Was St. Jean that bad?

Was Gary St. Jean that bad a GM? Sure he got us Dunleavy and traded Antwan Jamison and C-Web, but he also got us Pietrus, Murph, Boykins, and the Custodian. I met him Saturday and he seemed very relaxed watching his son paly for De La Salle. He didn't seem mad about being fired. Maybe he knew this was the end of the Warriors being acceptable I mena he got us close to palyoff competition a few times and (I might be wrong) the playoffs. At least he did better then Mullin has so far

 

Mullin has yet to pull off any trades. If he can sign six year contracts to worthless bums who only have good character on their side and be able to trade them for much more valuable players like rookies with upside, I would consider him equal to the logo himself. Mullin made this mess during the offseason and now he's got to fix it somehow. No more blame games because that's what bad managers do. Mullin was supposed to be the sign of hope in the Cohan era, but he's looking like another King Midas in reverse. Everything he touches turns to sh--.

 

To me, Saint was misunderstood, unfortunate and underrated GM.

First, I am still amazed how many smart Warriors fans still believe he traded Webber, Spree, and drafted Fuller and Foyle. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even hired when those happened. This is the list.

Nelson era (- 1994): Webber fiasco screwed Warriors until Saint era, because we traded 3 future first picks. He has his share of ups and downs as a GM. But the Webber fiasco eventually cost him a job.

Twerdzik era (1995 - 1996): Worst GM I ever saw. He drafted Smith, DeClercq, Fuller, and Mann. He never was active for trading, made wrong moves after moves, and even attempted to sign Smith for 4 years/40 mils. Good thing Smith actully turned down that offer. He pushed Spree/Smith combo till the end, which was never successful. He also traded Hardaway and Gatling (both became All-Stars) for Willis (who left after half of the season) and Coles. His biggest positive 'achievements' were signing Price, and receiving BJ Armstrong for Rogers, Alexander and 5 second draft picks, which all became busts. At the end of his era, we had absolutely zero young talent, and 'best' young talent was Marshall.

PJ era (1997-1999): After Twerdzik era, Cohan decided to open the bank to hire no nonsense and famous former college coach, PJ Carlesimo, and decided to give all power to him. Saint was hired after Foyle draft, and although he was hired as a GM, he was essentially hired as a helper of PJ, and PJ has a final say. PJ wasn't half bad as Twerdzik. Although he drafted Foyle over McGrady (PJ was considering McGrady hard, but decided to go for sure thing), he drafted Marc Jackson, Jamison, V. Cummings (extra pick we got from here eventually became Murphy), and Young. Somewhat mixed results. Also, although PJ really never made any major trades, he did made small trades here and there. In terms of signing own FAs, he overpaid them for their potential. He gave Dampier 8 mils per year, Foyle 4 mils per year, and Caffey 5 mils per year. However, the biggest highlight of his era was undoubtly Sprewell chocking event. With that, PJ completely ruined his reputation as a coach and GM.

Saint era (2000-2003): After PJ was fired, he now gained a full control for this club. He certainly was good at drafting, since he picked Porter, Richardson, Murphy, Arenas, Dunleavy, Logan, and Pietrus. Also, it was rumored that PJ wanted Jamison and Saint wanted Pierce. In terms of signing own FAs, Saint also overpaid for their future potential. He gave Jamison 14 mils per year, Fortson 6 mils per year and Speedy 3 mils per year. Choosing Muss, Boykins, Cheaney and Cardinals worked very well. In terms of trade, he was more active than Twerdzik or PJ. Although, it ended as a failed experiment, he was able to get Hughes with only one expiring contract (Starks) and one future pick, which became Mihm, especially when 20 teams were knocking Philly's door for Hughes. Also, he made many forgettable, but nonetheless positive small moves. Saint's motto was clearly 'let's draft athletes and hope for the best'. And, when he didn't follow his motto, ugly things happened, such as drafting Dunleavy to balance the team out.

