Nico special/ worst gms ever?

[EmpireFalls]

Michael Jordan is the worst ever.

[-Luke-]

Whatever Steve Mills role was with the Knicks

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/NYK/executives.html

Damn, the Knicks really had some bad executives in the pre Rose era.

[sisibilio]

Rob Babcock who traded Vince Carter for a player who didn’t show up, two first round picks, and a journeyman or two.

And drafted Rafael freakin Araujo with a top 10 pick.

[tribulations]

Scott Layden deserves a mention

[TheGeneral99]

I don't know all the names but whoever has run the Kings, the Hornets, the Wizards, and the Magic over the past decade and a half should fall into that list.

Also a big shout out to the Knicks of the 2000s.

[TMac Culloch]

I feel like everyone forgot Layden when Isiah upped the ante but yeah that Houston contract, getting rid of fan favorite Ewing but staying a middling team. Michael Sweeney..

I'm biased but I really do think Layden/Isiah take this. Those two managed to make a generation of superstars find NY repulsive to play-in. Sterling did the same with the Clippers but he wasn't trying to win. He just didn't want to spend money on the team, ala Reinsdorf. Layden/Isiah did want to win in NY and were so bad at it no one wanted to play in NY for years.

[Liam_Gallagher]

Mitch Kupchak was pretty bad after Buss passed away. Traded Lamar Odom to the Mavericks for nothing, signed Mosgov and Deng to massive deals, and drafted Ball over Tatum. He also traded Lou Williams for nothing, who went on to be one of the best 6th men of all time.

[KnicksGadfly]

Isiah Thomas. Yall keep talking his Knicks days, but forgot he was responsible for the mess in Phoenix too.

[DC_Melo]

It’s crazy some people are giving Nico a pass because Luka took one of his teams to the finals. He didn’t even draft Luka or most the guys on that team. He inherited an amazing squad and pissed it away. Let’s not give him credit for not pissing it away even faster.

[Doctor MJ]

Who would a 5 worst look like?
Billy King?
Steipin the guy they named the rule after
.
.
.

So, Nico is special in this conversation. We're going to be talking about him for decades because he really did make the most damning trade in NBA history that I can think of.

In a conversation against the other WOATs, what "limits" Nico is the fact that he largely just made that one terrible move. The fact he thought the move was a good one means we know his whole basketball brain is problematic, but obviously, Nico could have achieve more badness if he stuck around a long time with more bad trades, and that's where other guys have the case over him.

Now, generally so much of what is hard about judging GMs, and especially bad GMs, is how much of it is really the GM compared to the owner.

You mention Stepian, but of course he's an owner.

Similarly, how much should we really bash any of the Knick GMs under Dolan or any of the King GMs under Vivek? We can say that the Isaiahs and Vlades of the world were awful, but the big problem was always the owner.

When I point to a classic example of an awful GM, I tend to point to David Kahn, who was a clear case of a someone who "moved fast and broke things" on his own without the owner (Taylor) really directing much, and whose tenure overlapped with Taylor's WNBA team starting a dynasty until the coaching (and eventual GM-ship) of Cheryl Reeve. So while Taylor wasn't great, he really didn't stop his GMs from making good decisions, he was just a guy who wasn't confident in choosing the right GM all the time.

And in Kahn, what you got was someone who over and over again a) trusted his own eyes over his scouts, b) was always wrong, c) made moves designed to make sure he got the credit for any success by bashing those (like Kevin Love) who were drafted by the prior GM. You can argue other GMs did more damage, but if you're just looking for a GM who was doing absolutely everything wrong all the time, Kahn is the poster boy.

But, it's not like he traded Luka, so we might end up forgetting about Kahn now, and just point to Nico as the avatar of bad GM-ing.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Who would a 5 worst look like?
Billy King?
Steipin the guy they named the rule after
.
.
.

