The "Dude": The Mitch Kupchak Thread

[BeesWax]

That 7 win season wasn't a tank?

No because to tank is a process not one bad year. Tanking is spending multiple years being bad to accumulate good young assets to rebuild your team. We suffered through what seemed to be the start or a tank then blew it up and became treadmill before we got to see if we could reap any rewards of a process.

I don't agree with that process vs. tank distinction, that seems pretty arbitrary to me. Even so, I don't think you can sell a multi year tank to the fanbase by arguing that the last one was too short.

Well if you look at the teams that tank they do it for years and don't sign mediocre talents to get back to treadmill. Nobody calls that a tank. People didn't call SA a tank when they had a down year and took Duncan did they. Tanking is the process of actively losing and being bad for an extended period of time. We have never done that before. Instead people complain about bandwagon fans leaving if we are bad when so instead we stay in the worst position in the NBA with a bad coach to appease the bandwagon base.

[Joest2003]

So we got the guy who was responsible for putting together some of if not the worst Lakers rosters of all time together? I swear Jordan hates us

[yosemiteben]

People didn't call SA a tank when they had a down year and took Duncan did they.

Yes they do. They actively tanked a season.

Tanking doesn't imply duration. You absolutely can tank a season.

[Slava]

So we got the guy who was responsible for putting together some of if not the worst Lakers rosters of all time together? I swear Jordan hates us

This is recency bias.

Kupchak had been the Lakers GM from 2000 to 2017. Lakers won 5 championships during that period, making 7 NBA finals runs. Even if the first 3 were down to Jerry West putting together Shaq and Kobe before he left, Kupchak rebuilt from one finals appearance to another in 3 seasons.

A lot of the bad press he got recently was down to anonymous quotes from NBA agents who were bothered by Kupchak's integrity of not engaging them during the NBA moratorium period. Some of the reporters who wrote those stories have lost their jobs during the ESPN purge and haven't even surfaced elsewhere. So its important to take the sources for what they are worth.

[Liver_Pooty]

The 2 seasons we won 7, then 21 would have been more than enough if we wouldn't have gotten screwed in the lottery and landed Davis.

[predators]

Since we have never really tanked before because of signing Al...

That 7 win season wasn't a tank?

I don't know if the 2 first round exits were really worth the feeling that this team is only a slightly younger version of the high cost low ceiling 2010-2011 team. 2015-2016 was a fun year but it has also stealthily hamstrung franchise with the Marvin/Batum contracts that are now looking unmovable. I felt like ending the tank without a franchise player when they signed AL was a mistake and still do. In hindsight the only way the Cho era was going to succeed was if they had won the Anthony Davis sweepstakes and didn't happen.

I don't really mind the Kupchak hire. He's one of the few guys who's previous employer was even more of **** show than this franchise's situation at the end and still managed to make some pretty ridiculous moves. I've pretty much given up on the Hornets ever being a forward thinking team with Jordan at the helm, so they are at least going to get an old school guy that has proven to be competent.

I don't know why people ever thought Aldridge or Dwight were going to ever sign in LA to play with 34+ year old Kobe that had just torn his Achilles over Houston or San Antonio. You would have to be a pretty delusional homer to think that was ever possible without being able to offer a lot more money.

[MasterIchiro]

Kupchak has a tough job because MJ likely wants to keep Kemba and reboot (not rebuild) around him. How can Kupchak bolster the lineup around Kemba when there are limited assets, no cap space and likely no ability to move Batum, MKG, Marvin over the next three years? He can let Dwight expire and that allows the Hornets to lock up Kemba without hitting the luxury tax but that's just the first step. If the team sticks with Kemba, it seems the same exact cast will be surrounding him.

I think he needs to either attach the 2018 first to Batum or attach it to some combo of Lamb/MKG/Marvin, thereby adding a sidekick for Kemba. .

[the_process]

Going to be interesting to see what moves Kupchak is able to make.

[Snidely FC]

i think its interesting that the headline is saying Hornets offer GM job to Kupchak, not Hornets "hire" Kupchak

one of the elements of hiring a GM is that they have to think its a good enough job to want to take it, right?

maybe the other candidates (such as Rosas) backed out, didn't want it?

this is going to be a tough fix whoever takes this job

the thing is, I figured the delay in hiring Kupchak was that he was taking his time deciding whether he wanted the job

I am surprised then that we are hearing the team "offered" him the job, not that they had hired him and were introducing him as the new GM

is Kupchak still undecided?