Saint was really unfortunate. In 3 of 4 years, we were heavily injured by losing half of key members by injuries. Also, for some odd reason, we always got lower draft pick than our actual standing.

It's not clear when Mullin actually took over the control, because we all knew that Saint was a puppet GM and Mullin had real control last year. Although, it's only a speculation, I believe Mullin took over when Saint's assistant got fired and Mullin became a 'special' assistant. I can't remember his name except it was Fitz something. But, he was a brain and important part of Saint era. And it was rumored that he was the main reason why we were able to pull Hughes trade. But, for some odd reason, he was fired and Mullin replaced his spot with statement 'We want to try another directon'. After that move, Jamison trade was made. I really do believe that it was Mullin's move for many reasons.

1. Jamison was the most important and the most productive part of Saint era. And, Saint's job was in danger at that time. If Saint ever wanted to keep his job by improving this club, he certainly wouldn't trade Jamison and Fortson's contract for caproom in two years. Because, there is absolutely no way Saint would keep his job in two days, if this club didn't show an improvement. Yet, we traded Jamison for the caproom.

2. Jamison was Muss' the most favorite player, and when he was traded Muss was really angry at that news. Muss was Saint's man, and it's bit hard to imagine that Saint traded Jamison without even dropping any notice to Muss, so that Muss had to hear that news through TV.

3. That trade was made to open up the starting spot for Dunleavy, Mullin's favorite player.

4. We just signed Speedy by promising starting spot. Then, even without seeing what Speedy can do, we brought NVE over. Unless there was a change in the management, it's hard to see the logic except Saint blatantly lied to Speedy.

Many reasons point out that Jamison's move was done by Mullin to gain caproom in two years, and give an oppotunity to Dunleavy. So, that's why I believe Saint lost his power when Mullin was hired as a 'special' assistant.

Mullin era (2004 -): We know the rest...

 

good post Kwan. I think it is the truth that lately (other than the Jamison trade) the best gm we've had is Gary St. Jean

 

St. looks like the best GM because he's the most recent and that's the only tangible evidence left.

Do not write off Mullin just yet. Bird did not look too good 10 games into his first season either.

 

The thing I don't like about Mullin is that every player he falls in love with are guys that can't d it up. Jonathan Bender?? I mean he's good for offensive purposes but you don't want that guy getting outquicked on the perimeter and outmuscled in the post. He's like a bit of a tweener who hasn't lived up to the potential that an athletic 7 footer has and maybe never will because of injuries and the fact he's more of a face-the basket shooter. I think for our team guys like Mike Sweetney have better upside IMO. We need some wide bodied bruisers that can dance in the paint and rebound, and pass and get touched fouled.

 

I agree with you Custodian, I mean Duleavy? He's the worst player the Warriors have. And to have him be the third pick If Mullin keeps up the bad work, He can gurantee 1 draft pick for as long as he is GM (although Rod Higgins was named GM, not Mullin, Mullin does everything). He'll probably screw up the picks like he has the whole season!

 

You may be too young to remember but Mullin looked a bit like a bust his first couple of years also, because he had an alcohol dependency problem, look how he turned out.

Patience is needed.

The Grizzlies looked awful in 2003, got Hubie Brown and jelled into a 50 win team.

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Air Pietrus:</div><div class="quote_post">I agree with you Custodian, I mean Duleavy? He's the worst player the Warriors have. And to have him be the third pick If Mullin keeps up the bad work, He can gurantee 1 draft pick for as long as he is GM (although Rod Higgins was named GM, not Mullin, Mullin does everything). He'll probably screw up the picks like he has the whole season! </div> Let's hope Mullin doesn't undervalue Pietrus and continue to overvalue Dunleavy Jr. The only value to me that Junior has is as a point guard and for that to work you need pietrus in the lineup and Jrich needs to move to small forward and then back to shooting guard on defense (so Dunleavy can catch up with the small forward running back on D after he's posted up the point guard). Well we're settled on Richardson playing shooting guard for at least 3 years so its either Pietrus or Dunleavy and I'd rather have Pietrus because our weakest attribute is perimeter defense, and dribble penetration.

