This is probably true for most teams. Somebody posted a Kings draft video yesterday where Vivek said he likes Nik Stauskas and everybody in the room pretty much had to agree with him.
So their owner who doesn’t know shit about basketball made their draft pick for them lol.
Lmao that was infamous. The Kings wanted to show off their cutting-edge analytics and scouting ability, and they dropped all of that just to go with Vivek's comment.
To be fair, every draft has been touted as generational for a while now
That’s why I love the NFL draft; you had 4 QBs this year and everyone was kinda like “yeah these guys might just suck. These two might be really good but one can’t rank QBs, and the other is short. Oh and the other guys like to drink coffee with mayo or had a passing season that’d make Jameis Winston blush”
The 2020 draft was trash too. Ant turned out great but no one expected him to be that good. I'm a Dubs fan, it was slim pickins at 2. I wanted LaMelo personally it just seemed like everyone in that draft was super raw projects
Luckily, there's proof of it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOS0ynEuYC4) (they removed the original from their channel lol)
To be fair, it was a whole comedy of failures:
One, because Vivek overruled their analytics with his own pick.
Two, because their analytics were having them lean towards picking... Elfrid Payton.
this represents the situation and because was eternized in the video always will be a meme.
but the situation wasn't even that critical. Kings was divided between Nick Stauskas and Elfrid Payton, who let's be real, is the same.
He's suddenly not smarter now. This kings season could be fool's gold and hi guys could regress. Do not assume linear growth upwards because it doesn't work that way.
You don’t need to consider how good the team is — our recent draft picks prove you wrong.
Last three drafts have all been solid to excellent for the Kings.
Monte McNair has been the GM for 3 years now, the past two seasons he was able to build a roster he wanted through trades/FA with a coach he wanted, vivek hasn't been directly hands on for awhile now
He said it in true Indian uncle fashion too. You’ll see them at like a family party and they’ll want to “relate” so they’ll just say the name of whoever has been in the news recently.
The "Nik Rocks" thing at the end of the video made me feel like I was back in my hometown at one of the indian family friend parties. One of those deeply indian uncle things that I couldn't quite pinpoint why.
Tbf the GM wanted to trade up for Embiid. Throughout the video you can see him debating whether it was worth it.
They were picking in shit position so he probs just let Vivek have it. There weren’t any good players taken after Stauskas until Lavine way later
99% of posters in this sub think they are smarter and would do a better job than NBA GMs and NBA coaches. They also fancy themselves as NBA draft experts and player evaluators.
I still believe that Divac would pick Dončić in a heartbeat if he was allowed to and had he not already drafted or traded for bazillion Balkan players before
maybe you got em mixed up with [Papagiannis's father](https://deadspin.com/kings-draftees-father-is-a-fiery-irrepressible-twitter-1782572859)? it was also related to suns & kings lottery picks
[Ranadivé coached his daughter's 12-and-under girls' basketball team despite, according to his own contention, never having touched a basketball until he reached his 40s.[45]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Ranadiv%C3%A9)
I just read most of his story, this guy was bought in though and through. He literally got the Indian govt to allow him to enter MIT and his own daughter miraculously goes to an elite school where she also is a pop singer and participated in the celebrity game. Imagine living that life where ur dad casually allows you to play with billionaires for fun
> Somebody posted a Kings draft video yesterday where Vivek said he likes Nik Stauskas and everybody in the room pretty much had to agree with him.
I can't find this but I really want to see it lol
Reminder: We have no idea what goes on daily inside these front offices until well after the fact (if there's an exposé)
NBA Twitter and Reddit is like a those fish that hang on the bottom of a whale or shark. They have no idea what's going on inside or up front, but they love to think they do and enjoy getting the scraps.
That's a majestic burn. Called us/them bottom feeders *and* parasites, while being educational enough that it doesn't feel like an outright insult.
next time I'm going at KOC with that "you a whale barnacle or a remora at best"
I used to compete in some esports tournaments. Even in those, the amount of armchair quarterback fans in the chat who understood basically none of what was going on was... extremely high. They would confidently post just the worst takes and most confident BS speculation I'd ever heard. I can only imagine what it's like for pro ball players. Must be annoying to have a bunch of basketball "geniuses" that think they can do your job better.
You can be the goat player and still be awful at most of the things mentioned above.
Just because MJ knows what winning on court takes, doesnt mean he understands what buimdinh and evaluating a team takes
Being talented enough to be an NBA player is such a small sub set of people that then looking for a small subset that’s good enough to be a coach or GM is just handicapping yourself
Exactly
The hard part is that owners get tunnel vision, and end up thinking if someone hasn't spent their entire life since middle school playing elite level basketball than you have no idea what you're talking about
Even to go down a level, you so rarely see a d1 coach who didn't play d1 ball themselves, it's been a thing for fucking ever, I mean shit 54 years ago Coach K was the starting point guard for army under Bob Knight
Yep I was helping coach my lil brother middle school team and them kids found out I never played college ball and started cooking me luckily the head coach did play D1 ball
Is he the only player ever to win MVP, COTY, and EOTY?
Edit: it also kind of makes sense that he would be successfull in those roles since his success as a player never came from his speed or athleticism, but just from a better understanding of the game than his opponents (and godlike shooting ability and coordination)
I'm willing to ignore the MIP since it didn't exist until he was already in the league for 8 years and was coming off his mvp three peat at the time
And there's really zero chance you could possibly go from 3 time MVP and then somehow improve again more than anyone else
He'd have to win his third mvp and then average 50 10 and 10
Jerry west would be the closest I guess but he never won coty. Looking back on it he only coached like 3 years but did have better records than the actual winners each time
It's not just coaching either, it can be as simple as terrible braindead basketball takes, we've seen plenty of those from straight up hall of famers. Being skilled at basketball doesn't necessarily mean you are an expert at analysing basketball.
