Globe and Mail: Babcock's legacy

[polo007]

http://www.globesports.com/servlet/stor ... tball/home

Babcock saw Calderon early and often and communicated his idealized vision of what an NBA team should be to Calderon in his native Spanish, a language Babcock picked up teaching and coaching in Mexico.

"Rob was a true believer from early on," says George Bass, Calderon's U.S.-based agent. "There were other teams interested, but Rob was by far the guy with the most interest. He's a straight-up guy, and when he said Jose was his guy, you just trusted him."

Babcock denies that Calderon's success provides him any sense of vindication, and won't even take the bait when asked whether he saw the Spanish national stalwart as a potential NBA all-star.

"I thought he'd be a starter and a very good NBA point guard, but did I see him knocking on the door of the all-star team in his third season? I have to be honest, I didn't see that," Babcock says.

[chyau.00]

remember how many picks we have in the babcock days? one of them is bound to be an all star..............................

thats like crediting the hawks for getting josh smith....or boston for al jefferson...

[Mad Balla 15]

remember how many picks we have in the babcock days? one of them is bound to be an all star..............................

thats like crediting the hawks for getting josh smith....or boston for al jefferson...

Except Rob never drafted Calderon. Nevertheless that was Babcock's best move by far obviously.

[s-dot]

remember how many picks we have in the babcock days? one of them is bound to be an all star..............................

thats like crediting the hawks for getting josh smith....or boston for al jefferson...

Calderon was undrafted, thus Babcock recruited him as a free agent...seems like he deserves credit here.

[J Dilla]

He even had Uros Slokar, who looked pretty good last season in the games he played.

Most importantly him and Embry handed the keys to the franchise to Chris Bosh, probably the best move.

[James699]

okay that is one good move. But look at all the bad moves he did. Signing Rafer, trading vince for peanuts, and drafting arujao and graham. Every GM does a good trade in their career. Heck even Stu Jackson did a good job by drafting Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Even though Stu sucked and probably one of the worst GM of all time.....

[raps4life~]

great move by babcock, but it doesnt make up for the countless bad moves he has made

[J Dilla]

okay that is one good move. But look at all the bad moves he did. Signing Rafer, trading vince for peanuts, and drafting arujao and graham. Every GM does a good trade in their career. Heck even Stu Jackson did a good job by drafting Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Even though Stu sucked and probably one of the worst GM of all time.....

Rafer was a good move IMO. Don't mix up his off court issues with his on court performance.

Trade for Vince was garbage of course.

I dont think he selected Araujo. I just cant imagine Embry and Babcock drafting Araujo. I think it was that McCloskey guy, but we'll never know.

The jury is still out on Joey.

[reptar15]

great move by babcock, but it doesnt make up for the countless bad moves he has made

countless? lol

drafting hoffa and the vince trade?

[Rapcity_11]

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Rafer was a good move IMO. Don't mix up his off court issues with his on court performance.

Trade for Vince was garbage of course.

I dont think he selected Araujo. I just cant imagine Embry and Babcock drafting Araujo. I think it was that McCloskey guy, but we'll never know.

The jury is still out on Joey.

The GM is responsible for all lottery picks.

[S.W.A.N]

Babcock gets a lot of flack around here but I think he did a pretty decent job of laying the foundation for where we are now.

At the time people killed him for the carter trade, but it really was the move that put us where we are today. By trading Carter for spare parts and picks we ended up with cap space, a bad record leading to number one pick, two med round picks that turned into tj ford and joey. Revisionist will say that embrey did the important job getting rid of rose to the knicks and colangelo stepped in and got tj etc. But Babs despite his media ineptitude wasn't that bad. I would even go so far as too blame hoffa on richard peddie and the scouting staff. Babs was hired right before the draft and had to rely on his staff. Hoffa was not his pick.... I miss you Hoffa...

Of course I am super glad to have BC and wouldn't trade him for any gm. I just don't like the way people bash babs.

