I see everything Hands has written above as correct (and no joking or fooling around this time...). It's absolutely true that chance plays a huge role in the draft -- and elsewhere in the game. Not just the ping pong balls, but after all you are likely picking some 19 year old kid when you get the #1, and there's plenty of room for anything to happen to a guy that age. Leave aside questions of injury -- or of what the other guy does! After all, we all think well of Sam Presti, but what if Portland had taken Durant instead of Oden!
And it's also true that a GM has to do what the owner wants -- or work within the framework the owner sets. I take a backseat to no one in my criticism of EG, I think he's one of the worst GMs in several decades and it's astonishing that he's been given free reign to get nothing done for more than a decade! But it was Ted who blinked and stopped "rebuilding through youth and the draft" (from Ted's 10-point plan).
I don't even fault Ernie for failing to keep Kendall Marshall. The kid did nothing with the Suns last year, nothing at all, to make you think you should waive someone to keep him. And he and Marshall were only in the deal because otherwise it wouldn't pass muster -- salary totals too out of whack.
I blame Ernie for needing to make that trade, because he had no plan B when Okafor went down -- and that was *not* unlikely either! And for his miserable drafting. Horrible choices of FAs to sign (w/ the exception of Webster -- props for that), lack of vision, and his obvious self-satisfaction with the predictably mediocre results of his poorly-conceived moves.
