Interesting article. Look at that draft class... who could possibly have made the all-star game four times? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_NBA_Draft There are only four guys who made the all-star team from that draft TOTAL, and that includes Carr (#1) and Wicks (#2). Fred Brown made it at #6 and Spenser Haywood made it at #30, but Haywood was a big gamble given that he was the first "early entry" candidate. It's easy to say the Blazers messed up by taking him, and that they didn't place enough emphasis on the data they had (psychological testing)... but would the team have been better with the likes of Kenneth Durrett (120 games played in his career, 10.7 PER taken at #4) or George Trapp (379 games, 13.7 PER)? Wicks clearly never fit in on the Blazers, but neither did Petrie, if we look merely at team accomplishments. Wicks's absence MIGHT have helped us win the title in 76-77, but too many things changed (Petrie retired, Wilkins replaced by Ramsey, Walton healthy, Mo Lucas in town) to know how much Wicks had been holding the team back and how much the rest of the situation was just stacked against the team. Ed O.
OTOH, had the Blazers not drafted Wicks, their following records may have become better, resulting in lower draft picks, resulting in not getting the chance to draft Walton, resulting in no 1977 Championship.
True. None. However, as in most areas, it is the emphasis, priority and effort and resources dedicated to the target that is important. The devil is in the details. Everybody wants "good" things. Few people can or should want ALL good things. You have to pick and choose. Most all NBA management candidates are "smart" in terms of the general population. But, how many owners demand the 99th percentile? I can imagine owners who place a priority on hiring management with: experience, long basketball resume/name, connections, personality, nepotism, etc. I think for an organization to be "smart" they have to make a top priority of hiring exceptionally smart management staff; provide the money and resources to allow those smart people to gather the information they need to make smart decisions (not easy or cheap), and support these "smart" people when they make decisions that are counter to the current trend or fasion (ie, Dantoni in Phoenix) You show me where owners as a collective group place "smart" as their number one priority. In fact, I can almost guarantee it is NOT the number one priority.
It's not enough to have the $ to buy extra draft picks. It's putting the resources into scouting, to know what international players to get, and having the patience to wait a year for Rudy Fernandez. It's having the guts to ignore a trumped up "draft the stache" campaign and go for Brandon Roy, even if it makes Stephen A Smith froth. After all, 5 other teams could have had Roy but did not. It's not just getting good players, or good players who are decent human beings. It's also about the parts fitting. A lot of the fake trades that get posted involve, for example, getting a star starting two guard. Bad fit. The Blazers have a star starting two guard. The Whitsitt era, while not all bad until the last year or so, involved getting as many talented players as possible and then telling the coach to figure out how to play them. It is also having patience with a coach, knowing the team will lose games for a couple of years, as long as they improve, as the Blazers have, by about 10 games per year for 4 years.
