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AnaheimRoyale wrote:The Spurs- GOAT Management- Popp/Buford, late 90’s-Present

I’m primarily talking about the Spurs management from the early/mid 90’s through to today, and more specifically around about the time they acquired Tim Duncan, which is when the current front office came into place. I think that’s a sufficiently large sample size, it’s longer than the period Red was in the Celtics front office. In effect, I’ll call this the Poppovich Front Office, because while I am aware Buford is now GM, and others like Presti (who has since been poached, along with a number of other Spurs front office staff) contributed a lot too, the one constant has been Popp, who for all intents and purposes has the final say, like any other GM.

The most impressive thing about the Spurs front office (FO) is the context in which they’ve achieved their success. They have had no natural advantages whatever, and very little luck. The city of SA is not “the 9th largest in the US” as people ignorantly claim all the time when downgrading the Spurs market size, because that’s based on artificial boundary drawing, the metro size of SA is much, much lower ranked. The city has nothing really to draw free agents, and if a league were starting from scratch, there is no way SA would have a team. The reason it does is due to historical accident, which involved the ABA and their cowboy style business ownership, expanding to all sorts of wacky places, provided someone would put the money for it up, and not caring if the team was viable long term. That accident, combined with the success of the franchise, led to them being one of the 4 teams brought into the NBA, and even then there was talk of hem being relocated for years. However the sheer success they’ve had, and the resulting fan support for the cities only sports team, has put that talk to rest. They’ve made the playoffs 40 times out of 45 seasons. Since the arrival of Duncan 15 years ago the team has won 4 titles, and averaged 57.73 wins per season, I don’t think there has been another team in NBA history who have seen a 15 year stretch with such a high win %.

The franchise has had 2 key pieces of luck of course, winning the lotto in 1987 and 1997, but that aside the luck of the franchise has been few and far between. The Spurs lucked out in 1988 and 89, during which time D.Rob was finishing his military service, and with some luck they could have added 2 more stars. Instead everyone tanked hard in 1988, meaning the Spurs made the playoffs with 31 wins and got Willie Anderson with the 10th pick, while in 1989 the Spurs got the 3rd pick in a draft which was quite weak (both the first 2 picks were busts), the Spurs have only had 4 lotto picks since 1987, D.Rob, W.Anderson, S.Elliot and T.Duncan. Nor do I think the Spurs lottery luck is something that should be getting criticised by other teams. People are praising the Lakers, who had the #1 pick twice in 4 years in order to assemble the Showtime Lakers (netting them Magic and Worthy). The Clippers won the lottery 5 times since it was introduced (though they traded 2 of those picks away). The Celtics were basically allowed to cheat the system, both so they could acquire Bird (drafting him before he finished school), and then to keep him (hence the name “Bird Rights”), and Red in the old Celtics days benefitted from a much less professional league, in which factors like race were still considerations in acquiring players, and where you could use “territorial picks” to screw small markets.

So with this in mind, I want to look at the Spurs FO under Popp, and highlight why I feel it is clearly superior to any other that has existed.

Draft Picks
If one aspect of the Spurs management stands out as especially impressive, it’s their performance in the draft. I’ve done a year by year analysis and grade.

2011- Obtained K.Leonard for G.Hill. Leonard looks like the next Shawn Marion, while George Hill is a bench player. A good bench player to be sure, but he’s not going to be nearly as valuable as Leonard, who if the draft were redone today would probably go in the top 5 picks. The Spurs also got Bertans in the trade, who could develop into an NBA player (though he looked dreadful in some international games recently), and Lorbek, who the Spurs will be bringing over to be a rich man’s Bonner soon (less range, better player). The Spurs also got Corey Joseph, who looks like he could turn into a nice back-up still, which is good value for the 2nd last pick in the 1st round. I have no idea whether Hanga will turn out to be any good.
Grade: A++

2010- Acquired James Anderson with the 20th pick. This move looks like a mistake at the moment. In fairness, James was injured almost his whole rookie year, and now is stuck in a logjam behind better (and/or more experienced) players like Leonard, S.Jax, D.Green, G.Neal, Manu, etc. That leaves little time for him to be developed, so he’ll be gone this offseason to another team that might be able to use him. I don’t think he’ll be good value for the #20 pick, but I still think he’ll make a good journeyman for some other team, a poor man’s Derek Anderson basically. This isn’t as bad a move as it might seem, because the 2010 draft sucked, and the Spurs didn’t really have to pass on anyone to take James (the only guy better was Fields in the mid 2nd round, who everyone missed). Ryan Richards our 2nd round pick looks good overseas, and might warm our bench in a few years.
Grade: C

2009- Blair, for all his faults, was a great 2nd round pick up. Before we had as much depth as we have now, he was very useful indeed, especially in the regular season, and he is extremely cheap. Before he goes, I hope we get a nice asset for him. Nando de Colo looks good overseas, and could still be a good bench warmer. Great return for some 2nd rounders. This draft used to be an A+, until Blair started hurting his value.
Grade: A

2008- George Hill was an excellent pick up at the bottom of the 1st round. Dragic was never our pick, he was made for the Suns, and we wouldn’t have had room to play him with Parker and Hill, we also used the 2nd rounder we got for him to draft Blair, so it all worked out.
Grade: A

2007- Got Splitter at the end of the first round. He’s playing great for us now (check out his per 36 numbers), and is going to be playing more and more minutes as Tim’s role decreases. He’s not the all-star we once hoped he might be capable of becoming, but he’ll be a huge part of our team going forward, and would definitely be a top 10 talent from this draft in retrospect.
Grade: A

2006- We had traded our pick, and it was used on scrub talent (Mardy Collins). Not a loss, this was part of a trade that was well worth it, getting Nazr in exchange for the awfulness that was Malik Rose and his huge contract.
Grade: N/A

2005: Ian Mahinmi. Turned out to be a bad pick. We didn’t really miss out on much, the talent after that was weak, and consisted mostly in empty stat padders who wouldn’t have gotten minutes on our team (David Lee, Monta, Gomes, Blatche, etc), but it’s still a bad pick… we should have traded it.
Grade: D

2004: Got Udrich. Good, solid back up PG, well worth his slot. The only guy I’d have preferred would have been Varejao, and he fell to the first pick in the 2nd round for a reason, because of his contract situation. If we’d drafted him, he never would have been able to come over, so we’d have thrown the pick away.
Grade: B+

2003: Didn’t have a pick. We’d moved it to acquire a future pick (the 05 first rounder as it turned out), which was a good gamble (looked awesome in 04 when the Suns missed the playoffs). We then used that asset as part of a trade to move the awful Malik for Nazr, which helped us win the 05 title. Barbosa on the other hand wouldn’t have fit in our system at all, and we not a loss (though it sucked that Phoenix got him). The trade was fair. Actually, it’s now well documented that the Spurs wanted Kendrick Perkins with this pick, and were devastated when he got take one spot ahead.
Grade: N/A

2002: No pick, used it to get Claxton, who was a vital contributor to the 03 team, owing to Parker’s choking. Well worth John Salmons. Got Scola in the 2nd round, which I’ll discuss later in this post.
Grade: N/A

2001: Tony Parker. No need to say more. Javtokas would have made this an even better trade if he hadn’t gotten himself into a motorcycle accident.
Grade: A++

2000: No pick
Grade: N/A

1999: Manu. Nuff said.
Grade: A++

I can't really think of a FO who has had this sort of success over such a long period. Most FO's manage to screw up alot more, without anything like the home runs we've seen from the Spurs. It's as close to flawless as you can reasonably expect from a team.

Great Asset Management
The Spurs operate within serious financial constraints, and yet they have produced this incredible 15 year run on a budget, almost never paying the luxury tax, and ensuring their small market team is extremely profitable.

