EG post Abe era started Nov 24, 2009 - Eval EG from then

[Induveca]

Haha Krizko...........

If it was a new employee, who had done poorly his first 2 months on the job, that kind of employee deserves a pat on the back and a declaration of "good work!". For a guy on the job for 7 years doing his best to even stay mediocre, I would say to other owners/co-founders "So what? The guy has been a huge disappointment nearly his entire tenure here. Don't miss the forest for the trees." The second example is Grunfeld.

I honestly think it's pretty pathetic people are so ecstatic about these very minor moves which barely made a ripple in NBA news.

He turned that Hinrich trade into some decent value. No doubt about it. But I'll also give him credit for making our team SO unattractive Bibby was willing to take 6 million less in a buyout JUST TO LEAVE. Not able to give him any pat on the back for that, it's quite embarrassing in all honesty.

He also turned our #5 pick into Randy Foye and Mike Miller, which less than a year later resulted in us having NOTHING TO SHOW FOR A #5 PICK!

The Butler trade was disappointing. Arenas trade as well. Jamison as well.

While teams like New York, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles aim to be competitive with free agent signings and trades, and getting solid bang for their buck we aim for lottery balls and "cap space" which we immediately spend on middling players like Hinrich and Yi.

Again, huge F from me.

[leswizards]

As a general rule, it seems that most people's feelings toward EG are inversely proportional to their feelings towards Gilbert Arenas. IE, most people who hate EG, love Gil, while those who like EG, are glad Gil is gone.

[fishercob]

Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones. -- Dwight Schrute

While the Hinrich moves have worked out really well, they're not brain surgery. Half of us here could have (and did) conceive of the same types of moves, so lets not go overboard with the Ernie praise. Dat is right, Ernie is a competent GM, but nothing more. It has everything to do with Yi, Josh Howard, Blatche and Nick Collison.

From the moment the Yi trade went down, I railed against the move mostly because of opportunity cost -- specifically, the opportunity cost of the cap space. People were quick to discount this criticism as overblown and completely miss the point with responses like "Quinton Ross sucks, what did you expect to get in return" and "he's expiring, so what's the big deal?"

Ernie rolled the dice on a Blatche extension and it has blown up in all of our faces. DRay has killed his trade value, his teammates plainly hate playing with him, and he's signed for four more years at a chunky cap number. Not Rashard Lewis insane, but it'd you pay a guy $35M you'd like him to not suck.

Compare that to what Sam Presti did with Nick Collison. Presti was careful about using his cap space to the point where he had a huge opportunity earlier this year -- extend Collison via a large "signing bonus" (he made $13M this year!) in exchange for doling out only another $11M over the next four years of Collison's new deal.

Ernie could have done the same thing -- given Blatche bigger up front money and an "attaboy" for his 30 games stretch last year, and then locked him up for another couple years on the relative cheap. But because he spent $7M on Yi and Josh Howard, that option never existed. I like Josh, but ask me if I'd rather have 15 games of him or Blatche re-signed at a much less onerous cap number. It's not close. [The other option would have been to not to pre-maturely extend the guy at all, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt w/r/t their thinking that taking care of Blatche was the right thing to do].

So please stop all the EOTY chat, okay? Presti has a guy who I'd prefer at this point to Blatche -- but in '14-15 Collison will make $2.2M and Blatche will make $8.4M. Ernie's fine, but he's not in the same universe as Sam Presti.

[nate33]

The Butler trade was disappointing. Arenas trade as well. Jamison as well.

While teams like New York, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles aim to be competitive with free agent signings and trades, and getting solid bang for their buck we aim for lottery balls and "cap space" which we immediately spend on middling players like Hinrich and Yi.

Again, huge F from me.

I seriously question your objectivity. Any rational analysis of those trades puts the Wizards as the clear winner. It's not even debateable.

