TheFifthMookie
Bench
I think Reynolds is getting a little bit of a bum rap here.
And just for the record, Jerry and Kayte are my favorite Kings-related personalities, now that Koz is gone.
I think Reynolds is getting a little bit of a bum rap here.
The old adage , "Excuses, excuses, excuses" continues.
It is fairly remarkable.
After declining win totals in 7 of the last 8 seasons and a 17 win franchise worst record this past year, one does wonder where we would be if our GM wasn't infallible.![]()
"Declining win totals in 7 of the last 8 seasons" I would suspect is an overstatement. Not because it's not true, but because I would think it could probably be said about more than just the Kings.
Yes, the Kings stunk up the court last season but it's not all Petrie's fault. No one that I can think of has said he's infallible.
There are a lot of factors that have contributed to our troubles; I actually believe we've passed the worst and, based on the youth and excitement I'm seeing this TDOS, I think we may have turned a corner.
The idea that Petrie is totally without merit is just as wrong as saying he's infallible. This isn't as clear-cut as some of you want to make it out to be. There are a myriad of factors that contribute to winning ... and to losing.
If those are excuses, so be it. I prefer to think of them as talking points, various factors people on message boards can talk about and debate that might or might not be valid.
The Kings have had a horrible run of bad luck, some questionable trades, some trades that may have been refused, some coaching decisions that were not the right way to go, and some poor choices by the ownership. I'm pretty sure that's run of the mill for just about every team in the league, with the possible exception of the Lakers. It hasn't all been bad, however, and I know I tend to defend Petrie when people want to paint his whole time here with the failure brush.
I have said plenty and am tired of you making this personal. I am done. I hope Petrie's moves improve. That is all.At least your consistant.. Not too imformative, but consistant.![]()
Secondly back to Capt. Factorials original point about who got the better of which trades, I think using Win Shares is the wrong methodology. If our stated goal is to win a championship then I think trades should be measured in terms of if it brings us closer or further from that goal. For instance by trading for Ron Artest and our 33 and 38 win seasons is we missed out on Durant and Rose in my opinion.
Your point is well taken, and you might notice that when we officially began the blow-it-up era, I stopped looking at win shares and started looking at the financial bottom line.
A lot of folks here think we should have started the rebuild sooner. Well, it did have to start sometime, but in my opinion that wouldn't have actually changed the Misery Factor of the rebuild, it would have just shifted it in time. Keep in mind that we would only have missed out on a chance for Rose/Durant (as our #4 pick this year illustrates). And for all we know, Evans might turn out to be a great pick.
But as for win shares, I think it is a valid way of assessing the trades we were actually trying to improve with. Arguing against the intent of the trade is a valid thing to do, but it falls outside the scope of what I was looking at. It's somewhat akin to holding a GM accountable for trades that didn't happen -- arguing that the GM has done a poor job of directing the franchise rather than specifically assessing what the GM has done. What I was basically asking above is the following: "Petrie had a goal in mind when he made this trade. How did he do?"
But as for win shares, I think it is a valid way of assessing the trades we were actually trying to improve with. Arguing against the intent of the trade is a valid thing to do, but it falls outside the scope of what I was looking at. It's somewhat akin to holding a GM accountable for trades that didn't happen -- arguing that the GM has done a poor job of directing the franchise rather than specifically assessing what the GM has done. What I was basically asking above is the following: "Petrie had a goal in mind when he made this trade. How did he do?"
But it would have been better to be crappy when the economy was better and moving up now then be crappy in the bad economy. Not that there is any guarantee they wouldnt stay crappy.
Can you explain how you got 8.9 for Webber and 9.0 for Kenny Thomas? Looking at basketball-reference.com I am not getting the same totals.
Also would you say this is a fair summary of your post:
Good
Christie->Mobley
Webber->Movable Pieces
Peja->Artest
Bibby->Nothing
Artest->Picks
Miller->Nocioni
Pick->Sergio
Neutral
Jackson->Bonzi
Skinner->Whatever
Pick->Cassel
Sheldon->McCants
Pick->Cash
Bad
->Hart
Using your criteria that is probably fairly accurate. I would suggest that the Bibby and Miller trades was not as good if you add the fact that we waited so long to trade him. I think a part of any trade is knowing how long to hold onto a player. Bill Walsh always took a lot of grief for trading players before others thought he should, but he always sold high.
