The Big Picture: Has GP Failed?

[PoundForPound]

Looking at the team, do you think it's safe to say that geoff petrie, the man at the healm, has failed? Sure we had a couple of glory years under the spotlight, but now it seems we're headed back into mediocracy, maybe not even. Basically, the roster he has put together is...a group of guys who used to be good. Not taking anything away from what a brilliant GM he is, but when you see Kenny Thomas' horrible contract, Brad Miller's whatever # years he has left for so much money, Mike Bibby who has now become "overpaid" to some, it just makes you think how much do we really trust this guy now.

 

[BRad1055]

I trust him alot and when given the oppurtunity and when we actually are under the cap and have some room to be flexible he is the best GM in the NBA IMO.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

I think GP put together a team that was talented enough to win the championship for a couple years. We didn't win it, but that was out of his control. He rode that team for maybe a year or two longer than he should have before breaking it down. (IMHO, he should have broken the team down in the offseason following the Webber injury, when all our players were at max value)

If the job of the GM is to swing for the fences and try and win a Championship, I think that Geoff has done a pretty good job. If the goal is to have a consistently good team that has a slim chance of making it to round 2 of the playoffs every year, then obviously he failed this year.

 

[jimbodan]

I think it's too early to give up on him yet. A couple of the bad contracts (Bibby and Miller) were a direct result of trying to win now when Webber was in his prime. Can't really fault him for that, especially since if Webber didn't screw up his knee in all likelihood we would have won at least 1 championship. Also if Webber had been healthy we wouldn't have made that horrible Kenny Thomas trade and a lot of these mismatched pieces would still fit together.

IMO after the Webber injury he did a make a mistake in trying to re-tool and stay competitive instead of just blowing it all up, but even then I can't blame him too much for at least giving it a shot. I think the upcoming couple of years are what we need to judge Petrie with. I think he deserves 2-3 years to see if he can reshape this roster into a contender again or at least a good young up and coming team. If we are still trying a crappy re-build on the fly strategy and wallowing in mediocrity after 2 or 3 more years, then yeah he should go, but in the meantime I feel like he should get a couple more years to try and rebuild.

 

[LPKingsFan]

Rebuilding is a natural part of the cycle of competitiveness. It's how he manages the rebuild (i.e. how/if/when we make it back up to the top) that will have more to say about whether Geoff is a failure or not.

 

[Entity]

If Webber doesn't get injured we are still deep into the playoffs every year with maybe a championship that year he got hurt.

 

[KevinSalvadori]

No, he hasn't failed. He is an exceptional GM and save for the signing of Greg Ostertag, I haven't really questioned a single move the guy has made. But that said, this will be his biggest test. How he turns this around and reconstructs a very scattered puzzle will be interesting to watch....

 

[vfettke]

i still fully trust GP. we all remember those playoffs and what they did to our team. he just rode that squad a little too long.

if Geoff does get aggressive this summer, like he says he will, then it could be a good one. maybe down the line, after we get rid of some of these horrible contracts, the Maloofs will open up those pocketbooks and let the man do what he does best.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Petrie was crippled by the Maloofs cost cutting after the Webber injury. I've been less than impressed by the product we've been putting out for the past 3 seasons but it is going to take time to undo the damage that was not his fault - if he had been given a blank check I'm sure things would have gone down much differently.

If he can rebuild this team into contention again there is no doubt that he will go down as one of the greatest if not the greatest small market GMs in the modern era. If not he still made one hell of a run and will never be a failure IMHO.

 

[Kingster]

To ask if Petrie has failed is asking for a yes or no answer. Like most things, there is a lot of grey in the answer, not black and white.

Petrie has made a lot of mistakes. And, he has made a lot of good decisions. When the goings were good, when we were on the uphill climb, he could do no wrong, at least according to many. The word "faith" was applied to Petrie more than a god. Now we're on the downhill slide, and the sins are evident - believing that Peja, Miller and Bibby were good enough to be a legitimate core, overpaying for Miller and Bibby, waiting too long to trade Peja and Artest. Even making the Artest deal to begin with. So, right now he's looking more like a flawed man that a god, and I wouldn't - didn't - ever put my faith in him. I think he's an intelligent guy who has the capacity to learn from his mistakes. I wouldn't give up on him yet.

 

[VF21]

... it just makes you think how much do we really trust this guy now.

No, it doesn't make me think anything of the sort.

 

[fnordius]

Petrie has failed if he has not managed to do what he's intended.

I'm not sure that I know what exactly he's intended, so I have no answer. Guess you'd have to ask him.

 

[Rain man]

No GM is going to be perfect, or even close to it. Geoff built this team from nothing and did a damn good job of it. But even during his period of brilliant moves (Webber, Adelman, Vlade, Bibby, Doug, Bobby) he had some clunker deals and signings (Barry for Cleaves; Keon Clark and Tony Massenberg; Nick Anderson). The point is that even during his glory years he was far from perfect.

