Manocad wrote:bstein14 wrote:The Pistons hired Weaver a little over 2 years ago. He's essentially gotten 3 full offseasons. We are still projected by every major sports outlet to be a bottom 5 to 7 team in the league again this year.
Joe Dumars took over as GM in 2000, of a team with a superstar in Grant Hill leaving and the team was widely expected to be one of the worst teams in the league. After 3 off seasons with the Pistons Dumars had a roster that included
Ben Wallace (agreed to sign as a FA, but eventually came over in a sign-and-trade for Hill at MLE $ type deal)
Billups (signed to an MLE $ deal)
Prince (drafted with a late first rounder)
Hamilton (traded away Pistons only real asset when Dumars started in Stackhouse to get him)
Okur (2nd round draft pick that became an all-star in this league)
Also hired Rick Carlisle, one of the best young up and coming coaches in the league.
So Weaver has done nothing even close to what Dumars did in his first 3 offseasons, essentialy creating a team good enough team from just Stackhouse, to be in the EC Finals that year against the Nets and to win a championship the following year.
That is an A start to your GM career.... something that Weaver doesn't have at this point even if he's been good and been better than anyone since early Dumars for us.
Which proved to be lightning in a bottle since Dumars couldn't replicate that performance, or anything even close to it, after that team broke up.
It's somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison. Weaver started from a point of not only having no real assets but with a team that needed to be completely broomed out the door. And clearly his goal is to build something from the ground up for sustainable success long term rather than just playing the opportunistic free agency game.
For sure, Weaver is in the mindset of building through the draft not spending on perhaps somewhat under the radar FAs and hoping they become more than what they've been (Ben Wallace & Billups). It's a different, and longer term approach than what we saw from Dumars when he first became GM. When Dumars first became GM, the cap rules were also very new to the league so he was able to get players like Jon Barry and Cliff Robinson in trade deals that were great for Detroit I think as some of the old guard of executives were still figuring out managing player salaries in a salary cap league.
That said, you can only build through the draft for so long. You eventually need to make some moves in order to better fill out and complete your roster. Many thought this past offseason would be the biggest test yet for Weaver as a GM but he ended up pushing that test back for one additional season as he made moves to have a ton of flexibility again next summer.
