I'm in the minority
- Thread starter ezekielbear
- Start date
Anybody who doesn't give him credit for building an amazing team wasn't paying attention. And I'm sure that everyone on this board was paying attention.
But it's been a long time since he build that team, most of what he's done since has been to cut costs somewhat, mainly by dismantling the bench. He also traded out aging guys for mismatched bits and pieces, and signed a fading star and a role player to contracts that nobody can get excited about. Adelman kept everyone overperforming so that the decline wasn't so obvious, but relations with the Maloofs were strained. Petrie failed to salvage things by either patching up things between them, or by getting the Maloofs to mind their own business.
Now the questions we're facing aren't about whether he knows how to build a team, but whether he knows how to rebuild one, and whether he can get the Maloofs to let him do it. And the answers are yet to be seen.
Jerryaki
Starter
agreed.
the past three years has been a serious decline for the franchise. making the playoffs feels like less of an accomplishment when a little over half the teams in the league makes it every year. this squad was a contender for two years (2002, 2003), and that's it. that is where petrie's great accomplishments ended.
if the playoff streak were more along the lines of san antonio (who have been contenders since 2003...that's FIVE years they've been contending), then it would be laudable. but except for 2002 and 2003, we've just been a roadblock to get over in the playoffs.
While a little over half the teams in the league make it every year, it's not the same teams.
Making the playoffs eight times in a row IS significant.
Jerryaki
Starter
true; i just feel like it's a silver-lining kind of significant, you know? nice to have, but of no real consequence. indiana's streak (going back to '97 i think) just ended this year too, and i don't think it makes a whit of difference to them given their past 4 seasons or so.
Kingster
Hall of Famer
What talent? It does have Martin. Cisco looks to be a keeper as a sixth man. Who else? Bibby and Miller - two players who play 5 years older than they are? Artest, the nutcase? This team is down there with the Bucks and Seattle. I'd rank it below the Grizzlies because they have a better core than the Kings and they are going to get an extremely good player in the draft. (Good move Grizzlies - lousy move Kings). Philly is better and has 2 picks in the draft. I'd certainly rank it below Charlotte. What teams are this bad, this old, and have as pathetic a talent base as the Kings? Maybe a handful.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Unfortunately let's just say, yes. Yes I can. '99 might be a good place to start.
This current team doesn't have much of an anything, let alone young core. A few good young swingmen types, which unfortunately are pretty much the least important players on the floor until you reach superstar status. The great majority of the young teams in the lottery with us have better young cores -- Charlotte, Portland, Atlanta etc., have the better futures, or at least clearer ones. The cubbard hasn't been barer around here in a decade.
There's always hope -- but the hope in our case is that we somehow parlay the tired old vets into something much better.
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HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
I would argue that Bibby, Cisco, Martin, Price, Williams, SAR, Salmons, and to a lesser degree Douby are all tallented tradeable pieces. Artest is tallented and somewaht tradeable. Miller harder to move but uniquelly tallented in terms of passing and range for a big... harder to trade. The record speaks for it's self there are lots of worse teams out there soem probablly playoff bound... the problem is NOT that this team compleetly sucks, if it did we would be compeeting with Boston and Memphis for a top 3 pick. The problem is virtually the same as it was LAST YEAR at this time: too tallented to reap in the draft not talllented enough to do anything meanigfull unless you count first round exists as meaningfull. The big difference is that last season a lot of fans actually DID count a first round exit as meaningfull.
My suggestion is NOT to celebrate our marginal tallent though it is to TRADE up to consolidate it. It will suck to see the Kings trade away several "good" players only to get back one really good player and some filler but that is the ONLY way this team will get better barring a mirical in teh draft at this point.
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Löwenherz
Starter
I don't blame people for seeing last season's first round exit as meaningful, especially with the way the season started.
Artest breathed new life into a team that was otherwise DOA. It was fun to watch them crawl back into the playoffs and make the Spurs sweat in the first round.
Plus, first round exits can be important building blocks for a franchise on its way up -- just like our early ones in the 90s with Utah and the Lakers.
