I don't know man. I think those ARE exceptional picks.
As long as we are counting Douby, why not go back two more years and include Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia? Look at what some of these other teams do in the draft... everyone doesn't hit. Sure, Douby was a miss, but that is literally his ONLY miss in the past 8 drafts. Then when you include the 2nd round ... I'd be surprised if ANY team in the league has drafted this many NBA players since 2004. Off the top of my head I can only name 2 players in the past 8 drafts that aren't in the NBA right now .. Douby and Ewing Jr.
And its not always the obvious guy. He plucked Kevin Martin and Jason Thompson from 'out of nowhere'. Not literally, but they were small school players.
He has been average to bad at everything else, sure. But I think he is an elite level drafter, and I don't trust the MAloofs to bring in anyone better at this point.
I think Petrie is a good GM, and he should stay. Building a strong team in a small market is tough, unless you really get lucky in the draft, and/or, your owners have really deep pockets. A storied history helps, but only some. Let's see some examples
- Jerry West was a huge success in LA. In Memphis, not so much
- SA has had really good luck (helped by very strong and stable management). However, they are looking old, and might go downhill quickly.
- Indiana had some really strong years, but have been middling for several years now.
I know that most of us would take their problems over ours in an instant. However, just wanted to highlight some challenges faced by small market teams. People give examples of SA and OKC, and to some extent Portland. Amongst these, I give major props to SA for drafting players like Parker, Manu, Splitter, DeJuan and even Louis Scola with late picks (Manu with a second round pick! Are you kidding me?). They were also incredibly lucky to dip into lottery two times, and come away with the Admiral and Duncan (just imagine. Not only winning it twice, but winning it when all time greats in every aspect, skills, team mates, leadership etc. are available).
OKC has also been very good at this. They have been extremely patient; building through the draft (again, getting Durant solves a lot of problems), but pouncing when a good deal comes through.
Portland has had a bit of a rotten luck like us. Their owner let KP buy picks to speed up the rebuilding after the Jailblazer days. Had Oden and Roy not gotten injured, they likely would be contending for a title (despite their glorious run so far this year, I think they aren't there yet).
Well, the above were exceptions. OKC might have to let go some players soon when it is forced to pay them. SA looked old in playoffs last year, and shall find it difficult to reload now that they shall not offer veterans a shot at a ring. Unless they get really lucky in draft again (hopefully I'm jinxing them), they might be stuck in mediocrity for a while, though Pop is good enough to not let them fall any more (which might be bad for them overall).
Long post already, but how does to relate to us? I think we had the worst of all. When Chris went down, our roster was built to win then. We were paying tax, picking very low in draft, and not developing our youngsters (or letting them go in expansion teams). If it was clear that our window had closed, we should have rebuilt then. It would have been painful, but quick.
I must admit, that I didn't see it that way then either. I was always hoping that the team was better than what it was, and was not quite ready for a rebuild. Not sure if Geoff wanted to hang on to that, or did so on the bidding of the owners. But that was a mistake. And after that, it's been a series of them. The owners started meddling around the same time as their financial position became shaky; Rick was let go, which was the single worst move we made; no top shot coach/FA wants to consider us, and despite doing poorly, we weren't getting lucky in the lottery (though we still came away with decent talent).
We have considerable talent in place. With some time together and a good coach (this I think is most critical. Let's see if Smart is that guy), we can become good again. If so, the FAs that are shunning us now, will be more willing to come.
As for Petrie, his draft record is mixed. I like his overall picks, and all teams miss a few in the draft. Hindsight being 20/20, it's easy to berate him. However, just off the top of my head, here are some of last few picks (note: I don't follow college BB at all, so had no idea on the picks then. Just seeing how people did compared to those picked after them. Pick might have been good at that time).
Martin: One of the best players in his class. Very good pick at that position.
Cisco: Decent. Think would have had a better career if were more stable. However, we could have gotten David Lee.
Douby: One of the bad picks, though at that time, some people thought he could be the steal of the draft.
Hawes: Think it was the correct pick, even though it didn't turn out quite so good for us. We needed a big, and he was the best available. Can think of only Stuckey, who was picked behind him as someone we could have picked instead.
JT: Decent.
Evans: This is tricky. I like him a lot, and think he might end up being the best from his class (or maybe Blake). So far though, I guess if we had picked Jennings, Curry or Rubio either, I might not have been complaining so much.
Cousins: This was a no-brainer.
Jimmer: Too early.
We have done extremely poorly in second round picks though. As for HW, we shall see. IT has shown promise. Hopefully, both these guys along with Tyler shall be regular rotation players, and more.
Over the last few years, I can think of only Price, whom we picked in second round (or was he undrafted?), who saw meaningful NBA action.
As for Geoff, if we let him go, we better have a good replacement ready. Else, we might be stuck with a situation similar to Rick.