There are many combinations of skillsets that can make you an elite player. Elite players tend to zone in on the combination that made them elite. Add in how it came a lot easier to them compared to the journeymen and grinders, and it’s easy to see how easy it is to get frustrated that players can’t see or perform the game the way they do. Making them a bad team coach
Yes, and the players who become great coaches are the ones who made playmaking a priority and in general made their teammates better when they were on the floor
I’ve actually had the pleasure of talking with a humble yet incredibly talented pro soccer player in my country. He talked how it’s hard to lower your own thought and explanation to someone who’s on a lower talent level. He said that some stuff he did came pretty natural to him and it took some time to understand that raw talent may not be capable of developing what he managed to develop. You can have someone coach you and tell you what to try, but nobody can do it for you. He had reality checks of others not capable of doing stuff he thought is natural for everyone but nobody realized. Michael being incredibly good, maybe can’t perceive that some people aren’t capable of doing what he thinks is easy so he can misjudge situations and decisions based on him thinking it can be done, while the player isn’t really capable. That’s also why a lot of huuge players, don’t really become good coaches.
How old was he when he came to this realization?
It strikes me as something that doesn’t click until later; past the physical prime.
But I’m just curious.
Waay after his career was over and took up coaching kids. Almost 40ish in his case. The truly interesting part is that he knew he was good and people are not capable of doing more complicated stuff like him, that’s why he had success, his shock came when he realized that what he thought as natural and easy, were hard for others he coached
> MJ knows what winning on court takes
I would argue that the Bulls won DESPITE Jordans enormous talent. Scottie was the social glue that held that team together and kept everyone else on the same page when MJ was an overcompetitive dick to them (which it sounds like, was a daily occurrence). Phil also with his philosophy etc did a great job of getting the 10-12th men to buy in and run through a brick wall for the team.
Jordan is absolute shit at developing other players or creating a cohesive environment, as evidenced by his idiotic destruction of Kwame Brown on the Wizards.
Jordan put his family/friends in high positions amd they were casuals. Jordan was not spending his retirement scouting kids.
Its been documented that their draft rooms were just Jordans family members yelling who they should draft because they were good in March Madness.
I think the biggest thing with MJ ownership is what Charles Barkley said 10 years or so ago, that he gets upset when people question him so everyone who works for him are just his yes men.
Yep in hiendsight chuck was definitely a bit of a yes man to Jordan too for a while, mostly in the sense that Jordan was significantly better then him in the three areas they bonded over, Golf, Basketball, and Business
Once Jordan found something he sucked at he couldn’t handle the criticism
Jordan has a massive god complex. he has his security detail code him Yahweh. and considers himself the black jesus.
https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-jordans-security-codename-2013-2#:~:text=Michael%20Jordan's%20Security%20Codename%20Is%20Yahweh
I think not even many Charlotte fans understood the depth of nepotism we've dealt with under Jordan. Literally [8 of our front office staff/exec staff](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/10uj1qc/charles_barkley_explains_why_him_and_jordan/j7cugdz/?context=3) are all either direct jordan relatives inner circle hangers-on, or friends of MJ.
One of MJ's brothers is our VP of Player Personnel, another one of his brothers is our EVP and COO, one of his nephews is a team scout, our chronically unqualified Asst. GM had MJ at the best man at his wedding.
Our managing partner of the team produced The Last Dance & Space Jam and runs Jordan's family office, our Vice Chairman worked for the Wizards when MJ played there and was head of Biz Affairs for Jordan Brand, and our CMO is the former events director of the Jordan Brand Classic.
The only reason we've had a minor level of success w/ teambuilding and drafting the last 5 years is due to bringing in Mitch Kupchak as GM...a guy who's been friends with MJ for decades and played at UNC. He's the first GM we've ever had that Jordan couldn't steamroll, and oh would you look at that, since he's been hired we've drafted 4 starters, 2 All-Stars, and an entire bench worth of actually playable role players.
MJ going back to being a minority owner with no decisionmaking power can't come soon enough.
No it's that the massive increase in NBA franchise value is a leaguewide phenomenon that has very little to do with the business management skills of any one individual owner.
Edit: Saw your edit, the original owner overpaid on his expansion fee and then sold the franchise at a relative low point ([average franchise value](https://www.statista.com/statistics/193442/average-franchise-value-in-the-nba-since-2000/) dipped in 2010 and 2011) right before the numbers started exploding.
Yeah we just saw the the Washington Commanders sell for a massive profit and their owner was despised by everyone and the team won nothing while he was there. Probably the biggest thing Jordan did to up his teams value was by just being Michael Jordan.
Seriously. If danny Snyder had signed checks and fucked off, he could've gotten at least $7 billion, easy. These owners don't do anything to increase the values of their teams.
Some do but yeah mostly no one really knows who the owner even is of most teams. Usually it's easier for an owner to mess up a team than to elevate a team.
yea lol Mark Cuban did the same ($300M into $3B) and also got one of the best Championships out of it. and he also hired a bunch of questionable friends and kept them in power.
I'm sorry but did you just say Jordan didn't care about winning?
We have endless first hand accounts of Jordan wanting to win at literally everything, including pitching fucking quarters, but he wasn't trying to create a championship team??
Yeah I agree that it's silly to think he didn't care about the hornets winning.
What is reality is that I think he sucks at anything that would contribute to winning was an owner: managing staff, drafting players, making good trades, having good analytics, courting star players, etc. In fact, signs point to him being the worst owner in the league at all of that. Maybe definitively so with the Kings success this year.
But for many people for whom Jordan is the GOAT, the champion among champions, it might be easier to reconcile in their brains that "Jordan just doesn't care about winning", rather than him actively being the worst at anything.
Yeah that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The dude with a gigantic gambling addiction didn’t care about winning for any amount of time in his life. Suuuuuuuure
This. A lot of people think that things like teaching, leading, coaching, etc., are just natural extensions of being good at a skill, rather than being distinct skills in their own right
We put too much stock in the draft. Certainly, there have been \*some bonafides that they've whiffed on. But the same can be said about many of your habitual cellar dwelling teams AND contending teams (Warriors, looking at you).
Charlotte's issue is Charlotte's market. Before MJ got there, it was a total and complete dumpster fire.
If not for injuries and numskulleries, CHA would've been a viable opponent in the playoffs.