If a trade doesn't happen that will improve this team to at least a 40% win record by allstar break, Mullin should be fired for incompetence. I mean the past season he made all these big moves to clear cap making fans think he was preparing for something big and he didn't/couldn't/wouldn't deliver. Our defense still isn't improved to accomodate Dunleavy or Richardson or whoever we're building on and we have no post game whatsoever because Mullin totally forgot about that aspect of the game. I only think Mully is building a team based on the way he played as a player and not as a team that would be fundamentally solid on both ends of the court. Mully is not ready to judge talent in order to put together a good team. It's obvious are players are too specialized and don't make plays on both ends of the floor. Half the fastbreaks and easy buckets we give up are basically Jrich and Dunleavy's fault, either for not boxing out other players from crashing the offensive boards or Jrich shielding attackers the wrong way or Dunleavy just letting too many clean looks from the perimeter. If they can't protect Murphy from getting drived on, it makes Murphy look bad because he ain't quick enough to block and seal off a drive. He got tons of blocks though during preseason against small guards but he also fouled out of the game a lot.

 

You are right. The only good thing about Dun-Dun is that he can pass the ball well and play point

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Air Pietrus:</div><div class="quote_post">You are right. The only good thing about Dun-Dun is that he can pass the ball well and play point</div>
It's really about balance. You don't build teams around a core of players that only play one end of the court and forget about the other end. You don't build teams that don't have at least one scoring option inside or variety of ways to score unless you're a specialized role player. You don't pay for potential unless you have a solid anchor to build around (in this case since we had none the warriors should have waited and see who was worthy of being the most franchise-worthy). There are exceptions to this basic team structure and that exception is the Supersonics. What makes the sonics different from other teams is they use good screens set by their teammates and they have real genuine shooters and guys that will crash the boards and put a body on someone. Do we have anyone physical on our team? It's like the W's don't care anymore or are just too slow or unaggressive to make the effort.

Also some blame the coaching, but I can't really blame it because it's a new concept to some players that you need to be able to execute to make players who can't create their own shot better. You get them open and everyone should know where to be and what to do after if you can't get the ball to the player. I also think Monty should be given a break because he's only playing to his strengths which is knowledge of x's and o's and identifying what needs to be done in game situations... unfortunately those strengths can't co-exist sometimes because some plays you need guys that aren't producing because of what they do or because you need to give other players rest (like Speedy or older guys like Dale Davis). Here's also a possible dilemma: if Speedy's minutes go up he will be injured more frequently and there goes any possibility we could get a player back that has high value if we want to get something back for him before next year when his contract is up.

I also think it's the teamwork. I mean I can tell this team isn't finished or won't click very well because a.] veterans are getting older and on the downfall b.] dampier was a major portion of musselman's version of half court offense c.] Murphy just screws up the chemistry whenever he's in the lineup because he plays more like a small forward than a true power forward and we're lacking somebody that can pass well from the high post. He always feels obligated to shoot 18 footers and we don't have Jamison or Dampier anymore to make him useful in that type of offense.

I'm so frustrated. It's like Mullin was preparing to build a team for Montgomery and he couldn't find the centerpiece this offseason because he felt Dun-Dun was the answer. So an anology would be like we bought the fuzzy dice for the rearview mirror, the hydros and the spinnin' sprewells for the rims, but no actual lowrider... Instead we got a ugly hybrid car which seemingly saved us money by using less fuel, but it just wasn't the same as having a real car that can actually get us above 30 mph after 5 seconds when entering the freeway..

And Mullin doesn't know Monty's players then Mully ought to be fired for not doing his homework. So it's like we can't do plays that are harder to defend against because our teamwork sucks. I guess for now we should just do simple motion offense and pick and roll. Make it simple because nobody on our team is reliable or consistent enough to be involved in plays with a lot of movement. Unfortunately this strategy will be our downfall in second halves when any coach competent enough to recognize what the w's do on offense can immediately counter it. Just like Musselman last year.