[Rafael122]

Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones. -- Dwight Schrute

While the Hinrich moves have worked out really well, they're not brain surgery. Half of us here could have (and did) conceive of the same types of moves, so lets not go overboard with the Ernie praise. Dat is right, Ernie is a competent GM, but nothing more. It has everything to do with Yi, Josh Howard, Blatche and Nick Collison.

From the moment the Yi trade went down, I railed against the move mostly because of opportunity cost -- specifically, the opportunity cost of the cap space. People were quick to discount this criticism as overblown and completely miss the point with responses like "Quinton Ross sucks, what did you expect to get in return" and "he's expiring, so what's the big deal?"

Ernie rolled the dice on a Blatche extension and it has blown up in all of our faces. DRay has killed his trade value, his teammates plainly hate playing with him, and he's signed for four more years at a chunky cap number. Not Rashard Lewis insane, but it'd you pay a guy $35M you'd like him to not suck.

Compare that to what Sam Presti did with Nick Collison. Presti was careful about using his cap space to the point where he had a huge opportunity earlier this year -- extend Collison via a large "signing bonus" (he made $13M this year!) in exchange for doling out only another $11M over the next four years of Collison's new deal.

Ernie could have done the same thing -- given Blatche bigger up front money and an "attaboy" for his 30 games stretch last year, and then locked him up for another couple years on the relative cheap. But because he spent $7M on Yi and Josh Howard, that option never existed. I like Josh, but ask me if I'd rather have 15 games of him or Blatche re-signed at a much less onerous cap number. It's not close. [The other option would have been to not to pre-maturely extend the guy at all, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt w/r/t their thinking that taking care of Blatche was the right thing to do].

So please stop all the EOTY chat, okay? Presti has a guy who I'd prefer at this point to Blatche -- but in '14-15 Collison will make $2.2M and Blatche will make $8.4M. Ernie's fine, but he's not in the same universe as Sam Presti.

Yeah but Nick is also making $13 million this year, what's your point? In 3 years, Blatche will only be 27 years old. I'm not justifying Blatche's salary, all I'm saying is Presti gave Nick more oney up front, with decreasing salaries after that.

[hands11]

Well, Indy

It kind of like most thing. People see what they want to see. None of us have all the inside facts.

For me, I make no bones about the fact that I think the past failure had a lot to do with Abe.
Why, because this franchise, the front office dealing, the contracts, the coaches, the player selection, for the most part, sucked for many many many years before EG showed up.

There would be glimpses of good stuff but we never saw it through. This team was rebuild once before under Nash with Jimmy as HC and was headed in the right direction only to get derailed by who... Abe when he sided with Howard and blow the team up. I know when that happened it was going to take years for them to recover from that. Abe had struck again.

Years of mismanagement in the front office with VP/Coaches and GM/Coaches. All the terrible years of Wes being in charge of things. That was Abe. Abe was a terrible owner. Period. And as long as he was owner, I had little faith this franchise would ever be a winner.

Abe did some good things. He built to Verizon center. He also seemed to be a good man. This is not about that. This is about owning an NBA franchise and winning.

But I remember the day I heard they got EG as the GM. I had mixed feelings. I was glad they got a professional GM finally but I was also unhappy because I felt Abe hosed MJ he put the franchise back on the map, filled his pockets and he cleared out what ? Three terrible contracts. Same thing EG just had to do. Abe had a pattern of signing the wrong people to large contracts for to long. He also had a pattern of setting up his front office in a dysfunctional way. Same was true when EG got here. Abe had signed EFJ before EG.

But EG got to work. He brought in Gil. Then he turn KFB into CB who was signed to a good value. Haywood was already here from MJ. He keep him over EFJs disapproval. He found AJ I believe when trying to move Stack ( another bad contract ). That was the right idea, but I felt it was the wrong player. I wanted a true power forward but AJ was a talented good dude and this team needed a culture upgrade. Those teams made the playoff and most felt that team was on the rise.

