OT - The nature of the GM job

[evildallas]

It's been a weird off-season for GMs. Mike Pritchard who has amassed a very talented roster in Portland is shown the door. Jeff Bower who had a wonderful draft in 2009 and made a good trade to get under the cap this year is let go. At the same time Chris Wallace gets an extension, David Kahn continues to blunder in Minnesota, and Isiah Thomas is rumored to possibly come back to the Knicks. I'm not sure what criteria some owners use in evaluating GMs.

[azuresou1]

Most owners are dumb. There are, like, a handful of good owners: Jerry Buss, Peter Holt, Mark Cuban and... that's about it?

[theatlfan]

Eh, I think there's a lot more to being a GM than just the draft. Sure, it's a key component, but honestly, the draft should be more dependent on your scouting department than the GM. Yeah, the GM has to trust the scouting department and does make some calls, but GMs who make their names through the draft are generally overrated. Considering that you can simply buy draft picks (ala POR) to acquire talent in the latter parts of the 1st and anywhere in the 2nd, the GM makes his name by just being a liason between the scouting department who's telling him that the guy is good and the owner who has to write the check. It's like a player who makes a name for himself by scoring a lot and doing nothing else - it's nice and it'll get your name in the paper, but the player isn't really that good.

I've typically divided GMs into 2 categories: a "prospect lover" - someone who consistently builds through the draft and wouldn't do a deal unless he acquires a prospect or future draft pick; and a "veteran lover" - someone who'd deal prospects and/or picks like yesterday's news in an attempt to "go for it" now. "Prospect lovers" typically look at the value of the prospect regardless of how he'd fit into the current rotation of the team; "Veteran Lovers" will more often take on larger contracts even if it destroys their cap flexibility down the road as long as he thinks the player acquired is the perfect fit. For a team in rebuilding mode, you need the "prospect lover" so that you can have something to build from. At some point though, you've got to transition to more of a "veteran lover" if you truly expect the team to take the next step.

This is where Pritchard failed - he never made that transition. Every year he had (or simply created) some incredible asset - from Raef LaFretz' "super-expiring" contract to pure cap space to recent draftees that hadn't lost their luster to 5 different Eurostash guys that should be in the NBA, but their roster was just too loaded - to make a trade for a truly valuable component to their team. Even though they were in rumors for the biggest guy on the market every deadline or off-season, they never really landed "that guy"... and they also never made it out of the 1st round. You'd have to wonder if they could have gotten past HOU last year if they had a 3rd guy who was a threat to score in double digits or PHO this year if they had someone to take up the slack for Roy.

Not as clear about your complaints on the others though. Admittedly, I'm a little fuzzy on the actual hiring date for any of these guys, but I wouldn't look at any of this and think that the owner is "dumb" (well, unless NYK brings back Isaiah in any form... outside of his ineptitude as GM, you really can't link yourself to former employees who had a sexual harassment lawsuit while he was employed with you). Bower didn't exactly manage his team's finance like UTH who has been perennially against the cap, but always seems to unload a contract or 2 while still competing. Also, the trade for Okafor's contract will be a huge burden for 4 more years. Wallace has done a decent job with MEM. He swung the deal for Mayo, got Marc Gasol when he had to deal Pau (and 3 1st round picks to boot), and he pulled the trigger on the Z-Bo deal last year. No, his draft record isn't that great (Conley, Thabeet), but he's found talent in trades - there are a lot of scouts who can be bought fairly cheaply, but you can't always find a guy who's able to swing deals like these. Kahn is still a newbie and really can't be judged yet. If the team is still a mess during the '11-'12 season, then Kahn failed, but I'm not sure if we can judge what he's doing until we see a finished product... and we're nowhere close to that yet.

[td00]

GM review:

1) Isiah Thomas - trainwreck as a GM and as a human being. Anyone who tries to use their kids to cover is a loser in life. Did I mention his destruction of the CBA?
2) Bowers 1st huge mistake - getting rid of Byron Scott. He is the only coach that has taken them anywhere, and that includes Allen Bristow, Paul Silas and Dave Cowens.
3) Kevin Pritchard - lots of $$ spent and has brought in very good talent....2 words - Greg Oden. The expectations are the highest there and they took awhile to put together a backup plan. They gave Andre Miller one year so far...he is the exception to all these firings. Paul Allen has become very impatient.
4) Chris Wallace is lucky to still have his job after gift wrapping Pau Gasol. He should be on TNT like McHale, who basically handed the Celtics the keys to another title run.

[evildallas]

I thought Bowers was a dead man last year when he took over for Byron Scott as coach, it was the classic prove to owner that the players I acquired weren't the problem. The team improved and if not for losing Chris Paul for half the season would have made a run at the playoffs. I thought Bowers did a good job with tight financial constraints, but if he was the guy who gave Peja that contract years ago then I can't defend him.

I forgot to mention Steve Kerr in the initial post, but perhaps they didn't forgive him for the initial Shaq experiment.

[evildallas]

I just read a Hollinger tweet that had Peja's signing on Bower's watch. I'm officially ok with firing him and think it should have occurred sooner.