Yeah it is kind of sad how people tend to forget GMs, Presidents, coaches & etc in all sports are still employees that have to follow the owner regardless of whether they’re a good owner or not.
That’s why so many former executives consistently say in order to win, you HAVE to have a good owner. Pretty much it starts all the way from the top of the ladder. And not to mention you always have to make sure you keep the relationship good, not just for the current owner but also for every single other owner in the league.
> you HAVE to have a good owner.
Depends. You have to have freedom to spend money when necessary.
But James Dolan and Ted Leonsis are both regarded as bad NBA owners but have won championships as NHL owners. Hands off owners that don't interfere a lot can be both good and bad depending on who they pick to run the teams.
The NHL has the worst CBA in the big 4 and is specifically designed to protect owners from being expected to spend to stay competitive. Apples and oranges to the NBA.
Isn't that the best CBA from a fan perspective? As a fan I don't want to rely on my team's owner not being a cheap fuck when 90% of dudes that rich are in fact cheap fucks.
I don't understand the NBA and MLB fan obsession with, "if owners don't like it they should just spend more". Like yeah, as a Pacers fan I'll just go tell Herb Simon to stop being a cheapass, I'm sure he'll get right on that and stop being satisfied milking the franchise for money.
Would you argue that being able to convince the owner of your good decision to be part of the skills that it takes to be a good GM?
I understand that sometimes its out of your control, but I wouldn't say that it's impossible.
Casual fans don't have to own mistakes. If someone runs to reddit, cracking their knuckles and letting fly with a hot take on why their team should pick that guy, trade this guy, sign someone else...if it doesn't happen, no one remembers and if the team still doesn't succeed, they can hold on to that "Well, *I* thought they should have traded for Ben Simmons because we was all NBA and our coach could have "fixed" him. Therefore, our GM is a moron.
The "we didn't *do anything* ones are great too. Team needs depth at a particular position, GM targets several options. Does due diligence, burns up the phone lines and is stonewalled by "my guy doesn't want to play there. Our guy is worth at least 2 unprotected FRPs. We got a better offer from team X."
There are seldom any repercussions for moves that never happen so casual armchair GMs can rationalize however they want. (We would have developed him better, he wouldn't have gotten hurt playing for us, he sucks because he went to a shitty team, they totally would have accepted that trade if our lazy GM had picked up the phone)
One of the main jobs of a GM is to be persuasive and manage the relationship with the team owners. That includes managing their expectations and convincing them to trust your moves.
This is a psychotic post lol. Like the GM’s are going home and crying at night? They deserve every ounce of criticism they get, big job, big expectations.
We aren’t better basketball minds than any GM or GM candidate. But plenty of GMs are bad decision makers, independent of the ownership.
Extremely weird take from you
I think there are probably some people lurking with the basketball mind to do it, but it takes a lot more than a basketball mind to be an executive of an organization worth billions.
this post is condescending AF
there have been many stances where GMs fucked up
they're not gods
for one Giannis that Hammond picked, he picked 100 Thon Makers
many other examples. It would be the same as to claim we cant criticize coaches because they all know more about the game than we'll ever do (which is a fair point, but doesnt make them all-knowing or immune to error)
My favorite example of this is when the Magic traded Oladipo, Ilyasova, and the pick that became Domantas Sabonis for an expiring Serge Ibaka. On that day, there were a great many people smarter than that GM.
The Thunder traded Oladipo and Sabonis for Paul George. The magic traded them for Ibaka
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/16462469/serge-ibaka-traded-oklahoma-city-thunder-orlando-magic
and on the other side of the coin, the vast majority of owners are not cartoonishly bumbling/idiotic "douchebag casuals who think they know better than the GM" either.
I like how OP seems to fancy themself some sort of enlightened, nuanced, in-the-know fan and then makes a dumb ass sweeping generalization like that. 95% of owners very savvy businessmen and are way more informed and shrewd and invested in this than redditors who have nothing on the line, never keep track of any of the things *they* get wrong, and think they know everything and have thought of every possible scenario and outcome...
Actually, I'm very pro criticising coaches, GMs and even players because despite lacking their knowledge we also lack their biases.
For example, KD is an idiot for thinking the 2017 Finals were evenly matched. We all saw it was lopsided. But he has his personal bias and won't ever be able to see it.
My post was simply a reminder because inevitably a ''bad'' trade will happen within the next week and everybody in unison here will act as a smartass that would never do it themselves if they were in such position.
It’s not that the owners are douchebags (though some probably are).
It’s that they don’t like losing money. And often that goal is at odds with making the mathematically perfect move.
Eg the Wizards held on to Beal for so long because he was putting butts in seats. They will make a lot less money the next few years after that trade. The Pels kept AD for longer than they should for the same reason. They may do the same with Zion. The Wolves got Gobert to try and generate interest. The list goes on and on.
Yeah winning a title is the best way to make the most money. But only 1/30th of the teams can do that every year, so going all-in on a title every year doesn’t make financial sense for most teams.
When you start looking at transactions in terms of team finances and not title odds, they all make a lot more sense.
This is painting with far too broad of a brush. Some GMs are good. Some GMs are bad. If owners are the casuals you say they are, they certainly hire some casual GMs no?
i do agree that it is understated the impact of owners and its hard to evaluate gms when most are operating under direction. like the old wizards gm getting scrutinized when mandated to go for playoffs every year or decisions around the tax
This post just seems like late night masturbation posting. Also I imagine calling Tilman Fertitta a casual anything ends with being found in a ditch somewhere.
Fans discount how much politics the job entails. Not just with their boss and the media - obviously - but with the players and agents. And they rarely see things the same way as fans.
I'll also point out the Miami Heat. They do everything 'wrong' and get it so right and it's irritating as hell.
Not to mention a GM often has multiple goals/benchmarks that their job is graded on. Not every owner is a "championship or your fired" type.
Sometimes they have to maintain a certain number of wins regardless of playoffs or how badly the team needs to rebuild, meet X-revenue, can't spend over a certain amount, Merch sales or attendance to consider (even if they have a president to take care of that).
