Is Sam Presti overrated?

[Wingy]

He is overrated. He’s made some unbelievably bad decisions that set that franchise back years. He also inexcusably rolled with Westbrook for far too long before deciding to break up that team. He also went through a long stretch where he drafted quite poorly.

The situation that he’s in now is due to Kawhi deciding to team up with Paul George. If he doesn’t do that then OKC doesn’t get Shai and that team would still be mediocre.

With that said, he’s not a bad GM.

I referenced SGA earlier too. You’re almost always lucky to be a true contender, and he has certainly been the beneficiary of his own good moves, strong draft selections, but also - huge luck. No SGA, and OKC is just another terrible young team that big stars would balk at going to.

If Portland wasn’t idiotic and actually learned from the Bowie lesson. As you called out, if Kawhi wanted Harden, or some different star back then. Those butterfly effects change everything.

[GrindCityHustle]

Presti could have gotten SGA without trading for George if he wanted to

[MoneyTalks41890]

If Presti hadn't made a good trade with his All-star player, and made a lot of other good decisions, then he might not be a good GM. That's quite the pretzel.

[Sixers in 4]

No. Fans are dumb how they measure GM's does not comport with the reality of what actually makes a good GM.

Anyone of us can sit with the benefit of hindsight and nitpick any GM on his moves. The question is if you teleported another GM into that situation a couple of years ago whether it be Morey, Landry Fields, Stevens, Koby Altman or whoever would they have done any better? Looking at their past mistakes the answer is no. Would they have done worse? Most of them would have and it's unlikely many if any would have done better.

That is how you have to judge Presti. You can't use hindsight you have to compare his work against his contemporaries and among them he near if not the top. It's also important to note while his rebuild only took a couple of years we are nowhere near knowing where OKC peak is they still have a bunch of assets in the form of cap space and picks. OKC is literally a couple of moves away from being a team that can win multiple championships but they could also fritter away the opportunity like Ainge did holding onto picks for too long. The story really isn't complete on OKC for this era or presti for that matter he has them probably in the best position of any NBA team but he has to finish the job

[Wingy]

He had Durant, Harden and Westbrook all on the same team and did nothing. He's not a championship level GM. He is the prime example on just because you build a loaded roster, doesn't mean automatic titles.

He's elite at rebuilding. But not at fullfilling that rebuild and getting them to the next level. You all will see it again in the next 2-5 years when he loses his core. This OKC team is ascending but they won't go anywhere. There will always be that one team that's better just better because they will be structured better by their respective GM.

I mean, his team plays in Oklahoma City. Not saying it's impossible to keep a winner together there but it's a major challenge, and something it seems like Presti is taking into account. Seems like you're also basing this on literally one player leaving the team in one of the weirdest and most heavily criticized moves of all time. (If KD doesn't leave the team is in the title hunt for another 4-5 years at least).

Nope.

He traded Harden for peanuts to the Rockets. Harden then going on to transform himself in a yearly MVP candidate. It was the domino that set KD leaving in motion and dooming the core. He had 3 MVP talents on the same team and squandered it. That is the difference between a team like OKC and the Warriors in the mid 2010s. One GM did everything to maintain the core. The other did not.

Even Harden aside, maybe there’s a lot more to it others can explain who followed much more closely than I, but from the outsiders perspective he should have picked up on the fact that KD wasn’t jibing with Russ’s…unique style. I’m sure he could’ve talked behind closed doors with KD, and moved young Russ for a ton of value.

As big a star as prime Russ was, you take KD every single time without even needing to think about it.

[JMAC3]

Bob Meyers built a dynasty from a team he mostly drafted.

Brad Stevens for instance has acquired Derrick White, Brogdon, Porzingis, Holiday, Tillman and Celtics have been very good.

Ainge obviously put together that Celtics team initially, then immediately got hauls for Gobert and Mitchell.

RC Buford won 4-5 titles as GM in Spurs and consistently put good teams on the floor in a small market.

David Griffin won a title in Cleveland and since moved to NOP and put together a good young team with a bunch of future picks.

Other younger guys who have a say in convo shortly might be Booth, Altman

[Ryoga Hibiki]

No. Fans are dumb how they measure GM's does not comport with the reality of what actually makes a good GM.