[yosemiteben]

I agree Snidely, odd that we publicly announced the offer, not normally how this franchise operates.

[countryboi]

i think its interesting that the headline is saying Hornets offer GM job to Kupchak, not Hornets "hire" Kupchak

one of the elements of hiring a GM is that they have to think its a good enough job to want to take it, right?

maybe the other candidates (such as Rosas) backed out, didn't want it?

this is going to be a tough fix whoever takes this job

the thing is, I figured the delay in hiring Kupchak was that he was taking his time deciding whether he wanted the job

I am surprised then that we are hearing the team "offered" him the job, not that they had hired him and were introducing him as the new GM

is Kupchak still undecided?

So i was going to ask this...we are talking as if he has take the job. Has he taken the job and I really cant imagine any candidate would back out of a GM job. its only 30 of those and even the worse GM job is better than any Asst GM.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

In the interview with WoJ, Mitch was pretty clear that he wanted to be a GM 'in the right situation' or something along those lines. Further his family is all in LA. I don't take it as a given that he will automatically accept.

[Robot Rock]

Fearless prediction: If he doesn't take it, we will have a "Buzz Peterson: New General Manager" thread soon.

[Braggins]

It feels like a step backwards. In an era where teams are focused on analytics, Mitch is a dinosaur. If I'm recalling correctly, under him, the Lakers were one of the teams with the smallest presence at the Sloan Analytics Conference, where other teams sent much larger contingents due to more analytics personnel (even team owners like Cuban attended). And didn't LaMarcus Aldridge famously blasted Mitch's free agent pitch as being out of sync and lacking in analytics and details compared to the Spurs pitch? Mitch is like the exact opposite of the Houston guy considered for the job, who I thought would have been a better selection.

Regardless, he does bring experience to the job, so it will be interesting to see how he does with a much smaller market than LA. He seems to have an ability to put together multi-team trades.

This is why this irks me so bad. Mitch was a good GM 10 years ago in a vastly different era, but we had a perfect opportunity to get on board with the future and instead hired a dinosaur thats friends with MJ, who might only be there to groom MJ's business manager to take over for the long term. Its so typical.

I hope I'm wrong and with Mitch's resume, its not impossible that he might still have it in him to do a good job, but I do not expect this to go well at all.

[DY_nasty]

- Will Mitch standup to MJ and his family in the draft war room?

where is this narrative coming from

"I'm not gonna say it again Cho - you're going to draft Zeller OR ELSE"

Curtis Polk (Jordan's long time adviser) & stuff from Jordan himself in interviews, mostly to the Observer. Bonnell even had a similar tidbit on a radio interview this year.

Basically the narrative is that the draft room is packed with all sorts of people from Jordan and Polk - to relatives like his daughter (representing the business side) - and Cliff. Bonnell's narrative this year was that Cho and Cliff clashed over who to draft last summer and Jordan "let" Cho win, since Cliff had already gotten his way on trading for Dwight.

The net effect of all those voices is that it sounds like the GM's say doesn't always carry a lot of weight when it comes to decision making the way things have been run up to this point.

we take bonnell seriously after he cried in the car when higgins got canned?

[Liver_Pooty]

People keep crying about analytics when we just had an analytics guy. I just want a guy that doesnt take several years and several lottery picks to nail more than one draft pick.

[Eoghan]

Feels like the Dwight Howard of GM hires.

[TheKingofSting]

We are not as bad off as some people think.

Kemba / Monk
Monk / Graham
Mikal Bridges / Lamb
Frank / Anyone better than Marvin Williams
WH / Cody

I'm sure Dwight has big time value and Mitch probably doesn't like him to start with, get rid of Dwight for a draft pick that can play backup PG+ another piece. We just have to find creative ways to get rid of Marvin, Batum and MKG or MKG can backup Bridges and substitute Lamb for Graham to backup G.O.A.T. Monk at SG.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[yosemiteben]

That starting lineup is getting absolutely wrecked on defense.

[Braggins]

People keep crying about analytics when we just had an analytics guy. I just want a guy that doesnt take several years and several lottery picks to nail more than one draft pick.

I dont think Cho was really much of an analytics guy. Pretty sure that was PR fluff.