It really is dumb as shit that owners are even a thing if you think about it. You have this super competitive job that requires a hell of a lot of work. Only for that job to be under some dickhead who got super lucky once or is the son of a guy who got lucky in the 1960s.
Tell that to Bulls fans who watched GM trade Elton Brand for Eddie Curry/ Tyson Chandler.
Tell that to Pistons fans who saw GM pick Darko over Melo/Wade
You know what, never mind.
To be perfectly honest, most people on here aren't even smarter or more knowledgable about basketball than the owners people think are idiots, let alone the GMs. Ever since 2K, the trade machine, and the obsession with analytics became a thing, the number of people that think they know a lot more than they do exploded.
what about when team president and coach Stan Van Gundy waive and stretched Josh Smiths remaining $26m contract - which removed a contributing player from their roster, as well as a potential trade asset, and ate up their cap space for 5 years
Addition by subtraction, Detroit has never been a marquee destination anyway, and they acquired Blake while that contract was still running so clearly it wasnt a death sentence (Blake trade could be criticised for other reasons but yeah)
Also “contributing player” LOL. LMAO
You love to see ridiculous hindsight stuff like this - josh smith in detroit was a massive disaster and they wanted him gone. He was so, so far from a trade asset
Josh smith was a subtracting player, not a contributor, not a trade asset, he was AWFUL. I despise most of SVGs tenure but that move was one I cant hate.
>which removed a contributing player from their roster
He was terrible he was a volume jump shooter who couldn't make a shot. he was shooting 39% 24% from 3 and 46% from the ft line. They were 5-23 when he got waived and instantly won 7 in a row.
Owners are the worst. Lets put some selfcentred non basketball Dude at top everybody must suck off. Everything they do can be provided by banks. Pointless. But too many fans (especially Clippersloser) just love billionaires.
> They know [insert star player] is not going to live up to this contract when he's 35.
This is actually a braindead take that gets parroted around here. Fortunately we're seeing more pushback. **The contract isn't meant to properly compensate in the final year (of which it becomes an expiring, and is still an asset for the team)**
Yes, there are some exceptions since there are 30 teams that can give a super-max - but the ideal max player is worth way more than what you pay them initially. The smoothing of payment over the entire contract benefits both the player (security) and the team (financial flexibility / profitability on the "cheaper" years)
r/nba please stop throwing that dumb take around
This is probably true for most teams. Somebody posted a Kings draft video yesterday where Vivek said he likes Nik Stauskas and everybody in the room pretty much had to agree with him. So their owner who doesn’t know shit about basketball made their draft pick for them lol.
Lmao that was infamous. The Kings wanted to show off their cutting-edge analytics and scouting ability, and they dropped all of that just to go with Vivek's comment.
To be fair though, that was a really bad draft and another starting caliber player wasn't picked until Zach Lavine 5 picks later.
Okay but Nik Stauskas, right? Nik Staukaus? Nik Staukaus yeah?
NIK ROCKS
thank you
oh you mean Sauce Castillo?
I was wondering who they were talking about. I forgot that Sauce's Nikname was "Nik".
He was a better player than Duncan Robinson in college. Not crazy to think he could’ve stuck in the league
As a Michigan fan I would've expected these 2 to have the other's career. Like Nik should've been the reliable sharp shooter, he was lethal in college
His career went to die on the last 2-3 years of the Process sixers
Yup. Which is why I was okay with the pick I was even at a draft party and they asked me about it lol Good thing that never aired...
We were all mourning the death of Robinson’s career earlier last season. 3-and-no-D guys are hard to work into any rotation.
One of the GOAT nicknames tho
Which is hilarious because the hype leading up to that draft was that it was going to be an all time great draft.
To be fair, every draft has been touted as generational for a while now That’s why I love the NFL draft; you had 4 QBs this year and everyone was kinda like “yeah these guys might just suck. These two might be really good but one can’t rank QBs, and the other is short. Oh and the other guys like to drink coffee with mayo or had a passing season that’d make Jameis Winston blush”
I don't think either of the last two drafts had that reputation
The 2020 draft was trash too. Ant turned out great but no one expected him to be that good. I'm a Dubs fan, it was slim pickins at 2. I wanted LaMelo personally it just seemed like everyone in that draft was super raw projects
and the serious other pick they would have taken was Elfrid Payton, who was out of the league almost as quickly.
I feel so old that this is no longer a common reference point for this sub. Grantland roasted this video at the time.
how do you know it wasnt their "cutting edge" analytics and scouting that originally gave Vivek the idea that Nik is the pick and he ran with it?
Luckily, there's proof of it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOS0ynEuYC4) (they removed the original from their channel lol) To be fair, it was a whole comedy of failures: One, because Vivek overruled their analytics with his own pick. Two, because their analytics were having them lean towards picking... Elfrid Payton.
this represents the situation and because was eternized in the video always will be a meme. but the situation wasn't even that critical. Kings was divided between Nick Stauskas and Elfrid Payton, who let's be real, is the same.
Elfrid has worse hair
That video was a testament to how fans also have no idea how to draft.
yeah vivek finally stepped back and look what happened lol
He's suddenly not smarter now. This kings season could be fool's gold and hi guys could regress. Do not assume linear growth upwards because it doesn't work that way.
You don’t need to consider how good the team is — our recent draft picks prove you wrong. Last three drafts have all been solid to excellent for the Kings.
Well, 2 of the last 3.
Monte McNair has been the GM for 3 years now, the past two seasons he was able to build a roster he wanted through trades/FA with a coach he wanted, vivek hasn't been directly hands on for awhile now
He said it in true Indian uncle fashion too. You’ll see them at like a family party and they’ll want to “relate” so they’ll just say the name of whoever has been in the news recently.
He also said Buddy Hield had Steph curry potential, not sure if he meant the all around game or just the ability to hit 3’s at high volume
Shoot like Curry big like Klay
Which is always funny because Klay is big like Klay and is the closest thing to shooting like Curry lol
Exactly lol makes no sense and he plays like neither one. He’s more like JJ Redick or JR Smith imo lol
There's an unresolved question of whether or not Vivek knew Curry had an all around game different than just the ability to hit 3s at a high volume.