Anyone of us can sit with the benefit of hindsight and nitpick any GM on his moves. The question is if you teleported another GM into that situation a couple of years ago whether it be Morey, Landry Fields, Stevens, Koby Altman or whoever would they have done any better? Looking at their past mistakes the answer is no. Would they have done worse? Most of them would have and it's unlikely many if any would have done better.

That is how you have to judge Presti. You can't use hindsight you have to compare his work against his contemporaries and among them he near if not the top. It's also important to note while his rebuild only took a couple of years we are nowhere near knowing where OKC peak is they still have a bunch of assets in the form of cap space and picks. OKC is literally a couple of moves away from being a team that can win multiple championships but they could also fritter away the opportunity like Ainge did holding onto picks for too long. The story really isn't complete on OKC for this era or presti for that matter he has them probably in the best position of any NBA team but he has to finish the job

I might be wrong but I think Boston is still contending, hence Ainge hasn't derailed their path at all.
And some of the picks people kept insisting he should have traded were Brown and Tatum.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Bob Meyers built a dynasty from a team he mostly drafted.

Brad Stevens for instance has acquired Derrick White, Brogdon, Porzingis, Holiday, Tillman and Celtics have been very good.

Ainge obviously put together that Celtics team initially, then immediately got hauls for Gobert and Mitchell.

RC Buford won 4-5 titles as GM in Spurs and consistently put good teams on the floor in a small market.

David Griffin won a title in Cleveland and since moved to NOP and put together a good young team with a bunch of future picks.

Other younger guys who have a say in convo shortly might be Booth, Altman

I am pretty sure you're trolling

[HotelVitale]

Truly one of the best talent evaluators in the league. All GMs have their weaknesses, but as far as strengths go, evaluating talent especially through the draft is imo one of the most important for a GM.

Presti has done two rebuilds into contender level teams in a span of 15 years..not bad, considering OKC should be a top team for the next 5+ years at least.

I agree but I honestly think, after years of thinking and studying this, that 'talent evaluation' in the draft is mostly just educated guessing. There are some GMs/FOs that make pretty bad gambles, and there are some who are able to select guys that can develop well in their culture, but everyone else is just taking the same info and saying 'none of us know how this guy will translate exactly, and we have zero idea how he'll develop (besides a couple of unreliable indicators), but X and Y make me think he's a better guess than these other guys in his range.'

I won't go into the whole argument here, but I think Presti has been a top GM even if you chalk up a lot of his draft success to good luck on good gambles. The stuff that you can actually do a direct evaluation of--asset valuation, timing on his assets, making use of all possible avenues, etc--he's done really well.

Yea, there is a bit of guesswork involved, and even the best in the biz are not going to hit the pick every time.
Presti has built a couple of strong cores mainly through the draft. Some people just know better what to look for than others. Its like having a refined palette or great sense of style. Some people just have better attention to detail and observational skills combined with knowledge of their industry and that can translate into a lot of things. Just like coaches, not all GMs are created equal. By your logic, its just as good to have a random GM make a pick than Presti. Thats demonstrably false and I really should not have to explain why.

This probably isn't the thread to hash this out but like I said there's definitely some things you can do to maximize your draft outcome. There's a huge difference between that and draft outcomes being pretty controllable by 'smart' GMs or those that have this sixth sense you're talking about. That's a pretty common view and the one that I don't think holds up. Won't do the whole argument but a couple quick pieces:

First when GMs, scouts, etc talk about the draft, they all just talk about the same observations and generally agree on them too. We liked these traits, we didn't like these ones, we believe he can turn into this, etc. And the good/successful GMs are also not really right about those either, players generally turn into very different players than what they say at draft time. You see this over and over again. I guess you could say that everyone sees the same basic things but the good GMs use that ineffable skill you're talking about to see which ones are real and which ones fakes, but even here I think you have to start thinking about it, asking yourself what it really is you're claiming they can do. Is it all about assessing attitude? Cuz people with very very different attitudes, maturity levels, etc succeed and fail all the time in the draft. And so on. But even if you want to believe in that skill...