With all the criticism big contracts get these days, you will rarely hear the spurs invoked, and that’s because the Spurs have almost never given out a bad contract. Manu’s first free agency with the Spurs he was paid $52 mill over 6 years. Ginobili’s most recent contract? $38.8 mill over 3 years. Tony Parker has received 2 very reasonable contracts from the Spurs so far; first for $66mill over 6 years, then for $50mill over 4 years. Bruce Bowen was only paid over $4mill per year once in his career, despite his DPOY hype, because the Spurs knew his value, and didn’t overpay. The Spurs know when not to pay big money too. They let Derek Anderson go rather than overpay, let Nazr go because they knew he was having a contract year, knew when to walk away from negotiations for PJ Brown (they went up to $8mill a year for 4 years, then walked away).

The Spurs have shown extraordinary judgement and negotiation skills. They made sure they had cap space for 2003 to try and get max players, and when that didn’t work out they didn’t throw the cap space away, making sure they had enough left to turn around and resign Manu the next year (remember, 2 year free agents back then didn’t provide any cap exceeding rights to teams). This is another instance of the Spurs really lucking out, since in retrospect a lot of free agents wish they’d gone there (something Kidd said publicly). Grabbing Robert Horry from the Lakers, then holding onto him after he played badly in the 04 playoffs, showed a lot of savvy. At the time, people asked why they didn’t pay to keep Hedo in the 04 offseason, but the Spurs knew the FA’s they needed. They would frequently find cheap and useful rotation players like Danny Green, or Udoka, or Devin Brown, or Oberto, or R.Mason, or Finley, or Elson, or Matt Bonner. Nobody loved most of these guys (or had heard of them) prior to the Spurs getting them on the cheap, and the Spurs kept them only as long as it was sensible, refusing to overpay to keep guys like Mason. They were good at talking vets like McDyess or B.Barry to come play for them too. Acquiring Diaw looks like pure genius now.

In 2013 the Spurs will have max space again probably, and we’ll see if they have more luck luring a big name over. For the most part though, the Spurs have shown a lot of flexibility and skill in managing their cap situation.

Great Team Culture
Not a lot to say here. The Spurs obviously have fostered a great team culture, of professionalism, pride and no-nonsense. How many times do you see the Spurs in the press for scandals or drama? You don’t. That all starts in the front office, this is a team who knows how to use guys, how to put them in situations that maximise their talent, and minimise their negatives. Guys like S.Jax or Glen Robinson come here, and seem to behave just fine. Rodman not working out? Move him. Strickland causing drama? Move him. The FO seemed to learn these lessons early on, and never repeated them. The FO has a good sense of when to acquire players, and when to drop them. I remember seeing an interview from Diogu earlier this year after they picked him up, and thinking “wow, what a terrible attitude.” The guy was cut shortly after. Coaching is a big part of that, and obviously the Spurs have shown a lot of savvy under the Poppovich regime, with a lot of adaptability, across a wide range of teams.

“Mistakes”
I do not mean to suggest the Spurs have always managed to optimise every situation, which would be unrealistic, but their FO has clearly done things they would change in retrospect. However there are mistakes attributed to them which are frankly misunderstood, and aren’t really mistakes at all.

Luis Scola
The decision to trade away Scola for a bucket of chips is often latched onto as a supposed screw-up on the Spurs part. This totally misunderstands the circumstances surrounding the decisions.

In 2002 when the Spurs drafted Scola, nobody had really heard of him. The Spurs front office was excited about what he could develop into, and left him overseas for a few years to improve, which he immediately did. Spurs fans remember how he punked JO on team USA, causing JO to retaliate with a classless move (stepping on Scola as he was lying on the court). Scola just smiled at how he’d played the frustrated Jermaine, and got right back up. Spurs fans were excited. The Front Office however realised what is better understood now; for all Scola’s strengths, the guy is a middling NBA player. Worse, he was poorly suited to our team. The guy was too short and unathletic to play the sort of defense required if he was going to play next to Duncan (this is similar to the sort of difficulty Blair is having, but worse), and his offensive game couldn’t mutually co-exist with Duncan’s. The Spurs get guys who will fit their system, and if you look at the sorts of players who have started next to Duncan (or played big minutes) you’ll see why Scola was going to be a bad fit, especially with mediocre D and rebounding. These problems were exacerbated by the fact that Scola needed relatively big money to come over here, in order to buy out his contract. We would have been paying him a good chunk of the MLE to come off the bench, and he would leave the team in 2 years for a place who would play him more.

The Spurs, realising this, tried to move him. Here is where the difficulty came in. Other teams didn’t recognise Scola’s value. They thought he was expensive trash. As the months, then years went by, the Spurs couldn’t find a good offer. Finally, the deadline came. Scola’s agent made it clear he had to make a career decision, either resign for a huge sum in Europe (all but forsaking the NBA), or come over. The Spurs had his rights, they had waited for years, they had to sign him or trade him, the agent said. It wasn’t fair to hold him hostage like this. The Spurs recognised goodwill from Europe is important, and took what they could get, which was unfortunately next to nothing. But no teams would offer more. Sure, they could have left him in Europe, but that would have netted them no return at all, at least they got something for him (saved some $ and got rights to De Colo), bought some goodwill, and made sure he went to a team which they wouldn’t regret. Drafting Mahinmi was a mistake. This was just bad circumstances.

And long term, this looks even better… Scola just got amnestied for nothing, because his $7 mill per year salary was too rich for the Rockets to desire keeping. The guy is a solid but flawed player, nothing special.

Trading for Richard Jefferson
Richard Jefferson did not pan out for the Spurs, that’s clearly true. In his defense, he improved his shooting a lot in his 2nd year with us, and was always a pro. On the other hand, what did the Spurs give up for him? Washed out Bowen (who retired right after), washed out Oberto (who retired right after), and Kurt Thomas, who was turning 37. Kurt used to be a very nice role player to have, but by the time we got him he was almost done (still ok for 15 minutes of vet ball), and by the time we traded him he was basically finished, doing nothing especially notable in his remaining 175 NBA games. So we gave up next to nothing for RJ. That’s a gamble, but it’s a low risk one.

We then convinced him to opt out of the last year of his huge contract, on the understanding we’d re-sign him for a longer (less lucrative) deal. This let us avoid the luxury tax, which was important. We then flipped RJ and the 30th pick in the coming draft for S.Jax, who has been a very good role player for us since we acquired him. I’m not really seeing the awfulness of this move. Yes, Jefferson sucked in the playoffs, but since we gave up nothing for him, it’s not like it hurt us. We’d probably have been in even worse shape in the playoffs without him.

Malik Rose
We gave Malik Rose big money because he was Tim Duncan’s best buddy, and we wanted Tim to resign in 2003. Getting Malik didn’t hurt our cap space (which ultimately didn’t net any max players anyway), and as soon as we were able we traded Malik for Nazr, robbing the Knicks blind. Malik had once been a decent role player for us, using his low centre of gravity to help negate Shaq’s weight advantage somewhat. By the time we traded him though, he was out of shape, and one of the worst bums in the NBA. Knicks fans hated him, while Nazr was an important role player, helping contribute to our 2005 title, before we wisely let him go in free agency (knowing once he got his contract, his play would drop off, as it did). The Spurs also gave up a draft pick, but bottom of the 1st round draft picks aren’t terribly valuable in and of themselves, and the fact the Knicks eventually used it to get stat padder David Lee doesn’t change the value of the asset itself, which was low, compared to Malik Rose’s sucky contract, which was very bad.

AnaheimRoyale wrote:Geoff Petrie- Sacramento Kings, 1994 offseason-Present

Petrie gets undersold as a GM a lot due to the Kings recent woes, however from 94 until quite recently he was one of the premier GM’s in the NBA. In addition, the recent suckage is at least partly caused by factors beyond his control, such as the Maloof’s going broke and being reluctant to spend money.

