Eh...I can't say I agree. Anecdotally at least, if you go into any industry you find as many if not more dumbasses than expected among upper level management. Don't know why NBA teams would be any different.
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Theoretically Ante Zizic
- Thread starter wuck
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Eh...I can't say I agree. Anecdotally at least, if you go into any industry you find as many if not more dumbasses than expected among upper level management. Don't know why NBA teams would be any different.
Photon
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8 years of LeBron in the finals and GS AND GS plus KD. The front offices sure know what to do.
Let’s trade Ante back to Boston so he can f us whenever we are back in the playoffs... With LeBron gone, the “but he is not right for our system” excuse should end.
Let’s trade Ante back to Boston so he can f us whenever we are back in the playoffs... With LeBron gone, the “but he is not right for our system” excuse should end.
WorldFreeB
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And he's only 21 years old and just scratching the surface of what he can become. His 10 footer is money and he's got great hands,,he has really good defensive instincts as a rim protector. Gotta find 10 minutes each half and just play him. Can't yank him after mistakes either.
TitleTown
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I'm NOT saying this about you...
BUT...this is what every disgruntled or underappreciated employee says about their bosses...
It doesn't mean that it's empirically true.
Yeah, thankfully doesn't apply to me. My boss is excellent, and so are a lot of bosses. But at the end of the day, imperfect humans are in charge of all hiring decisions.
For instance, if an NBA team is looking to hire an sports analytics expert, how do they separate the wheat from the chaff? The GM probably isn't an expert in the area, and there isn't a well-defined talent pool to choose from. It's pretty much a perfect storm to get incompetent people hired.
TitleTown
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Well, I'm not sure I agree that there isn't a well-defined talent pool of analytics experts, but a good manager in ANY business should know how to hire outside experts without being an expert in that area themselves. This is a very basic thing that any good manager should be able to do. And, the fact that many NBA organizations DO have good analytics experts speaks to that directly.
We need to return to the question that started this conversation in the first place: do you think that most franchises in the NBA are poorly run by people who don't know what they're doing?
Well, it depends on WHAT those franchises have as their main goal. As fans, we assume that most teams operate for the purpose of winning championships. But, this is likely NOT the goal for many NBA teams. Many teams PRETEND to pursue championships, but are really interested in simply being a profitable business that passes those profits on to their shareholders/owners. So, while the GMs of those teams may want to pursue trades, develop certain players, or make other moves to win championships, their owners may veto any move that doesn't maximize profitability.
I say all of this to respond to the ridiculous notion that NBA franchises are full of dumb people who don't know what they're doing. Like I said before, as fans we only see the end result, and then we try to infer the process that went in to that decision. Just because we don't like a certain result or outcome does not mean that dumb people are the reason for those outcomes.
The guy can score the ball, it has been apparent from his very earliest mins in the league, and he does it with a very impressive level of efficiency. I want to see what his level is, even if he is only a Kanter type at least that has useful situational value.
Cavatt
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The big difference is in Sports, while the players themselves are barely there through a pure meritocracy for the most part, the front office guys may not be . Isaiah Thomas running the Knicks quite poorly. Falling in love with mediocre talent. Michael Jordan repeatedly picking poor players in the draft. After basketball players are chosen to headfront offices or coach. Look at Kidd and what he has done as an NBA coach.
Larry Bird, Kerr and a handful of other guys did well, but there are more Vinny Del Negros than those guys .
Being rich and being a smart businessman are often confused and while discipline and hard work will get you a lot, sometimes very skilled people have trouble translating those skills to something else.
Also look at the way European coaches have been discriminated against. It's an old boys club and that was part of what I am saying. There may be late pools of talent out there that could be great at these things that are completely ignored.
Sure sometimes things go bad and there was nothing you could do like Elton Brands Achilles. Other times GM's give out stupid contracts like post Chicago Noah's. Look at how smart Coangelo was with his burner accounts lol.
