Grading Joe's Offseason So Far

I'm still stoked by Joes post season oratory, and even more excited to see the start of a commitment to grow from within.
Gotta believe that the core has bought in to his stated expectations by the absence of trading activity and or rumors.
So far he has been a man of his word.

Grade B+

He'll be up for the 07-08 Exec of the Year if he can make a man outta Flip.

Excellent work signing Billups to a very reasonable contract at just the right amount of years.

Pulled the trigger and kept Amir. Screwing that up would have been unforgivable.

Stucky looks to be a steal who will fill a perfect niche for us- the role Flip jr. was supposed to fill last year.

I was supportive, but lukewarm, on the Afflalo pick. After seeing how this team is shaping up, I'm very pleased with him. He's a top notch defender who looks like he can lock down all three perimeter postions. He does everything well, and although he struggled with his shot over a few games in Vegas, anybody who watched him play in college knows that won't consistently be the case in the future. Gotta love the way this kid competes.

Mejia looks like a solid prospect, which all you can ask for in a second round pick.

He still has some decisions to make, mainly what to do with Flip jr., but I'm pretty happy so far.

Grade: B

Grade is D at this point.

He gave away a very good defesive player, who hustled to rebounds, handled the ball well, and even showed he can shoot the ball if he is let to shoot the ball. Delfino was a swingman, shooting guard, small forward, and he could play both positions well defensively.

Next, he drafted 2 shooting guards, both of which could play some small forward but lack Delfino's size to do so. So between drafting Afflalo and Mejia, while giving away Delfino, Joe Dumars did exactly nothing, and probably quite a bit less than nothing. Joe Dumars left us with no backup small forward, and a couple of shooting guards who are most likely a drop-off in talent from Delfino. Note, we never did play Delfino as the primary backup to Rip, but we should have. Toronto loves us for the gift.

So ok, Joe did do better on the other pick. He got a guy to backup Billups, only the guy is not really a point guard. Can Stuckey score in the NBA, against NBA defenses? We better hope so, because he is not going to play the point for us all that well. With this pick, we basically replaced Blalock, who was certainly a point guard, with Stuckey, who is most certainly not a point guard. Is Stuckey the better player. On the surface, maybe yes. But wait, you got to have a skill that actually works in the NBA before your really are better. I know Will Blalock is capable of getting inside the defense repeatedly, and finding the open man. Can Stuckey do this. Again, he better be quite a scorer if he can't. And oh thats right, Stuckey has no range.

Dumars so far has kept the same coach. Hmm, Sheed did not have an ankle injury this time, so what gives. What is Flip's excuse this time. Team communication broke down at a critical time. Me thinks he could be part to blame for that.

In sum, Dumars has let Blalock go, a point guard, and replaced him with a guy who we hope can score. He replace Delfino with two guys, who we hope can shoot better than Delfino did. (Althoug of course the coaching staff generally yelled at Delfino not to shoot, so we will not know how well he really could have shot, will we?)

This is not to say that Stuckey is not better than Blalock. But did we really have a great need to draft a backup point guard? Why not give Blalock a chance. And why not give Delfino a chance.

Ok, he resigned Billups. That is good. I suppose. Of course, since we did so poorly last season at the end, it really drove the price tag down on Billups a lot. Doing really bad in order to get something positive, so that you can do really good the next season, seems kind of circular. It gets you nowhere. If we would have gotten thru last season more successfully, and then Billups was retained for like a max contract, I would be more impressed.

We did resign Johnson. Probably to too short a contract. Dumars brow beat the league to ensure nobody tried to steal the guy away. Hmm, but you know, if Johnson is so great, why not a bit of playing time last season, when it counted. A few rather meaningless minutes at the end of the season, and then never dressing for the playoffs. Gee, how can you be happy about a signing that is so tainted. Again, if we had been successful, and Amir had been part of that success, then I would really be giving Dumars kudos for retaining Amir. As it was done, I just say shame on Dumars, get your priorities straight. You want A grade? Win something. You got A's from everyone in 04, cause you won it all. Still good grades the next year, even though you fell short. But going backward since?

Right now it is a B. If the rookies do well it can be an A, but if they mess up it can easily go down to a C or D.

B+

We dumped the guys who couldn't shoot straight and we picked up some young players who are coming into the NBA with the maturity to contribute right away. They are solid personally, humble, and they seem to value defense and teamwork... and they can "score the ball."

He re-signed the best player on the team for a reasonable price and also managed to keep Amir for next to nothing.

If he gets Hunter to retire, trades either Murray or Nazr, signs Webber and gets Acker, then it is an A+.


I wonder where Blalock will end up. There must be a dozen teams chomping at the bit for him. If he goes to the West Coast, it will swing the balance of power even further and will probably hurt ratings.

Joe accomplished his top two priorities in signing AJ and Billups to reasonable contracts. I f he could have talked Amir into signing for five years that would have been even better.

While I agree with Lee that the loss of Blalock and his three point shot is a bitter pill to swallow...we got the guy we wanted at #15 so no unexpected problems in the draft there. Afflalo and Mejia are question marks and make the team loaded with guards.

Samb has bulked up enough to get his contract and he and Meija should look good in the Mad Ant uniforms.

Keeping Flip Saunders is the major weakness of this offseason. Flip was hired knowing he had some big shoes to fill. Ironically, with LB's health problems Larry probably filled his own shoes more often than Flip did... Flip has been a failure at trying to keep this team afloat.