Let’s wind the clock back to 1995, when Petrie takes over the helm. The Kings were a small market team, they had an non-notable history, and were basically an irrelevant franchise. Their last winning season was back in 83, when they won a mere 45 games. The last time they won 50 games was back in 64. The team had basically no assets worth a damn when Petrie arrived, in 1997 their best players were Mitch Richmond (then 31 years old), washed up 32 year old Olden Polynice and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a guy better known for refusing to sing the national anthem (who lasted another 71 games in the NBA after 97). So in terms of starting with a blank slate, this is as close as Petrie could get, it just looked awful.

Enter Petrie, who begins the turnaround immediately.

Move 1- get a Robin
He drafts this Peja guy who nobody had even heard of, knowing he’ll have to wait years for him to arrive. Getting a guy who peaked as an MVP candidate and was a vital cog on a championship team with the 14th pick of the draft is awesome. He then later re-signs Peja for piddling money. Home run.

Move 2- get a Star
He flips finished Hurley into Otis Thorpe. He then turns around Otis and washed up Mitch for Chris Webber, who he then convinced to re-sign, despite his avowed hatred of being brought to the Kings in the first place. Home run.

Move 3- address point guard spot
He drafts Jason Williams, lets him increase fan interest with his (former) fast paced, hectic style of play, builds up his value, and then trades him for a better and more stable (but less flashy) point guard in Bibby.

Move 4- add size depth
Signs Divac for reasonable money, then signs Corliss for the same.

Move 5- add a 6th man
Drafts Turkoglu with a nothing pick, then signs Bobby Jackson (who nobody really rated at all), watched them both become fantastic players for him. Home run.

Move 6- get a defensive swingman to start
Turns the now defunct Corliss into the underrated Doug Christie. Also drafts Gerald Wallace at pick 25. Home run.

The Kings are now a contender.

But the guy wasn’t done, he kept making good moves. He drafted Kevin Martin at the back of the 1st round, turned Pollard and Turk into the underrated Brad Miller (who ripped it up in his first year for the Kings), gets Keon Clark off the Raptors, swaps a washed out Ostertag and Bobby J into Bonzi Wells, who he keeps long enough to get results out of (but refuses to overpay). He flips a fading and hurt Peja for a still peak Ron Artest, and got rid of Webber as soon as he could (once the extent of his injuries became clear), really screwing the 76ers in the process. The guy just hit home run after home run for a while.

In recent years of course he hasn’t done as well, and there were obviously mistakes along the way. I mean, drafting Tariq Abdul-Wahad?! WTF was he thinking. That wasn’t a deep draft, so he didn’t miss out on much, but it was still bad. Tyreke Evans looks dubious as a player, but Cousins and I.Thomas look like genius, and Jimmy F was basically forced on him by ownership from the sounds of it. The team should have rebuilt sooner, and Petrie has made some mediocre (or bad) picks in recent years too (Hawes? Jason Thompson? Meh), and his free agent signings in recent year are pretty average. Letting Adelman go looks bad, I’m really hoping that was a decision of ownership because he was too pricey. He’ll certainly command a lot of money next time he’s available. Overall though, you have to recognize the great effort he made early, with really very limited resources or natural advantages.

KF10 wrote:Geoff Petrie's Resume:

*Longest Tenured General Manager in the NBA*

The Good:

-Selected Corliss Williamson (#13).
-Selected Peja Stojakovic (#14). A lot of people criticized the pick and balked at Petrie passing up John Wallace.
-Selected Jason Williams (#7).
-Selected Hedo Turkoglu (#13)
-Selected Gerald Wallace (#25)
-Selected Kevin Martin (#26)
-Selected Francisco Garcia (#23)
-Selected Spencer Hawes (#10)
-Selected Jason Thompson (#12)
-Selected Tyreke Evans (#4)
-Selected Omri Casspi (#23)
-Traded the draft rights to forward Jeff Pendergraph (#30) to the Portland Trail Blazers for guard Sergio Rodriguez, the draft rights to forward Jon Brockman and cash.
-Traded Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe to the Washington Wizards for Chris Webber
-Signed Vlade Divac via FA
-Fired head coach Eddie Jordan
-Hired Rick Adelman
-Signed Jon Barry (Mr. 4th Quarter for the early Kings)
-Signed Scott Pollard (Solid defensive presence at his peak)
-Signed Bobby Jackson.
- Traded Corliss Williamson to the Toronto Raptors for Doug Christie.
-Resigned Peja.
-Resigned Adelman (extension).
- Traded Jason Williams and Brent Price to the Memphis Grizzlies for Mike Bibby and Nick Anderson.
-Resigned Christie on a cheap contract.
-Resigned Webber.
-Resigned Bibby.
-Traded Scot Pollard to the Indiana Pacers and forward Hedo Turkoglu to the San Antonio Spurs for Brad Miller from the Indiana Pacers.
- Traded Doug Christie to the Orlando Magic for Cuttino Mobley. (Christie had nothing in the tank at that point).
-Traded guard Bobby Jackson and Greg Ostertag to the Memphis Grizzlies
for Bonzi Wells (At that point, Jackson was too injury-prone and lost a step due to age/Wells played a HUGE part for our last PO run in 2006).
- Traded forward Peja Stojakovic to the Indiana Pacers for Ron Artest.
-Signed John Salmons on a "bargain" contract.
-Signed Kevin Martin on a "bargain" contract.
-Traded Sean Singletary and Ron Artest and Patrick Ewing Jr. to the Houston Rockets for Bobby Jackson, Donte Greene, a future first-round pick (Omri Casspi) and other considerations (cash/2nd rounder?).
-Traded Kevin Martin and Hilton Armstrong to the Houston Rockets for Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey; traded Sergio Rodriguez to the New York Knicks (Created MAX capspace).
for Larry Hughes; traded a future second-round pick and cash to the Washington Wizards for Dominic McGuire
-Hired Paul Westphal (The best coach we had since Rick Adelman).
-Waived forward Kenny Thomas.

The Meh:

-Traded Keon Clark and two future second-round picks to the Utah Jazz in for a future second-round draft pick. (To this date, Keon was our last best defensive "big" we had/Purely for capspace/Avoiding Luxury Tax).
-Traded Brian Skinner to the Portland Trail Blazers for Sergey Monya from the Portland Trail Blazers and Vitaly Potapenko from the Seattle SuperSonics. (Skinner was our 2nd best defensive big we had in the last decade/Purely for capspace/Avoiding Luxury Tax?).
- Signed Shareef Abdur-Rahim. (We thought he can be our next huge low scoring threat but injuries finally got to him).
- Named Eric Musselman head coach. (He wasn't THAT bad, we had a .500 record before January but everything went downhill January and beyond).
-Named Reggie Theus head coach (Again, he wasn't THAT bad in his first year. Put a hard-working, all out hustle, scrappy team in his first year. Won *overachieved* 38 games in a historical Western Conference...50 wins was the bare minimum to qualify for the PO that year....2nd year: Theus worn off every player. Lost respect from players).
-Traded Mike Bibby to Atlanta for Anthony Johnson and Tyronn Lue, Shelden Williams and Lorenzen Wright and a second-round pick. (Financial Purposes).
- Re-Signed Beno Udrih to FULL MLE. (Overpaid but very productive).
-Re-Signed Francisco Garcia to FULL MLE (Overpaid but solid role player).
-Traded John Salmons and Brad Miller to the Chicago Bulls for Drew Gooden, Andres Nocioni, Cedric Simmons and Michael Ruffin; traded Michael Ruffin to the Portland Trail Blazers for forward Ike Diogu. (Financial Purposes...Even though, Nocioni's contract is pretty long).

