starting the season without a real back up center just shows that petrie has no plan for this team... we were the worst team in the nba last season and petrie wants to kick off this season by adding a couple of 6'6 players and sean may. this should work out well. i think we'll be at least 4th seed, back up centers are so over rated.... who needs a center when you have m&m's (mason & may)?
I really dislike the Petrie-has-no-"plan" meme.
"Having a plan" is not synonymous with "getting a backup center". Just because Petrie didn't do what
you wanted him to do doesn't mean he's floundering hopelessly. As if Petrie, who has 18 years more experience as an NBA general manager than you, can't look at the roster and realize that he doesn't have a 7-foot stiff to put into the lineup when Hawes sits.
Maybe part of Petrie's plan is not to go out of his way to sign players who have no hope of being a contributing piece in the future. Let's look at exactly what Geoff "Planless" Petrie has done ths summer:
1) Replaced inept interim coach Kenny Natt with veteran NBA coach Paul Westphal. Westphal has had a degree of NBA success in the past, and is noted as a good NBA teacher. We have young players that could use a good NBA teacher. This looks suspiciously like part of a plan to improve team play and improve the basketball skills of our kids.
2) Traded a few draft slots in the second round to get a legitimate pass-first backup point guard, and cash to cover part of his (not-so-large) contract. This looks like part of a devious plan to add useful players.
3) Drafted a dynamic guard who has the potential to be an all-star in only a few years. The debate over whether he is a point guard or not is irrelevant - he will be a good player, and we will find a way to have him on the floor. Plan to draft a kid who might turn into a franchise cornerstone? Check.
4) Drafted a tall, tough, skilled small forward. This isn't a kid who is expected to be a star, but he looks like he could pan out to be a good role player and glue guy. Again, looks to fall into the useful players portion of the plan-that-doesn't-exist.
5) Drafted a tenacious, hustling, bruising, great-rebounding power forward. For a second-round pick, I don't know what more you can ask for. He may not get big minutes, but it's pretty clear that when he is in, he'll be a positive rebounding force - and rebounding was one of our big weaknesses last year. Not only that, but he'll be pushing our starting bigs in practice, and hopefully force them to improve their own rebounding skills. Plan: improve team rebounding.
6) Signed a skilled offensive power forward who killed in college and had a promising start to his NBA career before being derailed by surgery to a cheap contract. Has he had injury issues in the past? Yes. Has he had weight issues in the past? Yes. But he also has the potential to be a good player - easily potential enough to entrench himself in a solid NBA frontline rotation. There's no guarantee that he'll reach that potential, but he's not a hopeless stiff. And he's cheap. Adding young, potentially talented players who might stick with the team for years on the cheap = part of a reasonable plan to improve.
7) Signed a washed-up wing to a non-guaranteed contract. Yeah, fine, whatever. See what he's got, and if the answer is nothing, toss him out.
8) Outside of the first round draft-picks, added no guaranteed money beyond this year. If the salary cap doesn't drop next year, we'll have something like $17M to play with in the offseason (subtract our first-round pick). Not enough for a superstar (who we'd be unlikely to land anyway) but certainly enough to grab a solid player after we've spent this season assessing our strengths and weaknesses going forward. Plan: determine our weaknesses with this new group of players without removing the flexibility to address them next offseason.
I think we took a lot of positive steps this offseason. They will likely not all work out, but our team should be better than last year's, while also being younger and being in a better position financially to improve in the 2010 offseason. I'm sorry that Geoff Petrie didn't feel that getting a backup 7-footer without regard to quality was the #1 priority this offseason, but maybe, realistically, it wasn't.