LOL, the Hawks going from trying to steal Neil to...Chauncey "Zero GM Experience" Billups http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19430356/atlanta-hawks-interview-chauncey-billups-gm-job
Green font? I seem to remember a time when he basically punked Quick in a press conference for asking a stupid question. Am I wrong about that?
Everything I have read and heard out of Quick seems to suggest he likes N.O. But yeah Olshey did kind of punk him that one time. But listening to Quick afterwards, he did not take offense to it. Pretty much shrugged it off as Neil being Neil.
Hey, I love Big Red. But man, listening to him for an entire season, it's hard sometimes, not to see him as cartoonish. He can do what he wants as far as I am concerned.
Well, when you see him on TV hugging trees on the Eugene campus like a long lost lover.... it doesn't exactly disaude my argument. I meant it as a joke but maybe there is more truth to this.
Wojo calls Olshey an Elite NBA GM in his tweets. I think our echo chamber is a little small at times here in Portland
As fans, we want our GM to win every trade and win it big. When they don't, we express our displeasure, but it's due to our own unrealistic expectations. I think we forget that to be a good GM, you can't be too good. There are very few guys who get the opportunity to be an NBA GM, it's a very small club. The guys who are really good can stay in one place for decades. The guys who are average, or better, tend to move around the league for many, many years. Even guys most of us would consider incompetent (Elgin Baylor, Billy King, John Nash) often have long careers, often with multiple teams. Every trade takes two GMs to come to an agreement that they both think benefits their team. With such a small fraternity of fellow GMs, you can't afford to alienate one of your counterparts, either by word or by deed. If you are perceived as always winning every trade, or if you are perceived as arrogant, other GMs simply won't deal with you. Good GMs don't trash talk. They never blow their own horn and they never, ever publicly gloat. Kevin Pritchard learned this the hard way. After that whole Pritchslap nonsense, it's taken him seven years just to get back to were he once was, the GM of a middling team with Nate McMillan as a coach. Neil clearly won the Nurk trade. We got the better, younger player AND the 20th pick in a deep draft, but after the trade, he heaped praise on Mason Plumlee, what a smart, talented player he was and how the trade was motivated by financial concerns about re-signing him, about how he was a great fit in DEN, etc. Even when you win, you need to be gracious in victory. You never want to make your trade partner look bad, even when they make a bad trade that favors you - make that especially when they made a bad trade that favors you. To be an effective NBA GM, you need to have good relationships with other GMs around the league. Offend one guy and you limit your future trading options. Offend multiple guys and word gets out your an arrogant prick that is out to fuck over your trading partners. Neil has been hit on miss on his draft picks, but so is everyone. He's made some pretty decent trades (RoLo, Plumlee, Nurkic), especially the small ones that kind of go unnoticed that bring us back future assets. Free agency has not been his strong point (Davis and Aminu were good value signings), but that's been a problem in POR going way back before Neil arrived. He is certainly not the first POR GM to overpay to retain our own players (Darius Miles, Theo Ratliffe, Marcus Camby, etc.). But, all-in-all, we could certainly do a lot worse. BNM
This is one of the best posts I have ever read. People forget how important relationships in upper management. It's the same way in every level of business so why wouldn't it be in sports entertainment. Kudos BNM.
Getting punked (appropriated term) is not what Ashton Kutcher defined as getting a practical joke played on you. In slang term punk is akin to "sissy" or the F word (gay slur). It evolved into an adverb with a slightly less slur-y meaning. It basically means you got treated like a punk or got put in your place.