And at the time with the Artest trade and a full offseason of trades ahead, most of us thought the franchise would be heading back up, using the playoff appearance as a stepping stone.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
And yet the off season brougt more of the same off season sitting on the hands that the past 3-4 off seasons had. Sorry as much fun as last years last gasp was the Kings managment had two good choices... beef up the front line and try to get serious with this line up or take advantage of an opertunity to trade off tallent for expiring contracts and position for the draft. Mismangament opted for the BAD idea of prety much staying pat, and firing the coach that got the best performace out of last years mediocre team replacing him with... well we all KNOW what they replaced him with. So now here we are.
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Löwenherz
Starter
Right, and because of Petrie's in-action during last off-season and at the trade deadline -- a lot of the goodwill I had toward him for building the Webb teams quickly began to vanish.
I'm giving him this off-season before I really start to turn on him.
But HAD he actually got off his kester and made some real moves -- last season's first round exit might not have been seen as useless.
I'm giving him this off-season before I really start to turn on him.
But HAD he actually got off his kester and made some real moves -- last season's first round exit might not have been seen as useless.
love_them_kings
Starter
First of all, I completely agree with you, and there are a lot of things that, in hindsight, have contributed to what has happened to this team. The trades, particularly the Webber trade, are obvious, but I think your point about the big contracts is very valid too, and I would add the Webber contract to the mix. I don't remember all the details, and I remember the sentiment (and mine to at that point) was sign Webb at all costs. But, did we have to go so high? Same for Bibby and Miller.
Although I'm not a huge fan of the Maloofs at this moment, I think that these large contracts were driven by passion for winning & the feeling that a championship was oh, so close, and I can hardly fault them for that. However, in hindsight, were these players really paid their market value, or did we overpay? If we did overpay Webb, for example, how would things have played out differently? Would the Maloofs have been more patient with his recovery if his pricetag wasn't so big? Would expectations on Bibby be smaller if his paycheck wasn't so huge? What could the team have done with some extra $$$?
Obviously you can go on and on with "what if" and "could have been" but it's interesting that "going for the gold" by pulling the trigger on those big contracts could have been part of our downfall.....
But now he's incompetent. Or at least that's the vibe that - to me - is pretty dominant on the board now. And I don't agree with that.
Two things:
Number one, it's pretty obvious that his hands were tied, and those moves to cut costs were mandated by ownership. And it should be noted that most of those moves in the early going didn't really cost us in the long run. Jon Barry, though a fan favorite, wasn't a necessary component to us being a contender. Neither was Jim Jackson or Tony Delk, or any of the other guys that walked due to cost-cutting moves. The only cost-cutting moves that hit us hard were Vlade - which is arguable, since he retired the next season - and Webber. And we all know what that was about.
Secondly, the acquisitions he made to get us from bubble team to contender were, perhaps, the most impressive. Acquiring Bobby Jackson and Doug Christie, trading for Mike Bibby and Brad Miller, etc., weren't trading out aging players for mismatched pieces. Neither was the Bobby Jackson for Bonzi Wells deal. Petrie did an amazing job with the team over the years. And he's done nothing to give me reason to believe that he's not capable of building the team back up.
Beyond that, the Adelman debacle was NOT a failure on Petrie's part. The Maloofs had their minds made up, and Rick was going to be the fall guy because they didn't get along with him. Petrie is still employed by the Maloofs, and if they decide that the coach isn't going to stick around, he's not gonna stick around. It is their business, and though I don't agree with the decision, it's certainly their decision to make if they want it to be.
If he can build a team out of this - Mitch Richmond (respects), Walt Williams, Brian Grant, Spud Webb, Olden Polynice, Michael Smith, Lionel Simmons, Alaa Abdelnaby, Randy Brown, Bobby Hurley (respects), Duane Causwell, Trevor Wilson, Henry Turner - then I don't doubt that he can rebuild a team. That's essentially what he did anyways. It's not like he got an expansion team and got to handpick whoever he wanted. He got a team that had little to no moveable assets and turned it into a playoff machine. He can do it again.
