Did You Ever Manage...A BC Reality Check

[Wo1verine]

Presumably, BC isn't doing any basketball-related final decision making for the Raptors anymore, so all of this is moot. That being said, I hope you one day realize how stupid your premise is - that anyone is above the criticism of those incapable of doing their job. You can't possibly believe this, right?

..

[Geddy]

RealGMers ripping on landry fields, ask yourselfs some questions...

Have you ever shot 40% in an nba season? Are you a heady player who shoots a high percentage from the field mostly off cuts? Are you capable of shooting 65% from the free throw line? Do you play reasonable nba defence? Have you ever been offered 3 million dollars per annum by multiple nba teams for your services on the basketball court?

Some of this landy fields hate is just getting ridiculous and I'm wondering how many of you are truly qualified to criticize his performance.

[lobosloboslobos]

RealGMers ripping on landry fields, ask yourselfs some questions...

Have you ever shot 40% in an nba season? Are you a heady player who shoots a high percentage from the field mostly off cuts? Are you capable of shooting 65% from the free throw line? Do you play reasonable nba defence? Have you ever been offered 3 million dollars per annum by multiple nba teams for your services on the basketball court?

Some of this landy fields hate is just getting ridiculous and I'm wondering how many of you are truly qualified to criticize his performance.

We don't know how to play basketball so we can't critique a basketball player. We don't understand the sports business climate so why can't critique the heads at MLSE.

Shutdown this forum now, nothing to talk about.

Hey I never tried to tell you what you can or can't talk about. I don't expect anything I said to stop people shooting their mouth off, including you. Go for it. Knock yourself out.

But just for the record, can I take your response as a "It's true, I actually have no idea why Leiwicke kept BC and whether or not it's good for the team...?"

[J-Roc]

This thread is an excellent reminder that Bryan Colangelo never really knew much about basketball.

[lobosloboslobos]

Job's hard. Well paid. Needs unique skills. One in a million get hired to do it.

Do it well and you're uber rewarded. Do it badly and you get fired. Like most managerial positions.

Colangelo, possibly the nicest guy in the world and the life of the party, has done an objectively poor job here in Toronto as the Raptors GM. And is as right, and to be expected, he has been held accountable for his performance and has not had his contract renewed. As often happens in big corporations, though, he will still be paid handsomely to refrain from doing his job.

Fair enough. Maybe he will actually contribute something in his capacity too. But even if it was a temporary shunting aside to give him time to make a move, why is that so bad? I just don't understand the hate. It's not your money or mine paying him. Why does that mean MLSE is incompetent and slimy and cowardly and all the things people are yelling?

anyway...whatever, just wanted to provide a different angle...got to go...

[roundhead0]

I've said it all along that BC seems good at the business and marketing side. Seems like a smooth schmoozer to help bring in some bucks.

But the side of the business that deals with the on-the-court product leaves very much to be desired. To some extent I sympatrhize with him because his hand was forced early on to put talent around Bosh to keep him from bolting, and then later by his short contract extension. But even having said that he has made some really, really bad deals and those are crippling to the team going forward. The team is in a mess. The Landry Fields contract IMO was the last straw.

[KobeDwightPau]

His moves speak for itself. I wouldn't have made the same decisions he made.

[Meursault]

I work for a Fortune 20 company and manage a business worth about $600 million in annual sales. In terms of what I've seen with this whole BC debacle, this "upwards promotion" in spite of incompetence, multiple reporting channels (both formal and informal), deck shuffling for the sake of not ruffling a few feathers, and career progression (or lack of demotion) due to astute networking and patronage from key stakeholders - well, I see it here as well.

I attribute much of the "dead weight" and inefficiency of my organization to all of the aforementioned factors - factors which are characteristic of most bureaucracies. Ideally, you'd love to get rid of them, as would most, but the institutional path dependencies and various checks-and-balances that exist make such an endeavor fruitless. As an individual, you have the choice to either: 1) play by the rules of the game and catapult your career by playing your cards right; 2) or disengage/accept the status quo and get on with things.

People I know who challenge the structure and authority, for the most part, suffer a nervous breakdown, quit, and/or get dismissed/disciplined and pushed out of the company (sometimes rightfully for poor performance, often due to some nebulous and higher form of 'injustice').

[lobosloboslobos]

I work for a Fortune 20 company and manage a business worth about $600 million in annual sales. In terms of what I've seen with this whole BC debacle, this "upwards promotion" in spite of incompetence, multiple reporting channels (both formal and informal), deck shuffling for the sake of not ruffling a few feathers, and career progression (or lack of demotion) due to astute networking and patronage from key stakeholders - well, I see it here as well.

