How Does This Continue To Happen?

Greg Poppovich and Phil Jackson have won 14 championships in the last 20 years. Part of it has to do with them being hall of fame coaches, but they also know how to work with a front office to get the personnel they need. If you watched this NBA offseason, you would see how shockingly rare this is. NBA GMs are dumb. They seriously do not know how to build a basketball team. As evidence, I provide the following teams:

1. Memphis Grizzlies. Just when I thought I could never be shocked by anything Chris Wallace did, he drafted Hasheem Thabeet, traded for Zach Randolph, let Hakim Warrick walk, and for some reason opted into a trade that gave Dallas Shawn Marion in order to save his team 2 million. You know what's a good way to make 2 million? Field a team that doesn't suck. Look at the starting roster: Conley is too small and is a bit of an injury liability (shockingly he has no backup), OJ Mayo is a chucker, Rudy Gay is a chucker, Zach Randolph is a black hole, and Hasheem Thabeet is in absolutely no way an NBA caliber player right now. This team might not win fifteen games, it's going bankrupt, Chris Wallace already traded Pau Gasol for Javaris Crittenton, and now he wants to maybe sign Allen Iverson. How in the fucking world does he have a job? Has anybody ever been this bad at something? Not even their job, just pick an activity that someone could be bad at performing, are they as terrible as Chris Wallace?

2.Milwaukee Bucks. Trading Richard Jefferson for nothing? Bold. Not even offering a contract to Charlie Villanueva? Also bold. Letting Ramon Sessions leave as well? Alright then, that leaves you with a team that has one player that can described as good and one other that can be described as above average. Outside of Bogut and Redd, I'm not sure Milwaukee has a single guy who should be in the top 8 of a professional franchise.

3. Minnesota Timberwolves. Drafted consecutive point guards at 5 and 6. No coach. Brian Cardinal and Darius Songalia looking at real minutes. It won't be too long before Al Jefferson demands out. It could be worse, but it looks like Rubio's gonna come over and play. I guess that's a good thing, even though he played against some weak competition. They could actually win less games than a team run by Chris Wallace.

4. Indiana Pacers. They let Jarret Jack flee the country, drafted Tyler Hansborough too early, and signed Dahntay Jones for 11 million even though he fills the same niche as 2008 first rounder Brandon Rush. On the plus side, they could trot out the least athletic lineup since basketball integrated with Travis Diener, Mike Dunleavy, Tyler Hansborough, Troy Murphy, and Roy Hibbert.

5. Phoenix Suns. Traded Shaq for nothing. Not that there was a lot on the table, but I just have to criticize a team that gave up a starting all-star center in exchange for jack shit. After Amare leaves, they may be very bad for a good number of years.


6. Detroit Pistons. They're locked in for mediocrity. Gordon and Villanueva are nice players, neither of whom can play defense. You should not commit 20 million dollars per year for 5 years to those two. Kwame Brown is starting. You should not start Kwame Brown. Rip Hamilton does the exact same thing Ben Gordon does at the same price, only not quite as well. There is not one good ballhandler on the roster. Look for an inglorious exit for Joey Dumars in a year or two because he's made a mess.

7. Atlanta Hawks. Trading for Jamal Crawford automatically gets you put into the top 10. There's a reason he has never been on a winning team.

THUS ENDS THE GMS THAT HAVE DONE MULTIPLE YEARS OF HARM TO THEIR TEAMS. The next group has made their team in some way worse off, but not irreparably so.

8. Houston Rockets. Trevor Ariza is simply not the player Ron Artest is. Don't let his hot shooting streak in the playoffs fool you, he shot a miserable 32 percent from 3 during the regular season. He's probably not as bad as his regular season would indicate, but absolutely not as good as his April would. Rumors of Ron Ron's defensive demise have been greatly exaggerated. His counterpart PER at SF was an astounding 12.3, the SFs Ariza was charged with guarding had a PER of 16. Oh and Ron is a much better defender. Sure he's crazy, but look at how well they played the Lakers when it was basically Artest, Battier, and Scola. A healthy Yao Ming (I know) and that's a championship contender, especially once they clear T-Mac's massive salary. They took a big step back.

