Fire Rod Higgins!!!

[fatlever]

you know which picks make vancouver fans angry? pretty much all of them EXCEPT abdur-rahim and mike bibby.

bryant reeves, nice player, wrecked by injuries and bad conditioning, waste of talent
stromile swift, massive bust, all athlete no skills or brain
antonio daniels, backup guard talent drafted at #4
steve francis, refused to play for team
roy rodgers, no comment

[fatlever]

SI article on abdur-rahim from 1998.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

"the best NBA player you never see" he was a quiet guy, low key, didnt look for the spotlight, didnt play flashy. he just got buckets and filled up the stat sheet. the main problem with reef was that he was expected to be an alpha type player who would carry a team on his back and that just wasnt who he was. he would have been ideal as a #2 scorer next to a superstar. reminds me a lot of current aldridge. unfortunately he had no help in vancouver. he got overpaid like everyone from that era and ended up in atlanta where he also didnt have much help. eventually his knees gave out and he was then an half-injured player on a bad contract.

i had NBA league pass back in the late 90s early 00s and i was kinda closet grizz fan in 1999. i watched a lot of their games the first year i had league pass.

he once finished in the top 20 in 13 different categories.

scored 50pts in a game for the hawks, as well as a 43pt game in that same year

[Durins Baynes]

Saying SAR is a better pick than "awful pick X" doesn't make it a good pick, just less awful compared to something horribly sucky.

[Durins Baynes]

I have an article from an NBA magazine in the 90's that calls Terrell Brandon the best point guard in the NBA. It doesn't make it so. Magazines like that are paid to hype players. Then we bring some context back to it- SAR was a guy who made 1 all-star team (in one of the weakest conferences and years in decades), and who you admit put up inflated stats. He was a terrible #3 pick that year.

[Liver_Pooty]

I have an article from an NBA magazine in the 90's that calls Terrell Brandon the best point guard in the NBA. It doesn't make it so. Magazines like that are paid to hype players. Then we bring some context back to it- SAR was a guy who made 1 all-star team (in one of the weakest conferences and years in decades), and who you admit put up inflated stats. He was a terrible #3 pick that year.

You have a few valid points, but the thought of you thinking that you believe that Reggie Jackson is better than Kemba Walker is utterly dumb as hell.

[Durins Baynes]

You sound like the people who mocked the idea of made fun of the idea of Jermaine O'Neal or Zach being good players when they were stuck on the bench. How did that work out? Sometimes guys get limited minutes to start with for a reason. Reggie is one of those guys.

[fatlever]

are you sure you want to stick with the word "terrible" to describe reef being picked at 3? maybe you should change your argument to something a little softer like, "the grizzlies would have been better off selecting ray allen at #3 over rahim". the latter sounds much less ridiculous.

hell, im still waiting for you to start arguing that the grizz were stupid for not selecting steve nash at #3 since he was canadian and clearly amazing and a future hall of famer. or perhaps the kobe argument - hey, lets build our brand new expansion team around a completely unproven high school shooting guard who will most likely refuse to play for us or at the very least leave in 3 years for a big market. maybe the grizz should have selected peja knowing he was going to stay in europe for a season or two, pissing off the fan base even faster so they could have moved the team out of vancouver two years earlier. they could have taken jermaine oneal and stashed him on their bench for 5 years waiting on him to figure out how to play. did you really want to see starbury carrying an expansion franchise for 5 years? what about lorenzen wright, potapenko, samaki walker, kerry kittles, dampier, fuller, tony delk, john wallace... i found the answer... its antoine walker.

[Durins Baynes]

It was terrible. Like I said, you don't like my characterisation- go start a thread on the PC board along the lines of "Looking back, was Shareef a terrible pick at #3 in the 1996 draft?" It'll go badly for you.

[fatlever]

bleacher report did an article in 2011 redrafting the 1996 draft. they have reef going #7. not that i am a big fan of BR, but its still interesting.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/9543 ... ery/page/9

Original Selection: No. 3, Vancouver

Would the Clippers have solved the team's woes at the small forward position had they the opportunity to nab Abdur-Rahim off the board?