And people want to pile it on him now as the bad years, and there have been some bad moves, but it has been FAR from ALL negative. And I would suspect that some of the "bad" moves were not totally his call. The Webber trade, the Bibby extension, the Adelman firing. At least two of those were not completely his call.

Everything else is a mix of good and bad. Miller has a bad contract, but it was the product of the "win now" philosophy. KT/Wallace/Muss/Douby seem bad, but Martin/Garcia/Artest/Williams/Wells were all good.

It is hard to blame it all on Geoff. We were a VERY good team from 2001-2004 and we put all of our chips into the "win now" basket. Geoff can hardly be faulted for not developing young guys and taking on big contracts when the team believed the Championship window was open. It is tough to develop a championship team and ALSO a young core at the same time. The Heat are a prime example- Champs last year with a bunch of vets, and then derailed this year by injury, and probably rebuilding. The Spurs are the same, a ton of old vets without lots of youthful promise- once some of them start breaking down and getting older they will have trouble too. You can't reload forever.

Webber got hurt, Doug and Vlade old, BJax became an injury risk, and Peja was forced into a role he wasn't suited for. These things happen. The only mistake Geoff made was thinking that the window was still open a few too many years. In reality, the window closed after 2004, but it is hard to fault Geoff for trying to keep it open a few more years. It didn't work and now you rebuild.

I GUARANTEE that people would have been much more upset if Geoff had "made moves for the future" in 2004 rather than trying to make one last push with his CHampionship core...

 

[VF21]

Petrie has failed if he has not managed to do what he's intended.

Have you ever heard the expression "the best laid plans of mice and men"?

Petrie doesn't work in a vacuum. There are any number of influences that can affect his intentions. I don't think not managing to do what you intended is necessarily indicative of failure.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Have you ever heard the expression "the best laid plans of mice and men"?

Petrie doesn't work in a vacuum. There are any number of influences that can affect his intentions. I don't think not managing to do what you intended is necessarily indicative of failure.

I think it's pretty much the definition of failure, actually.

Yes, there can be many contributing factors, and there usually are, but it doesn't change the core of the situation -- if you have a goal that you don't meet, you have failed to reach that goal. Not an indictment necessarily, and something that happens to everyone (except maybe Brick -- there, saved you a response ), but that's just the way it works.

And to answer the original question in the thread, I too would need to know what the intended result was before I could judge whether or not it was successful. However, I have been pretty consistently unimpressed with many of the decisions made over the last couple of years.

 

[Bricklayer]

In an overall sense? No.

He HAS failed in the last few years -- his vision for rebuilding on the fly has been miserable. He's basically one good draft pick (Kevin) from this team being the most hopeless in the league.

But that's not the same thing as calling him a 'failure". No team stays good forever. And no matter how good you are there will be downturns. Years ago he produced what he was supposed to -- a championship caliber team. A little luck, who knows. Given that success its going to take a lot more than 3-4 bad years to call him a "failure" in any overall sense.

I do however think this is a critical period for him to prove that he can do it again.He got fired in Portland, had years of mediocre teams and shaky moves here, then when the Maloofs arrived suddenly went on a 4 yr hotstreak from '99 to '03 where he was the best in the biz (his 2000 was actually shaky (Nick Anderson et al), but the other years were all excellent). But he's gone right back to mediocre at best since that time. This isn't a guy who's produced championship team after championship team in his 20 years, its a guy who's produced one team, surrounded by a lot of years of fumbling about. Now is the time for him to prove he can produce another. Unfiortunately we are badly positioned for it, and that makes it harder. But I'm willing to settle for moving with a purpose and a plan and getting the ball rolling.

 

[VF21]

I think it's pretty much the definition of failure, actually.

Yes, there can be many contributing factors, and there usually are, but it doesn't change the core of the situation -- if you have a goal that you don't meet, you have failed to reach that goal. Not an indictment necessarily, and something that happens to everyone (except maybe Brick -- there, saved you a response ), but that's just the way it works.

And to answer the original question in the thread, I too would need to know what the intended result was before I could judge whether or not it was successful. However, I have been pretty consistently unimpressed with many of the decisions made over the last couple of years.

Erm, you might want to look again. I specifically said "NOT NECESSARILY indicative of failure."

My point was that you need to define "success" and "failure" before you can possibly decide whether or not someone has succeeded or failed. Losing a battle, for example, might be failure in the short-term but you could still win the war.

 

[Vlade4GM]

Does it matter if he has failed or not? That's the past, it only matters whether he's the best guy available for us now and most likely he is.

 

[GoGoGadget]

Erm, you might want to look again. I specifically said "NOT NECESSARILY indicative of failure."

