Larry Harris appreciation thread

RideEmCowboy24 · Post #1 » by **RideEmCowboy24** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:22 am

a lot of us forget what this man had to work with in the beginning....he's made some bad moves, no doubt....but i think the good he's done certainly outweighs the bad

he's not he best exec in the league, but who knows what he could have done had kohl not been in the way...

so whether you're a LH hater, or a LH butt kisser like myself....let's pay our respects to a man that fielded a .500 team out of scrubs like brian skinner, daniel santiago, and erick strickland

larry, thanks for your time here, and good luck wherever you end up

:clap:

ReddManBogieMan · Post #2 » by **ReddManBogieMan** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:49 am

Consider me a Larry Harris butt kisser. :oops:

I think that this move will be regretted, and the players and moves he made will pay off down the road.

I appreciate the fact that he left the bucks with better talent than there was when he got here. :clap:

Going to miss note having "The Snake" making moves after he said he wasn't or pulling a shocker out of left field (TJ-CV).

I believe that LH will get another shot at being a GM somewhere else and he will do a great job. Say what you want to but the man is very knowledgeable and had a very strong passion for Bucks basketball.

I have to admit that I wish he wasn't "let go", because I believed that he could figure it out, but with all the attention Herb was getting and the bad record the last 1 1/2 seasons someone had to take the fall.

It was also cool to have a GM that would take time to e-mail back fans. How many other GM's do that?

You're a cool guy Mr. Harris. :cool:

You rocked as GM.
Sad to see you go, but this bucks fan appreciates everything you did.
God bless. :usa:

ReddManBogieMan · Post #3 » by **ReddManBogieMan** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:26 am

At least Harris didn't leave the team in ruins like the last guy (Grunsfield) did.
http://www.sportsline.com/nba/story/6452912
Reading that article makes me remember how that year set the franchise back about 10 years.
:noway:

Herb blew up the Big 3 and let the GM go because he thought MJ was going to buy it. Thanks Herb. :nonono:

EDIT: I found another article from that era that takes you down memory lane.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=1584603&type=columnist

And another article about Harris hiring Terry Porter.
http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/stein_marc/1590459.html

He had squat to work with, and that's an understatement.

Sigra · Post #4 » by **Sigra** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:32 am

I can't blame Harris for Simmons injury
I can't blame Harris for Kohl's choises of coaches
I can't blame Harris for Kohl's decision to draft Yi
I can't blame Harris for not doing great trades that Kohl didn't allow
I can't blame Harris for re-sign of Mo

I just can't blame Harris

benultimate · Post #5 » by **benultimate** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:06 am

seemed like a pretty cool guy, I hope he succeeds at another nba club

europa · Post #6 » by **europa** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:47 am

I have always praised Harris for the work he did initially given the mess he inherited. He made some astute moves while working on the cheap. Players like Damon Jones, Brian Skinner and even Daniel Santiago played key roles in the playoff team in Harris' first season. In his second, he made what was arguably his best low-cost move when he signed Mo from Utah. He also made a sharp trade in acquiring Zaza Pachulia for a second-round pick and I thought he did a masterful job with the Van Horn and James trades, which cleared out cap room to enable the team to not only be in a strong position the following summer to retain Michael Redd, but also be a major player in free agency. In his third season, he found Charlie Bell overseas, another good low-cost move.

upnorthfan · Post #7 » by **upnorthfan** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:01 pm

Nothing I say here is personal. In his five year rein, in an Eastern Conference that has been so watered down that at any one time there was maybe two really good teams, Harris still lost gound to the other bad teams.

Nice guy, always cordial and giving of time when asked, but nice guy aside, he didn't get it done.

Signing Gadz instead of Zaza, trading second round pick in this years draft, letting Ersan go, bringing Mason back, just so many things.

Kohl was a meddler and he drafted Yi because his Dad said so, leaves me to believe he isn't a true leader, actually kind of weak in that area. If I am the one going down swinging I am going to see this kid in person, regardless of who else says so.