I do agree with you on the Maloofs having to let him do it. Given the fact that they tried their way with the whole Musselman Movement and all, I'd hope that they've learned their lesson and they'll step aside and let the basketball guru that they've hired and are paying do what's in the best interests of the team. He hasn't won two Executive of the Year awards for nothing. He knows how to run a team. Let him.
And if he botches this rebuild (that, by the way, we're all still just hoping for at this point), then let's throw him to the wolves. But he's capable. He's proven it.
Yeah, except this time he's not going to be able to con Memphis into trading us Pau Gasol for Mike Bibby, which is essentially what he did with the Richmond trade.
This isn't 1998 anymore; nobody's going to trade us what we need for what we've got.
And sign me up for the Petrie is incompetent camp, if that's the actual logical leap you're making... But yeah, he's lost it, AFAIC. And I've seen you make the case here that Petrie's had his hands tied by the Maloofs, but the only thing that tells me is that the owners no longer have unqualified faith in the guy to make this team a winner. And, if the guys signing the checks don't believe in him, then why the hell should I?
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We had to improve from being a non-playoff joke every year to being a contender, which was a step that took several seasons. We were on the rise for four years before the WCF plateau. The step backward could easily be contributed to injuries (Webber, Bibby, Miller, Bobby Jackson, etc.) Had San Antonio suffered a potentially career-ending injury to their franchise player, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be a five-year contender. It's easy to stay on top when you have a player like Tim Duncan. And RC Buford has surrounded him with complementary players that know how to get the job done. Winning a couple along the way hasn't hurt them, either.
And, as an aside, to say that Petrie's great accomplishments ended after the 2003 season ended is ludicrous. The free spending, "do and spend whatever it takes to win a championship", philosophy is what ended. We had an $80 million dollar payroll and sported the deepest team in the League in the 2002-03 season, and it got us nothing but excuses when our best player went down in the playoffs. So the purse strings tightened. We still made solid acquisitions (trading Pollard and Turkoglu for Miller, drafting Kevin Martin) that very offseason, but it became apparent that the Maloofs weren't going to just spend willy-nilly at that point. And that's when the team started to slip backwards. Let Keon Clark and Jim Jackson go for nothing, traded Webb for "moveable parts" that have, thus far, proved unmoveable, and so on. Petrie didn't fall off. The Maloofs tightened up.
Anyways, the point is that the excitement that came with improving steadily for four seasons in a row and getting to the point where we were actually a preseason favorite to win it all was pretty thrilling. Especially in comparison with what was going on previous to the playoff streak. It isn't about just making the playoffs eight years in a row. It's more about the fact that we went from a bottom of the barrel team to a contender, and we did it without drafting superstars or making huge free agent acquisitions. Just steady improvements every year, building a team piece by piece, and all of a sudden, we're fighting for a championship.
A little over three years ago, we had the top record in the NBA. Now, all of a sudden, the man who put that same team together has no credibility? I just can't wrap my mind around it. Sorry.
Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
You inadvertently raise the interesting question I have raised in the past:
Is Geoff Petrie really a "genius" when he has to work under normal financial constraints? Maybe so. Maybe not. I haven't made up my mind. All I know is he was a pretty middling GM before the Maloofs arrived, went on a tremendous hot streak for the first 3-5 years of their teaming -- a period typified by a free spending whatever it takes mandate from ownership -- and then has struggled, as have we, as we have dropped back into the pack and have a mediocre salary structure now. Given an advanatge over other GMs, we did great, were able to sign free agents willy nilly, resign all of our own talent, trade for guys with big money coming up etc. Sans advantage? Can all that be duplicated?
Fact is that Geoff got canned in Portland, and hadn't done much (that we knew of..groundwork may have been laid) pre Maloof. He hasn't done much good int eh last few years either. He;s built one good team, one. It was on our watch, so we can hope he can do it again. But he's in a tougher situation now in a lot of ways. No free agent $$. Draft pick could be worse, and doesn't have another one stashed over seas waiting to show up. Has no player, or players, who would seem to have anything like the value Mitch Richmond had in '98. And may not have the financial mandate he once did. we can hope, but whether he can pull this off any better than another GM with all of these handicaps remians to be seen.