Maybe, maybe not, but it's an awfully tantalizing thought to entertain. After averaging just shy of 19 points per game during his rookie season, Abdur-Rahim rattled off five straight seasons of better than 20 per contest, and even managed to average at least nine rebounds in three of those seasons.

One of the more under-appreciated players in league history, Abdur-Rahim's star could've shined brightly underneath the Hollywood lights.

http://mettachronicles.com/hindsight-is ... a-redraft/

this site randomly enough has the raptors taking reef #2 in a redraft. yeah, ok, thats a bit nuts, but whatever.

2. Toronto Raptors – 1996 Pick: C Marcus Camby 2012 Pick: F Shareef Abdur-Rahim – A bit of a surprise, especially when future MVP Iverson is still on the board, and also considering that Camby turned out to be a stout defender who continues to play in the Association. However, this Raptor team was coming off their 1st season where PG Damon Stoudemire earned Rookie of the Year honors, so I would probably pass on drafting another guard. For his career, Rahim averaged 18.1 & 7.7, which would give the Raptors a great building piece to add to their forwards

http://www.nba.com/draft2003/redraft_1996.html

this one has reef going 9th, complete in a redraft.

http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/20 ... aft-remix/

too bad life doesnt work like this. 1996 turned out to be a loaded draft. however, the problem is that more than half the great players in that draft were not any anyone's top 5 radar.

[Durins Baynes]

I don't see the relevance of any of that. You have not provided a reason to justify your methodology. You agree SAR would clearly not be the 3rd best player from that draft, that's all that matters really (unless his career was destroyed by injuries... no? Then it was an epic fail). When I agreed that the predictions of a bunch of web writers wasn't a good way to assess who should be drafted where, it was implicit in that statement that a retrospective analysis by a bunch of web writers was just as a bad a way to assess it.

[LamarMatic7]

Shareef made a singular all-star team (in a weak year in a weak conference), he was an overrated player, and that pick was terrible. Obviously I can't prove what a 90's Grizz fan would think, but I'll tell you what- go to the PC board and start a thread "Was Shareef a decent pick for the Grizzlies in 1996?" It won't go the way you hope.

First off, who the hell overrates Shareef Abdur-Rahim? He's clearly a very forgotten player, even though that much time hasn't passed by since his playing days.

Second off, please don't tell me that you just suggested starting a thread on the RealGM PC board as a way of deciding an argument.

Third off, you're such a hypocrite when you want to use this method as justification for Reef being a bad pick, while in the mean time you "don't see any relevance" in the Bleacher Report article.

BR isn't by any means a site of great bloggers but at least they're people who are hired to write their opinion on basketball. Judging the value of a draft pick that occurred 17 years ago on a board where most people are likely to be between 20 and 30 is a horrible way to prove your point, even if the majority would say that SAR was a bad pick.

[LamarMatic7]

I have an article from an NBA magazine in the 90's that calls Terrell Brandon the best point guard in the NBA. It doesn't make it so. Magazines like that are paid to hype players. Then we bring some context back to it- SAR was a guy who made 1 all-star team (in one of the weakest conferences and years in decades), and who you admit put up inflated stats. He was a terrible #3 pick that year.

Off-topic but this got me interested. Which NBA magazine was that and what year was it?

[fatlever]

It was terrible. Like I said, you don't like my characterisation- go start a thread on the PC board along the lines of "Looking back, was Shareef a terrible pick at #3 in the 1996 draft?" It'll go badly for you.

i took your advice. i pitched this debate to the all-knowing PC board. now just waiting for it to go badly for me.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1275246

[Durins Baynes]

You have all of 3 replies. Maybe it's the wall of blue text, maybe it's the overly long post, but maybe you should try a poll. Responses from all 3 of them basically dodge the question of hindsight, and try to judge it at the time. Very helpful Though the guy who vaguely addresses it gives this reassuring statement "not so bad by any means to rake them over the coals in hindsight". So "not so bad", but still bad. Bad is the opposite of good, right?