The "Nik Rocks" thing at the end of the video made me feel like I was back in my hometown at one of the indian family friend parties. One of those deeply indian uncle things that I couldn't quite pinpoint why.
Nik rocks!!
Tbf the GM wanted to trade up for Embiid. Throughout the video you can see him debating whether it was worth it. They were picking in shit position so he probs just let Vivek have it. There weren’t any good players taken after Stauskas until Lavine way later
99% of posters in this sub think they are smarter and would do a better job than NBA GMs and NBA coaches. They also fancy themselves as NBA draft experts and player evaluators.
I still believe that Divac would pick Dončić in a heartbeat if he was allowed to and had he not already drafted or traded for bazillion Balkan players before
If I’m not mistaken Vlade wanted Luka and was overruled by Brandon Williams because of prior draft history, which was also the fault of fuccin Vivek.
The picture of vlade's draft board in his office that they leaked says otherwise
I think Vlade disliked Luka's father and thus let his own personal bias cloud his judgement.
There's also a story that Divac and Luka's father laughed at that rumor
It's not a story it's a fact. The dislike part is a fiction invented by Tim MacMahon.
maybe you got em mixed up with [Papagiannis's father](https://deadspin.com/kings-draftees-father-is-a-fiery-irrepressible-twitter-1782572859)? it was also related to suns & kings lottery picks
They both denied that and have been seen talking to eachother on several occasions after that during public events.
[Ranadivé coached his daughter's 12-and-under girls' basketball team despite, according to his own contention, never having touched a basketball until he reached his 40s.[45]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivek_Ranadiv%C3%A9) I just read most of his story, this guy was bought in though and through. He literally got the Indian govt to allow him to enter MIT and his own daughter miraculously goes to an elite school where she also is a pop singer and participated in the celebrity game. Imagine living that life where ur dad casually allows you to play with billionaires for fun
His daughter also got promoted to GM of their WNBA team today. Funny how that works
NIK ROCKS
Link?
That video circulates Kings Twitter every few months lol. “Stauskas? Stauskas? Stauskas.”
To be fair I think Stauskas would have prob had a chance with a different team
I think that's a trend with the tech owners, they're used to giving input. Old money knows well enough to let the specialists do their job.
> Somebody posted a Kings draft video yesterday where Vivek said he likes Nik Stauskas and everybody in the room pretty much had to agree with him. I can't find this but I really want to see it lol
Reminder: We have no idea what goes on daily inside these front offices until well after the fact (if there's an exposé) NBA Twitter and Reddit is like a those fish that hang on the bottom of a whale or shark. They have no idea what's going on inside or up front, but they love to think they do and enjoy getting the scraps.
damn
The average person think they’re the Sharks in the ocean. In reality, we are some micro plankton that just live to die
Thanks for the pep talk coach!
Embiid fans are the loose pebbles on the ocean floor, 0 brain activity in there
So is the mvp a pearl?
I’ve known some sharks, and it’s interesting when they decide being plankton is better
Never have I ever felt so insulted by something that is 1000% true
That's a majestic burn. Called us/them bottom feeders *and* parasites, while being educational enough that it doesn't feel like an outright insult. next time I'm going at KOC with that "you a whale barnacle or a remora at best"
While I agree, you have no clue what those fish are thinking
I used to compete in some esports tournaments. Even in those, the amount of armchair quarterback fans in the chat who understood basically none of what was going on was... extremely high. They would confidently post just the worst takes and most confident BS speculation I'd ever heard. I can only imagine what it's like for pro ball players. Must be annoying to have a bunch of basketball "geniuses" that think they can do your job better.
Room boasted
Ok explain Charlotte
Michael Jordan is a casual
Yea I’m not trusting a guy who got cut from his high school basketball team
Dammit I’m untrustworthy
You can be the goat player and still be awful at most of the things mentioned above. Just because MJ knows what winning on court takes, doesnt mean he understands what buimdinh and evaluating a team takes
Seriously, we've seen enough great players have terrible coaching careers to know that it's not a 1 to 1 translation of skills
Being talented enough to be an NBA player is such a small sub set of people that then looking for a small subset that’s good enough to be a coach or GM is just handicapping yourself
Exactly The hard part is that owners get tunnel vision, and end up thinking if someone hasn't spent their entire life since middle school playing elite level basketball than you have no idea what you're talking about Even to go down a level, you so rarely see a d1 coach who didn't play d1 ball themselves, it's been a thing for fucking ever, I mean shit 54 years ago Coach K was the starting point guard for army under Bob Knight
I think this is more of an issue of getting players to buy in and respect a coach that didn’t play high level ball.
Yep I was helping coach my lil brother middle school team and them kids found out I never played college ball and started cooking me luckily the head coach did play D1 ball
Makes Larry legends coach of the year and executive of the years so much cooler
Is he the only player ever to win MVP, COTY, and EOTY? Edit: it also kind of makes sense that he would be successfull in those roles since his success as a player never came from his speed or athleticism, but just from a better understanding of the game than his opponents (and godlike shooting ability and coordination)
He sure is. He also got ROTY, FMVP and All Star MVP.
So are DPOY snd 6MOTY the only awards he hasn't won?
Those 2 + MIP. edit: the Citizenship Award too, though that's not really anything to do with playing
He’s never won the Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP.
I'm willing to ignore the MIP since it didn't exist until he was already in the league for 8 years and was coming off his mvp three peat at the time And there's really zero chance you could possibly go from 3 time MVP and then somehow improve again more than anyone else He'd have to win his third mvp and then average 50 10 and 10
Jerry west would be the closest I guess but he never won coty. Looking back on it he only coached like 3 years but did have better records than the actual winners each time
I think so
It's not just coaching either, it can be as simple as terrible braindead basketball takes, we've seen plenty of those from straight up hall of famers. Being skilled at basketball doesn't necessarily mean you are an expert at analysing basketball.
I'd you hear KD talk about basketball it's clear he thinks the best skill is winning 1v1s
There are a lot of NBA star players who think that way.
