OT: What is the history of RealGM?

[Gary Cokeman]

It used to be outdoors and you could bring your pets, sadly things changed

Used to be home to revolutionary basketball minds also, the Shaq/Boykins offense springs to mind.


Edit: Shoutout to the GOAT RealGm poster Green Apple.

[AussieBuck]

Before the ubiquity of memes, the Portland Blazers board had a thread for some guy name Ha something. It was filled with a bunch of photoshops of him. If anyone could find that thread it would be awesome to revisit for some laughs lol.

It got migrated to the Bucks board when he got traded to us. We kinda let it die as we had other meme business at the time. Sorry.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Early 2000s, there was no social media, just forums. ESPN had their own which was the most popular. Fans from different teams were fighting eachother all the time, it was glorious. Then they shut them down for what I presume to be costs because they had quite literally millions of posts. Realgm filled that void quickly and has still remained popular, which is hard to do in the age of Twitter and Reddit.

there was usenet before that

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anybody here remember / used to read rec.sport.basketball.pro?

I still *must* write michael jordon since

[Bologna Smasher]

Who remembers when Charlie Bell posted on here under the "Flintstone" username. Jamal Crawford (and his sister) also posted on here. I heard Kurt Thomas used to be on here and another forum as well, but nobody ever figured out his username.

The Hawks board also used to get some people from their old ownership group who would give out free tickets.

[turnaroundJ]

To be honest. And I'm being real honest. Poor man's ISH.

[Letsgokings]

I've been on here since 2008 but I don't post as much as I did back then

[Michael Jackson]

Funny part is there were several users who joined RealGM strictly because of the Off-Topic board. I believe it got too out of hand drawing so many non-sports posters that RealGM decided to make the OT Board private so as the reduce lurkers who weren't posters. I could be wrong, though.

Sorta true but not exactly the story. I believe you reference the Other Off Topic Board known as the OOTB of TOOTBH. It wasn’t because of popularity it was closer to an Illuminati thing. Rumors were they were always influencing these boards and even got into some government and NBA team offices. It truly was the bohemian garden of posting.

[Sofia]

anyone remember when Johnathan Tjarks from RealGM asked Westbrook a question? I forget his response but it was funny

Jonathan Tsharks, realgm. Did they win this game or did you lose this game?

What? Bruh nah I’m out man. This n***** trippin

[Lalouie]

i think it's dangerous to ask

[Optimus_Steel]

I remember I found this place because I became terrified of the things being posted on the ESPN boards. That was a blackhole of thought.


I actually vaguely remember chatting with Howard Mass on AIM

[Sofia]

it was really bad, then tsherkin finally left
now its okay

I understand that he is a controversial figure on the general board, but tsherkin was a brilliant poster on the PC board. It definitely is worse off without his knowledge (especially given a lot of other knowledgeable, legendary posters no longer frequent there).

He probably seemed better because posters that disagreed and would’ve otherwise raised counter points were usually copping strikes.

Usually good opinions, always trash as a moderator.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

anyone remember when Johnathan Tjarks from RealGM asked Westbrook a question? I forget his response but it was funny

Jonathan Tsharks, realgm. Did they win this game or did you lose this game?

What? Bruh nah I’m out man. This n***** trippin

What posters became professionals, as far as we know?
It's very likely that I am not associating nickname and actual name, but I can think Givony, Snelling, Taylor... whoelse?

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[Flash Falcon X]

my shot in the dark too.

realgm used to break news too.
Realgms or FO staff would use this platform as a defacto type of secured transaction outlet.

So true.

Before Twitter and Instagram, I would refresh the front page of RealGM for breaking NBA news. And posters on the forum were pretty good with rumors, too.

RealGM would have all these interesting "trade discussion" updates on their front page, like Golden State considering trading Baron Davis for Allen Iverson in the 06-07 season (then Iverson ultimately got traded to Denver and Baron stayed with GSW which ended up being We Believe later that season.)

[Flash Falcon X]

I liked tsherkin. He was one of the contributors of the "Anthony Randolph is like Magic Johnson" thread on the GSW board and somehow the topic ended up on the GB and everyone started calling him "Magic Randolph."

[Doctor MJ]

prerak

Prerak - to my knowledge - never did anything ambitious with basketball again (I believe he was about to go to med school when he made this decision).