Second, Presti's good draft picks, like more or less all good picks in the NBA, were taken right around where they were expected to be taken. If there were genuinely some GMs who were far better than others at this, or if there were some distinct skill to hone in on the prospects who will translate and develop well, you'd expect those GMs to be able to pluck 'real' prospects 10-20 picks earlier (or vice versa). At least some times. You almost never see that happening successfully, especially among those we think of as the 'good' GMs--they tend to stick with the draft ranking consensus pretty closely, and when they don't it doesn't work out for them. Again if there was some clear skill we'd see GMs being able to sort through the bad and elevate the good pretty regularly in draft rankings, instead of basically never. (Also GMs generally don't rise up or get their jobs because they have this secret talent--if that was a thing you'd think that teams would pay millions and millions to scour the world for people with great eyes for NBA talent or whatever, instead of just elevating regular basketball lifers and ex-players and whatnot who have shown good management/leadership skills.)

Third, it's really hard to understand what exactly this intangible skill is when it works so inconsistently and when those same GMs make flat out blunders with it all the time. Basically every GM hits on less than like 35% of picks, and basically every GM passes on much better players than the ones they took every year (the late round steals), and basically no GM goes well outside of consensus. In Presti's case, he also has a weirdly consistent record of drafting and then immediately trading steals--recently Sengun (traded for a bunch of 2nds) and Quickley (traded with a pick for Poku), also guys like Bledsoe, Carl Landry, B Clarke, etc. Again if he has this heightened ability to tell who'll work out, you wouldn't expect him to have a player in hand who will pretty immediately become good, and then have his powers just not see this thing he's supposedly able to see.

There's a lot more to say and a million examples to provide, but this is already long enough. The main point is just that attributing draft success to 'skill' makes sense in theory but it gets harder and harder when you start looking for what this skill is and how it gets applied. Skipping a lot of steps, that leads me to generally see that 'good' GMs are just doing their homework really well, focusing on which players will develop well in their systems/cultures, looking for guys who might be underrated or that analytics are pointing to as outliers etc. And then taking their best guess and trying to encourage that player's development internally.

[JMAC3]

Idk why you would think this is a troll? It has been a pretty good discussion for over 100 posts.

For instance, if Presti is defying the odds for his market size, consistent and titles isn't really all that important.

Then shouldn't someone like Bo Ryan, former coach at Wisconsin get more credit than say a John Calipari or Coach K? I mean sure those guys won titles, but they had the better markets, schools, better history. or Jerry Sloan? He won a lot of games for Utah, maybe he should be considered better than Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, they had better markets and players so the titles shouldn't really matter much.

Just seems weird we use winning as a main threshold for coaches, players, organizational success but not for a GM who is the main archetype that puts the team together that ultimate goal is to win.

[Ssj16]

No. Fans are dumb how they measure GM's does not comport with the reality of what actually makes a good GM.

Anyone of us can sit with the benefit of hindsight and nitpick any GM on his moves. The question is if you teleported another GM into that situation a couple of years ago whether it be Morey, Landry Fields, Stevens, Koby Altman or whoever would they have done any better? Looking at their past mistakes the answer is no. Would they have done worse? Most of them would have and it's unlikely many if any would have done better.

That is how you have to judge Presti. You can't use hindsight you have to compare his work against his contemporaries and among them he near if not the top. It's also important to note while his rebuild only took a couple of years we are nowhere near knowing where OKC peak is they still have a bunch of assets in the form of cap space and picks. OKC is literally a couple of moves away from being a team that can win multiple championships but they could also fritter away the opportunity like Ainge did holding onto picks for too long. The story really isn't complete on OKC for this era or presti for that matter he has them probably in the best position of any NBA team but he has to finish the job

I wish I could give this quote +1000

[JMAC3]

No. Fans are dumb how they measure GM's does not comport with the reality of what actually makes a good GM.

Anyone of us can sit with the benefit of hindsight and nitpick any GM on his moves. The question is if you teleported another GM into that situation a couple of years ago whether it be Morey, Landry Fields, Stevens, Koby Altman or whoever would they have done any better? Looking at their past mistakes the answer is no. Would they have done worse? Most of them would have and it's unlikely many if any would have done better.