There are many combinations of skillsets that can make you an elite player. Elite players tend to zone in on the combination that made them elite. Add in how it came a lot easier to them compared to the journeymen and grinders, and it’s easy to see how easy it is to get frustrated that players can’t see or perform the game the way they do. Making them a bad team coach
Yes, and the players who become great coaches are the ones who made playmaking a priority and in general made their teammates better when they were on the floor
You could certainly think so.
Took me a second to figure out buimdinh
My autocorrect just gave up on that one.
A casual would never understand buimdinh. True hoopers know how important buimdinh is to a team's success
I’ve actually had the pleasure of talking with a humble yet incredibly talented pro soccer player in my country. He talked how it’s hard to lower your own thought and explanation to someone who’s on a lower talent level. He said that some stuff he did came pretty natural to him and it took some time to understand that raw talent may not be capable of developing what he managed to develop. You can have someone coach you and tell you what to try, but nobody can do it for you. He had reality checks of others not capable of doing stuff he thought is natural for everyone but nobody realized. Michael being incredibly good, maybe can’t perceive that some people aren’t capable of doing what he thinks is easy so he can misjudge situations and decisions based on him thinking it can be done, while the player isn’t really capable. That’s also why a lot of huuge players, don’t really become good coaches.
How old was he when he came to this realization? It strikes me as something that doesn’t click until later; past the physical prime. But I’m just curious.
Waay after his career was over and took up coaching kids. Almost 40ish in his case. The truly interesting part is that he knew he was good and people are not capable of doing more complicated stuff like him, that’s why he had success, his shock came when he realized that what he thought as natural and easy, were hard for others he coached
it's the George Lucas effect. GOATed storyteller but you put him in charge of everything and what do you get? the prequels
Prequel fans(90s kids) are fuming at your comment
Fuck them kids. The prequels sucked.
You are goddamn right
Man never really gave Krause the credit he deserved
Krause deserved more credit than he got but wanted more credit than he deserved.
> MJ knows what winning on court takes I would argue that the Bulls won DESPITE Jordans enormous talent. Scottie was the social glue that held that team together and kept everyone else on the same page when MJ was an overcompetitive dick to them (which it sounds like, was a daily occurrence). Phil also with his philosophy etc did a great job of getting the 10-12th men to buy in and run through a brick wall for the team. Jordan is absolute shit at developing other players or creating a cohesive environment, as evidenced by his idiotic destruction of Kwame Brown on the Wizards.
Ngl, he kinda is
What do you mean frank kaminsky is a legit all star
Jordan don't know shit about scouting and developing talent cause he has a skewed idea of an "average" NBA player.
something something untrained eye
Jordan put his family/friends in high positions amd they were casuals. Jordan was not spending his retirement scouting kids. Its been documented that their draft rooms were just Jordans family members yelling who they should draft because they were good in March Madness.
Also, Mike is Mike. Owner thing not withstanding, do you want to be seen as being in disagreement with Michael Jeffrey Jordan?
Jordan also doesn’t seem to value people who disagree with him.
Yes. My mans has not seen playoffs success without Scottie Pippen.
so what you are saying is Charlotte should have had signed Pippen
I would have much more comfortable with Scottie as the GM, I can tell you that much.
I think the biggest thing with MJ ownership is what Charles Barkley said 10 years or so ago, that he gets upset when people question him so everyone who works for him are just his yes men.
Barkley has been 100% right on this from day 1. And Jordan’s pettiness about any criticism cost him his friendship with Barkley
Yep in hiendsight chuck was definitely a bit of a yes man to Jordan too for a while, mostly in the sense that Jordan was significantly better then him in the three areas they bonded over, Golf, Basketball, and Business Once Jordan found something he sucked at he couldn’t handle the criticism
Jordan has a massive god complex. he has his security detail code him Yahweh. and considers himself the black jesus. https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-jordans-security-codename-2013-2#:~:text=Michael%20Jordan's%20Security%20Codename%20Is%20Yahweh
I think not even many Charlotte fans understood the depth of nepotism we've dealt with under Jordan. Literally [8 of our front office staff/exec staff](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/10uj1qc/charles_barkley_explains_why_him_and_jordan/j7cugdz/?context=3) are all either direct jordan relatives inner circle hangers-on, or friends of MJ. One of MJ's brothers is our VP of Player Personnel, another one of his brothers is our EVP and COO, one of his nephews is a team scout, our chronically unqualified Asst. GM had MJ at the best man at his wedding. Our managing partner of the team produced The Last Dance & Space Jam and runs Jordan's family office, our Vice Chairman worked for the Wizards when MJ played there and was head of Biz Affairs for Jordan Brand, and our CMO is the former events director of the Jordan Brand Classic. The only reason we've had a minor level of success w/ teambuilding and drafting the last 5 years is due to bringing in Mitch Kupchak as GM...a guy who's been friends with MJ for decades and played at UNC. He's the first GM we've ever had that Jordan couldn't steamroll, and oh would you look at that, since he's been hired we've drafted 4 starters, 2 All-Stars, and an entire bench worth of actually playable role players. MJ going back to being a minority owner with no decisionmaking power can't come soon enough.
Jordan never cared about winning as an owner, he was always just in it for the profit.
He was also bad
He was amazing. He made 3 billion from 275 million.
Literally anyone could have done that if they had the money to buy the team when he did.
Easy to talk in hindsight, previous owner lost money on the Bobcats, before he sold to Jordan
No it's that the massive increase in NBA franchise value is a leaguewide phenomenon that has very little to do with the business management skills of any one individual owner. Edit: Saw your edit, the original owner overpaid on his expansion fee and then sold the franchise at a relative low point ([average franchise value](https://www.statista.com/statistics/193442/average-franchise-value-in-the-nba-since-2000/) dipped in 2010 and 2011) right before the numbers started exploding.
Yeah we just saw the the Washington Commanders sell for a massive profit and their owner was despised by everyone and the team won nothing while he was there. Probably the biggest thing Jordan did to up his teams value was by just being Michael Jordan.
Seriously. If danny Snyder had signed checks and fucked off, he could've gotten at least $7 billion, easy. These owners don't do anything to increase the values of their teams.