I think the fans who are arguing against you are looking at Petrie's career as a whole, when you are looking at just trades. So I think you demonstrated the Petrie's real weakness is free agent signings. SAR, Salmons, Maurice Taylor, Mikki Moore, Beno's Extention. I know it is more than five years ago but I want to throw Tony Massenburg in there too.
Can you explain how you got 8.9 for Webber and 9.0 for Kenny Thomas? Looking at basketball-reference.com I am not getting the same totals.
Also would you say this is a fair summary of your post:
Good
Christie->Mobley
Webber->Movable Pieces
Peja->Artest
Bibby->Nothing
Artest->Picks
Miller->Nocioni
Pick->Sergio
Neutral
Jackson->Bonzi
Skinner->Whatever
Pick->Cassel
Sheldon->McCants
Pick->Cash
Bad
->Hart
Using your criteria that is probably fairly accurate. I would suggest that the Bibby and Miller trades was not as good if you add the fact that we waited so long to trade him. I think a part of any trade is knowing how long to hold onto a player. Bill Walsh always took a lot of grief for trading players before others thought he should, but he always sold high.
I think the fans who are arguing against you are looking at Petrie's career as a whole, when you are looking at just trades. So I think you demonstrated the Petrie's real weakness is free agent signings. SAR, Salmons, Maurice Taylor, Mikki Moore, Beno's Extention. I know it is more than five years ago but I want to throw Tony Massenburg in there too.
First, the entire post was spawned by the statement "Petrie hasn't made a good trade in 5 years." My original intent was to evaluate that statement at face value to determine how much merit the statement had. I would suggest that that statement had very little merit, and that this conclusion is independent of what Petrie didn't do. When he has acted to make trades, they have usually been good or neutral. (Obviously there is nothing so good as a Pau Gasol rip-off in there, but how often do those come up?)
I've been taking Petrie's goals into account, and seeing how well his moves have accomplished those goals. When we look at the trades he has made, he seems to have done a pretty good job of moving towards his goals. This does not equate to "infallibility" (not your accusation) in any sense, but when your moves tend to accomplish your goals rather than thwart them, I would say that it puts you in the realm of success rather than failure.
Would you not say determining Petrie's goals is part of the problem? He has been so tight lipped with the media and fan base over the last 14 years that most of the time we can only speculate on his intentions.
What I don't think you're factoring in is that the Kings traded all their core players at the low end of their value. You have to fault Petrie on being slow on moving guys that weren't advancing the team. By the time we traded most of the core, their value was far lower than what we got them for. We bought high and sold low over and over again.
The only exception being Christie and Bobby, who we got decent 1 year returns on. But if you look at the value of Brad, what we gave up for him and what we got in exchange at the end, it's nigh disastrous.
Evaluating individual moves is missing the point. The goal of a GM is to put together enough talent that meshes to get close to winning a ring. Petrie has now done that in two separate runs, one with Portland and one with Sacramento. A GM cannot be blamed for bad luck or individual games- that's on coaches and players. Could drafting Dirk over JWill given the Kings a better chance to beat the Lakers? Maybe but that's really a moot point as the unknowns would then be humongous.
Bottom line: if this current crop of talent is able to make a serious run at a title in the next 2-5 years, GP will have solidified his reputation as one of the best GMs in the game. If it is another close but no cigar one can argue that his approach is good but his blueprint will never get a ring (a la Princeton players can't win it all).
People arguing over specific moves are missing the point entirely. GM's should be thinking in terms of eras of teams, not whether this or that move was good enough. Long term management always wins out of grabbing the best talent or name every time.
It should be noted that Petrie did not put together the Portland team -- he took over as GM in the middle of their run. Drexler, Porter, Buck etc. were all already there when he got the job.
But the real problem with trying to isolate intent as the key to whether a move was successful is that to a large degree a GMs job is precisely to exercise judment about that intent. If I take over the Cavs and immediately trade Lebron for Kevin Martin because I intend to make my team into a bunch of flopping weenies, well I have succeeded in my intent -- yay me! -- but I am still a fricking idiot and would deserve to be dragged from my car and thrown in one of Cleveland's polluted rivers.