The Bad:

-Exposed Gerald Wallace to expansion draft. (In retrospect, that was bad. Even though, it was noted that Wallace was notoriously a slacker with us. Had potential for sure but at the time, we were contending for titles. Regardless, it's still bad IMO).
-Traded Chris Webber, Michael Bradley and Matt Barnes to the Philadelphia 76ers for Kenny Thomas, Corsliss Williamson and Brian Skinner.
-Offered Bonzi Wells a 5 year/$37 million contract. (Coming off from an epic PO perfomance...Wells averaged 23/12 against Duncan's Spurs...Petrie offered the contact to Wells but luckily Wells rejected it).
-Selected Quincy Douby (#19). (A rare draft blunder by Petrie. Douby was a bust with the Kings. Skipped over Rajon Rondo).
-Fired Rick Adelman. (Even though, it seemed he ran out his time in Sacramento, Adelman was the most successful coach in the Kings franchise history).
-FULL MLE to Mikki Moore for 3 years. (Even though, Moore's contract was partially un-guaranteed in his final year(s), this was an awful move by Petrie).


...........

There is probably a few I missed but I'm pretty sure I hit most of them. Petrie is one of the best scouting/draft minds in the NBA (Top 5? Top 3?). A decent/solid negotiator in general.

Petrie has fallen from being the best GM in the NBA in his peak years (early 00s-mid 00s) to a top 10-ish GM. Still a very damn good GM. I think most teams would kill for a caliber of a GM like him.

- make sure you're not locked into deals with aging / expensive / injury prone vets who aren't blue chip stars
- maintain enough financial flexibility so you are in the game to acquire available superstars
- keep cycling in inexpensive rookies / 1st round picks stashed to use as trade bait
- acting as trade-deadline parasites by picking up above assets from desperate franchises
- using a statistical approach to player evaluation, don't fall in love with your roster

AnaheimRoyale wrote:Donnie Walsh, Pacers (1986-2003)

Walsh was an excellent GM. With that said, he made many mistakes, and seemed to be more average than he was exceptional. Most importantly, I think 2 traits hold him back; 1) he had a tendency to swing for the rafters which often didn’t pay off, and 2) he lacked strategic thinking.

Walsh came into Indy when it had been a perpetual loser, and he drafted some great players like Reggie Miller, Rik Smits and Chuck Person. He also drafted some horrible players like George McCloud & Jon Bender. Smits and Person were actually pretty average picks for where they were drafted, and he didn’t maximise value in moving players at times (Person and Tisdale for instance could have yielded a much better return).

Moving forward to 1990, when the Pacers were a 42 win team. They’d finally broken the drought of losing seasons, and things looked promising. But the next 3 seasons they won 41, 40 and 41 games again, and overall Walsh struggled to get them to the next level (or to stay there). Over the next 20 or so years they were a contender for maybe 3 seasons (in 99, 2000 and 2004, and I think the first 2 of those are especially dubious). I don’t think that’s a particularly great outcome for a team who had quite a few good assets in place, and didn’t utilise them especially well to construct a contender. Trades like Detlef Schrempf for McKey for instance were just awful.

I think maybe the best example of Donnie lacking strategic direction can be seen in his decision to “reload” the Pacers from 99-01. The team made the finals in 2000, and got crushed by a Lakers team who wasn’t even healthy, and even before that happened Walsh decided they needed to get younger. The problem was Walsh didn’t seem to be able to decide what to do; would he rebuild/reload, or put all his chips on the table and try for a title. This dialectic, bipolar mindset was like watching a carriage with a horse on either side, pulling in opposite directions. He’d trade the Davis twins for young players, then turn around and trade a young player like Dampier for old man Mullin to try and get over the top. The guy didn’t seem to be able to pick one direction and stick to it, he wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and the end result was pretty poor; the team who had made the finals in 2000, drop to 500 ball the next 2 seasons, jump up to 48 wins, then 61 wins as a contender, then back to 500 type ball for 2 more seasons, miss the playoffs for the next 4 years. Given all the assets the Pacers had, I’d have expected a much better outcome, brawl or no brawl. I realise Walsh left in 2003, but his handling of the “reload” was what set the Pacers off on that road.

Focusing on his moves in that rebuild, they’re decidedly average. A mixture of home runs and epic fails:

Bad
1) Wants to go young, so trades A.Davis for Jon Bender. Good intentions, terrible outcome.
2) Re-signs Croshere to an overly rich contract.
3) Re-signs Jalen Rose to a max contract.
4) Drafts Fred Jones.
5) Extended Bender.

Neutral
1) Trades Jalen for B.Miller, Artest and Mercer. This started off as a great move. Mercer left right off though (and was a stat padder), Brad Miller was let go as a free agent a little over a year later, and Artest, while awesome for a while, went crazy and was traded for a partial Peja season (so almost nothing). Jalen Rose had good value when he was moved, and in swinging for the fences Walsh didn’t end up with the best return. Nor were Artest’s emotional problems a secret, they’d been well documented in Chicago.
2) Extended Foster.
3) Got Harrington. Lost him shortly after.
4) Hired Isiah. But then got rid of him, so it balances out.
5) Gave JO a max extension.

Good
1) Moves Dale Davis for Jermaine O’Neal. Great move (injuries later soured it a little).
2) Extended Artest.

The conclusion? Walsh is a decent GM who gives you pretty middling outcomes.

AnaheimRoyale wrote:Joe Dumars- Detroit Pistons (2000-present)
The story of Joe Dumars the Exec, now stretching over 12 years, is a long and complex one which is best divided into 3 periods; hero, mediocrity and villain. By looking at that context, we can best see where Joe is likely to go in the future.

Joe Dumars the Hero
Joe Dumars arrived in 2000 in a pretty grim situation. The Heat had just won 42 games and had been swept in the first round, mega-star Grant Hill had decided to leave, and the team didn’t have a whole lot else to build around. Joe made a series of moves that changed all that.

Firstly, he got the Magic to compensate him for taking Grant Hill with Ben Wallace. In retrospect Ben Wallace would go on to be a franchise player and 4 time DPOY, while Grant Hill would never fully recover from his injuries (due to the doctor botching the operation). Great move.

Joe followed this up with a lot of little trades in 2000, trying to find the right balance of role players, trying to keep track of it all isn’t easy, but none of them is especially significant. He traded for Ceballos, then traded him away months later, he sign Joe Smith, who left that offseason, he brought over bit players like Dana Barros… the guy just kept tinkering, trying to get the formula right. One of the more successful moves was to get Corliss Williamson for virtually nothing. Corliss would go on to be 6th man of the year for the Pistons in his 2nd year, and was a great add.

From 2000 through to the 2002 draft Joe had done some very good things, but if there was one fault he showed during this time (and one which would become obvious in future years) it was that he was a pretty mediocre drafter. It was fair enough that he got a dud in the 2000 draft with Cleaves, most teams got duded that draft (it was the worst draft of all time for talent), but selecting Rodney White in the 2001 draft was a huge mistake, the very next pick was Joe Johnson, and he passed on Richard Jefferson, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, Tony Parker… heck, even guys like Troy Murphy, Haywood, Radmanovic, etc, would have been vastly better choices that a guy who was out of the NBA before his rookie contract was up. It was in 2001 that he gave away the Pistons 2005 pick for no good reason as well. He got Okur in the 2nd round in 2001 of course, but Joe basically lucked out. If Joe really knew how good Okur was going to be, he wouldn’t have signed him to a 2 year contract (which under the CBA at the time, meant he was certain to leave the Pistons, which he duly did). More on this later.