TitleTown
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For sure, and in many ways we are seeing this problem play out in most societal institutions. Quite often, institutions are filled with capable folks who care about their work, but it only takes one or two bad managers or a misguided owner to foil all of that work.
But this doesn't mean that any of us could do better if we were trying to help those organizations "win" ourselves. Why? Because we would have to enter those organizations and try to deal with all of the competing interests. In other words, it's easy to just blame franchises and say they're all dumb. But that's far from reality, and it's a shitty/shortcut answer.
The hard answer is: most franchises are filled with BOTH smart and dumb people, and HOW they make decisions as an organization is largely hidden from the view of fans. So, while we may not like the results and outcomes, we have no clue if those decisions were made through a careful process or if they were simply the whim of a shortsighted owner/GM/coach.
Personally, I don't think many NBA organizations have good analytics experts (and probably not good traditional scouts either, but this isn't my area of expertise), and again, it comes down to a talent pool problem. It's not easy to come to an objective conclusion like "candidate A is better than candidate B at analytics" the same way you can say "candidate A is better than candidate B at welding" because there is no good measuring stick for how good someone is at basketball analytics (again, probably also true for scouting, but not my area of expertise).
If you're wondering how I say this stuff with such certainty, the proof is in the pudding: there's rarely a consensus among NBA teams about who the best players in a draft are, and presumably they differ wildly in their evaluations of veterans as well. This isn't because it's genuinely impossible to rank players and prospects, it's because some teams are doing a much worse job of it than others.
Jstock12
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Kanter is a fantastic offensive player. The only reason he's averaging just 20mpg is because of his defense. I don't know if Zizic will ever reach that level of offense, but he can definitely become a far superior two-way player.
The Cavs organization is so bad at team construction that they've lost the best player in NBA history not once but twice, and for good measure managed to lose what is quite likely the second best player in Cavs history for almost no return while he still had two years remaining on his contract. They also managed to pick the worst #1 pick in league history, in a draft year when one sure Hall of Famer and several perennial all-star level players were available.
Cavs organization is also so bad at hiring coaches that I believe we've set a record for the number of head coaches being paid simultaneously.
Wouldn't claim to be smart enough to work for an NBA team myself but I am smart enough to recognize incompetence in a professional field when I see it. I don't need to be able to do surgery to know that a doctor who keeps killing his patients might be a lousy doctor.
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This team is going to really struggle in the half court. Zizic excels at half court offense. He is easy offense.
I hope, at some time, Lue realizes this problem. It's all well and good to say you want TT to play. But when push comes to shove, the lack of scoring is going to sink this team. And Zizic is a clear option.
I hope, at some time, Lue realizes this problem. It's all well and good to say you want TT to play. But when push comes to shove, the lack of scoring is going to sink this team. And Zizic is a clear option.
@TitleTown with the pussy disagree. Tell me, what was false in what I said?
1) Cavaliers front office lost one of the top two players of all time not once, but twice (T/F)
2) Cavaliers front office lost perhaps the second best player in Cavs history for almost nothing, when he still had two years left on his contract (T/F)
3) Cavaliers front office made the worst #1 pick of all time in a draft that featured multiple excellent players (T/F)
4) People can tell when a surgeon kills his patients even if they can't do surgery themselves (T/F)
OK, I admit we might not have set the record by paying three head coaches simultaneously (Brown/Blatt/Lue), but we've surely got to be close, right?
1) Cavaliers front office lost one of the top two players of all time not once, but twice (T/F)
2) Cavaliers front office lost perhaps the second best player in Cavs history for almost nothing, when he still had two years left on his contract (T/F)
3) Cavaliers front office made the worst #1 pick of all time in a draft that featured multiple excellent players (T/F)
4) People can tell when a surgeon kills his patients even if they can't do surgery themselves (T/F)
OK, I admit we might not have set the record by paying three head coaches simultaneously (Brown/Blatt/Lue), but we've surely got to be close, right?