That is how you have to judge Presti. You can't use hindsight you have to compare his work against his contemporaries and among them he near if not the top. It's also important to note while his rebuild only took a couple of years we are nowhere near knowing where OKC peak is they still have a bunch of assets in the form of cap space and picks. OKC is literally a couple of moves away from being a team that can win multiple championships but they could also fritter away the opportunity like Ainge did holding onto picks for too long. The story really isn't complete on OKC for this era or presti for that matter he has them probably in the best position of any NBA team but he has to finish the job

I mean we really have no idea. Presti probably has turned down 100 trades we have never heard a whisper about.
Another GM may have been able to keep KD, if they had a better coach and built better around him they may have won 2-3 titles instead of Golden State.
Another GM might have kept Harden and let Russ or Perkins go, we really don't know.

There are infinite amount of possibilities.

[sip]

sam presti isn't perfect. but, judging a gm on postseason results isn't always the best approach. would you take sam presti over masai ujiri? i would. i'd take him over mitch kupchak too. winning a title or titles sometimes takes luck. sam presti assembled one of the best groups in the 2010s, and three of those prime seasons were derailed by injuries out of his control (westbrook 2013, ibaka 2014, kd 2015). 2011 they made wcf as a team comprised mostly of under-25 year olds, 2012 made the finals, 2016 made wcf. and then kd was gone.

a few years later and they have a team full of young talent near the top of the standings, and in an even better position than they were at the start of the last run. he's in the top 5 of gm's easily, imo.

Idk, if you're an OKC fan would you rather have a title right now but Toronto roster or zero titles and your roster now?

That is the easiest question ever. You take the thunders current roster and collection future picks 100% of time. They are set up to be firmly competing for titles for at least the next 5 years and possibly 10 with the future picks that they have.

[slick_watts]

something sam presti does really well is cultivate relationships. that's a result of being around for so long but also for spending a two decade+ career being player and agent friendly, recognizing player autonomy, and in general putting the players in the position that makes the most sense for them (even if it's on another team).

one example i keep thinking about is al horford willingly sitting out most of the season so the team could tank. he could have played more, but sam presti was up front with him when he was acquired about what to expect, and did right by al horford at the end of the year sending him somewhere he wanted to go. it was a win-win. alex abrines left millions of guaranteed dollars on the table when he walked away from the nba and he didn't have to leave a cent. almost every former thunder player and every nba agent has nothing but great things to say about how he deals with players, and that reputation has earned him an amount of goodwill that is unmatched in the league.

the ultimate goal is to win titles but nothing is ever guaranteed. even if sam presti kept harden, the thunder wouldn't win a title in 2013 without westbrook, or 2015 without kd, both of whom had season ending injuries. presti puts the team in the position to be title contenders as much or more often than any other nba executive and you can't really ask for more than that imo- especially considering the limitations he has in his market.

[Dadouv47]

something sam presti does really well is cultivate relationships. that's a result of being around for so long but also for spending a two decade+ career being player and agent friendly, recognizing player autonomy, and in general putting the players in the position that makes the most sense for them (even if it's on another team).

one example i keep thinking about is al horford willingly sitting out most of the season so the team could tank. he could have played more, but sam presti was up front with him when he was acquired about what to expect, and did right by al horford at the end of the year sending him somewhere he wanted to go. it was a win-win. alex abrines left millions of guaranteed dollars on the table when he walked away from the nba and he didn't have to leave a cent. almost every former thunder player and every nba agent has nothing but great things to say about how he deals with players, and that reputation has earned him an amount of goodwill that is unmatched in the league.

the ultimate goal is to win titles but nothing is ever guaranteed. even if sam presti kept harden, the thunder wouldn't win a title in 2013 without westbrook, or 2015 without kd, both of whom had season ending injuries. presti puts the team in the position to be title contenders as much or more often than any other nba executive and you can't really ask for more than that imo- especially considering the limitations he has in his market.

outside of some big markets teams like LAL/Heat, yeah. Should add the Spurs to the mix because they had an amazing management and coach and maybe the Bucks because of one player (even if Milwaukee built well around Giannis and they deserve some credit).

Agree with everything else u said. The way Presti builds relationships is the most underrated aspect of his work. That's what makes the difference between a decent to a very good/elite GM.

[ShootersShoot]

I agree but I honestly think, after years of thinking and studying this, that 'talent evaluation' in the draft is mostly just educated guessing. There are some GMs/FOs that make pretty bad gambles, and there are some who are able to select guys that can develop well in their culture, but everyone else is just taking the same info and saying 'none of us know how this guy will translate exactly, and we have zero idea how he'll develop (besides a couple of unreliable indicators), but X and Y make me think he's a better guess than these other guys in his range.'