The mistakes came in extending these players and in extending EFJ before they even needed to. Those moves I put on Abe. Why ? Because Abe had a pattern of doing that same crap in the past. He turned players and other personnel like Wes into his family. They should have sold Gil high and got value in return but Gil was Abes son. Abe also loved AJ. Abe also hand picked and love EFJ. Abe also wanted to win now before he passed. Instead of signing Gil to a near max contract while he was vacationing in China, they should have moved him a year earlier when he was an expiring contract. They should have done the same with AJs contract. That's what you do if you aren't trying to win it all right now and if you aren't overly personally involved with players. They could have reloaded on the fly and without EFJ as the HC. If not for Abe and EFJ, Tibs would be our coach.

Then we wouldn't have even been in that position to trade the 5th pick which again was done under Abes direction.

EG loaded this team up once and they got a lot better. It was what happen with extending those players that ruined things. It was investing to much in Gil who was and still is a flake. It was the guns. While no one say that exactly happening. I wasn't surprised either. We are talking Gil here.

Well Abe passed and EG blow the sucker up immediately and he got good value in doing it and he has been making sound moves ever since.

Now this current roster may not be winning but there is lots of young talent here and there is cap room and first round picks on the horizon. Most the knuckheads are gone as are most the bad contracts. This is exactly where you want to be in a rebuild.

Most people feel hopeful that they have a chance to build something and understand the game plan. Why, because Ted is the owner. Imagine if Abe was still the owner. Would you feel as hopeful. I know I wouldn't. For starters, I don't think that old team would have been blown up. Gil would probably still be here and we would be limping along while kicking the can down the road. That's what Abe always did. He never would hit the reset and stick to the plan long enough because he wanted to win now.

But instead, I expect Ted and EG will continue to make good decisions. This team has hit bottom. There is still lots of work ahead. But they will start to put this thing back together. There is only one more bad contract that needs to come off the books then the reset will be complete.

There is a longer term plan. We know what it is and Ted will stick to it.

[fishercob]

Why tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones. -- Dwight Schrute

While the Hinrich moves have worked out really well, they're not brain surgery. Half of us here could have (and did) conceive of the same types of moves, so lets not go overboard with the Ernie praise. Dat is right, Ernie is a competent GM, but nothing more. It has everything to do with Yi, Josh Howard, Blatche and Nick Collison.

From the moment the Yi trade went down, I railed against the move mostly because of opportunity cost -- specifically, the opportunity cost of the cap space. People were quick to discount this criticism as overblown and completely miss the point with responses like "Quinton Ross sucks, what did you expect to get in return" and "he's expiring, so what's the big deal?"

Ernie rolled the dice on a Blatche extension and it has blown up in all of our faces. DRay has killed his trade value, his teammates plainly hate playing with him, and he's signed for four more years at a chunky cap number. Not Rashard Lewis insane, but it'd you pay a guy $35M you'd like him to not suck.

Compare that to what Sam Presti did with Nick Collison. Presti was careful about using his cap space to the point where he had a huge opportunity earlier this year -- extend Collison via a large "signing bonus" (he made $13M this year!) in exchange for doling out only another $11M over the next four years of Collison's new deal.

Ernie could have done the same thing -- given Blatche bigger up front money and an "attaboy" for his 30 games stretch last year, and then locked him up for another couple years on the relative cheap. But because he spent $7M on Yi and Josh Howard, that option never existed. I like Josh, but ask me if I'd rather have 15 games of him or Blatche re-signed at a much less onerous cap number. It's not close. [The other option would have been to not to pre-maturely extend the guy at all, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt w/r/t their thinking that taking care of Blatche was the right thing to do].

So please stop all the EOTY chat, okay? Presti has a guy who I'd prefer at this point to Blatche -- but in '14-15 Collison will make $2.2M and Blatche will make $8.4M. Ernie's fine, but he's not in the same universe as Sam Presti.

Yeah but Nick is also making $13 million this year, what's your point? In 3 years, Blatche will only be 27 years old. I'm not justifying Blatche's salary, all I'm saying is Presti gave Nick more oney up front, with decreasing salaries after that.