Ted Stepien. Caveat: Technically, he was the owner, but in that era, many owners sort of doubled as GMs or POBOs ow whatever we call them now. He called the shots.
- Having the NBA create a rule named after you to stop other dumb GMs from doing really really dumb stuff like you did... deserves a place on this list. Stepien traded FIVE consecutive 1st round picks. LOL.
- He fired 3 coaches... and hired 4... in a single season.
- He seemed to be a bit of a racist, too... "You've got a situation here where blacks represent little more than 5 percent of the market, yet most teams are at least 75 percent black and the New York Knicks are 100 percent black."
- Stepien also owned most of the teams in a pro softball league in the late '70s. Stepien held a promotional event where he dropped softballs from the 52nd floor of a building to be caught by outfielders from his team. The balls were estimated to be traveling at 144 mph by the time they reached the street, damaging cars and injuring several spectators.

Nico Harrison. It doesn't matter what he did prior. (some really good things!).. he's the only GM who traded a generational superstar in his prime for a broken-down All-Star. We'll look back fondly at photos of Doncic and Brunson on the court together and laugh about Nico Harrison.

David Kahn. Two PGs ahead of Steph Curry, blah blah blah... we all know that story. But it's not the most humiliating thing about David Kahn.
- I SWEAR THIS IS 100% TRUE... The Wolves were playing an early-season game, I think vs. Milwaukee. Anyway, the local announcing crew kept teasing their halftime interview with the new GM, David Kahn. Of course, they would show him in the crowd as they hit the promo. At one point as the camera lingered on Kahn... he dug in his ear. And then... that same finger went immediately into his mouth. I SWEAR THIS IS 100% TRUE. I've tried to find clips from that game but have been unable to do so. But I do have phone records as I was laughing with my friends in real time about what we just saw. I knew then, instantly, that he was going to be a terrible GM. Ear wax eaters are terrible GMs. Everyone knows this.
- Kahn was also an insufferable pretentious clown, with an air of being the smartest guy in the room. Remember, he compared Darko Milicic favorably to Vlade Divac and Chris Webber… to Chris Webber. Webber responded, “We’re not talking about me and Darko in the same sentence.”
The best part is that Darko told Kahn he didn’t want to play… so Kahn gave him $20M to try to convince him. He ended up as an amnesty case… being waived in the middle of the contract.
- Kahn also hired Kurt Rambis... the worst NBA head coach I've ever seen... and I will fight to the death to argue this.

____________________


I'll let others argue the merits of the many other deserving candidates, e.g., Thomas, Babcock, Baylor, Grunfeld, Billy King, et al. But I believe the three I mentioned are head-and-shoulders above the rest...

[Doctor MJ]

Mitch Kupchak was pretty bad after Buss passed away. Traded Lamar Odom to the Mavericks for nothing, signed Mosgov and Deng to massive deals, and drafted Ball over Tatum. He also traded Lou Williams for nothing, who went on to be one of the best 6th men of all time.

Things I would note:

a) Jerry Buss was alive and in the war room when they traded Odom, so we don't get to blame this on post-Jerry issues.

b) The Lakers traded Odom first in the Chris Paul deal, which made total sense and only didn't happen because Commish Stern decided to ignore his own rules.

c) After that Odom really seemed to be a shadow of himself. Odom was an incredible player at times, but he was fragile.

d) Mozgov etc. Well this is terrible GM-ing, but it's also Jim Buss making his signature moves as an owner who didn't think he needed actual basketball men to think through the basketball - which really tends to happen with the scions of owners who grow up around an NBA franchise, are trained their whole life to take over for dad, really don't know how to do anything else, and so feel like they MUST be able to make good basketball decisions because if not, they are just nepo babies.

Jim was revealed to be what he feared he was, whereas sister Jeanie never tried to be her own basketball man. She hired others to make those type of decisions, and while she hasn't been perfect at this, I would say she's generally succeeded in hiring people smarter than her brother.

[Blame Rasho]

Stu Jackson. His incompetence ruined the Grizzlies in Vancouver. Drafting 3 point guards in a row who managed to fail upwards by landing a job in the NBA offices in New York. Didn't help that ownership was a swinging carousel combined with a weak Canadian dollar, but man it was infuriating.

Will never forget the whole Steve Francis debacle and then trading him for chump change.

Steve Francis was such a bitch.

[JasonStern]

Divac
Isiah Thomas(I'm still convinced he had photos or something on Dolan lol)
Baylor
Hinkie
Kahn

I still give King and Nico a pass because they did have teams that made the Finals.