Now I know my son would believe me blindly, and Yi was a good pick, but NOT going to even check him out over the two years prior to the 2007 draft when you may be in position to draft him, tells me some things about our Ex GM I don't like. Danny Ainge by comparison went to China six times to watch Yi play.

In his interviews when asked about why his team is bad in this area or that area, Harris often times had answers like "well, other teams are like that in that area". IOW, he must have thought that because other teams accepted mediocrity, it justified his team's poor ply.

He reminds me of the famous picture at the NFL Combine where Mike Sherman is sleeping. Harris was as well on his watch.

Summary: Larry Harris could be pushed around. Bye Larry, have one on us as you exit.

SidTheMan4 · Post #8 » by **SidTheMan4** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:31 pm

Thanks for being a cocky self promoter. Thanks for 2 meaningless plalyoff wins in your tenure. Good luck in your used car salesman job.

Post #9 » by **paulpressey25** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:49 pm

I give Larry a ton of credit for his first moves that got the Bucks to the point they were in June of 2005. He took over a situation as bad as the Knicks in some respects. And he cleaned up the car......

The problem was from June 2005 onward, virtually every move has turned out badly.....

I also think Larry is owed a big thank you for making RealGM what it is today. Because he didn't succeed, no one will remember him for it, but he was perhaps the first pro sports general manager to make the transition to the interactive fan age.

Think about it....all the personal emails....all those nights at Fitzgibbons....all those call in radio shows......

That my friends is the future of pro sports....interactivity. And while the last year sucked, he made the first four extremely entertaining for this board. And entertainment is what it is all about.

He loved living here....never bad-mouthed the place....he was one of us.....and we can't judge him really until a year or two from now. If Bogut and Yi pan out as all-stars we'll look back on him as the architect of it all......

Now do I think that will happen? No. But I'm ready to acknowledge it if it does.

Neapolitan Buck · Post #10 » by **Neapolitan Buck** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:16 pm

It wasn't easy to work with Mr. Kohl's shade over him...I hope he can find a place where he will be allowed to make moves and create a team by his like...I don't know if he really is a good GM, but I know that I'm going to miss a GM that wrote e-mails answering my questions.

LockDownD · Post #11 » by **LockDownD** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:18 pm

Thanks for hiring Porter, thanks for trading away crap for crap, thanks for........thats all I got. strong start, disastrous finish, we are in no better shape than when he started.

LUKE23 · Post #12 » by **LUKE23** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:37 pm

I liked LH. Yes according to those in the know he was a snake and a car salesman type, but I always liked his personality. With regards to personnel moves, he was a good drafter (Ford, Bogut, Yi), and a pretty solid guy with regards to outside free agency (Mo was a steal, Bell initially was a steal, getting Simmons to come here even though that didn't work out, no one thought he had a shot at him). I'd say his trades were pretty average overall (not terrible, just didn't really help us gain any ground with CV/TJ, Mason/15 for Magloire, TT for KVH, 2nd rounder for Markota) and his resigning of his own players (Redd, Bell and Gadzuric mainly, I'm fine with what Mo got) really seemed to be moves of desperation.

Hard to rank him anything but an average GM, but I will wait and say this is a good move losing him until I see who we replace him with.

LISTEN2JAZZ · Post #13 » by **LISTEN2JAZZ** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:07 pm

PP wrote:I also think Larry is owed a big thank you for making RealGM what it is today. Because he didn't succeed, no one will remember him for it, but he was perhaps the first pro sports general manager to make the transition to the interactive fan age.

Think about it....all the personal emails....all those nights at Fitzgibbons....all those call in radio shows......

I was going to post something similar but I'll just quote you instead

THE DINJ · Post #14 » by **THE DINJ** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:25 pm

I like Harris and I'm pretty sure that whoever is picked as his successor is going to be universally disliked by people on this forum within a year.

worthlessBucks · Post #17 » by **WEFFPIM** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:50 pm

I'll miss Larry's willingness to do the radio show or speak publicly, I think we were very spoiled to have that and we'll miss it in the future. It was time for him to go though, he put too much faith in those 2 clowns at guard (whether or not he had any control to fix that).

Plissken will land on his feet somewhere.

Go Bucks!