[Grantland] "Bad GMing" aka - Good Charlotte? The Hornets and the Sliding Scale of NBA Mediocrity

I legit LOLed

 

Stauskas? .... Stauskas!

 

Meanwhile,

Morey used the corpse of Ronny Turiaf just to trade for another corpse of Alex Shved, later proceed to trade for a 3rd string PG in the worst team of the league : Pablo and then eventually turned him into Ty Lawson.

 

alex shved is a corpse? he is sooo old

 

Alex Shved is a corpse because he was rotting in the 76ers and also carrying a quite large amount of contract (close to 4 mils) that needed to be dumped away.

Technically, Pablo is also a corpse at the time when the Rockets traded for him.

 

One of 2 things happened here:

1) Rich Cho wants out of Charlotte, and he used Grantland as the vehicle for that dismissal

2) Cho lied about everything because he didn't want to divulge too much information about their preparation

Obviously, #2 doesn't make much sense because if you don't want info to get out about your operation, don't agree to the interview. Once the interview has been agreed to, you want to ensure that the organization is portrayed in the best light possible. That clearly hasn't happened here.

 

This article also reminds me the amazing journey of Troy Daniels,

Troy started his NBA career with the Bobcats, then got waived, and then signed with the Rockets, got moved down to the Vipers, had a huge playoff game, got a contract close to minimum for 2 years. And then got dumped by the Rockets when we were getting Brewer, and then those trade pieces also eventually get us Ty Lawson.

While on the other hand, Troy eventually got dumped again, and guess what?

He returned to the Hornets, that's exactly the start of his amazing journey.

2 different franchise, 1 player, amazing story.

 

To be fair take two:

Miami was offered the same/similar deal. No one is mocking them.

Spoiler

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan LeBatard revealing the Celtics offered the Heat the same four 1sts (in the teens) two 2nds package for Winslow</p>&mdash; Azam (@AMas92) <a href="https://twitter.com/AMas92/status/615596547875672064">June 29, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

To be fair take three:

What the hell is Danny Ainge offering FOUR! first round picks for Justise Winslow? Granted none are "great" but four first round picks is four first round picks!

 

^This.

I guess it's meant to reevaluate later who in this draft is really worth trading 4 1st round picks for...

No one is talking about Boston offering so much.

 

Yeah if Winslow doesn't pan out, nobody will mock Boston for they're offer for him. But people will still be mocking Charlotte for going with Kaminsky.

 

Yeah me too!

 

It's pretty sad to see Charlotte as such a bottom tier franchise. They had such a strong following in the 90s. They had pretty good teams with marketable players from Alonzo, Mugsy, and Grand-mama to Glen Rice and Bobby Phils to Eddie Jones and Mashburn. I remember their home crowds were pretty intense too.

That article speaks to a lot of nepotism in the ranks with MJ's family having prominent roles in the organization. I especially don't like the idea or agents calling MJ directly about trades/signings rather than the GM. Seems like a cluster-f*** in that front office.

The idea of choosing "safe, proven" college seniors over guys with upside is silly to me. There are busts in both subsets of draftees. The onus is on the scouting department to do a good job identifying which players will improve given the time and coaching. Ownership needs to let the scouts do their job and not meddle. Out of all of the Charlotte picks under MJ none have really broken out and exceeded expectations. Even the mildly successful ones like Kemba and MKG have not lived up to the hype bestowed upon them. That makes me wonder if the player development department isn't doing a good job. You would think that within 10 years at least one or two of their picks would break out, even if they are picking in the late lottery.

 

These management guys said a bunch of stuff that made them all look bad. Why not just say "we really loved Kaminsky, the dude is 7'1 and moves like a 6'10, plays hard on both ends and can dribble and shoot, so **** trading down."

 

Sounds like Cho needs to go, honestly. A long list of bad draft picks, and the article doesn't paint him well at all.

 

Charlotte is clearly better at free agency than it is at drafting.

 

I'm surprised they didn't pull the trigger on that because Brooklyn should be in freefall mode soon. Something tells me that the Timberpups weren't the one in the deal, making that a Griz pick. Not as much value in that. Kaminsky could end up being a pretty good offensive player though.

I wouldn't call that bad GMing, just bad writing with a predetermined agenda.

 

The Pups pick is top 12 protected, otherwise it turns into two second rounders, so it would almost certainly be two early seconds instead of a 1st. So neither the Pups nor Memphis pick would be great.

The Brooklyn pick could be the real prize, but since they are in the east and not looking to tank, it also might not.

It's a decent offer, but on the draft day, when you see the players you can get, it's tougher. It's kind of like when Morey tried to move up with all those Jones / Lamb / Royce picks that one year and couldn't do it.

 

Really? That Brooklyn roster looks awful. I think the Pacers or Heat take their playoff position easily.

 

I don't blame Charlotte for passing on that many picks because they haven't had much success drafting in the past. It's pretty difficult to get a franchise changing player unless you're picking really high and you're also lucky.

If we've learned anything as fans, MJ may have been one of the greatest players of all time but he certainly has not been one of the best owners. That being said Cho hasn't done a terrible job so far reshaping that franchise.

In an Eastern Conference a starting line up with

Kemba/ Batum / MKG / Zeller / Jefferson

with Lin and Lamb both contributing off the bench..

might sneak into the playoffs with a 38 win season. That's only 5 games more to win. They've pretty much traded Stephenson for Batum and added Lin/Lamb. If Batum can slide to the SG and play some there or Lin and Kemba being able to coexist I don't see why the Hornets can't make it to the playoffs as the 8th seed.

I think too much emphasis goes into the draft. There have been way too many players who become unmotivated to get better once they enter the league, I'm glad our GM is able to effectively draft good developing players (at a decent rate) as well as being able to place our team into situations where we (more often than not) come out of a deal more on top versus the trading team.