Coming into the 2002 offseason Joe had taken a team who looked to be in rebuilding mode when he arrived, to a 50 win season 2 years later. Now in fairness, the East was pitiful in 2002, so the Pistons talent wasn’t reflected accurately in that 50 win record (they were 12-16 v.s Western Conference teams), but there was no doubting things were going great. In the 2002 draft Joe made one of his best draft picks, taking Prince late in the 1st round. A great move. He also signed Billups for the MLE, partly by promising him the starting job, an even bigger home run, as Billups was grossly undervalued and would become a huge star. He then traded Stackhouse for Rip, another huge home run. Things were looking great for the Pistons, who romped to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2003. Management forced Joe to fire the Coach of the Year (Rick Carlisle), but Joe managed to hire an even better coach (a still hungry Larry Brown), who helped Billups improve as a player a lot.

In 2003-4 Joe had both his masterstroke and his biggest cock up. Joe used the old boys network to get Rasheed Wallace for virtually nothing, as he’d worn his welcome out on the Blazers, a move that allowed the Pistons to win a title. However he also used the #2 pick in one of the most top heavy drafts of all time to draft Darko, who would go on to be a huge bust. Worse still, Joe let Larry Brown destroy Darko’s confidence, and eroded his trade value to nothing. This was pretty short sighted asset management. However as the Pistons won the title fans didn’t mind, and Joe was hailed as one of the best GM’s in the game. People saw his home runs, getting Rip, Sheed, Ben, Billups for almost nothing, and thought “this guy is magic”.

Unfortunately, Joe believed it…

Joe Dumars living off his past deeds

At the press conference, after winning the 2004 title, Joe spoke to the media. He talked about team work, about how playing as a unit beats star power like the Lakers, he talked about how before getting Sheed he felt they were “one piece away”, and how he had “felt like it was my responsibility to get that final piece”. It was a great story, the sort fans and the media love to hear. Unfortunately it wasn’t true. Joe remembered his own playing days, where the bad boys had won two titles against the razzle dazzle of big names, and he saw the confirmation of that strategy in the 2004 Pistons. Unfortunately Joe had misunderstood both the history of the bad boys, and the nature of the 2004 Pistons.

The Bad Boys didn’t have Magic or Bird or Jordan, but what they did have was a team with astounding depth. This was a team who had 2 all-star calibre players coming off the bench (Dennis Rodman and Vinnie Johnson). They had an all-star talent big man who could shoot from outside (Laimbeer), 2 of the best guards in the NBA in their starting backcourt (Isiah and Joe D), a former MVP candidate/all-star in his prime (Dantley/Aguirre), and a host of awesome defensive players like Mahorn the wall, and Salley the Spider. And some of these guys weren’t simply all-stars, they were all-nba type players who sometimes got MVP votes. Rodman had MVP votes 4 separate years, ranking as high as 10th place (and this guy was coming off their bench!). Dantley had been 7th in the voting. In addition, while those Pistons teams were awesome, they won their two titles due to circumstances as well. The Celtics and Lakers were getting old and hobbled by injuries, and Jordan didn’t yet have the talent around him to win a title (and as soon as he did, the Pistons title window closed for good). If those Pistons teams had been playing from 1983-86 or from 1991-93, they would have had zero titles. But Joe didn’t understand this reality.

He made the same mistake when he looked at the 2004 Pistons. He saw a team of hard workers who had won a David v.s Goliath struggle. In reality, people had simply underrated the Pistons prior to 2004. Sheed had a bad rep, Ben had been misused as a small forward before he came to the Pistons, and had to prove himself before his critics took him seriously as a 5. Billups had been written off as a bust years earlier, and Rip had been discarded by the greatest player of all-time. In reality though, the Pistons had a huge amount of talent. The Pistons had Billups (5th and 6th in the MVP vote, 3 all-NBA teams, etc, despite blossoming late in his career), Ben Wallace (top 10 MVP vote 3 times, 5 All-NBA teams, 4 time DPOY... this guy was clearly a franchise value player in his prime), and Sheed (a franchise talent who didn't apply himself consistently, he was the best player on a team who was 1 decent quarter away from beating the 2000 Lakers and winning a title). Then they had another all-star (Rip), a way above average starter (Prince)... when you have 5 guys like that starting, it doesn't matter if you've got an MVP. The Lakers had a prime Shaq who was not in his peak anymore, a washed out Gary Payton, a beat up and nearly finished Karl Malone, and Kobe Bryant playing some of the most disgustingly selfish finals ball ever seen. In retrospect it’s not a big surprise the Lakers lost.

This misunderstanding of the Pistons is important, because it is at the root of Joe’s subsequent failings. I posted about it on another thread:

I could get struck by lightning when I leave today as well, but I'd never rely on it.

It's also much harder to build a team this way. If my GM sets out with the goal of building a team in the mold of the 2004 Pistons, he should be fired, because he is basically relying on incredibly unlikely and longshot things to happen. Just look at the stuff that happened for that to pan out ok (for one year):
* Nobody uses Ben Wallace properly, or realises that he's be a star at C instead of SF, and he's then given away by the Magic as a throw in (after the Wizards gave him away so they could get Ike Freaking Austin).
* Rasheed Wallace is traded for nothing to the Pistons, finds himself in Detroit and overcomes most of his personal issues (on the court anyway)
* The GOAT attempts an ill-advised comeback on the Wizard, and playing the GM, he decides to trade Rip for Stackhouse, because he doesn't feel Rip compliments him as well, and isn't a vet yet.
* A future top 5-6 MVP candidate and elite PG is horribly mis-used by the team that drafted him with their idiot College coach, bounces around for a few years, finds himself on the Wolves and lights it up in the end of the season and playoffs, but the Wolves refuse to re-sign him because McHale is an idiot, and because they already have a PG (who would never play again). As a consequence, you get him on the cheap.
* You then draft the perfect compliment to these guys with a mid first rounder.

Yeh, that'll happen twice.

I think the downside of the Pistons fantastic achievement in 2004 was it gave Joe the idea that he could build a team around 5 really good guys instead of 1 star, and historically that’s been nearly impossible to do (especially since 3 of his guys weren’t just “really good”, but were borderline franchise players, and those don’t grow on trees). It didn’t cause a problem right away, but the seed was planted.

After 2004 of course the Pistons still had great teams. Joe should be commended for building a culture of hard work and professionalism, for being able to more or less keep Sheed happy, and for dealing with Larry Brown’s love obsession with moving teams by replacing him with a coach who was able to make the Pistons play together even better (in the regular season anyway). When you make the conference finals 6 years running, you’ve obviously done something right. Joe also made other good decisions during this period; he didn’t match Ben Wallace’s oversized contract (Ben was on the verge of breaking down as a player, so this was a great move), he traded Darko before his value totally collapsed, he signed surprisingly good vet McDyess. On the downside, he traded Corliss Williamson (who still had something left in the tank) for Derrick Coleman, who basically didn’t play for the Pistons at all. Looks pretty bad in hindsight.

