May 8, 2009

I Hook The Funky Beat With The Loop And The Feature



OH MY DEAR GOD. I can think of only one man in the universe, 0nly one soul dark enough to warrant even MORE hate than Deadzo were he to become the Wolves GM, and that man is Bill Simmons.

My Worst Nightmare, indeed.

Here's the thing... we all have great ideas about personnel moves. The old "tell me why this trade doesn't work!" argument is a real fun one to have when you're 4 deep at the Bulldog and the Lagunitas keeps coming like rain. Mr. Bliznawski and myself have gone through the ringer of "shit if they can dump Hudson for a bag of Earl's and a case of Fanta, we're in the pink!" or "Big Swerve is a tradeable asset!!!!!!!!" conversations. But here's the thing: we're idiots. And so is everyone else. We have good ideas sometimes, and sometimes we have bad ones, and sometimes we are EXCITED TO HAVE RICKY DAVIS ON OUR TEAM BECAUSE WE HATE OURSELVES.

The point is that Bill has the wonderful job of being able to write whatever he wants about the NBA and that includes possible trades that may work. As such, he gets some right. And he also gets some horribly wrong. He rolls the dice, thinking (maybe rightly) that he is smarter than most GMs. This I do not debate. There is no question in my mind I could defeat Kevin McHale in a game of trivial pursuit. Hell, I could beat him at NBA THEMED trivial pursuit. So could my 7 year old niece. That's not the issue. The issue is being a member of that club, of having to be the one out there actually doing these things... I can guarantee this is a business that looks MUCH easier from the outside than it is on the inside. And taking wild chances and going for broke NEVER WORKS, EVER. You may come up with a few good moves, but mostly you come up with garbage. Every GM has 3-4 terrible players on their roster... they know they're terrible and they are constantly trying to spin it that no, they are not in fact terrible. Bill Simmons would be the one taking these terrible players on. He's the one that would pop his nut to get Kevin Durant. He's the one who pimped Bobby Simmons so hard... until he went to Milwaukee and started playing more like Freddie Jackson.

We all think we could run an NBA team. And we all could run it better than McHale. The problem is that there are other MUCH MORE QUALIFIED candidates than Bill, guys who actually could put a decent team together, other than just following feelings about certain players and acting on "hunches". For every "trust me, Rajon Rondo, this kid is going to be something" there's the inevitable "Michael Olowokandi can still contribute, the trade for Mark Blount will pay dividends". When you're an NBA GM, you don't get to write a "my bad" column. You have to live with Marko Jaric for 5 years, because you are a loser.

He's been putting this out there for years... first it was the Bucks and now it's the Wolves. Dear god, I could not envision a situation in which the new GM was more hated than Deadzo. Congrats Bill, you just did it. Seriously, if they hired Isaiah fucking Thomas, I would at least laugh at the sideshow that was coming to town. With Bill, there will be no laughter. Only tears.

3 comments:

Dickfer said...

Could it be worse? I am willing to piss away a year to find out. Only one, though.

Trip Darvez said...

I have mentioned this to Drew before, but for you other readers, look up Sam Presti. He was the assistant GM for the Spurs earlier this decade, and now is the GM for the piece of shit Thunder. Why do I mention this? I was friends with him IN COLLEGE. Yes, Emerson. The guy wanted to be a jazz musician or something, but was on our basketball team. How did a guy who went to MY college end up running an NBA team? Not by writing columns for a boring website. He fucking worked his way up the ranks the real way. His current "success" aside, isn't it real world experience that makes the difference instead of writing a column why a trade is like the MTV Movie Awards?

Dickfer said...

Wait a second here. Emerson. Did you guys ever play Belmont? Siena? Georgia Military? Maybe I am thinking Evansville. Purple Aces? Anyway, if Emerson ever made the Dance, I probably had them in the Sweet 16. Probably took them and the points, too.