Is Otis Smith the Worst GM Ever?
When you lay it all out like that it looks.... pretty damn bad. I never thought he was a good GM, but I never followed the Magic close enough to see how bad he was.
That being said he didn't take 3 PGs in THE SAME draft. (2 of them in the top 10). So it's hard to give him top bonehead honors.
I was about to stand up for him, because rubio finally worked out, but he has blown too many picks and trades to deserve that. Every pick we the timberwolves get they have blown it, like when they traded mario chalmers, ty lawson, they draft Johnny flynn(Who I dont think is a bust, because he is a pick and roll point guard and not a triangle point guard), but none the less a bad pick for the timberwolves. They drafted wes johnson who is a bust. The timberwolves front office is terrible when they own the pick.(they traded for kevin love and ricky rubio the only good players they have gotten in the past 12 years.
I would say mchale is just as bad as otis smith if not worse, he traded the tenth pick in this years draft for marco jaric. He drafted mccants, corey brewer, ndi ebi, william avery all since 1999. He also caused the timberwolves to lose 3 first round picks because he tried to circumvent the salery cap to get joe smith in 1999. He also blew the kevin garnett trade, that trade has had zero impact on the team. I am sorry, but he is half of the reason the sucked for so long after kevin garnett and he has been let off of the hook.
One of my "favorite" Otis Smith moments is the Hedo Turkoglue fiasco that eventually cost them Gortat to get him back. First they didn't want to re-sign Hedo Turkoglu for a massive contract after the finals because they didn't believe he deserved it. They then trade the up and coming Courtney Lee and others for Vince Carter (and Ryan Anderson so this move wasn't too terrible).
It was what, one year after Carter came that they dealt Carter and Gortat for Hedo and Jason Richardson's bad contracts. The Carter for Hedo wouldn't have been so bad, but trading a young legit big guy in Gortat along with it and only getting Richardson in return was ludicrous. So they get Hedo back and he's not the guy he used to be PLUS he's making a boatload. Richardson was playing well, but then Otis Smith re-signs him for far too much at this point in his career.
This is happening all the while when Marcin Gortat is quietly having the biggest years of his career. In his first season with Phoenix he averaged 13ppg, 9.3rpg, 1apg, and 1.3bpg. Gortat's following year he averaged 15.4ppg, 10rpg, .9apg, and 1.5bpg...and all they got in return for trading him and Carter was old Hedo and old J-Rich.
Seriously, we've seen in this offseason and last how much a legitimate center is worth and Otis Smith gives one away for old guys who play the same way as the players they already had.
but Cleveland has had Stepien and Jim Paxson. Stepien (owner and GM) lead to NBA rule changes for being terrible all around and selling first round picks for busted veterans. His picks ended up being
- Sam Perkins (1984, 4th overall),Derek Harper (1983, 11th overall), Roy Tarpley (1986, 7th overall), Detlef Schrempf (1985, 8th overall).Dennis Rodman (1986, 27th overall), James Worthy (1982, 1st overall)
But my generation all time hated is Jim Paxson. Jiri Welsch
Luke Jackson, Sagana Diop, Tragic Langdon, Dajaun Wagner, Darius Miles, Michael Doleac are just some dumb drafts and trades. Along with Wrong Rim Ricky as Lebron's mentor. But the Boozer scenario was really bad. No team will ever try that again. They let him out of a 600, 000 deal a year early to become a "unrestricted" free agent because he (scouts honor) gave them a gaurentee that he would re-sign at a discount. Then he left for more money in Utah and they couldnt contest it because atmiting they even tried to colude would cause them to be fined and probably the loss of draft picks. We had Gordan Gund as owner, who was a really good person but he was blind to Jim Paxson's ineptitude, literally, he was legally blind.
He pick a small forward Luke Jackson at 10 the year after he backed into Lebron, a small forward the year before. He did draft Lebron but that was a no brainer. And John Lucas had Lebron practice a couple times with Cavs players his senior year in high school at Cavs facilities, so they knew he was better than the other players. He picked Andre Miller and Trajon Langdon in the first round of same draft, 1 for two isnt bad but their both 6'3 guards. Also Zydrunas Ilgaulkas and Vitaly Potapenko in the first round, not bad 1 for two except they play the same position.
He just sucked
Still don't get all the hate for Colangelo. Must read the sun rather than the star. In Poenix was he not the GM who snagged Steve Nash from the Mavs?
Hedo never worked, but give the guy credit for flipping that bloated contract back on OTIS SMITH for Barbosa. Classic Otis!
And since we are on this site already, why don't you check out the history section and look up the two picks chosen by the Raptors before Colangelo arrived! Now those picks stink. (though Charlie V more in hindsight)
As much as we Toronto fans love to see our team even mentioned by anyone else in the league, Bryan Colangelo has absolutely no business in this conversation.
And I never like to judge too harshley, but Otis Smith was a pile of garbage.
I'm going to throw in a name you young guys don't know. In my opinion, it's a tossup between Isiah Thomas and Elgin Baylor and Elgin wins out on longevity.
