How overrated/underrated is Sam Presti?

[DijonRondo]

Seriously, people have been raving this guy for bringing KD, Harden, Westbrook, and Ibaka together.

Trades away Green for Perkins.

Trades away James Harden for a bunch of loser pieces.

Is hesitating/not considering amnestying Perkins, who had one of the worse playoff performances in NBA history, and is the worse starting player in the NBA.

I've heard plenty of people say that his drafts were not based on luck at all, however, it seems like his dude is just completely incompetent and vastly overrated.

Has he even signed any good free agents?

Derek Fisher?

Rockets, Spurs, Celtics, Lakers, Nuggets, and Miami all have better GMs than OKC.

[The Rebel]

Presti is a damn good drafter, however being in the smallest market in the league has left him in a bad position when it comes to keeping the players he drafted. It amazes me how much crap he gets for trading players when it is obvious he is under orders to trade them due to team money restrictions.

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Trade your 6th man for a rookie, lotto pick, and a new 6th man is not so bad when you consider the alternative was to trade your only starting quality PF, cause you have to cut future payroll.

[TheAlchemist]

Presti is a damn good drafter, however being in the smallest market in the league has left him in a bad position when it comes to keeping the players he drafted. It amazes me how much crap he gets for trading players when it is obvious he is under orders to trade them due to team money restrictions.

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Trade your 6th man for a rookie, lotto pick, and a new 6th man is not so bad when you consider the alternative was to trade your only starting quality PF, cause you have to cut future payroll.

If I were him, I'd just resign.

I'm sure there's at least 25 teams out there that would die to get him as GM. It's his career at the stake and championships do matter.

Can't say OKC will win it all now.

[tmallory]

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Perk was trash the day the trade was made, stop it

[DijonRondo]

Presti is a damn good drafter, however being in the smallest market in the league has left him in a bad position when it comes to keeping the players he drafted. It amazes me how much crap he gets for trading players when it is obvious he is under orders to trade them due to team money restrictions.

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Trade your 6th man for a rookie, lotto pick, and a new 6th man is not so bad when you consider the alternative was to trade your only starting quality PF, cause you have to cut future payroll.

I think you're seriously underrating how precious Harden was to that OKC team. "6th man" is such a deceptive word. It was a bad move nonetheless and Presti should've seen it from the beginning. Perkins was absolute trash ever since the trade and he should've been amnestied a year ago.

[Warspite]

Im not that impressed with his drafting. Not sure Ibaka cancels out the bad picks. Draftng Harden is worthless if you have to give him away because you cant manage the cap. For Presti maybe drafting Thabeet would have been better because at least he can afford to keep him.

[TheAlchemist]

Im not that impressed with his drafting. Not sure Ibaka cancels out the bad picks. Draftng Harden is worthless if you have to give him away because you cant manage the cap. For Presti maybe drafting Thabeet would have been better because at least he can afford to keep him.

Just cause you make a horrible horrible trade, doesn't mean you don't draft well. He drafts exceptionally well. Westbrook was taken like 5-8 slots higher then anyone else would of taken him.

[DijonRondo]

Im not that impressed with his drafting. Not sure Ibaka cancels out the bad picks. Draftng Harden is worthless if you have to give him away because you cant manage the cap. For Presti maybe drafting Thabeet would have been better because at least he can afford to keep him.

Just cause you make a horrible horrible trade, doesn't mean you don't draft well. He drafts exceptionally well. Westbrook was taken like 5-8 slots higher then anyone else would of taken him.

There are GMs that draft much better than him. That was what I was kind of alluding to in the OP. C'mon, he was in the lottery for those years, it's not THAT hard. I haven't seen him draft any kind of exceptional talent in a shallow drafting class in the 15-30 range.

[boateng]

why do fans lie to suit their agenda?

Westbrook wasnt a sure pick? Many had him outside the top 10. Westbrook wasn't valued in college let alone a top 4 pick.

That was a great pick by presti. No one saw Westbrook being a top 10 player like he is today

[Maroko]

yes he made a terrible choice by picking Perkins !

i will explain why he is overrated as GM for a 2 bigs reasons :

- He simply didnt anticipated that new trend in the NBA with the small ball, in fact he could have been the first to implement it with : Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Green and Ibaka !

- And he didnt manage to ask Durant and Westbrook to take less money when he knows that OKC cant go over the salary cap, i mean for me it was a sign to Harden " we are taking the max to give you the crumbs"

[The Rebel]

Presti is a damn good drafter, however being in the smallest market in the league has left him in a bad position when it comes to keeping the players he drafted. It amazes me how much crap he gets for trading players when it is obvious he is under orders to trade them due to team money restrictions.

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Trade your 6th man for a rookie, lotto pick, and a new 6th man is not so bad when you consider the alternative was to trade your only starting quality PF, cause you have to cut future payroll.

I think you're seriously underrating how precious Harden was to that OKC team. "6th man" is such a deceptive word. It was a bad move nonetheless and Presti should've seen it from the beginning. Perkins was absolute trash ever since the trade and he should've been amnestied a year ago.

Funny Perkins was trash, yet the Thunder took a large step forward after that deal, could it be that with the leadership/ attitude he brought as well as the upgrade he provided at center that maybe just maybe he was a huge reason for that difference?

As for Harden being precious, sure he was, but was he more precious then Durant or Westbrook? Thunder do not have the money to pay 3 max contracts, and that was what it was going to take to keep Harden. Like it or not finances are a part of every business, and basketball is no exception. Ignoring money playing a factor in moves that teams make is ignorant at best.

[DijonRondo]

why do fans lie to suit their agenda?

Westbrook wasnt a sure pick? Many had him outside the top 10. Westbrook wasn't valued in college let alone a top 4 pick.