I attribute much of the "dead weight" and inefficiency of my organization to all of the aforementioned factors - factors which are characteristic of most bureaucracies. Ideally, you'd love to get rid of them, as would most, but the institutional path dependencies and various checks-and-balances that exist make such an endeavor fruitless. As an individual, you have the choice to either: 1) play by the rules of the game and catapult your career by playing your cards right; 2) or disengage/accept the status quo and get on with things.

People I know who challenge the structure and authority, for the most part, suffer a nervous breakdown, quit, and/or get dismissed/disciplined and pushed out of the company (sometimes rightfully for poor performance, often due to some nebulous and higher form of 'injustice').

Hey, nice post, thanks. I don't usually think of MLSE as a bureaucracy but no doubt, as you say, as a large organization it probably is. I think your premise is a reasonable hypoethesis, that BC's failure to be held more quickly and publicly to account (i.e. fired) could be due to the machinations and inertia of a bureaucracy and BC's ability to manipulate it. But having said that, as far as large organizations go, there can be no doubt that a financially successful NBA team has some very very high thresholds of performance and productivity to meet at multiple levels, which bureaucracies have difficulty executing. So that leads me to believe that although MLSE is probably bureaucratic to a degree, that the need to put on competitive games for 20,000 people and millions of fans night after night means it is probably one of the more nimble businesses around. But I could be way off base since I don't know anyone who has worked there. Anyone here able to comment on that?

[hillbilly hare]

Job's hard. Well paid. Needs unique skills. One in a million get hired to do it.

Do it well and you're uber rewarded. Do it badly and you get fired. Like most managerial positions.

Colangelo, possibly the nicest guy in the world and the life of the party, has done an objectively poor job here in Toronto as the Raptors GM. And is as right, and to be expected, he has been held accountable for his performance and has not had his contract renewed. As often happens in big corporations, though, he will still be paid handsomely to refrain from doing his job.

Fair enough. Maybe he will actually contribute something in his capacity too. But even if it was a temporary shunting aside to give him time to make a move, why is that so bad? I just don't understand the hate. It's not your money or mine paying him. Why does that mean MLSE is incompetent and slimy and cowardly and all the things people are yelling?

anyway...whatever, just wanted to provide a different angle...got to go...

Please don't put words, in particular highly negative adjectives, in my mouth. Mine is a pretty objective look at things from a distance. Colangelo did a poor job as GM. Period. Luckily, finally, better late than never, he has been relieved of GM duties. As stated, it would've been better a year ago, but so be it.

As to any other contribution he might make in his new role here, I am skeptical. Will offering his suggestions to the new GM help or hinder? How much second guessing will be done? Will he take partial merit for any good moves and distance himself from any bad?

On the PR and marketing side, on the franchise value side, some pretty bizarre myths have surfaced on the board over the last few months, i.e. that despite all his bad GM decisions, Colangelo has been kept on because he's made the franchise more profitable and more valuable. But that is simply untrue. The value of the team, as per Forbes, has risen over the last 5 years, but nowhere near as much as almost every other team. Basketball teams' value has grown steadily as b-ball has become a super popular sport worldwide. In other words, with Colangelo at the helm, the franchise has not increased in value as much as would be expected. How much of the negative impact on same can be attributed to Colangelo?

[Guy Smiley]

I work for a Fortune 20 company and manage a business worth about $600 million in annual sales. In terms of what I've seen with this whole BC debacle, this "upwards promotion" in spite of incompetence, multiple reporting channels (both formal and informal), deck shuffling for the sake of not ruffling a few feathers, and career progression (or lack of demotion) due to astute networking and patronage from key stakeholders - well, I see it here as well.

I attribute much of the "dead weight" and inefficiency of my organization to all of the aforementioned factors - factors which are characteristic of most bureaucracies. Ideally, you'd love to get rid of them, as would most, but the institutional path dependencies and various checks-and-balances that exist make such an endeavor fruitless. As an individual, you have the choice to either: 1) play by the rules of the game and catapult your career by playing your cards right; 2) or disengage/accept the status quo and get on with things.

People I know who challenge the structure and authority, for the most part, suffer a nervous breakdown, quit, and/or get dismissed/disciplined and pushed out of the company (sometimes rightfully for poor performance, often due to some nebulous and higher form of 'injustice').

I had to turn on my And1 function for this post.

This is a man that understands corporate structure and the way things work.

I wish there were more posts of this calibre on this forum.

[The_Hater]

Running a huge organization is difficult, nobody disputes that. But it's not a built in excuse for failure because there are several people out there that have handled the same job successfully.

[And1Skip]

The Raptors "fan" side of me (been living and breathing Raps since their inception) will say BC was a failure in regards to the on-court performance of the team. So was Glen Grunwald, and obviously so was Rob Babcock.