[Tony Massenburg]

I think the thing Babcock deserves most credit for is not taking on any bad/horrible contracts when it was clear Raptor fans/media wanted heads to role. A lot of time GM's make sideways moves e.g Antonio Davis (big contract) for Jalen Rose's (longer & bigger contract). Or worse yet G.M's on the hotseat will trade a future pick for a marginal player just to silence the critics. Obviously his moves didn't work out but a few should be highlighted (1) hiring Sam Mitchell and not firing when the team was awful, (2) Calderon honestly getting undrafted free agents who become near all stars is what championship teams do (3) No Bad contracts even the Vince Carter trade was centered around cap space, moreover I fully believe Babcock would of made the Jalen Rose to the NY deal he was just holding out till the trade deadline came closer. (4) Charlie V

[reptar15]

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The GM is responsible for all lottery picks.

not exactly if you work for mlse

[Anticon]

Signing Calderon was far and away Babcock's best move.

But when you were given the #7, #8, and #16 picks in two decent drafts, and you ended up with Rafael Araujo, Charlie Villanueva, and Joey Graham, it's hard to say you're a consistent judge of talent.

Couple that with the Rafer signing and the Vince trade, and you have one amazing move, four bad moves and 1 good move (drafting Charlie).

That's not really much of a resume, and it's no wonder that he got fired. He wasn't given a lot to work with roster wise, or cap wise, but he had the ability to hit a home run in the draft a couple of times, and he didn't do it.

[The Letter V]

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Rafer was a good move IMO. Don't mix up his off court issues with his on court performance.

How can you NOT mix up his off court issues with his on-court performance when they were clearly linked...or maybe you don't remember the time where he and Smitch had a meltdown- during a game for that matter, and he threatened to quit the NBA. Rafer was a bad move.

Atleast Babs saved face, when he dealt him for MJ. That was a good move on his part.

The jury is still out on Joey.

Not really....Joey sucks.

[Boogie!]

babcock was probably in between being really dumb and having really big balls. i feel bad for the guy. even though he didn't get fair value back in the vince trade, he did say he had a 5 year plan, so maybe he didn't wanna get a star back because he actually wanted to be crap for a bit so we could build for the draft. a good idea in theory but not in a situation where results are expected immediately. of course he could've tried to get some up and coming young players.

[Ackshun]

babcock was on the right track believe. He spoke of Jalen's contract often, and how we would be more flexible once that time came. By then, we would have had an abundance of good draft picks (hopefully), some cap space, and CB4 in the fold. Then again, Bosh wanted to win NOW.

I like Babcock. But I'm a little more content with BC

[Boogie!]

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Not really....Joey sucks.

rafer was a good player. and not to let rafer off the hook but i think sam deserves some of the blame for the rafer fiasco. sam was a rookie head coach at that time and he was trying to establish control and was still unsure of how to handle certain situations. and since he's such an outspoken, passionate and stubborn guy and i think he and rafer shared those same qualities so he basically fought fire with fire. i remember watching an interview where sam admitted he made mistakes back then. look at his personality now; surprisingly this is much toned down from how he was before.

[Graham's Cracker]

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rafer was a good player. and not to let rafer off the hook but i think sam deserves some of the blame for the rafer fiasco. sam was a rookie head coach at that time and he was trying to establish control and was still unsure of how to handle certain situations. and since he's such an outspoken, passionate and stubborn guy and i think he and rafer shared those same qualities so he basically fought fire with fire. i remember watching an interview where sam admitted he made mistakes back then. look at his personality now; surprisingly this is much toned down from how he was before.

Good point. I remember Dumars commenting on Sam's style when he was a rookie head coach saying his abrasive style 'would never work' or something to that effect.

Good on Sam to recognize a flaw and correct it.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Leo said in the Last game that BC started rebuilding the team with a focus on character, but I think that plan was already being put in place by Babcock. BC deserves his credit mind you, but I though the rebuilding with character focus also came from Babcock, but he rarely gets credit for it.