That was a great pick by presti. No one saw Westbrook being a top 10 player like he is today

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/rus ... t-history/

I didn't even follow the NBA back then, so I won't try and lie about whether there was hype on the guy or not.

DraftExpress did rank him as top 10 days before the draft though, probably after they evaluated his workouts.

I think Love would have been the better pick, but that's just me.

[The Rebel]

yes he made a terrible choice by picking Perkins !

i will explain why he is overrated as GM for a 2 bigs reasons :

- He simply didnt anticipated that new trend in the NBA with the small ball, in fact he could have been the first to implement it with : Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Green and Ibaka !

- And he didnt manage to ask Durant and Westbrook to take less money when he knows that OKC cant go over the salary cap, i mean for me it was a sign to Harden " we are taking the max to give you the crumbs"

Sure a couple of young superstars willing to stay in a small market are also going to take a large paycut so that another guy can get a max deal, that has happened 1 time to my recollection.

[Apollo64]

Westbrook was his finest pick. Ibaka was a decent pick as well. Durant and Harden were easy picks that any other GM would have made (also lucky ones, Oden and Thabeet picked before them). Messed the Cole Aldrich pick. Overpaid Ibaka. The Perkins trade was good at that time and improved the team defensively, it's another story now that Perkins wasn't good this season. The Harden trade severely weakened OKC, but it seems that it was an ownership decision, at least he did some damage control getting some value out of him.

[DijonRondo]

Presti is a damn good drafter, however being in the smallest market in the league has left him in a bad position when it comes to keeping the players he drafted. It amazes me how much crap he gets for trading players when it is obvious he is under orders to trade them due to team money restrictions.

Take Green for Perkins, he needed a center and for as bad as Perkins has become at the time Perkins came in and changed that team and made them considerably better then Green did.

Trade your 6th man for a rookie, lotto pick, and a new 6th man is not so bad when you consider the alternative was to trade your only starting quality PF, cause you have to cut future payroll.

I think you're seriously underrating how precious Harden was to that OKC team. "6th man" is such a deceptive word. It was a bad move nonetheless and Presti should've seen it from the beginning. Perkins was absolute trash ever since the trade and he should've been amnestied a year ago.

Funny Perkins was trash, yet the Thunder took a large step forward after that deal, could it be that with the leadership/ attitude he brought as well as the upgrade he provided at center that maybe just maybe he was a huge reason for that difference?

As for Harden being precious, sure he was, but was he more precious then Durant or Westbrook? Thunder do not have the money to pay 3 max contracts, and that was what it was going to take to keep Harden. Like it or not finances are a part of every business, and basketball is no exception. Ignoring money playing a factor in moves that teams make is ignorant at best.

1) Is OKC's success based on Perkins' leadership, or the fact that the young core they had in place actually progressed and grew up? I think this is the first time I've heard someone attribute their playoff success to Perkins as a major factor. Sure his intangibles are great, but only if you're an effective player on court, which he clearly isn't.

2) Couldn't the Thunder sign Harden to a max deal and be under the cap if they had amnestied Perkins? I have no idea about the cap or anything like that. Enlighten me.

[ElectricMayhem]

Give any GM enough chances and they'll royally screw up plenty of times and they'll look like a genius plenty of times. It's the ones that are lucky enough to look like a genius first that stick around.

Before Presti, there was Joe Dumars. He became the golden boy after scraping together the championship team with miscellaneous parts after the wretched teal era. He followed that up with a bunch of horrible moves - signing CV and Ben Gordon, giving away Afflalo, resigning Tay and Rip, trading giving up a pick to trade Gordon for Maggette, hiring the last few coaches....He has made some good moves recently as well, but GMing is an inexact science. Everyone will suffer bad moves now and again.

[nyc6]

I don't know any tier 1 businessmen that are ever on the seller side of an off-market deal involving a major asset

Presti should have shopped harden at 2012 trade deadline and get 125% on the dollar instead of waiting till last minute and getting 25% on the dollar

[dike77]

Presti drafted great but he also always had luck.

He had luck that they got #2 instead of the Oden #1. Didnt like the Green pick in the same draft. Brilliant would have been reaching for Noah, most mocks had him at #7 and Green at #6.

Westbrook was a nice reach, but again Love went #5 and several mock drafts had Love at #5. Ibaka at #24 was really nice but 2008 was a really really nice deep draft with plenty of good/great player drafted #20 or lower. After Ibaka: Batum, G.Hill, Peko, Asik, Dragic, Jordan, Chalmers.

In 2009 Harden with #3. Straight after in most mocks: Evans, Rubio, Curry. Again not really so hard not to draft well.

[Optimus_Steel]

Im not that impressed with his drafting. Not sure Ibaka cancels out the bad picks. Draftng Harden is worthless if you have to give him away because you cant manage the cap. For Presti maybe drafting Thabeet would have been better because at least he can afford to keep him.

Just cause you make a horrible horrible trade, doesn't mean you don't draft well. He drafts exceptionally well. Westbrook was taken like 5-8 slots higher then anyone else would of taken him.

This is not true. I remember reading the mock draft websites before the draft and seeing this Westbrook guy who I never heard of at the time, bouncing all over the top 5 & top 10.

Just thinking about it, If this team would have drafted Noah instead of Green there would be no need for Perkins.

[Viatical]

Every league needs that one garbage GM who can help disseminate great talent to other teams and keep the league strong. Kahn held the position for a while, but now it's fallen to Sam Presti.

James Harden for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, and a draft pick in an historically weak draft? Jeff Green for Kendrick Perkins? Just keep doing what you're doing, Presti. We'll fix this parity problem yet.