Bricklayer said:
They're better, but I have too give a big thumbs sideways and maybe even down on Danny Ferry's first, and critical, offseason as GM. What he SHOULD have been doing was building a young core to put around LeBron and let them grow into something special. Instead he is wasting time collecting aging vets that will be on the downhill slide by the time LeBron is in his prime, and basically betting the whole youth movement farm on one formerly erratic player in Hughes.
True, but given the free agent market, I'm not sure if he could have done much better. They didn't have the most money, and there wasn't anything spectacular on the market. The "young core", as you mentioned, would have to come from over the years, definitely not from just this year's acquisitions.
A potential reason for these seemingly hasty moves on Ferry's part, is that he has to keep Lebron happy. Lebron's probably thinking: 'hey, if things don't improve right now...I will look for a franchise where they
do have a future'.
Most of the GMs would probably jump on the opportunity to bring in
immediate reinforcements, even if waiting a season or two might offer better players on the market. It seems a bit of a trend in the NBA, alongside the "overpaying" for contracts.
I don't think it's a bad thing they signed Marshall. It's definitely a temporary solution, until they will find something better. I mean, otherwise they would have had just Drew Gooden there.
Can't really fault them for re-signing Zydrunas either.
Curry and Chandler would have been nice, but rather improbably given their restricted free agency.