Joe continued to treat draft picks pretty badly as well. He traded away a first rounder so he could get Arroyo, then a year later he ships Arroyo off. Sure, that wasn’t a very good 1st rounder as it turned out, but it’s bad asset management. Maxiell was a bit of a meh pick, Stuckey was a solid enough pick, but nothing special. There was a time Pistons fans talked of Stuckey’s hidden “star potential”, but 5 years on and he’d been a big disappointment, and is still a below average player for his position (assuming he has one). Worse, Joe drafted Afflalo only to give him away 2 years on. If Joe had an eye for talent, he clearly didn’t use it here. Afflalo looks better than Stuckey does these days. Joe didn’t really do anything great during this period, but didn’t do anything bad either, he just let the Pistons keep making the Conference finals, and waited for the right move…

Joe Dumars the Bumbler
The moment when most fans trace Joe’s descent into incompetence begins with his decision to trade away star point guard Billiups for disgruntled cancer Allen Iverson. From the outset, the move made little to no sense; Iverson had no position on the Pistons, the whole reason for the 76ers had to find Eric Snow was because AI couldn’t play point guard. Worse, Iverson was the classic example of a player doomed to fall apart physically as he aged- he played too many minutes, relied on his speed a great deal, and had poor conditioning. Magic Johnson had commented on Iverson’s conditioning some years earlier, comparing him to Kevin Johnson, a guy who Magic had always told during his career “would be a 10 year player”, because he didn’t look after his body (KJ had always laughed Magic off when he said this, but sure enough KJ aged poorly). Iverson had been in the NBA over 10 years. Worse still, Joe had gotten rid of Flip Saunders, who had proven a great coach for the Pistons, and brought in Michael Curry, a 40 year old former defensive guard with no coaching experience and no credibility. It was naïve to think Iverson and the veteran Pistons would respond to him, or treat him as an authority figure. Meanwhile Billups helped the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals.

Now of course, half the reason for making the trade was to get Iverson’s expiring contract. But there were other ways to get cap space that didn’t involve trading Billups. Worse still, Joe had totally overestimated his capacity to get free agents to come to a rebuilding team like the Pistons. His pick up on Ben Gordon and Charlie V was just awful. Then to make matters worse, he had just extended Rip Hamilton, less important than Billups, and went on the extend Prince when they should have been rebuilding. Joe’s drafts continued to be very hit and miss. He picked Daye, a guy who has yet to prove he can be more than a bench warmer, while passing on Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson and Taj Gibson, all clearly superior players who fitted the Pistons needs to a T. He traded Budinger away for nothing. And while Monroe was a great pick, his selection of Brandon Knight was not. Passing on guys like Kawhi Leonard and Klay Thompson is going to look really bad in a few years, and quite a few other guys they passed on have looked pretty good too.

Perhaps worst of all, has been Dumars slowness to correct the situation. Once the team hit the skids, he didn’t try to rebuild, except inadvertently through his poor coach hires, and continues to try and milk wins out of teams who were clearly going nowhere, things even getting as bad as a player mutiny against one of his coaches. Now obviously Joe has been handicapped a little by the ownership issues, but really, that’s no excuse for most of the mistakes he’s made.

Where are we now
Joe is now in a situation where he has some talented young guys like Drummond, and not a lot of chance for short term success. We’ll have to wait and see if Joe can redeem himself, but if he wants to it is clear he needs to address two issues badly:
1) Joe needs to get better scouts, and reassess the way he makes draft picks. I’m hopeful he’s already started doing this, which would explain why he picks the last few years look a lot better than they did prior to 2010.
2) Secondly, Joe needs to go back and rethink his strategic understanding of basketball. Building a title team without a true superstar is one of the hardest, least likely things to happen in the NBA, and just because he caught lightning once, it’s no reason to think he can do it again, as recent years have proven. He needs to know when to lose in the short term, to win long term, and he needs a better eye for talent. Signing guys like Ben Gordon and Charlie V… just awful.

In Baylor’s suit, Sterling’s numermous horrible comments and business practices came to light, such as his telling Baylor he wanted to fill his team with “poor black boys from the South and a white head coach.” Which is nothing compared to housing discrimination claims (Sterling made his money as a slumlord) in which Sterling allegedly said “black tenants smell and attract vermin,” and "Hispanics smoke, drink and just hang around the building."

kosmovitelli wrote:As I said a zillion times, the Marbury trade is the worst trade Isiah ever made.

Technically, it may not be the worst trade (Curry might have my vote) but I say it's the worst simplye because it's the one that started the terrible spiral of overpaying for marginal talent.

When Isiah Thomas was named GM (december 22, 2003), he started pretty good, he took time to think and decided who he should he keep and who he should let go.
He claimed he waived Zlavko Vranes because he didn't work hard in practice and wasn't good enough for the NBA. He considered buying out Weatherspoon and finally traded him for back up PG Moochie Norris (one of our biggest need at the time), I thought he did a great job at the time. I couldn't believe he was able to trade Spoon.
Isiah did a solid work the first month, he found out who he needed to get rid of and who he needed to keep.
Everything was going well. Isiah inherited of a team with a 10-18 record and after he was named GM the team lost one game and then had a 4 game winning streak. Isiah pumped the team. We had Keith Van Horn, Allan Houston, Kurt Thomas and Antonio McDyess (coming back from a season ending injury) so contrary to popular belief that team wasn't garbage. It was surely a flawed team (hence the losing record) but not a terrible team (like the one we have now), we could work with that team. You could either blow up the team or rebuild on the fly. Isiah had the choice. If Isiah added a good distributor (like Cassel) and a PF (like Rasheed Wallace), he could have tried to win now and rebuild on the fly at the same time. With the expiring contracts, Sweetney, Lampe (who somehow had value at the time) and the picks if needed, Isiah should have done a much better job.

So after one month, the infamous Stephon Marbury trade happened then it was over. Isiah Thomas gave up all the assets he had : the expiring contract of McDyess, Charlie Ward's unguaranteed contract (the Spurs wanted to trade for Ward at the time, they were delighted when they signed him after he was waived by the Suns), Lampe, Vujanic's rights and two first round picks (one unprotected and one protected throught 2010).
Not only Isiah surrendered all that to get Marbury but he also accepted to take back Penny Hardaway's horrendous deal.

It's one of the worst horrible trades I've ever seen because Isiah compounded the mistakes :
1. He traded for a player that didn't fit the team
2. He traded first round picks (including one unprotected)
3. He took back long term contracts

Horrible deal on all accounts.
I will even add one more : this deal pumped the fans (and the ownership) and made them believe the Knicks were back on track and only needed one or two additional trades.
They thought we were one or two players away from being a contender.

So it led Isiah to trade KVH (who played well for us) for Tim Thomas and Nazr, expiring contracts for Jamal Crawford and so on.

The Hawks traded Rasheed Wallace for expiring contracts and a late first round pick. Isiah could have traded McDyess and Sweetney for Rasheed Wallace. Not only Sheed was a dominant PF (one of our biggest need with the PG position) but he only had 4 months remaining on his contract. Basically you trade for Sheed, see what happens and decide if you keep him or sign and trade him to another team. Instead Isiah traded for the albatross contracts of Marbury and Penny. Monumental mistake. That's when everything went wrong. Isiah started good the first month but with the acquisition of Marbury and Penny he made the team derail.

After the acquisition of Marbury it was a chase for an elusive playoff spot. Isiah Thomas moves got him into a tight corner, after that he could no longer rebuild (even on the fly), he tried to chase the playoffs at all costs.

The Marbury trade is also his worst move because he gave a signal to all other NBA teams. With Layden, the whole league considered us as the garbage disposal of the NBA. The only team where you could turn instantly an albatross contract into an expiring contract. The Mavericks dumped Howard Eisley on us, the Rockets did the same with Shandon Anderson, etc.
I (and so did most people) thought it was a regime change after Layden was fired. Keep in mind also after the Dice trade, Layden didn't made any bonehead trade. In the next 18 months he only traded Spree for KVH (not a bad trade, he didn't add too much salary and both players had same value). The Marbury trade changed everything, it gave a signal to other teams that we were back on business and ready to accept garbage contracts for marginal talent upgrade. We were ready to trade short contracts for longer contracts in order to win now.
The other side-effect of the Marbury trade is the fact we traded two first round picks (including one unprotected, pretty rare to see a team trade an unprotected pick) and two second round picks. We gave a signal we didn't mind trading picks. The whole league probably laughed and all NBA teams played the same game : try to dump albatross contracts on us and try to steal away draft picks.
If you take a look at the Curry trade, it's quite obvious John Paxson used the Marbury trade as a blueprint.
For Marbury Isiah traded an unprotected first round pick (2004) + a future protected pick (until 2010) + two 2nd round picks + expiring contracts.
For Curry, Isiah traded an unprotected first round pick (2006) + a swap of first round picks (2005) + two 2nd round picks + Sweetney + a swap of expiring contracts (Antonio Davis and Tim Thomas).