Is Geoff Petrie really a "genius" when he has to work under normal financial constraints? Maybe so. Maybe not. I haven't made up my mind. All I know is he was a pretty middling GM before the Maloofs arrived, went on a tremendous hot streak for the first 3-5 years of their teaming -- a period typified by a free spending whatever it takes mandate from ownership -- and then has struggled, as have we, as we have dropped back into the pack and have a mediocre salary structure now. Given an advanatge over other GMs, we did great, were able to sign free agents willy nilly, resign all of our own talent, trade for guys with big money coming up etc. Sans advantage? Can all that be duplicated?
Fact is that Geoff got canned in Portland, and hadn't done much (that we knew of..groundwork may have been laid) pre Maloof. He hasn't done much good int eh last few years either. He;s built one good team, one. It was on our watch, so we can hope he can do it again. But he's in a tougher situation now in a lot of ways. No free agent $$. Draft pick could be worse, and doesn't have another one stashed over seas waiting to show up. Has no player, or players, who would seem to have anything like the value Mitch Richmond had in '98. And may not have the financial mandate he once did. we can hope, but whether he can pull this off any better than another GM with all of these handicaps remians to be seen.
I agree with you about the fact that no one is going to give us a premiere player for one of our guys.
However, you didn't mention the fact that these very same guys that appear not to "have unqualified faith in the guy" are the same ones who were this close :: snaps fingers :: to hiring Whisenant to coach the Kings last summer. Now I know you're a big WNBA and Monarchs fan, Slim, but I believe that you were as opposed to having a guy with no experience be named head coach. Not only that, you were probably relieved to hear that we were going with Musselman instead, even though he probably wasn't your first choice. I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I know that's how I felt. And I'm quite sure that you, like me, are not the Joe and Gavin Maloof fan you were five years ago when they offered to mow Webb's lawn. Kings fans no longer view the owners of their team as the best owners in the League.
Like I said, Petrie has worked his magic for us for several years. And it wasn't like the only quality move he made was trading for Webber. He put together the team that complemented Webber and got us to the WCF. In my opinion, he's proven himself capable and qualified to build a team, and he hasn't lost that credibility.
By the way, he has had his hands tied by the Maloofs, unquestionably. On the Webber move, on the Adelman move, and probably others that I'm too tired to try and remember right now. There's no doubt about it, though. He's not the one calling all the shots. Doesn't mean he's not qualified to do so. I know you'd agree that he's more qualified than the Maloofs to make the basketball decisions. If he shows that he's lost his touch, then that's different, but I don't think the team we've seen the past two or three seasons has been a direct reflection of his "basketball decisions". It's more a reflection of what the Maloofs have asked him to do.
vytzka
G-League
We got Martin a year later. I don't think we even had any picks in 2003 draft.
My feelings exactly.
Relief would be a VERY poor choice of words. The "relief" I felt when they announced Musselman was being hired was roughly equivalent to the "relief" one feels when one realizes that, by stepping into an ankle-high pile of dog****, they managed to avoid falling down an open manhole. You end up covered in **** either way, it's just to what extent are you covered in ****?
And some Kings Fans no longer view the GM of their team as the best GM in the league...
I'll take scenario number one any day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
And it's fine to not view Petrie as the best GM in the League anymore. Brick's post above is a great summation of my questions/concerns regarding Petrie, questions that I hope are answered in a positive way the next couple of seasons.
However, to go from being "the best GM in the League" to not being qualified to handle a rebuild is a bit much. That's a leap that I just can't take. And maybe that's exaggerating your stance a bit, and if so, I apologize. I'm just way more willing to sit back and see what type of leash the Maloofs have Petrie on, and judge his decision making accordingly. I don't think he's content to sit on his hands, and I don't think he's afraid to do what it takes to do a full scale rebuild. "Asleep at the Switch Mitch" Kupchak is gun-shy; Bill Stoneman of the LA Angels is gun-shy. I don't think Petrie is. But we'll see.
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