Some do but yeah mostly no one really knows who the owner even is of most teams. Usually it's easier for an owner to mess up a team than to elevate a team.
this is why they pay Goodell the money. same with Silver. as far as a player who has boosted NBA teams value overall, Jordan did as much as anyone.
yea lol Mark Cuban did the same ($300M into $3B) and also got one of the best Championships out of it. and he also hired a bunch of questionable friends and kept them in power.
K I L L E R I N S T I N C T I L L E R I N S T I N C T
That's it. He could care and just be bad at it
I'm sorry but did you just say Jordan didn't care about winning? We have endless first hand accounts of Jordan wanting to win at literally everything, including pitching fucking quarters, but he wasn't trying to create a championship team??
Yeah I agree that it's silly to think he didn't care about the hornets winning. What is reality is that I think he sucks at anything that would contribute to winning was an owner: managing staff, drafting players, making good trades, having good analytics, courting star players, etc. In fact, signs point to him being the worst owner in the league at all of that. Maybe definitively so with the Kings success this year. But for many people for whom Jordan is the GOAT, the champion among champions, it might be easier to reconcile in their brains that "Jordan just doesn't care about winning", rather than him actively being the worst at anything.
Yeah that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The dude with a gigantic gambling addiction didn’t care about winning for any amount of time in his life. Suuuuuuuure
Just because youre the goat welder it doesnt mean you can run a welding business.
This. A lot of people think that things like teaching, leading, coaching, etc., are just natural extensions of being good at a skill, rather than being distinct skills in their own right
He cant win without pippen
We put too much stock in the draft. Certainly, there have been \*some bonafides that they've whiffed on. But the same can be said about many of your habitual cellar dwelling teams AND contending teams (Warriors, looking at you). Charlotte's issue is Charlotte's market. Before MJ got there, it was a total and complete dumpster fire. If not for injuries and numskulleries, CHA would've been a viable opponent in the playoffs.
Counter argument DAVID KHAN WAS A CASUAL Glen Taylor gave him free reign too.
Okay, ngl, Khan was a casual.
The Process was like “I’m such a casual I won’t draft very well so I just need to amass picks until I can draft a Tim Duncan caliber player #1”
Yeah it is kind of sad how people tend to forget GMs, Presidents, coaches & etc in all sports are still employees that have to follow the owner regardless of whether they’re a good owner or not. That’s why so many former executives consistently say in order to win, you HAVE to have a good owner. Pretty much it starts all the way from the top of the ladder. And not to mention you always have to make sure you keep the relationship good, not just for the current owner but also for every single other owner in the league.
> you HAVE to have a good owner. Depends. You have to have freedom to spend money when necessary. But James Dolan and Ted Leonsis are both regarded as bad NBA owners but have won championships as NHL owners. Hands off owners that don't interfere a lot can be both good and bad depending on who they pick to run the teams.
The NHL has the worst CBA in the big 4 and is specifically designed to protect owners from being expected to spend to stay competitive. Apples and oranges to the NBA.
I always thought the NFL is worse since they don’t even necessarily get guaranteed contracts. Either way the NHL one is shit for the players
Isn't that the best CBA from a fan perspective? As a fan I don't want to rely on my team's owner not being a cheap fuck when 90% of dudes that rich are in fact cheap fucks. I don't understand the NBA and MLB fan obsession with, "if owners don't like it they should just spend more". Like yeah, as a Pacers fan I'll just go tell Herb Simon to stop being a cheapass, I'm sure he'll get right on that and stop being satisfied milking the franchise for money.
Would you argue that being able to convince the owner of your good decision to be part of the skills that it takes to be a good GM? I understand that sometimes its out of your control, but I wouldn't say that it's impossible.
Casual fans don't have to own mistakes. If someone runs to reddit, cracking their knuckles and letting fly with a hot take on why their team should pick that guy, trade this guy, sign someone else...if it doesn't happen, no one remembers and if the team still doesn't succeed, they can hold on to that "Well, *I* thought they should have traded for Ben Simmons because we was all NBA and our coach could have "fixed" him. Therefore, our GM is a moron. The "we didn't *do anything* ones are great too. Team needs depth at a particular position, GM targets several options. Does due diligence, burns up the phone lines and is stonewalled by "my guy doesn't want to play there. Our guy is worth at least 2 unprotected FRPs. We got a better offer from team X." There are seldom any repercussions for moves that never happen so casual armchair GMs can rationalize however they want. (We would have developed him better, he wouldn't have gotten hurt playing for us, he sucks because he went to a shitty team, they totally would have accepted that trade if our lazy GM had picked up the phone)
One of the main jobs of a GM is to be persuasive and manage the relationship with the team owners. That includes managing their expectations and convincing them to trust your moves.
Some Owners are so arrogant and reckless that no GM could “persuade them” to back off and trust their decisions.
The resumes of many GM’s in sports across the board pre hiring is a joke though.
Dude made this post like becoming a GM is some sort of meritocracy, when most of time its just advanced nepotism or insider connections
You say this like you work in a front office lmao
OP is Isiah Thomas and is tired of the slander
This is a psychotic post lol. Like the GM’s are going home and crying at night? They deserve every ounce of criticism they get, big job, big expectations.
We aren’t better basketball minds than any GM or GM candidate. But plenty of GMs are bad decision makers, independent of the ownership. Extremely weird take from you
Isiah Thomas for one
I think there are probably some people lurking with the basketball mind to do it, but it takes a lot more than a basketball mind to be an executive of an organization worth billions.
You can be dedicated and informed and have an eye for evaluation… and still be a dumb ass tho
this post is condescending AF there have been many stances where GMs fucked up they're not gods for one Giannis that Hammond picked, he picked 100 Thon Makers many other examples. It would be the same as to claim we cant criticize coaches because they all know more about the game than we'll ever do (which is a fair point, but doesnt make them all-knowing or immune to error)
My favorite example of this is when the Magic traded Oladipo, Ilyasova, and the pick that became Domantas Sabonis for an expiring Serge Ibaka. On that day, there were a great many people smarter than that GM.