Law school. He would later -- and I swear I'm not making this up -- go on to serve as chief of staff for Ted Cruz.

Holy crap! I had no idea…yet I could see it.


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[Doctor MJ]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while. Obviously, if you scroll down to the about us link at the bottom you get a very basic description of RealGM but I am looking to go deeper. Mods, admins, OG's etc I want to know: What is the history of RealGM? Who are the people in charge of this site? Did Howard Mass start RealGM? Does any of the leadership post in the GB? I think it would be nice to hear from some people about the beginning of RealGM and what it was like then and how it compares to now.

Howard did not start RealGM. From the current About page:

The RealGM Team

Ryan Hoak, President and Chief Executive Officer
Michael Benbow, Chief Information Officer
Todd Essman, Chief Operating Officer
Christopher Reina, Executive Editor and Chief Marketing Officer
Howard Mass, Forums Administrator
Michael Haegele, Senior Developer
Andrew Perna, Quality Control
Derek Johnson, Senior International Basketball Consultant

My understanding is that Hoak & Benbow started the project with Essman coming on soon after.

Howard was someone who, I believe, started off as a poster early on and later got put in charge of the forums themselves.

In my experience as a mod has virtually all been through Howard, with others stepping in very rarely.

I think originally a poster called Winterpeg (don't remember his real name anymore, but he was great at iSketch) was the admin in charge of the forums, and Howard Mass was, as you said, a poster who was selected as the first Global Moderator before becoming a part of the admin team and running the mod team.

Ah. Yes, that all rings a bell.

I don’t believe Winterpeg was either Hoak or Benbow though, so I’m not sure what his name was.


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[Doctor MJ]

prerak

And for those who don't know, there was once a poster named Prerak who dominated these boards. He posted TONS in seemingly every community to the point that there was a running gag where he wasn't a "he" but a team of people paid to take shifts.

Prerak's most significant thing though was probably founding Draft City with Jonathan Givony - which at one point was tied directly to the Draft message board (then called Draft City as well).

Then Draft City got threatened with a lawsuit based on something reported pertaining to a draft prospect. That site shut down, the RealGM draft board got renamed losing all association with the other site, and Prerak - to my knowledge - never did anything ambitious with basketball again (I believe he was about to go to med school when he made this decision).

Givony would then form Draft Express, which originally looked almost exactly like Draft City but with a different name, and continue to grow the site until going to work for ESPN. He made a specific splash in recent years being one of the most vocal proponents of LaMelo Ball at a time where Ball's prospect stock had really taken a tumble.

I know Prerak personally. He went to law school. You can look him up he works for Ted Cruz these days.

Prerak’s posting history at one point was beyond inhuman. It was believed that had to be multiples of him. He was also posting this volume while I think he was 16 years old at Drexel before he went to the University of Chicago for his law degree.

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing MJ.


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[Doctor MJ]

Funny part is there were several users who joined RealGM strictly because of the Off-Topic board. I believe it got too out of hand drawing so many non-sports posters that RealGM decided to make the OT Board private so as the reduce lurkers who weren't posters. I could be wrong, though.

When I joined in 2005, the OT board was like the nerve center of RealGM culture.

Of course, that was also a time where the Internet was a more adorable place, and so the relative wildness of the OT board was quite fun.


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[Doctor MJ]

it was really bad, then tsherkin finally left
now its okay

Was he that bad? i remember people talking about him but i was never a big GB poster

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So, let me say some stuff about Tyler Sherkin, because he deserves some Prerak-type love.

Tyler was extremely knowledgeable and could post incredibly quickly (like Prerak). Fast mind.

He was one of the key people in the Player Comparisons board culture as we developed it in the 00s. Any project, he’d be involved and he’d be a powerhouse.

I didn’t always see eye to eye with him, but lots of others can say that about me, so no shade there. Iron sharpens iron, as they say, and I certainly learned as a result of my interactions with him.

I don’t know what happened with him. I hope he’s okay. To my knowledge, he just disappeared. (Prerak by contrast made clear that he was going to stop posting.) if memory serves, he’d be nearing 40 now, so if anything bad happened to him, we’re not talking about normal human aging.

I wish him well.


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[sortpar]

I remember being on a more basic style board in 2001 and Skywalker mentioned RealGM. It's amazing that 20 years has gone by. I can't remember my original posting name, but I can remember remember reading a lot of great posts over the past 20 years.