All things considered, the Marbury trade is by far Isiah's worst trade and one of the worst Knicks trades I've ever seen. Monumental mistake that set back the franchise for years. When you have no plan and no direction, you're bound to make a mistake like that but this one was monumental.
The Ewing trade was the turning point for Layden. Marbury is a similar mark for Thomas, a historical change of course for us. And I didn't even mention, thanks to that trade, we still a first round pick to the Jazz. We are handcuffed by that debt to the Jazz. Complete disaster.

NyKnicks1714 wrote: Isiah's drafting is the most overrated thing on this board. He made 3 good picks; Ariza, Nate, and Chandler (Lee was Suhr's pick, not his). Frye was a bad pick, Balkman was a terrible pick (People make so much of Walsh passing on Jennings, but Renaldo Balkman over Rajon Rondo, much much worse), and Collins was a bad pick. He made 3 good picks, 3 bad picks. No spectacular picks.

What makes Isiah's tenure even worse is that he saw the mistakes Layden made, and didn't change anything. He continued to add salary with no long-term plan to improve the team. What I find funny is that he traded away picks, put the team in salary-cap hell, all to "win now", and he wasn't even able to do that. It's like taking your kid's college funds and betting all the money on a horse that's been scratched from the race, having already seen your father do the same thing years earlier.

moocow007 wrote:I'll have to go with Layden.

Layden was really the one that started this entire mess that the Knicks have just finally dug themselves out form under.

Not a single one of his moves made sense. Not one.

Some of his dandy moves:

1. Trading Knicks legend Patrick Ewing's big expiring for a gaggle of long contracted overpaid role players (Luc Longley, Chris Dudley & Travis Knight), has beens (Glen "Cream Chees Knees" Rice) and no names (Lazoro Borrel anyone?).

2. Trading Erick Strickland AND a 1st AND 2nd round pick for Othella Harrington.

3. Trading Glen Rice's shorter contract for two WAY OVERPAID role players in Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley (who combined for ate up more than $80 million in salaries).

4. Trading an in his prime Marcus Camby, Mark Jackson's big expiring contract AND a lottery pick (Amare Stoudemire was still on the board when the Knicks pick was made) for Antonio McDyess (who was coming off of major knee injuries to both knees).

PS: Howard Eisley, in his infinite ineptitude actually proved to be even worse of a pickup than his contract when he undercut his own teammate (McDyess) in preseason effectively killing whatever chances McDyess had of returning to his pre-bad knees 20/10 days.

5. Outbidding no one apparenlty but himself to resign Alan Houston to that crazy, crazy, CRAZY, contract (6 years $120 million).

6. Throwing 3 years and $24 million at Clarence "3 neck chins" Weatherspoon (when they already have a gazzillion PF's) when a comparable PF at the time (Gary Trent) was signed to a $1.5 million one year contract.

7. And finally culminating his illustrious GM career by trading a guy who proved he can perform in NY (Latrell Sprewell) for a guy that had already shown he can't perform in NY(NJ) in Keith Van Horn.

Don't get me wrong, Thomas also made plenty of mistakes but at the time his two biggest deals (Marbury and Curry) at least didn't immediately leave you scratching your head. Very similar deals to the one that Thomas actually did to get Marbury was proposed on RGM and laughed at by fans of other teams. And the Curry deal (especially with Larry Brown coming on board) seemed like a sound investment at the time.

AnaheimRoyale wrote:John Nash, 76ers, 1986-90

The 76ers were once the 3rd great franchise, next to LA and the Celtics, they could have been great through he 90's easily, if not for the idiocy that took place from 1986-1990

Step 1- Trade Moses Malone, a solid role player and a #12 and #21 draft pick to the Wizards in exchange for C.Robinson (who played less than 150 games for the 76ers) and Jeff Ruland (who played 18 games for the 76ers).

Step 2- Trade the #1 pick in the draft Brad Daughtery for Roy Hinson (who would be given away 2 years later)

Step 3- Trade away the rights to Shawn Kemp for trash (in fairness, this wasn't forseeable, but it highlights the way this team just kept trading away picks which could have been used to obtain valuable assets).

Step 4- Trade promising young role player Sedale Threat away for nothing.

This all led to step 5, which was the inevitable departure of Barkley, from a poorly managed team whose ownership he hated. They traded away Moses, and even the classy Mo Cheeks for nothing... would it have killed them to hold onto to Mo Cheeks for a few more years so he could retire a 76er! The 76ers were a team who since 1977 had won 50, 55, 47, 59, 62, 58, 65, 52, 58 and 54 games, they had won a title, and made the finals 3 other times. They went from that to a team who was averaging 45 wins the next four years, and then the bottom fell out and they really started to suck it up.

GM's get judged partly by their ability to see "ahead of the curve" as it were. Almost every mistake a GM makes can be pardoned by saying "made sense at the time" (not blunderers like Isiah or Paxson, but you get my meaning). That sort of logic doesn't get us far for judging GM's. Sure, you have to take into account context, luck, etc. But results are an important indicator.

I think the justification of the 76ers management for instance is guilty of this sort of analysis. Moses was an all-nba talent with alot of value. They sent him, plus a role player, plus a #12 pick and a #21 pick, all for 2 guys who posted empty stats on bad teams, and who fell out of the NBA right after. Sure, the way they fell out of the NBA was bad luck, but to act like these guys were potential all-stars who lucked out is just false, they were posting stats with as much meaning as Monta Ellis (less even), on teams who didn't win (and often sucked huge). And no, this Cliff was not even remotely as impactful a player as the better known version. Just a terrible trade.

Alfred wrote:There are many General Managers that deserve to be called out for their ineptness at running an NBA team, although some are much worse than others. Feel free to vote and make your case for why the General Manager you chose is the worst in the league.

My pick is Bryan Colangelo. Let's run down some of the reasons why I think he's the worst:

-General Manager in a big market, with the richest ownership group in pro sports. Unlike some of the other GMs on this list, Colangelo can't cry poor, and has a huge market that is dying for a winner. Taxes can't even be used as an excuse, as Toronto is middle of the pack in terms of athletes paying taxes on their earnings.
-5 Straight years without playoffs (franchise record) with only 1 winning season in 7 years.
-Lost Bosh for nothing.
-Collects horrible contracts: Calderon's huge extension, Kapono for the MLE, Kleiza for near-MLE, Hedo Turkoglu's absurd contract, Landry Fields for ~20 million, Rudy Gay for the max, DeMar for 10 million a year, Bargnani for 10 million a year, etc.
-Bad trades. Picks and expirings for Jermaine O'Neal, O'Neal and a first rounder for an expiring Marion + Marcus Banks, and expiring + Ed Davis for Rudy Gay, a lottery pick for Kyle Lowry, etc.
-Bad picks. Bargnani, Terrence Ross over Drummond, never having a second round pick pan out.
-Bad coaching hires. Extending Sam Mitchell, who has never been rehired, Jay Triano, who coached one of the worst defensive teams of all time, Dwayne Casey, who has just been miserable.

Henderix wrote:I think it is easily Colangelo.

Out of the 100's of moves he's made since being here I've liked probably 5 moves. Drafting JV, Trading for Amir, attempting to trade for Chandler, drafting Ed Davis, and trading for Lowry. And, even with these 5 moves, the Chandler trade never happened, and he turned Davis into the worst contract in the NBA.