I won't go into the whole argument here, but I think Presti has been a top GM even if you chalk up a lot of his draft success to good luck on good gambles. The stuff that you can actually do a direct evaluation of--asset valuation, timing on his assets, making use of all possible avenues, etc--he's done really well.

Yea, there is a bit of guesswork involved, and even the best in the biz are not going to hit the pick every time.
Presti has built a couple of strong cores mainly through the draft. Some people just know better what to look for than others. Its like having a refined palette or great sense of style. Some people just have better attention to detail and observational skills combined with knowledge of their industry and that can translate into a lot of things. Just like coaches, not all GMs are created equal. By your logic, its just as good to have a random GM make a pick than Presti. Thats demonstrably false and I really should not have to explain why.

This probably isn't the thread to hash this out but like I said there's definitely some things you can do to maximize your draft outcome. There's a huge difference between that and draft outcomes being pretty controllable by 'smart' GMs or those that have this sixth sense you're talking about. That's a pretty common view and the one that I don't think holds up. Won't do the whole argument but a couple quick pieces:

First when GMs, scouts, etc talk about the draft, they all just talk about the same observations and generally agree on them too. We liked these traits, we didn't like these ones, we believe he can turn into this, etc. And the good/successful GMs are also not really right about those either, players generally turn into very different players than what they say at draft time. You see this over and over again. I guess you could say that everyone sees the same basic things but the good GMs use that ineffable skill you're talking about to see which ones are real and which ones fakes, but even here I think you have to start thinking about it, asking yourself what it really is you're claiming they can do. Is it all about assessing attitude? Cuz people with very very different attitudes, maturity levels, etc succeed and fail all the time in the draft. And so on. But even if you want to believe in that skill...

Second, Presti's good draft picks, like more or less all good picks in the NBA, were taken right around where they were expected to be taken. If there were genuinely some GMs who were far better than others at this, or if there were some distinct skill to hone in on the prospects who will translate and develop well, you'd expect those GMs to be able to pluck 'real' prospects 10-20 picks earlier (or vice versa). At least some times. You almost never see that happening successfully, especially among those we think of as the 'good' GMs--they tend to stick with the draft ranking consensus pretty closely, and when they don't it doesn't work out for them. Again if there was some clear skill we'd see GMs being able to sort through the bad and elevate the good pretty regularly in draft rankings, instead of basically never. (Also GMs generally don't rise up or get their jobs because they have this secret talent--if that was a thing you'd think that teams would pay millions and millions to scour the world for people with great eyes for NBA talent or whatever, instead of just elevating regular basketball lifers and ex-players and whatnot who have shown good management/leadership skills.)

Third, it's really hard to understand what exactly this intangible skill is when it works so inconsistently and when those same GMs make flat out blunders with it all the time. Basically every GM hits on less than like 35% of picks, and basically every GM passes on much better players than the ones they took every year (the late round steals), and basically no GM goes well outside of consensus. In Presti's case, he also has a weirdly consistent record of drafting and then immediately trading steals--recently Sengun (traded for a bunch of 2nds) and Quickley (traded with a pick for Poku), also guys like Bledsoe, Carl Landry, B Clarke, etc. Again if he has this heightened ability to tell who'll work out, you wouldn't expect him to have a player in hand who will pretty immediately become good, and then have his powers just not see this thing he's supposedly able to see.

There's a lot more to say and a million examples to provide, but this is already long enough. The main point is just that attributing draft success to 'skill' makes sense in theory but it gets harder and harder when you start looking for what this skill is and how it gets applied. Skipping a lot of steps, that leads me to generally see that 'good' GMs are just doing their homework really well, focusing on which players will develop well in their systems/cultures, looking for guys who might be underrated or that analytics are pointing to as outliers etc. And then taking their best guess and trying to encourage that player's development internally.

Yea, I do agree that perhaps a draft may have a small number guys who are "no brainers" and then theres everyone else. I also don't think theres a special formula as every GM probably looks for similar but also different things, based on their team building philosophy plus other factors. Some people probably do have better ability to assess basketball talent than others, but once they start assessing all of these prospects and further into the first round, they may all seem closer in skill level and then it becomes a tall task to figure which one is going to be best for the team in the long run.

