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West has a history of excellence over a long period of time.
He GM'd the showtime Lakers that won 5 rings. He also pulled off the trade that acquired Kobe Bryant and signed Shaq, becoming the architect of another 3 rings.
Then, he took over the Grizzlies and led them to their first ever playoff appearance, winning another Executive of the Year award.
Then, in 2011, he became the head honcho of the Golden State Warriors. Steph Curry was already there at that point, but it was West who was their executive when they drafted Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, and also when they acquired KD.
Since 2017 he's been working in LAC, who (in case you haven't noticed) have constructed a roster robust enough to stay a playoff team despite losing CP3, DeAndre Jordan, Blake Griffin, and JJ Reddick while they essentially re-set for a rebuild.
Jerry West has been at the front of NBA excellence for decades and decades. You'd be nuts not to appreciate him.
Basketball.
He didn't say that though. He said 'a lot of the old guard' not that there was nobody. Jerry West is awesome, and he's proven it by continually adjusting for the NBA through various decades and continuing to provide high quality insight and foresight. That doesn't mean everybody can.
Take Magic Johnson for example. Nobody can deny that in the 80s, his basketball IQ was through the roof, but he just doesn't know how to construct a 2019 roster, and that was evident from last summer when he signed Lebron and then proceeded to sign Javale McGee, Michael Beasley, Lance Stephenson, and Rajon Rondo. Just terrible roster construction.
I'm pretty sure daThrone would agree that Jerry West is a great executive. But Jerry West is Jerry West, and other guys are other guys, and being able to adjust and change things up for decades isn't a common skill.
We can argue on this for sixty more pages. Griffin is much better than we had before. We can all agree on that.
Nope.
We'll see. I liked Dell. He put the pieces in place. Other factors always knocked them off the board but he did his part. I like Griffen, too. Just that the jury is still out on if he's better.
You can, but you're also not evaluating fairly. I dislike Dell, and I'm glad he's gone, but let's not pretend that Ian Clark, who was signed to a minimum and was just there to bulk out the bench, represents the peak of his powers.
Solomon Hill was a major blunder. Obviously Omer Asik was a terrible move. Ajinca wasn't a good move either. Eric Gordon obviously ended terribly. Sure.
But the Demarcus Cousins trade was a great trade. Sure, looking back on it we know it was a bad move because Buddy ended up blossoming in Sacramento and Boogie left, but there was pretty much nobody on this site who was upset about that trade the day it happened. It was a good move to make at the time.
Niko Mirotic was a great trade, that worked really well for us and was a huge part of our playoff trip last season. Getting him was a brilliant move.
Bringing back Emeka was a good choice that worked out well for us. Some people (not me) think that the Rondo signing was brilliant. Bringing in Randle this season on a cheap deal was a good signing, and Payton ended up being a good move as well. Pulling Kenrich off the trash-heap was a fantastic move.
Yes, I totally agree that Dell Demps did more bad than he did good, and that's why I'm glad that he's gone. But if someone were to just look at the last two or three seasons, Demps would come out looking probably okay. Cousins, Mirotic, Rondo, Randle, Payton, these are all names, and Dell got them.
If you're trying to discredit Dell Demps using him letting QUINN COOK go, you're doing it wrong...
Okay fine. The complete history
https://www.basketball-reference.com...empsde01x.html
https://expo.nola.com/sports/g66l-20...demps-era.html
Last edited by 13 - 3; 04-21-2019 at 09:27 AM.
Jimmertime! Ishhhhhhhhhhhh
We shall never forget
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zRMCDDIWZE
On this Easter be grateful for everything Jimmer gave us.
Last edited by 13 - 3; 04-21-2019 at 09:52 AM.
I mean, I see a lot of good in there. There were a few missteps, some of which are even more glaring in hindsight. But there were solid moves that we’re attempts to put together talent. We came up short in two eras, often as much due to injury or timing as anything else.
I never thought dell was as terrible as some here wanted to think. It was time to move on for sure, but he wasn’t awful.
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I agree with a lot of what you said. What I like about Griffin is his ability to run a team and develop great relationships. He is going to bring in a GM who he believesis the best at doing that job. I like him much more as POBO for us then I would as GM. Not that I don’t think he would be a good one but POBO fits him perfectly and I just don’t see many who would be better in that role for us. His formula in Cleveland was some luck but he still built a championship caliber team the entire time he was there.
Dell problem IMO wasn't that his approach was terrible in general it was that it just didn't fit this team. Free agency and trades just gives a non glamor market team such a small window of success. That narrow window made us especially susceptible to injuries. And we just had a bunch on injuries. At that point Demps just kept doubling down. The biggest mistake was the coaching hiring given the roster he'd already built. He had run and gun players like Ryan Anderson and Tyreke Evan's for a slow pace coach like Williams and slow footed Asik and Ajinca for a fast pace coach like Gentry. All in all his plan didn't maximize the the limitations of the market and the NBA rules.
I mean he had some validity to that. He was able to get Jrue Holiday for picks that have amounted to nothing. Cousins was a good move too before the injury changed everything. Niko was an absolute steal saying as we turned a mid/late 1st into 1 year of Niko + 5! 2nd round picks (1 in the Niko trade with Chicago and then 4 more when we traded Niko). The only 1st round trade that could be argued was a bad move was Asik but I still think at the time it was an understandable move.
If the players like Griffin. Which all signs are they do then he should do well getting us talent.
Go find me a GM that exist who didn’t make a bad pick. You are solely judging the guy on 1 bad pick and he wasn’t even the GM who took Bennett. He went to 3 straight NBA Finals while beating the best regular season team in NBA history.. Had the Warriors not signed a 4th all star who is a top 3 player then the Cavs very well might have won 2 in a row. You are ignoring everything he has done over a draft pick that wasn’t even him? Who is a clear better POBO out there? You were vouching for an assistant GM to take over that nobody knows anything about and your reasoning was he worked for Jerry West for a couple years.. We still have yet to hire a GM so pump the brakes a little.. If anything you are being a hypocrite. When somebody brings up you wanting Drummond over AD you say it was just one miss but you are right on a lot more then wrong.. Yet you can’t get over a player being picked and again it wasn’t even Griffin..
I 100% agree.. IMO Dell did a very good job building the team how he was asked to do. We just could never find that 2 way scoring wing to get us over the hump and to the next level. That was something that would have had to come in FA most likely. Looking back the best option would have probably been to gut the team during ADs first few years here to hopefully hit on a lottery pick or 2 and then go make moves to acquire someone like Holiday. We didn’t give Dell that option and asked him to win right away. No guarantee he would have been successful the other way but at least would have had the chance to do it his way. We got stuck in that situation as a middle of the road team with a superstar in a small market with a GM trying to keep his job and the only possibility to improve to the next level was landing a star FA.
Hugh Weber(Hockey Guy now) hired Del Demps not Gayle Benson. Dell greatest achievement Ish Smith, Lance Frygate Thomas, Jimmertime, Grevies, Brian Roberts and so on.
1st thing 1st I don't get paid millions of dollars to be a talent evaluator nor do I have the deep pockets of an NBA franchise to lean on for information about any prospects. So comparing me to a front office person is disingenuous at best.
Next I don't mind people talking about the Davis vs Drummond discussion. If you talk enough sports you're bound to be wrong(if you're honest with yourself). However people want to randomly bring it up totally out of context to make a pointless point.
As far as Griffin I just pointed out other picks that I consider poor considering the other players that were available. So it's not just one pick. The Bennett situation falls on the guy on top. That's the game when you carry the title you get the credit and the blame. Drafting the biggest bust in the NBA history is something he has to own.
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