The magazine was from 1997, SI:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... AG1009412/

[LamarMatic7]

You have all of 3 replies. Maybe it's the wall of blue text, maybe it's the overly long post, but maybe you should try a poll. Responses from all 3 of them basically dodge the question of hindsight, and try to judge it at the time. Very helpful Though the guy who vaguely addresses it gives this reassuring statement "not so bad by any means to rake them over the coals in hindsight". So "not so bad", but still bad. Bad is the opposite of good, right?

The magazine was from 1997, SI:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... AG1009412/

You sure do take certain things, the quotes that help your case, out of context. If you quote the "not so bad" part, I might as well point out the "perfectly fine pick" part.

The same goes for the magazine. You totally took the cover of it out of context. Yeah, it claims so on the cover but that's just for the hype. By no means can you read that article and claim that the author believed that Terrell Brandon is the best point guard in the league. It only says "best pure point guard". It's the typical "hey, this guy plays for a small market and isn't talked about much" article where the underrated borderline all-star gets overrated just because there hasn't been that much spotlight on him. A feel good story about the humble star.

And no way should you try a poll. That's simply asking for anonymous incompetence.

[fatlever]

You have all of 3 replies. Maybe it's the wall of blue text, maybe it's the overly long post, but maybe you should try a poll. Responses from all 3 of them basically dodge the question of hindsight, and try to judge it at the time. Very helpful Though the guy who vaguely addresses it gives this reassuring statement "not so bad by any means to rake them over the coals in hindsight". So "not so bad", but still bad. Bad is the opposite of good, right?

The magazine was from 1997, SI:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... AG1009412/

we finally agree on something. the wall of blue text is tough on the eyes. i was trying to separate the opinions from the into and summary. gonna fix that.

and did you really expect more than 3 replies to a thread on the PC board about Reef? i'm shocked it got more than one reply.

however, i am still waiting for it to end poorly for me.

[Eoghan]

Sure. Nobody said Cho is a terrible GM, he's not as bad as Higgins or Jim Paxson at drafting for instance. But at least 50% of his lotto picks for you have been the wrong picks (probably more like 75%). That certainly doesn't make him good, in fact I'd call him distinctly average. If average is what you want, great. I'm a bit fussier.

Hey, somebody agrees with me finally. I'm still holding out some hope for Biyombo and MKG to turn the corner though.

I have an article from an NBA magazine in the 90's that calls Terrell Brandon the best point guard in the NBA. It doesn't make it so. Magazines like that are paid to hype players. Then we bring some context back to it- SAR was a guy who made 1 all-star team (in one of the weakest conferences and years in decades), and who you admit put up inflated stats. He was a terrible #3 pick that year.

TB actually might have been the best PG for a stretch there. He was definitely in the running.

[fatlever]

well, he doesnt exactly agree with you brother dave. the one pick he likes of ours is zeller, who you hated on draft day, so...

[Eoghan]

well, he doesnt exactly agree with you brother dave. the one pick he likes of ours is zeller, who you hated on draft day, so...

Yeah, and I like Kemba a lot more than he does it sounds like. I'm just happy to see somebody else admit that Cho's draft decisions aren't related to him by divine oracles.

[fatlever]

lets review the 1st round picks that have been made by teams employing rod higgins as a general manager or prez of bball ops

here are his first round draft picks again + monta ellis
- kwame brown (1st)
- jared jefferies (11th)
- juan dixon (17th)
- jarvis hayes (10th)
- andres biedrins (11th)
- ike diogu (9th)
- monta ellis (40th)
- patrick obryant (9th)
- jared dudley (17th)
- dj augustin (9th)
- alexis ajinca (20th)
- gerald henderson (14th)
- bismack biyombo (7th)
- kemba walker (9th)
- michael kidd-gilchrist (2nd)
- cody zeller (4th)


15 first round picks, 12 lottery pick, 0 all-stars, 1 average to above average starter (kemba - two of you count ellis who was 2nd round)