Every other move is all over the map. 100 shots per game up tempo, turned into a Euro ball experiment with Bargnani at C that was going to revolutionize the game. Then twin towers with JO and Bosh for half a season. Then lose Bosh for nothing, and flounder around. Then attempting a half ass rebuild for a few months. Then go into 'win now' mode with zero foundation of all stars. And every time he shifts gears he just spews assets all over the place, and collects contracts that are huge liabilities. I can't imagine how it could be any worse than this.

His intentions of putting making money over winning are glaring too, as are his intentions to make moves that will keep his job over making moves that are best for the organization. The guy wanted to bring in a 39 year old Steve Nash to be a Canadian circus show to bring in cash. It makes zero sense from a basketball pov to blow the bank on a 39 year old when you have the foundations of a 20-something win team. We clearly needed to rebuild, not put together a 40 win team that had a window of 2 years. Also, he goes after 'name' players that he can market for a bit like Gay, Turk, JO, Marion, that are absolutely brutal from a advanced stats POV. I'm not sure if he actually thinks these were 'great' players when he went after them (which means he can't evaluate talent at all) or if he didn't care that they sucked and just wanted a 'name' to market to fans to sell season tickets, or a 'name' he could give to ownership to help keep his job.

I can't see how anyone can be worse.

AnaheimRoyale wrote:Jim Paxson (Cleveland Cavaliers, 1999-2005)
Jim Paxson stands alone as one of the most incompetent GM’s in recent history.

Anyone can be a mediocre GM, but it takes a special kind of deftness to mismanage a franchise as badly as Paxson, who seemed to be a walking unlucky horse shoe. Here are some of his draft picks:

Diop (8th pick overall, 2001 draft)- total bust
Wanger (6th pick overall, 2002 draft)- total bust
Langdon (11th pick overall, 1999)- total bust
L.Jackson (10th pick overall, 2004) - total bust
Mihm (they traded Jamal Crawford, the 8th overall pick and cash for this guy, the 7th overall pick in 2000) - bust
The picks he didn't screw up, he usually traded (badly). He gave a lottery pick away, in exchange for Sasha Pavlovic, and a 1st round pick for Jiri Welsch. The man may not have gotten a single trade right (bar one). He had a young Andre Miller, at the time mooted as a max player with great trade value, however he botched the negotiations so badly he ended up with Darius Miles in exchange, who he then made play point guard. This wasn’t an accident, Paxson actually wanted to play Miles PG, because he thought he would be a mismatch for other teams… not unlike Magic Johnson… this would be funny if it wasn’t true. He traded away a young Brendan Haywood for Doleac, a young Derek Anderson for Lamond Murray, then flipped that for a guy named Yogi (when your name is Yogi, you fail as an NBA player). Young Harpring got traded for trash, and don't even get started about the Boozer fiasco.

He only tanked for Lebron because he had no choice, in fact he conducted an illegal workout (and was fined for it) before he was talked into tanking, and then luck bailed him out. Even someone on realgm would have lucked out on some of those moves. I guess you can say he got Andre Miller and Varejao, but it’s hard to ignore the body of his work, which is dreadful. By the time Dan Ferry got to Cleveland the place was a trainwreck, with Lebron and no other useful assets.

AnaheimRoyale wrote:Wes Unseld- Bullets/Wizards, effectively from the 96 offseason to 03

Unseld's tenure was technically interupted by Michael Jordan's presence, so for the purposes of this analysis we'll stick to stuff Unseld did while he was officially in charge of the Bullet/Wizards.

Looking at Unseld's GM'ing career, it's hard to find words enough to describe its vomitously, awful, inept bumblingness. Unseld came into a situation where he had a team that included 22 year old Chris Webber, 22 year old Juwan Howard, and 21 year old Rasheed Wallace. All were relatively happy being in Washington (amazingly), Howard and Webber were best friends even. The team also had a young Calbert Cheany who still had some promise to him, and while they were weak at the point guard spot, with a number of solid-ish guys filling the 1 spot by committee, there was every reason to be excited about the teams direction. They'd just won 39 games in spite of Webber playing only 15 games in 1996, and Sheed missing another 17. These guys would get alot better, and the team could become a contender once more, as it had been in Unseld's day.

From a situation that looked so promising, Unseld managed to make almost every blunder imaginable. First, he was understandably concerned about the point guard spot. It was relatively weak, so of course it made sense to address it. It made no sense to trade a 21 year old big man with a future as bright as Rasheed Wallace's for a 30 year old point guard with a history of making trouble and causing locker room issues and Harvey Grant (who was also on his way out of the NBA). It's not as though Strickland's demise couldn't be seen coming either, the man was famous for eating hot dogs when he was supposed to be working out. Strickland made the team a tiny bit better in the short term, at the cost of a future all-star. Idiocy.
Editor's note- He also gave Strickland a big contract (which they then had to buy out), and Grant's contract wasn't great, but since the Wizards got a rule waiver to re-sign Juwan Howard I don't think it affected them.

Wes was lucky enough to sign the unknown Ben Wallace... which would have looked great, if he hadn't traded him away 3 years later as he was about to bust out... for Ike Austin. It's amazing that a guy like Unseld, who was himself undersized and a hard worker, would be so unappreciative of Ben Wallace... it really showed a total lack of ability to assess a guy he'd had on his team for 3 years.

But World Wide Wes was only getting warmed up. Webber wasn't cutting the bacon... he had to trade him... for a washed up Mitch Richmond... the Wizards have just had their 1st two winning seasons since 1987 and 1982, in spite of some injuries and young guys making young guy mistakes... and he trades his 24 year old, crowd pleasing, star power forward for a 33 year old shooting guard (who predictably, is off the team a few years later, and out of the NBA almost immediately after). Who does that? And this is one of the strangest things about the whole situation, for all the talk of Webber eventually leaving the Bullets/Wizards, he was relatively happy there. He was playing with his best friend, and his contract expired the same time as Mitch Richmond's did (so there was no security in trading for him, even if he hadn't declined). Webber hated Sactown initially alot more than he was whining about Washington.
Editor's note- Unseld then signed Mitch to a 4 year $40 mill contract, making him the highest paid shooting guard in the NBA. What was he thinking? He also took back a bad contract- Otis Thorpe.

The only good thing he did was draft Rip, who Jordan then traded away for a player he felt complimented him better (it was of course, a disaster). Even Juwan Howard he screwed up, by overpaying him (when the NBA stepped in to stop the Heat getting him), when he would have done better to ask for other compensation (if he was just going to trade Webber like an idiot). Instead he botched the negotiations so badly, he ended up having to give up the teams 97 1st rounder, because he didn't have any cap room left to sign Juwan Howard. Before he left, he also extended Stackhouse (idiotic), drafted the useless Jarvis Hayes with his lotto pick (why!?) when many good players were available, and while the stuff Jordan did is on MJ too, Unseld's was there to provide good advice, something I have no doubt he was poorly qualified to do.

When the Pistons won the title back in 04, alot of media columnists joked "The Wizards just won the title", because 3 of their stars had been given away by the Wizards for nothing (Ben, Sheed and Rip), if I remember correctly they helped facilitate trading away Billups too, when they should have signed him, though alot of teams made that mistake. The guy might be unique in NBA history for giving away 3 stars, not counting Rip, (and in such a short amount of time)... I mean, these guys were all-nba players. Webber was a franchise player, Ben Wallace could be a defensive franchise player, and Sheed had franchise player talent (even if he didn't use it fully in his career), and the guy got almost nothing for them. He was also a bad coach, bad VP, the guy just seemed awful in every non-playing role he had for the Wizards/Bullets. Truly a terrible GM.