Rafa, what's with your reading comprehension lately? The point is that Nick is making $13M this year b/c Presti had the cap room to give him a huge signing bonus (in exchange for a cheap extension) because he didnt waste his cap space on scrubs like Yi and Josh Howard.

[closg00]

The Sixers just hired a shooting coach for Evan Turner.
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/six ... urner.html

This^^is an example of the difference between a team run by Ernie Grunfeld, and every other team that is serious about building a successful team. The Pacers bring in Bill Walton to work with Roy Hibbert, the Sixers hire a shooting coach to work with Turner. Ernie has had his job for 7 years, brings-in raw guys like McGee, Seraphin & Hamady and leaves them with good-hearted assistants, but not the specialists required to develop raw-players into the kind assets this team needs.

Ernie does trades, and not-much else, he is a weak Captain of the ship.

[Hoopalotta]

As far as cap usage and asset accumulation, the discrepancy between what was done with the Hiney money and that which was done with the rest is striking. You couldn't do much better than Kirby, but the rest of it is leaving us with neigh unto nothing.

I can see the intentions with Howard and I did like the Blatche extension at the time (much to my shame ), but we didn't get anything accomplished with that slab coming into the 2011 offseason. Nothing lasting there and as Fisher noted, we basically just achieved the unfortunate destruction of Dray's trade value (oops ). It could also be argued now that getting Thornton was unnecessary, though it was a convenient gap filler that could have worked out.

On balance, it was probably about average as to the cap centered asset plumbing. I'd say the drafting went rather well and especially when taking into account that there hasn't been all that much production out of the 2010 draft in general.

I am thus neither overly celebratory nor uproar'ing into a censorious froth.

As mentioned, I think we really left some choice cuts on the table in not pulling a deal with My-Hammy during their Pre-Bon-Bon purge period.

[Spence]

I give Grunfeld an F for building the team he's been taking apart for the past 13 months. I give him an A for taking that team apart. What does that average out to? I don't know, but I think he's done a good job pulling apart that colossal failure that he helped to build.

[nate33]

Compare that to what Sam Presti did with Nick Collison. Presti was careful about using his cap space to the point where he had a huge opportunity earlier this year -- extend Collison via a large "signing bonus" (he made $13M this year!) in exchange for doling out only another $11M over the next four years of Collison's new deal.

Ernie could have done the same thing -- given Blatche bigger up front money and an "attaboy" for his 30 games stretch last year, and then locked him up for another couple years on the relative cheap. But because he spent $7M on Yi and Josh Howard, that option never existed. I like Josh, but ask me if I'd rather have 15 games of him or Blatche re-signed at a much less onerous cap number. It's not close. [The other option would have been to not to pre-maturely extend the guy at all, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt w/r/t their thinking that taking care of Blatche was the right thing to do].

I don't think it's fair to cherrypick the stuff that Presti did better than Ernie while ignoring the stuff that Ernie did better than Presti. I cede that Presti made a very shrewd move with the Collison signing and I was hoping EG would do something similar. If nothing else, EG should have signed Blatche to a descending contract rather than an increasing one.

But let's take a real good look at what Presti did with his BOYD trades. In the offseason, he traded the #32 pick and absorbed Cook's $2.2M salary to get Miami's #18 pick. High second round picks can usually be sold for $2.5M, so basically, he bought the #18 pick for $4.7M. He ultimately traded the #18 to the Clippers for a future top 10 protected first. Ernie bought three first round picks (Seraphin, Crawford and Atlanta's #20) for $7.8M and got a much better one-year rental in Hinrich while he was at it.

Like us, OKC also made a draft day consolidation trade. Presti traded the #21 pick + the #26 pick, plus paid $6.4M to absorb MoPete, in order to move up to #11 and draft Aldrich. Aldrich looks like a bust. EG, on the other hand, traded the #30 pick and the #35 pick to move up to #23 and draft Booker. Booker is better than Aldrich and cost a hell of a lot less to acquire.

