Samurai wrote:sonnyhill wrote:Samurai wrote:The ones I was thinking of were Parish (traded him because we drafted our "franchise" center in Joe Barely Cares) who became a Hall of Famer in Boston, Williams (we used him as a back-up; I thought it was crazy that we gave Dudley roughly the same minutes!) who became a starter and 2-time All Star in Seattle, and Wilkes (tried making him a PF despite having the physique of a dipstick) and of course became a Hall of Famer with the Lakers who correctly put him back as a SF.
Parish, Gus, and Wilkes...sigh...
Trading Parish and McHale for JB Carroll and Rickey Brown
I remember listening to Scotty Sterling being interviewed on KNBR about losing Gus and he actually said "Ricky Green is already a better player than Gus Williams will ever hope to be."
Instead of having Barry (who had a larger frame than Wilkes) also guard power forwards, it was all on Wilkes.
Yup, those were the examples I recall. And we ended up trading Rickey Green for a 2nd round pick after his rookie year with us, although that turned out well for us since we were able to get Mr. Mean with that pick. But as a Warrior fan, I thought Williams was a far superior PG than Dudley; Grasshopper was a great rebounder for a PG but his outside shooting made Oubre look good. And we didn't even receive anything for Gus other than cash compensation. And playing Wilkes as a power forward just had to be one of the dumbest coaching/operational decisions this team ever made.
But to answer mos def's question, I don't think we drafted bad players. Two hall of famers and a two-time All Star would be closer to being considered drafting good players in my book rather than drafting bad players. I just don't think we did a good job on developing them and putting them in optimal roles to be successful and I am hoping that we can do a better job with Paschall as a Warrior than we did in those three instances.
There needs to be organizational alignment between the front office and the coaching staff. Yes, the team (due to its championship run) has had to draft outside of the lottery; yet, Samurai, you are correct, talent (after identified and acquired) has to be developed. Both Paschall and Lee look like they may, indeed, become strong rotational players, and the front office, the coaching staff and the two players should be commended for this.
I am confused, however, as to what the team sees in Smiley (as much as I would love to see him develop/evolve).