Sam Hinkie? Seriously? It was Colangelo that ruined the process.

Step 1. Lose
Step 2. Collect a paycheck
Step 3. Lose
Step 4. Collect a paycheck
Step 5. Lose
Step 6. Collect a paycheck
Step 7. Lose
Step 8. Collect a paycheck

Hinkie was a trash GM. Embiid being the only pick/trade/free agent signing of any relevance. A large market like Philadelphia being bottom 5 in attendance for years, just burning ownership's money. But he is a very, very talented businessman/salesman.

(Not defending Colangelo here - just calling out Hinkie for his body of work)

[slicedbread2]

Stu Jackson. His incompetence ruined the Grizzlies in Vancouver. Drafting 3 point guards in a row who managed to fail upwards by landing a job in the NBA offices in New York. Didn't help that ownership was a swinging carousel combined with a weak Canadian dollar, but man it was infuriating.

Will never forget the whole Steve Francis debacle and then trading him for chump change.

Steve Francis was such a bitch.

To play devil's advocate, there was that documentary about the Grizzlies (the 2nd one) in which Steve Francis appeared in. For him, he admitted to being woefully immature and took responsibility. At the time, he relented and was willing to see things through. Unfortunately, Jackson made things worse when he wouldn't give Francis a straight answer as to where he'd be playing due to him and Bibby playing the same spot. Then the final nail in the coffin came when some fans at the airport mistook him and his crew for a rap group.

A real shame because if they could've taken things back they could've traded down with the Raps or T-Wolves who had top 5 picks in addition to an additional 1st. Could've snagged Rip Hamilton and Ron Artest if it had worked out. Sadly, Jackson was a real idiot as teams were willing to move up to select Baron Davis or Steve Francis in that draft.

It didn't help that the league wouldn't allow the Raptors and Grizzlies to have the 1st overall pick for 5 years and were restricted to spending only 90% of their cap for the 1st 3 years due to owners of other teams being jealous over the immediate success of the Orlando Magic. Oh well what could've been.

[Menace2Sobriety]

Michael Jordan is the worst ever.

This is the correct answer IMO. As owner/GM - did he draft or make any trades beneficial to the Hornets? Unfortunately the Hornets have yet to recover.

As a Piston and part time Wizard fan, woof - I’ve experienced a few.

[WemBA Time]

Ernie Grunfeld? 16 years with the Wizards and never accomplished anything noteworthy.

[Bad Bart]

Whatever Steve Mills role was with the Knicks

Of course Vivek hired him

[Bad Bart]

Dave Twardzik took Todd Fuller and Adonal Foyle over Kobe and McGrady in consecutive drafts (I know other teams passed on them, but they still ended up with useful players) while also trading Tim Hardaway basically for Bimbo Coles. Not a great time as a Warriors fan.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Stu Jackson. His incompetence ruined the Grizzlies in Vancouver. Drafting 3 point guards in a row who managed to fail upwards by landing a job in the NBA offices in New York. Didn't help that ownership was a swinging carousel combined with a weak Canadian dollar, but man it was infuriating.

Will never forget the whole Steve Francis debacle and then trading him for chump change.

Steve Francis was such a bitch.

To play devil's advocate, there was that documentary about the Grizzlies (the 2nd one) in which Steve Francis appeared in. For him, he admitted to being woefully immature and took responsibility. At the time, he relented and was willing to see things through. Unfortunately, Jackson made things worse when he wouldn't give Francis a straight answer as to where he'd be playing due to him and Bibby playing the same spot. Then the final nail in the coffin came when some fans at the airport mistook him and his crew for a rap group.

A real shame because if they could've taken things back they could've traded down with the Raps or T-Wolves who had top 5 picks in addition to an additional 1st. Could've snagged Rip Hamilton and Ron Artest if it had worked out. Sadly, Jackson was a real idiot as teams were willing to move up to select Baron Davis or Steve Francis in that draft.

It didn't help that the league wouldn't allow the Raptors and Grizzlies to have the 1st overall pick for 5 years and were restricted to spending only 90% of their cap for the 1st 3 years due to owners of other teams being jealous over the immediate success of the Orlando Magic. Oh well what could've been.

Dickerson + picks was not a bad return.
But Dickerson got injured