So, in summary, OKC went into draft day with the following assets: #21, #26, #32 and $8.6M in cash. He came out with Aldrich and the Clippers top 10 protected 1st in 2012 (protected until 2016).

EG went into draft day with #30, #35 and $7.8M in cash. He came out with Seraphin, Booker, Crawford, and Atlanta's #20 pick, plus a one-year rental of a pretty good ball player in Hinrich.

[Rafael122]

Fisher - my bad bro....just exhausted and I'm skimming over ****. I co-sign with Nate on this. The stuff with Hinrich is similar to what Presti did. Though Presti I think whiffed with the Aldrich pick. They've got Perk, Collison, and Ibaka manning that position for the next few years.

OKC had the perfect storm of sorts, they got Durant, then they picked up Westbrook in the draft. He had a couple of good years drafting top talent in the lottery. Unfortunately for us, we traded the 5th pick (could have gotten Curry, honestly I'm getting bitter over that looking back), got Wall, and we'll have a lottery pick in a weak draft.

[fishercob]

Compare that to what Sam Presti did with Nick Collison. Presti was careful about using his cap space to the point where he had a huge opportunity earlier this year -- extend Collison via a large "signing bonus" (he made $13M this year!) in exchange for doling out only another $11M over the next four years of Collison's new deal.

Ernie could have done the same thing -- given Blatche bigger up front money and an "attaboy" for his 30 games stretch last year, and then locked him up for another couple years on the relative cheap. But because he spent $7M on Yi and Josh Howard, that option never existed. I like Josh, but ask me if I'd rather have 15 games of him or Blatche re-signed at a much less onerous cap number. It's not close. [The other option would have been to not to pre-maturely extend the guy at all, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt w/r/t their thinking that taking care of Blatche was the right thing to do].

I don't think it's fair to cherrypick the stuff that Presti did better than Ernie while ignoring the stuff that Ernie did better than Presti. I cede that Presti made a very shrewd move with the Collison signing and I was hoping EG would do something similar. If nothing else, EG should have signed Blatche to a descending contract rather than an increasing one.

But let's take a real good look at what Presti did with his BOYD trades. In the offseason, he traded the #32 pick and absorbed Cook's $2.2M salary to get Miami's #18 pick. High second round picks can usually be sold for $2.5M, so basically, he bought the #18 pick for $4.7M. He ultimately traded the #18 to the Clippers for a future top 10 protected first. Ernie bought three first round picks (Seraphin, Crawford and Atlanta's #20) for $7.8M and got a much better one-year rental in Hinrich while he was at it.

Like us, OKC also made a draft day consolidation trade. Presti traded the #21 pick + the #26 pick, plus paid $6.4M to absorb MoPete, in order to move up to #11 and draft Aldrich. Aldrich looks like a bust. EG, on the other hand, traded the #30 pick and the #35 pick to move up to #23 and draft Booker. Booker is better than Aldrich and cost a hell of a lot less to acquire.

So, in summary, OKC went into draft day with the following assets: #21, #26, #32 and $8.6M in cash. He came out with Aldrich and the Clippers top 10 protected 1st in 2012 (protected until 2016).

EG went into draft day with #30, #35 and $7.8M in cash. He came out with Seraphin, Booker, Crawford, and Atlanta's #20 pick, plus a one-year rental of a pretty good ball player in Hinrich.

It's not "cherrypicking," nate. I'm looking specifically at how Ernie has managed his cap space. And if you want to tell the full store with the $4.7M for the 18th pick, please include that that Clippers pick was just a key piece of the deal that landed them Kendrick Perkins and has vaulted OKC into the discussion of legit contender.

The Hinrich trades were great, yes. But the Blatche extension was a huge mistake and if Ernie had managed the cap better (not made the Yi trade that you hated with me), he could have mitigated the risk of Blatche's deal by front-loading it. That's what separates delivery men from urologists in my mind.