I do think Presti is definitely better than most other GMs, not that he is infallible or anything. No GM is going to hit every pick.. Quickley, Bledsoe, Landry, Clarke..these guys are all "okay" players and not really a core player to a contending team. I personally would not want any of them starting on my team, but off the bench would take any of them. Sengun was an interesting one..I'm sure he would love to take that one back.

[Mamba4Goat]

Is the ultimate goal of a GM to win a title or have a bunch of press clippings on how good of a trade he made?

We pretty much judge players solely on winning and winning titles, no?

There’s more nuance to it than simply saying did he win the title?

A GM’s job is to keep fan interest, keep the team making money, build a competitive team, and make it sustainable. A testament to Presti’s impact is how gung-ho local OKC fans were about voting to get the Thunder a new arena so that they could stay. OKC is a tiny market and is just ending a small rebuild. Usually rebuilds kill team interest for average fans and all Thunder fans have stayed very invested instead.

Presti has routinely made incredible draft picks, incredible trades, incredible finds in free agency, and fostered an environment to keep the Thunder routinely relevant and winning for the majority of his tenure. All of this success happened while OKC has never been a marquee free agent destination. It’s impressive.

For not winning titles, OKC got hit with injuries during the best shots and it’s hard to add that into the nuance of discussions.

[og15]

What would his proper rating be? Winning is hard, things have to work in your favor with health, etc. Thunder were similar to the Lob city Clippers in that after 12-13 they only had two health-ish playoffs, 13-14 and 15-16. Then they had the Westbrook only years. Should have done better with the Westbrook/PG combo than first round exits, but that was primarily a player issue, and they weren't contenders regardless, and then they rebuilt and are trying again.

Thunder have existed for 15.5 years now. Have had 7 All-NBA talents in KD, Westbrook, Harden, Paul George, Chris Paul, Dom Sabonis and SGA. Have 1 Finals appearance and zero titles. Does he deserve more love for acquiring those guys or more hate for never winning with them?

Mmmm....how are we including a one year stop by Chris Paul and Sabonis as a rookie here?

[ShootersShoot]

What would his proper rating be? Winning is hard, things have to work in your favor with health, etc. Thunder were similar to the Lob city Clippers in that after 12-13 they only had two health-ish playoffs, 13-14 and 15-16. Then they had the Westbrook only years. Should have done better with the Westbrook/PG combo than first round exits, but that was primarily a player issue, and they weren't contenders regardless, and then they rebuilt and are trying again.

Thunder have existed for 15.5 years now. Have had 7 All-NBA talents in KD, Westbrook, Harden, Paul George, Chris Paul, Dom Sabonis and SGA. Have 1 Finals appearance and zero titles. Does he deserve more love for acquiring those guys or more hate for never winning with them?

Mmmm....how are we including a one year stop by Chris Paul and Sabonis as a rookie here?

IIRC Sabonis was traded for Paul George. Even current Sabonis one could justify trading him for a prime Paul George. And of course, led to the SGA trade.

Saying Presti didnt do anything with Sabonis is disingenuous at best. He literally got SGA for him.

[JMAC3]

Is the ultimate goal of a GM to win a title or have a bunch of press clippings on how good of a trade he made?

We pretty much judge players solely on winning and winning titles, no?

There’s more nuance to it than simply saying did he win the title?

A GM’s job is to keep fan interest, keep the team making money, build a competitive team, and make it sustainable. A testament to Presti’s impact is how gung-ho local OKC fans were about voting to get the Thunder a new arena so that they could stay. OKC is a tiny market and is just ending a small rebuild. Usually rebuilds kill team interest for average fans and all Thunder fans have stayed very invested instead.

Presti has routinely made incredible draft picks, incredible trades, incredible finds in free agency, and fostered an environment to keep the Thunder routinely relevant and winning for the majority of his tenure. All of this success happened while OKC has never been a marquee free agent destination. It’s impressive.

For not winning titles, OKC got hit with injuries during the best shots and it’s hard to add that into the nuance of discussions.

So if I knew the future and told you if you keep Connelly you won't win a title for the next 10 years. You are asking more questions? or are you saying man we should hire someone else?