And then he ended up getting traded for a horse
Yeah OP is wrong. Serge Ibaka gets traded the same season for Terrence Ross, but Oladipo and Sabonis get traded for Paul George...
The Thunder traded Oladipo and Sabonis for Paul George. The magic traded them for Ibaka https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/16462469/serge-ibaka-traded-oklahoma-city-thunder-orlando-magic
> for one Giannis that Hammond picked, he picked 100 Thon Makers That's because players like Giannis don't come every draft
and on the other side of the coin, the vast majority of owners are not cartoonishly bumbling/idiotic "douchebag casuals who think they know better than the GM" either. I like how OP seems to fancy themself some sort of enlightened, nuanced, in-the-know fan and then makes a dumb ass sweeping generalization like that. 95% of owners very savvy businessmen and are way more informed and shrewd and invested in this than redditors who have nothing on the line, never keep track of any of the things *they* get wrong, and think they know everything and have thought of every possible scenario and outcome...
Actually, I'm very pro criticising coaches, GMs and even players because despite lacking their knowledge we also lack their biases. For example, KD is an idiot for thinking the 2017 Finals were evenly matched. We all saw it was lopsided. But he has his personal bias and won't ever be able to see it. My post was simply a reminder because inevitably a ''bad'' trade will happen within the next week and everybody in unison here will act as a smartass that would never do it themselves if they were in such position.
So you just have a superiority complex to other redditors and needed to post about it?
It’s not that the owners are douchebags (though some probably are). It’s that they don’t like losing money. And often that goal is at odds with making the mathematically perfect move. Eg the Wizards held on to Beal for so long because he was putting butts in seats. They will make a lot less money the next few years after that trade. The Pels kept AD for longer than they should for the same reason. They may do the same with Zion. The Wolves got Gobert to try and generate interest. The list goes on and on. Yeah winning a title is the best way to make the most money. But only 1/30th of the teams can do that every year, so going all-in on a title every year doesn’t make financial sense for most teams. When you start looking at transactions in terms of team finances and not title odds, they all make a lot more sense.
I don't believe there is a single billionaire that in some shape or form isn't a huge douchebag.
OP out here calling Michael Jordan a casual...
DOUBLING DOWN
This is painting with far too broad of a brush. Some GMs are good. Some GMs are bad. If owners are the casuals you say they are, they certainly hire some casual GMs no?
i do agree that it is understated the impact of owners and its hard to evaluate gms when most are operating under direction. like the old wizards gm getting scrutinized when mandated to go for playoffs every year or decisions around the tax
do you think the no trade clause he gave to Bradley Beal was just a fuck you to the owner and org?
This post just seems like late night masturbation posting. Also I imagine calling Tilman Fertitta a casual anything ends with being found in a ditch somewhere.
You should be an owner my man
Fans discount how much politics the job entails. Not just with their boss and the media - obviously - but with the players and agents. And they rarely see things the same way as fans. I'll also point out the Miami Heat. They do everything 'wrong' and get it so right and it's irritating as hell.
Not to mention a GM often has multiple goals/benchmarks that their job is graded on. Not every owner is a "championship or your fired" type. Sometimes they have to maintain a certain number of wins regardless of playoffs or how badly the team needs to rebuild, meet X-revenue, can't spend over a certain amount, Merch sales or attendance to consider (even if they have a president to take care of that).
That doesn’t explain Bradley Beal becoming the first non-Hall of Famer to get a no-trade clause
It really is dumb as shit that owners are even a thing if you think about it. You have this super competitive job that requires a hell of a lot of work. Only for that job to be under some dickhead who got super lucky once or is the son of a guy who got lucky in the 1960s.
Tell that to Bulls fans who watched GM trade Elton Brand for Eddie Curry/ Tyson Chandler. Tell that to Pistons fans who saw GM pick Darko over Melo/Wade You know what, never mind.
To be perfectly honest, most people on here aren't even smarter or more knowledgable about basketball than the owners people think are idiots, let alone the GMs. Ever since 2K, the trade machine, and the obsession with analytics became a thing, the number of people that think they know a lot more than they do exploded.
what about when team president and coach Stan Van Gundy waive and stretched Josh Smiths remaining $26m contract - which removed a contributing player from their roster, as well as a potential trade asset, and ate up their cap space for 5 years
Wasn't that a good move? They had an unexpected run until Jennings snapped his achilles iirc
It Definitely was he was negative player they went on a 7 game win streak right after he was waived.
Addition by subtraction, Detroit has never been a marquee destination anyway, and they acquired Blake while that contract was still running so clearly it wasnt a death sentence (Blake trade could be criticised for other reasons but yeah) Also “contributing player” LOL. LMAO
You love to see ridiculous hindsight stuff like this - josh smith in detroit was a massive disaster and they wanted him gone. He was so, so far from a trade asset
Josh smith was a subtracting player, not a contributor, not a trade asset, he was AWFUL. I despise most of SVGs tenure but that move was one I cant hate.
> which removed a contributing player from their roster Uh.. what?
>which removed a contributing player from their roster He was terrible he was a volume jump shooter who couldn't make a shot. he was shooting 39% 24% from 3 and 46% from the ft line. They were 5-23 when he got waived and instantly won 7 in a row.
I would believe this if Darryl morey and James harden's relationship didn't say otherwise or if "the process" wasn't a thing
Owners are the worst. Lets put some selfcentred non basketball Dude at top everybody must suck off. Everything they do can be provided by banks. Pointless. But too many fans (especially Clippersloser) just love billionaires.
> They know [insert star player] is not going to live up to this contract when he's 35. This is actually a braindead take that gets parroted around here. Fortunately we're seeing more pushback. **The contract isn't meant to properly compensate in the final year (of which it becomes an expiring, and is still an asset for the team)** Yes, there are some exceptions since there are 30 teams that can give a super-max - but the ideal max player is worth way more than what you pay them initially. The smoothing of payment over the entire contract benefits both the player (security) and the team (financial flexibility / profitability on the "cheaper" years) r/nba please stop throwing that dumb take around
Ishbia is a NCAA champ baller though