[Illuminaire]

There are many fair points here. Really, I don't think Ernie is that hard to assess though:

>< He has a good eye for talent, but not maturity.
>< He can follow a plan, but not set a good one himself.
>< He can make good incremental trades.
>< He has no imagination when it comes to playing with cap numbers and salaries.

Add it all up and you have a solid but unimpressive GM. You can do worse. A LOT worse. But if you have the chance to get a better guy with vision and cap creativity, you do it.

[nate33]

It's not "cherrypicking," nate. I'm looking specifically at how Ernie has managed his cap space. And if you want to tell the full store with the $4.7M for the 18th pick, please include that that Clippers pick was just a key piece of the deal that landed them Kendrick Perkins and has vaulted OKC into the discussion of legit contender.

I thought the Perkins trade was basically a straight up swap of Green + Krstic for Perkins. There was no pick involved to my knowledge.

That Clippers pick is a top 10 protected 2012 pick. The way the Clippers are going with Griffin aboard, they'll probably be a .500 ballclub by then. So it's a #17ish pick - not much different than our Atlanta pick.

I agree with you about the Yi trade, but I think it's fair to point out that no GM's outside of Pritchard and Chicago's GM every seem to have any imagination with contracts. Everybody else backloads contracts to the maximum extent possible.

[fishercob]

It's not "cherrypicking," nate. I'm looking specifically at how Ernie has managed his cap space. And if you want to tell the full store with the $4.7M for the 18th pick, please include that that Clippers pick was just a key piece of the deal that landed them Kendrick Perkins and has vaulted OKC into the discussion of legit contender.

I thought the Perkins trade was basically a straight up swap of Green + Krstic for Perkins. There was no pick involved to my knowledge.

That Clippers pick is a top 10 protected 2012 pick. The way the Clippers are going with Griffin aboard, they'll probably be a .500 ballclub by then. So it's a #17ish pick - not much different than our Atlanta pick.

I agree with you about the Yi trade, but I think it's fair to point out that no GM's outside of Pritchard and Chicago's GM every seem to have any imagination with contracts. Everybody else backloads contracts to the maximum extent possible.

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/2/24/2 ... round-pick

The Boston Celtics will receive another asset in the trade that sends Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic. They will also receive a 2012 first-round pick from the Thunder that was initially acquired from the Clippers, according to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe.

Incidentally, OKC has announced that they have extended Perkins long term. Terms haven't come out yet.

[nate33]

Thanks Fish. News to me. Although, I'm not really impressed with giving up Green and a mid-first rounder just for the right to pay Perkins a ton of money. It's tough to really evaluate until we see the terms of Perkins' contract.

[Illuminaire]

The Oklahoma City Thunder have signed center Kendrick Perkins to a multi-year contract extension, it was announced today by Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti. Per team policy, the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Yahoo! Sports reports that it will pay Perkins $34.8 million over four years.

Read more: http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/21 ... z1FMosciPr

[LyricalRico]

Wow, that's the first I'm hearing about the pick. If Boston truly was going to let Perkins walk instead of paying him, then I think this becomes a solid deal for them.

For OKC, they are really banking on Perkins being the final piece. Can their chemistry withstand the loss of their "glue" guy, Jeff Green? Is Perkins going to be 100% healthy going forward? And can Perkins still be a solid defender without Garnett next to him? If the answer to all 3 of those questions is "Yes", then this is a great trade for OKC. But if even one of them is "No", I think it could hurt them more than it helps.

[verbal8]

It's not "cherrypicking," nate. I'm looking specifically at how Ernie has managed his cap space. And if you want to tell the full store with the $4.7M for the 18th pick, please include that that Clippers pick was just a key piece of the deal that landed them Kendrick Perkins and has vaulted OKC into the discussion of legit contender.

I thought the Perkins trade was basically a straight up swap of Green + Krstic for Perkins. There was no pick involved to my knowledge.

The Perkins trade got a whole lot more significant(and good for OKC if his knee holds up).

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/211637/Perkins_Signs_Extension_With_Thunder

$34 million/4 years, isn't that the same money he turned down from Boston?