However, as someone who has been an on-and-off season ticket holder over last 18 years and watched hundreds of games at the ACC, I would say the off-court experience has been the best during BC's era and that includes NBA TV Canada, the brand, and marketing. Although my little one is only a month old, I look forward to bringing her to games next season just because I've seen how much babies and kids enjoy the experience at Raptors games at the ACC. I would rather bring my kids to a Raptors game than a Leafs, TFC, Marlies or Blue Jays game.

So it really depends how you define "basketball operations". How much of "operations" of a company do you attribute to the actual on-court production. That should be an obvious answer though...why have an NBA team when all you care about is entertainment and not actually winning or losing? But then again, many teams go through cycles of winning and losing and this Raptors cycle has been excessively long. Fortunately, even though the Raptors have been losing, the entertainment factor (for the target market like families, not die-hard fans like you or I) has not really taken a hit. So BC has succeeded on that front. He's just not good at building a championship roster.

[EG73]

How many medical operations do you need to have successfully performed to know that you shouldn't leave forceps inside someone?

It's not as simple as most people may think ! Everybody knows you shouldn't leave instruments inside the patient. But it can happen to a great surgeon with a lot of experience (my wife and I are surgeon and anesthesiologist) in some situation, despite a lot of vigilance, checklists, etc.
This is the same for BC job: It's not as simple as most people may think ! For example when he is thinking about a trade he probably has far more information to consider than a realgm forum user.
(but even if I seem do defend BC, I agree that decisions about the roster in the last 12 months were really bad)

[BetterCallSaul]

I manage/operate/part own a business with approx. 15-20 staff.

The most important thing I can say about it is that the saying, "if you want something done right, do it yourself" is my bible. Never trust an employee to care about what you want done the way you care about it.

It doesn't really relate to being a basketball GM

[BetterCallSaul]

I work for a Fortune 20 company and manage a business worth about $600 million in annual sales. In terms of what I've seen with this whole BC debacle, this "upwards promotion" in spite of incompetence, multiple reporting channels (both formal and informal), deck shuffling for the sake of not ruffling a few feathers, and career progression (or lack of demotion) due to astute networking and patronage from key stakeholders - well, I see it here as well.

I attribute much of the "dead weight" and inefficiency of my organization to all of the aforementioned factors - factors which are characteristic of most bureaucracies. Ideally, you'd love to get rid of them, as would most, but the institutional path dependencies and various checks-and-balances that exist make such an endeavor fruitless. As an individual, you have the choice to either: 1) play by the rules of the game and catapult your career by playing your cards right; 2) or disengage/accept the status quo and get on with things.

People I know who challenge the structure and authority, for the most part, suffer a nervous breakdown, quit, and/or get dismissed/disciplined and pushed out of the company (sometimes rightfully for poor performance, often due to some nebulous and higher form of 'injustice').

I had to turn on my And1 function for this post.

This is a man that understands corporate structure and the way things work.

I wish there were more posts of this calibre on this forum.

Despite the fact that my business is a 15-20 person staff business, I completely agree. THere are many instances where you realize that striking your issue head on the way you want, isn't actually the smartest way to do it.
Most of the time it's trying to fire someone who is "higher up" than the other employees and has made some connections and still may provide you with some value. You kind of have to find a way to slowly ease them out of their position, bring in people who will eventually be able to take over for all the things they do and then get that person to leave amicably on their own accord.

Firing/getting rid of people is simply harder than it seems. Unless of course they're one of the constantly temporary/replaceable part of the business.

[Alfred]

How many medical operations do you need to have successfully performed to know that you shouldn't leave forceps inside someone?

It's not as simple as most people may think ! Everybody knows you shouldn't leave instruments inside the patient. But it can happen to a great surgeon with a lot of experience (my wife and I are surgeon and anesthesiologist) in some situation, despite a lot of vigilance, checklists, etc.
This is the same for BC job: It's not as simple as most people may think ! For example when he is thinking about a trade he probably has far more information to consider than a realgm forum user.
(but even if I seem do defend BC, I agree that decisions about the roster in the last 12 months were really bad)

I'm sure it does happen. However, you don't have to be a surgeon to know that you aren't supposed to leave instruments inside someone, just like you don't have to be an engineer to know that bridges aren't supposed to collapse, or an NBA General Manager to know that signing Landry Fields to a 20 million dollar contract is a bad idea.

[Alfred]

I think that most people are simply pointing out that the OP is making a logically fallacious argument.

[Patman]

Thread should be re-named to "I Have Management Experience and Want You To Know About It"

[J-Roc]

I manage/operate/part own a business with approx. 15-20 staff.

The most important thing I can say about it is that the saying, "if you want something done right, do it yourself" is my bible. Never trust an employee to care about what you want done the way you care about it.

It doesn't really relate to being a basketball GM

You sir, are wasting money on the wrong employees. You need to get better employees and give them incentive to work as hard as you want them to.

All right, lemme get back to surfing RealGM.