I don't remember how many years Baylor was the GM of the Clippers, but something tells me it was more than 20 years. Throughout his entire career, the Clippers were the worst team in basketball.
Isiah Thomas would easily surpass Baylor if he stayed on as the Knicks GM a few more years. Thomas is a complete moron.
As bad of a gm as Otis Smith he is no Rob Babcock. In 2 and a half seasons Babcock drafted Rafael Araujo, Joey Graham and Charlie V, traded Vince for the basketball pupu platter of Aaron williams, Eric Williams, Zo (who was immediately bought out and helped lead Miami to a championship) and 2 first round picks. Babcock also loved to sign terrible contracts most notably inking skip to a 5 year deal after all he had shown was that he was fringe-semi competent starter, then Babcock hired Sam "soft spoken" Mitchell as coach and the rest was history. Babcock now helps one of the best gms in the league make well thought out, logical basketball decisions in his position as assistant to the gm of the Minnesota Timberwolves lol. Flat out this guy was the worst gm in the league during the time when other sh*t head gms like billy king, Kevin mchale, Jean st. Pierre, and isiah Thomas were making decisions.
Danny Ainge is actually one of the best GM's in the league, he drafts very well almost every year, he normally never misses on trades. (jury is still out on Jeff Green) He traded for the Big 3 and brought them a championship, and he is doing everything right at this moment in my opinion. He's bringing in young talent around their older core so the young men can learn from the older gentlemen, what Ainge is doing right now is genius. Can't say the same for BC which even tho BC is not the best gm. He makes guys like Otis Smith and Darly Morey at this moment seem like complete idiots that don't know how to do their jobs. Isiah Thomas was pretty bad and I have to say that Danny Ferry was HORRIBLE in Cleveland, although it seems he's learned from his past mistakes and making better moves, even then I'm surprised the Hawks hired him because I wouldn't after he f*cked up in Cleveland. But I would say Otis Smith is pretty god awful
GREAT points BUT he was not the worst ever..Isiah was! He signed Jerome James to that huge contract because he had three good games in the Playoffs and then he gave all those other crappy players all that money for to long. Elgin Baylor you can say was a bad GM BUT he did draft some decent players that kept the Clippers exciting for a year or two but the owner didn't want to pay them..not Elgin's faught....MJ has to go down as one of the worst decesion makes as well, and Billy Knight drafted Marvin over CP3 and DW, Sheldon Williams over Brandon Roy and Josh Childress over Iggy...horrible..
Not saying you're wrong but...
How good have players turned out that were drafted in the past where J.J was drafted?
2.You never know if a euro is going to decide to stay over in Europe
3. I'll give you Gortat and Lewis was over paid but with the way he played the season before everyone figured he would continue to be a All-Star.
There have been worst GM's who have done the same thing and more but people tend to forget after time has passed
Otis Smith is a terrible Gm and he draft nor trades make him any good. I will say this though half of the Gm's in the league suck but have their jobs because of who they know. They are only a few good GM's. A lot of people are letting Billy King off the hook but if you look at the team he could have had versus the one he has now, it is not even close. They could have had a young promising roster with plenty of cap space and now they have a aging roster that will be good but they will have a hard time getting better with most of their draft picks gone and very little manuevering room.
PGLiliard??
SG Brooks/Morrow
SF Barnes??
PF Favors
C Lopez
I think they gave up another pick that wound up pretty good too
They could have moved Harris and got another draft pick and possible add both Liliard and Barnes
I know people would say hindsight but Deron Williams did not help them win a whole bunch of games. Wallace did not either. How much worst would they have been? Favors would have had a chance to get more minutes and would have shown huge progress that he shown in Utah but would have gotten more minutes either at the 4 or 5.
They should have followed the OKC model and they would have a young promising team that would be 2 or 3 years away from possibly making the finals.
Dont give him credit for Dwight because he never drafted him. Dont give him credit for signing Hedu or drafting Jameer either. He didn't do any of that. He did trade a 1st rounder (Rodney Stuckey) for Darko though. He had two lottery picks in his tenure and drafted JJ and Fran Vasquez (who will never come to the US) He also signed Rashard Lewis to a bloated contract and then traded him for Gilbert Arenas who was then coming off a career threatening(then, but now obvsiouly career ending) injury and WAS OWED MORE MONEY FOR MORE YEARS! He also traded away every piece of promising young talent they had for older over-the-hill players (Lee, Gortat for Carter, Hedu the second time around).He had three head coaches in 7 years (basically 4 but he was fired along with Van Gundy) AND he failed to pull the trigger when the Magic were offered what appears to be the best deal they were going to get for Howard . Now the Magic have such bad JuJu that no one wants to play for them even though you dont have to pay state income tax in Florida and it never snows. On top of that, they are losing some of their die-hard fans and they have to find a way to mitigate the almost certain losses they will faces at the gates as they are not only losing their face of their franchise but also have to cover the additional $20m in amnestied Arenas salary...
... I know Danny Ainge was reviled until he signed the big three, but he atleast drafted well... is there another GM who has done more damage to their club under the guise of "Management?"