Aside from 2 bad moves, drafting Douby and signing Beno, Petrie has been one of the best there is over the last 10 years.
He has been one of the ten worst for the last 5.
Easily.
Basically this is what Geoff Petrie has done well in this decade: drafted. You can't take that away from him. He drafts well. Not perfectly, and with quirks. But well overall (one reason I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the Tyreke thing until we see how that works out). If he did not draft well...he might quite literally have the worst record of any GM in the entire league over the past 6-8 years. Almost every FA he has signed has become an anvil. Wiht help from meddlesome owners, th coaches have bombed. He has had trades ranging from ineffective shrugs with little to show for it to flat out disasters. End result? Every player worth a damn on our current roster is one of our draft picks. Five years of them stacked up. Nothing else has worked, and the rebuild was delayed ridiculously until things fell apart on their own (including the fanbase).
I can even define the exact date when Geoff got stupid: May 9, 2003.
In case that date that lives in infamy needs a visual reminder:
And it wasn't his star player going down. That's consistently thrown out as an excuse, but star players going down don't in and of themselves result in the complete collapse we have seen over the last 5-6 years, setting a record for seasons consecutively getting worse, going from best record in the NBA to worst, from longest sell out streak, to worst attendance etc. etc. What it was was the massive financial retrenching by the Maloofs, who suddenly realized that spending money on support players would never bring them a title if they lost their star, and a poisined atmosphere amongst the fans and media which the owners also bought into, turning them against their own pillars of the franchise. And if that doesn't sound like it was Geoff's fault, its because its not. But what it IS, is an indication of what a perfect world he inhabited, what an advanatge he had over the league's other GMs, in the years before the fall. The Maloofs came in enthusiastic, willing to spend anything, in the belief that doing so would result in title. Geoff had an edge only 1 or 2 other GMs in the entire league had during his best years. Stripped of that advantage in subsequent years, and even saddled with meddlesome amateur owners, he has been anything but special. In fact, he's sucked. And yet one way or the other, the rebuild is upon us, and there is hope. But that's because of the structure of the league -- the structure of the draft that so many aorund here kicked and screamed so hard against for so long. Its designed to help the worst teams eventually rebound. EVERYBODY eventually rebounds if they can draft decently. Except the Clippers. But its not ebcause we've done anything but the bare minimum, at the very last second when our hand was absolutely forced, to help the process.
P.S. Quick stat BTW: Geoff Petrie GM record with Coach Adelman: 13 winning seasons, 0 losing seasons. Geoff Petrie GM record with all other coaches: 0 winning seasons, 7 losing seasons. Will be 0-8 after this year.