 

What does Mulin see in Dunleavy? He's one of the worst 3rd first round pick ever along with D-Miles

 

D-Miles showed promise at first. The thing that the Clips did wrong was show him how to play point. Now he can pass but doesn't know how to play his position. But Dunleavy is horrible. He can't shoot. He can't go inside and lay the ball in. And he fouls all the time. The only good thing he can do is pass just like D-Miles

 

D-miles can play defense, steal the ball, block shots, has good playmaking skills at times, but his poor decision making, lack of taking it in strong (a la Larry Hughes) and that irritating head bop thing of his just make him pretty lame. But he has looked better with Portland. He is developing a more reliable midrange shot. I've made comparrisons to D-miles gameplay to Dunleavy's. Both struggle with free throws, both can't shoot, both are point forwards who easily get outmuscled, both can handle the rock and pass. But since Dunleavy lacks defensive quickness, It's more important for Dunleavy to get physical because you need that if you're not quick at guarding perimeter players you're in trouble. I think Matt Harpring is a good prototype of a small forward that can rebound, play defense, and shoot some, but it's because he has better work ethic and he hits the gym and tries to go for layups rather than settle for the jump shot. I think Harpring is also a lot quicker than Dunleavy as well. But the bottomline is that Harpring has got some major muscles and that helps him a lot on defense. I consider him a pretty tough defender and by no means soft like Mike (i've had 3 off-seasons to work on my physical skills) Dunleavy. Another physical forward I like that is not athletic is Shane Battier and although I don't like Ruben Patterson I respect his physical toughness on defense and that guy ain't athletic either. Hey also what about my boy, Brian Cardinal? That guy is no track star and he's no slouch on defense either.

 

First of all, I've seen Kwan make that St. Jean post proabably 10-15 times over the years on the espn message boards. It's truely a classic post that generally seems to end the St. Jean good/bad debate.

I was always a big defender of Saint, like Kwan. Not necessarily because I thought he was a great GM, but because he got blamed for a lot of things that weren't his fault. Fans blamed him for everything that was wrong with the Warriors, even though most weren't his fault (and in many cases, as Kwan pointed out, he wasn't around for them).

The truth is that Saint was an average GM. He had a GREAT eye for talent, but was never good at putting the pieces together. But I've also never seen a GM with worse luck than Saint.

There were all the injuries, the Sprewell thing, the injuries, the Carter/Jamison thing (fans always brought this up even though the Warriors never had a shot at Carter, then stopped talking about it once Carter was regarded as a cancer), the injuries, not once getting a higher position in the draft than their record warranted, the injuries, constantly having the drop off in draft talent going off the board 1 pick before the Warriors were to pick, and finally there were some injuries. There's even more (including other injuries), but I really don't want to get into it.

The bottom line is that Saint was the scapegoat for all that went wrong with the Warriors and was dumped in favor of Mullin who was seen as the savior. I do think it's sad that the majority of fans are willing to give Mullin the benefit of the doubt when they were never willing to give the same to Saint.

 

Mmm... Those days... We fought over and over through last few years... So many misunderstaings and misinformations as well.

It seems like those days are over and most of fans are rather united. Unfortunately, it was the last thing I want to see fans uniting like this...

 

<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Kwan1031:</div><div class="quote_post">It seems like those days are over and most of fans are rather united. Unfortunately, it was the last thing I want to see fans uniting like this...</div>
I don't know about you Kwan, but I'm really looking forward to the days ahead when we argue about whether Mullin is to be blamed for all the Warriors problems.

After all, he is the one who drafted Todd Fuller, traded Vince Carter for Vonteego Cummings, and didn't figure out a way to bring Garnett to the Warriors for the veteran's exception...

Sorry guys, that was a snide comment that was really directed at the guys on the espn Warriors board.

 

That's funny, Walk