My point was that you need to define "success" and "failure" before you can possibly decide whether or not someone has succeeded or failed. Losing a battle, for example, might be failure in the short-term but you could still win the war.

No, I read your post correctly the first time. Still don't see how an inability to meet a particular goal could be seen as anything but failure, regardless the reasons -- if I'm due at the office at 9:00 AM and a traffic accident causes me to arrive at 9:15 AM, I may not have been directly at fault for my lateness, but I still failed to get there on time. It's not my intention to get into a drawn out argument of semantics, however, so maybe this is just one of those things we see differently.

Your response to fnordius' post is still confusing to me, though. Even without getting into the difference between short-term and long-term results, I don't think that knowing the intended goal is at all an unreasonable qualification for judging success.

 

[sactownfan]

without the injury to webber the kings are still looking good. Webber is on one leg now and sure now has more off/bad games than good. but after watcing him tiping shots in you remember how long he was and that he could block shots and was a all around monster. if you could give him his knee back i think hes not the verson he was in his prime but still a monster that runs and bangs with the best of them. if KG, Kobe, Duncan, ect had the same injury those teams are in a world of hurt.

losing webber is what hurt this team more than anything. his passing, his post play, his mid range jumper, he was a beast. its obvious that our missing PF spot on this team is a huge reason for where we are today. the only weakness i found in webbers game was that he in my mind just wasnt a winner. dont know how to describe it. he didnt have the ability to carry his team when it matter most. and the ability to hit the big shot in the playoffs. he always vanished in the most key moments. Bibby however was a stud for this clutch times.

with out the webber disaster. GP has done a great job. I think its obvious that the maloofs are behind some of the worst moves. i couldnt tell you how much, but they had a hand in it for sure. you cant hit the jackpot every year in the draft. but kevin martin is a stud, garcia is looking better and well douby is still a project that should have played more this year. Salmons does his thing and has good all around game, lots of teams would love to have him as a solid bench player.

who knows how good Price could be he could be a monster. he started draining some 3's and that dunk, wow. he looked more comfortable handling the ball this year to. then Williams if he continues to add weight and working on this post game or adds a jumper. he could prove to be a great weapon to use against a GS, PHX small ball team. plus he played well at times on the bigs.

I think that GP's real test will be this offseason.... its all on the line right now. with us looking to move our two greatest assets. this could turn into more webber like trades. or could give us big time young talent,cap room or picks that will bring this team back to a high level. I think the maloofs have learned to back off enough to let GP do his thing again and so how he handles trading Ron, Bibby, Miller or anyone else at this point will be the true test. ITS BACK ON GP AT THIS POINT

 

[Smills91]

The Maloofs have failed Petrie.

 

[Venom]

If in three years the Kings still look the same it would be debatable. Right now, **** no! First and foremost, all signs point to the "rebuild on the fly" being Maloof driven. They think they can outsmart the typical NBA talent acquisition/development cycle. They're dead wrong, of course, but so long as Michael Corleone (George) runs the real family business and lets Sonny and Fredo (Joe and Gavin) call the shots, we're going to see this kind of nonsense. Simmons recently suggested those two wear sunglasses at all times for a reason, they love to party.

Petrie has been working towards a quick rebuild over the next two offseasons in trying to shed salaries and gain cap room. We were unfortunate this year in not nabbing the Oden or Durant pick, but we'll have a shot at Rose, Love, or Hibbert next year. Bibby AND Artest are going to be gone within a month and we'll have at least one extra first round pick from those trades. Petrie still has a ridiculously consistent hit rate in the draft, and I'm very excited to see what he can do with multiple pick in a draft like this one.

 

[NYKingsfan]

While I was recently critical of how Petrie handled the SVG fiasco, displaying poor timing, I would say that without a doubt, when looking at the big picture, GP has been a huge success. He took a perennial losing franchise and brought it to the brink of an NBA championship. He placed SAC on the NBA map. He mad SAC a hip place to play. Players who previously wanted no part of SAC were convinced to play there by GP (see C Webb). Free agents viewed SAC as a place to be (Vlade). His draft record over a stretch of years was excellent, including finding Peja mid round 1 when drafting euro players was less popular.

No GM has a perfecr track record. Failure is inevitable as part of the job. GP's record, if not at the top, is near the top when judged against other GM's. I agree with those posts, however, that suggest that these next few years are critical to GP. He built SAC once..can he do it again? This draft will go a long way to answering that question. I have faith in GP..he is a bright guy who generally uses sound judgment in player evaluation.

 

[kennadog]

Since everyone fails, it has to be a comparative question, if you want to judge GP's entire tenure as the Kings GM. Has GP failed more than other NBA GMs? Out of 30 GMs in the league, how many would you consider better or worse than GP? I still think he's a pretty good GM.

