Whenever the phone the rings and Daryl Morey is the on the line, you immediately hang up and bend over. - NBA Handbook: rules and regulations for General Managers
On hindsight (by Morey's success), the conventional wisdom of hiring former NBA stars to be GMs was as dumb as can be. Being a GM requires smart business sense. Being able to play the game of basketball is no guarantee of having smart business sense. In fact, I would say very few professional basketball players have good business sense. That's exactly why they need agents. The irony is, these former players in their playing days needed agents to negotiate their contracts. Now they are paid tons of money to negotiate with the same bunch of agents they used to depend on to con the GMs.
If Ferry lets his expirings just roll off the books will he have enough money to resign both Lebron and another young star like Bosh or Amare? I thought that was their goal, to somehow get a real star to play alongside Lebron not the Richard Jefferson type big money role players that they would probably be able to nab with Sczerbiak's expiring.
To be fair the money has never been this big of an issue. I mean, drafting, signing, and trading for the best talent/prospects was always more important. The assumption is that former players have a knack for knowing what guys are capable of and how they'll fit within a team concept. Also, there wasn't always as much statistical information to go around. Former player GM will always be useful but moreso for their understanding of the impact that leadership, defene, and other intangibles have on the game - probably the only advantage they have on Morey types.
Kerr. He ruined the Suns. They were one bad call away from winning the championship two years ago and now they don't even make the playoffs. They went from one of the most exciting teams to watch with consistant 55+ win seasons to and old, slow, boring team that didn't even make the playoffs. Kerr SUCKS.
.... and THEN after realizing how bad he goofed, Kerr fired his coach who he instructed to run a half court set with Shaq in the middle, and then went back to his old style of offensive, but he forgot that he already traded away the players who made that old style of offense successful.
Who ever the Bucks GM is for getting scrubs for RJ, WTF were you thinking??? Plus his team is laughable.
Even though he isn't in the league anymore...the worst GM of all is, was and will always be Elgin Baylor.... 22 years 4 playoff appearances...only 1 trip to the second round...
1. Isiah Thomas 2. Mike Dunleavy I dont understand how dunleavy still has a job, let alone two (coach and gm).
Money IS very important. You can always get scout to evaluate talent for you. But as a GM, you need to know how to construct a team. It is more like constructing a business than like playing basketball. Constructing a team/business requires the sense of judging risk and reward. Even before the advent of analytics, you need to know when to trade and when to sign. Those kind of things are not about basketball. Saying that you need to be a good basketball player to be a good GM is like saying you need to be sick a lot to be a good doctor. BTW, have you noticed most great coaches aren't great players too?
Morey is rare in that he doesn't really have a basketball background. Most every other GM has at least played college ball.
