Every sports columnist in America has taken a shot one time or another at NBA general managers. Now I'm going to do it. Collectively, the most inept and incompitant workers in the universe. It is so rare that an NBA GM exercises some modicum of intelligent behavior, that he is lauded as a genius when it occurs. For example, The Washington Wizards GM is Ernie Grunfeld. He just allowed Jared Jeffries to take an enormous contract offer from the New York Knicks. Until the 11th hour, the team was contemplating matching the offer ($30 million for 5 years) for this player which meant he would have stayed.
If you followed the link, you would quickly notice that this juggernaut averaged 6 points per game last year. 6. As a starter for a playoff team that was in the top 5 in the league in scoring, he poured in 6 a night. He is of course not known as a scorer but the point is, there is no planet where the single worst offensive player in the league deserves $30 million dollars from any team. Because he is agile for a 6'11" player, the bizarre culture of NBA executives and front office people covet his skill set. He has no natural position and is known as a 'tweener. He gets pushed around by power forwards and gets beaten by quicker small forwards and guards. Players like this had better make up for it on the offensive end to have any value (like Antawn Jamison, Rashard Lewis etc.) which our boy does not.
What's the point? The NBA, more than any other sport (even though other pro sports do this), values this elusive thing called 'upside' which is a fancy way of saying 'potential'. Because there really isn't a minor league system in place (the NBADL is not there yet), there are so few roster spots and spaces for players that this lunacy is more paramount. In baseball, there are 50-some rounds of draft every year' in the NBA there are 2.
Scouts and GMs go ape fecal over guys that flat out can't play and thus, we get ludicrous situations like Jared Jeffries being sought after by a couple of dead end franchises. Here is a great list of some of the worst free agent signings of all time. There are more...so many more...Sports Illustrated Story. The best part of all of this is that the Knicks are over the luxury tax limit. This means they have to pay a dollar for dollar penalty for every dollar they spend over that limit....aka, they just spent $60 million on a guy that averages 6 pts a game. $10 million dollars a point. Good call.
Who knew Dwayne Wade would be this good? I didn't, and anyone who tells you they did is lying. I thought the guy would be a really good player (not one of the top 5 in the game) because he dominated in the NCAA tourney and carried a pooptastic squad to the final 4. That matters.
In any other field, if a personnel manager made decisions like these, he would be fired and calls would go around to other businesses saying: 'don't hire Jim, he's absolutely crazy and needs help'...'we thought Jim had lost it when he gave the dude that answers the phones and transfers the calls throughout the office a company car and $200,000 because Jim thought the guy would be a great manager in a few years...' Great point.
I know this is all sports related but its important for everyone to know. Goodbye and good luck.
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3 comments:
People are always telling me they think I have tremendous comedic upside. However, you must remember the for every Jeffries that does not meet his "upside," there is a Shawn Bradley who fulfills evryone's expectations.
He is a stopper...they put him on the opposite teams best player...not an excuse just the truth.
Who did he stop? They did put him on the other team's best player becuase he was the best defender on a team of bad defenders. Jeffries is a solid defender but he somehow got this reputation as some kind of stopper. He is in absolutely no danger of making an all-defensive team. Ask Lebron, Vince Carter, Dwayne Wade, and others if they didn't sleep well the night before they played the Wizards because they knew they were going to have to match up with Jeffries.
This is the best thing to happen to the Wizards since they became the Wizards. Thank God that idiot turned down our offer and chose to play for the worst franchise in pro sports. We will now have cap space for next summer's FA class and have room to make trades instead of being stuck with the human turnover for 5 years.
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