9. LA Lakers. Just because I spent the last paragraph admonishing Ron Artest doesn't mean I think LA's a good fit for him. Ariza did exactly what they needed, which was provide perimeter D while not taking any bad shots. Well Ron likes to shoot a lot more. He might not like being the fourth option on a team behind Kobe, Pau, possibly Odom or Bynum. Also he's an insane person living in the holy Mecca of insane people. I have no idea what could happen. Maybe he opens an international chain of waffle houses. Maybe he gets his own personal tiger to ride around on, whom he lovingly names Jambi. Maybe he starts dressing like Mr. Peanut and crashes movies studios and gives spontaneous advice to M. Night Shamalyan on the subtleties of mis-en-scene. He's like a comic book character, nothing is out of the question.

10. Chicago Bulls. I still can't believe they gave a small forward who's specialty is the mid range game 12 million per. I can't remember any contract that was so instantly regretted. And it cost the Bulls Ben Gordon, a guy who could absolutely be the third option on a championship team. It's not so bad, Gordon's skill is probably the easiest of any to replace. I'm pissed that Jerry was so unwilling to go into the tax for a team that's so close. Seriously we were Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas for Chris Bosh (could happen midseason) from being contenders. Oh and Jerry's trying to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and the Bulls have been the most profitable team in the NBA over the decade despite being a joke for the first half of it. We deserved better.

11. Boston Celtics. Sheed is terrible. His stats are comparable to Walter Hermann's. And you can only put so much crazy douche into one team before it explodes. Sheed is an ass, KG is an ass, Rondo is a punkbitch extraordinairre. One can only hope that Sheed ends up pounding the crap out of Rajon, who Danny Ainge publicly blasted earlier this summer.

12. Orlando Magic. Opted for Marcin Gortat and Brandon Bass over Hedo Turkoglu. Let me rephrase that, opted for two back ups over their crunch time shooter. Nelson, Carter, Turkoglu, Lewis, Howard could have been the most offensively complete starting lineup in the NBA. They even have the necessary wing stopper off the bench in Pietrus. They were one step from a championship, made that step, then purposely took a huge step back. Dumb.

13. New Jersey. Was Courtney Lee really the best player you could get for Vince Carter? Really?

So those 13 teams got worse. Portland, Charlotte, Dallas, New Orleans, and Washington all made moves that don't really make their teams much better. Miami, Utah, Denver, Philadelphia, Sacramento, and New York didn't do anything of significance, although Utah and Miami may. Golden State will be better in the future, maybe not this year, after ditching Jamal Crawford. The Clippers picked Blake Griffin, although I award them no credit in doing so. Cleveland got Shaq but they still need a versatile forward who can play good defense. Turkoglu may help the Raptors get to the playoffs, or they may severely regret that contract if they don't come out of the gate strong and have to trade Bosh. Oklahoma City made a solid pick with James Harden.

Of all the teams in the NBA, only the San Antonio Spurs made savvy moves that made the team significantly better. Parker, Mason, Jefferson (people forget he can also be a damn good wing defender), McDyess, Duncan, with Ginobili playing thirty off the bench. DaJuan Blair, my favorite sleeper of the draft and a guy the Bulls absolutely should have picked, as a valuable big man off the bench. Matt Bonner is a 6-10 PF who can shoot the 3. They can throw so many different looks at a team and spread the floor so well, and Pops is gonna be the best coach in the game next year. The team's getting older, but I think they have one last run in them. I'm tagging the Spurs as my early favorite for 2010.

So let's do a quick recap. Of the 30 NBA teams, thirteen got worse. Another eleven didn't really change. Two teams made high profile moves that probably won't pay off. Only four teams got better. One of those was addition by subtraction, so no credit because the Warriors acquired Jamal Crawford in the first place. No credit for picking Blake Griffin number one either because it was the most obvious pick of all time. That leaves us with Sam Presti and R.C. Buford, the two best GMs in basketball with only Jerry Buss, Daryl Morey, Mark Warkentien, and Kevin Pritchard deserving mention as good. Think about that. Only twenty percent of the profession deserves praise. That's not even half way to an F minus. The NBA: Where not even half way to an F minus happens.