I do agree that this summer is going to be telling in GP's career as the Kings GM. It could tip his time here into one seen as mostly failed or mostly successful. I sure as heck hope its the latter.

 

[ESP47]

Im just glad I got to watch the glory years. My other sports teams (49ers and Braves) have been to the Super Bowl and World Series plenty. While I like football and baseball more than basketball, there was nothing more exciting than those King's playoff runs.

 

[Kingster]

I think it's pretty much the definition of failure, actually.

Yes, there can be many contributing factors, and there usually are, but it doesn't change the core of the situation -- if you have a goal that you don't meet, you have failed to reach that goal. Not an indictment necessarily, and something that happens to everyone (except maybe Brick -- there, saved you a response ), but that's just the way it works.

And to answer the original question in the thread, I too would need to know what the intended result was before I could judge whether or not it was successful. However, I have been pretty consistently unimpressed with many of the decisions made over the last couple of years.

I think we know what the intended result was. Petrie told us. He said thought this team should have been in the playoffs last year. We didn't go to the playoffs. So, by the definition given above, he failed, at least in his own mind, and at least for this season. There is a broader question though of whether he has failed for his entire tenure as GM. That's much more ambiguous.

 

[Spike]

There is a broader question though of whether he has failed for his entire tenure as GM. That's much more ambiguous.

Good god, people. I will give you that GP failed in his goal last year. But if those who think his entire tenure was a failure (not calling out the above poster, but others) are on some funky stuff, and may not have remembered the years prior to Adelman, GP, et al. (Remember hitching our wagons to Tariq Abdul Wahad?) NOBODY wanted to come to Sacramento. NOBODY.

Although if things don't change via rebuild/free agency, I'm going to assume that we will return to bottom feeder status again. I'll always believe that GP succeeded in Sacramento - a couple of unlucky bounces, whistles, and knees/backs/abs kept us from the ultimate goal. It happens.

Phew.

 

[Bricklayer]

Good god, people. I will give you that GP failed in his goal last year. But if those who think his entire tenure was a failure (not calling out the above poster, but others) are on some funky stuff, and may not have remembered the years prior to Adelman, GP, et al. (Remember hitching our wagons to Tariq Abdul Wahad?) NOBODY wanted to come to Sacramento. NOBODY.

Psst....Geoff was the GM who hitched our wagons to Tariq.

Its long since been washed away, but people forget that circa 1998 the debate (or part of it) was whether we should fire our GM or not after the absolutely disastrous Eddie Jordan led players revolt collapse of the 97-98 season. We'd been to exactly one playoffs during his tenure, wasted the prime years of our aging star (Mitch), lost Brian Grant to FA, who wasn't great, but all we had. Traded for O.P.. Were now starting complete scrubs at PG. It was a mess. And Geoff's mess.

Then the Maloofs arrive, open up the pocket books, and Geoff has one of the better offseasons any GM in memory has had -- adding the entire core of elite era Kings in about 4 months (the Peja pick was preexisting, but JWill, Webb, Vlade, and Rick all arrived one after another), and we were off and running. But it wasn't always wine and roses. I will mention again, Geoff got fired in Portland because they felt that the franchise was slowly detriorating under him and he wasn't taking decisive action to reverse that (may have been fair, may no -- franchise's do go through cycles). He came to Sacto, and his first 5 years were far from great. The best we ever did was win 39, and that on the back of our franchise player, who was already here before Geoff arrived. Then he had his great period from '99 to '03, and we ours. Then he has tailed off in the meandering mess that has been the "rebuilding on the fly" strategem. His career has been far from an uninterrupted string of high level success. Which is again why his response to the current mess is so important. He did build one elite team. But his taking his career as a whole that 5 years might be the aberration, not the rule.

 

[nbrans]

^To be fair, though, Petrie did not exactly start in Sacramento with a blank slate, the first couple of years were just spent getting out from under some of the disastrous decisions and draft choices of previous regimes. It took a whole lot of time to just start building up the talent and cap space to where the Kings could even make a splash in that successful offseason. I don't think it's fair to judge those first couple of years as a disaster when the entire summer of '98 hinged on getting Peja over here (drafted in '96), signing Vlade (with the cap space Geoff cleared), and then of course the Webber trade and the Adelman hire. It was classic rebuilding: draft picks (Corliss, Peja, JWill), cap space (Vlade), key trade (Webber), good coaching hire (Adelman), not a shot in the dark, although clearly there were some fortuitous "bounces" our way.

There were some absolute missteps with Tariq and Anderson, but those good moves were predicated on the years you're saying we were wandeirng in the wilderness. Looks like good planning to me.

 

[Kingster]

I will mention again, Geoff got fired in Portland because they felt that the franchise was slowly detriorating under him and he wasn't taking decisive action to reverse that (may have been fair, may no -- franchise's do go through cycles).

That is troubling.