong moves with that goal in mind. If Stoudamire was available(even at the cost of Jamison/Butler/pick) that would have been the right move. I think the options for trading the 5th pick would have been a lot greater if teams knew Rubio was available with the pick. Maybe the Suns weren't that eager to deal Amare, but the possibility of having Rubio as Nash's understudy for a year or two might have been irresistible. Or Curry might have been their guy.

I think Blair would have been a low risk(cheap salary, 2nd round pick) high reward even in the short term. Much better than the low to no upside of Oberto. If salary needed to be shaved, that could be done with the deal for the 5th pick or somewhere else.

I think EG has made some great deals. The "Hinrich manuever" was brilliant, but those tend to be the smaller ones. If it looked like the Wizards were a tweak or two away from being a contender, I think EG could be the right GM(and possibly Flip would have be the right coach). However I think the need for a significant increase in talent means the Wizards need a GM who can get the big things right.

[Zonkerbl]

If your doctor tells you to do something, how likely are you to ignore his advice and do your own thing? After all, the patient is the boss and makes the final decision.

[thinker07]

If your doctor tells you to do something, how likely are you to ignore his advice and do your own thing? After all, the patient is the boss and makes the final decision.

Really? So you think smokers and drug addicts and alcoholics and overweight people and people who don't exercise don't have doctors? Of course they do. And their doctors strongly advise them to stop doing whatever unhealthy things or to start doing whatever healthy things -- but oddly people keep doing whatever they want. What about people who have unprotected sex or use dirty needles and catch diseases live HIV? Don't you think that many of them were told to not do that by different kinds of experts? Most of those things are exponentially more important than who a basketball team trades for or drafts - yet why do people insist on doing the things they do when it's OBVIOUS that this isn't smart or wise? Because that is the way things are all across the spectrum of life. So if a doctor can't convince their patient to do/stop these things, the doctor has failed? If you believe that then you could never be a doctor. People do what they want to do. Advisors can only present the facts and hope the client/patient makes a smart choice.