C+

Exactly what I think. Except I would add keeping Hunter is nuts if you ask me.


B-/C+

How can any scenario that involves keeping Webber result in an A?

D = Joe is doing the basics. Just enough to avoid failing.

After having put up with lax behavior for two full seasons while saying exactly the opposite. Joe has done nothing short of what any GM would do.

You had the 15th pick and you picked the guy you wanted at 15...big deal. You resigned Billups...duh...there was no one else in the running. You resigned Amir Johnson...an unproven commodity that you've hyped to the point of no return so you HAVE to re-sign him. Oh, and you traded the better of our two backup guards for a box of skittles. You have apparently had NO serious discussions about bringing in anything other than previous retreads (coaching staff included). Finally, you retained a coach who has managed to fail upwards.

The defensive presence, strategy, coaching, proactive mindset, and overall toughness of this team are the most glaring weaknesses; none of which have been addressed, with the exception of the "real talk" interviews railing on about not tolerating any of the things you've been tolerating.

Show me something Joe.

Didn't we pay Webber about $400K for his services last year? How was that a bad deal for us? Remember the improvement when we switched him in for Nazr in the starting rotation?

I am going to have to grade Joe on a curve.

Based on the best decisions made during the off-season to the worst decisions of the off-season. One (1) being the very, very, best, near excellent decision to the poorest of the poor, (10). I mean sleeping on the grater in front of the greyhound bus station poor. Here goes:

1. Drafting Stuckey & Afflalo in the first round. Stucky will be the steal of this draft and Afflalo will be one of the best late first round picks in a very long time.

2. Drafting a steal in Sammy Mejia in the second round, a legitimate baller, watch my word, give him two years tops.

3. Releasing Carlos Delfino, this decision was damn near brilliant.

4. Signing Samb and maybe Mejia to the 15 man roster. He can get well into that learning curb playing in the states than overseas. (See Amir J's)

5. Signing CB to a 60+ contract. I don't think he is worth that much money. The past two postseason, CB has killed us with his play, decision making and on and on.

6. Not going after some of the FA small forwards that were available, Mo Pete, el al

7. Not pursuing a center either by trade or FA

8. Hanging on to Ronald Dupree. What are ya gonna do with him Joe, play him or let him go, free up the dollars. Don't wanna see Dupree's extensive suit line any longer.

9. Not using the MLE, we need to fill a gap or two. (Cheap) as well as keeping lindsay to fill space, we have entirely too many guards and tweeners. Stockpiling for what?

10. Keeping Flip Saunders as HC.

Overall grade, and remember it could have easily been a C+ but I am going to curve a little bit and barely give him a B.

If I had added a #11, it would have definitely been a C+.

I took this Logic course when I was matriculating at SUNY Buffalo a number of (too many) years ago.

The teacher wrote the midterm exam. The teacher took his own test. He got the highest grade (I would hope so), but out of 100 his grade was only a 21!!!

The highest student grade was a 16.

There were over 30 students in the class who took the the test.

2 got grades of zero
3 got grades of zero plus

Zero was nothing answered correctly and no name put on answer sheets
Zero plus was nothing answered correctly and a name put on the answer sheets.

The median score was 9.


I think you are a tougher grader than he was. LOL

My grade was not zero or zero plus.

Did you miss the playoffs? Were you not there to witness the utter disintegration? That guy was exactly what I thought...I nice PR move and a quick fix that people would get excited about, but amounted to ZERO when it came to helping us win playoff games. We could have tossed Chuck Nevitt in to replace Nazr and it would have been an improvement. When Webber DID show up it was something to talk about because it only happened once every 5 games. The Pistons could have paid ME the $400K to tell them that Webber would be useless in the playoffs and not help us at all.

Webb had 9 double digit games in the post season. He got us past the Bulls and Ben Wallace. He had 10 games with > 7 boards. And he only played 25 MPG!

Let's look at his 40 minute playoff stats vs. your boy Ben's.

CWebb/ Ben
Pts- 15.7/ 9.4
Reb- 10.0/ 10.3
Ast- 2.4/ 1.5
Stl- 1.4/ 1.6
Blk- 1.0/ 1.8

Webber was a MUCH better deal than Ben Wallace last year.

Screw his 40 minute stats. Your boy showed up for exactly ONE game in the CHI series. I'll take Ben's head to head production over the life of that series every day of the weak and twice on Sunday.

Webber had ONE game of 22 pts. There rest of the series, he turned in "stellar" performances of:
5 pts, 0 pts, 0pts, 9pts, and 5 pts.

Sure, waaaaaay better deal for someone who was supposed to be akin to bringing in Rasheed in 2004.

In that series Big Ben avg'd. 9.3 ppg, 8.3 rebs, and 1.83 blocks

while Webber avg'd. 6.8 ppg, 5.8 rebs, and 1.16 blocks

I'd much rather have Ben and EVEN IF you think it's not a large enough difference to be worth the extra money, I'd much rather have the player that's going to bring the much higher level of effort and effectiveness defensively on a more consistent basis.

Webber was NOWHERE to be found when Lebron was driving the lane at the end of those games. I GUARANTEE Wallace would have been there to challenge or at least FOUL and make him shoot FTs.

Ben's effect ON THIS TEAM (not on the Clippers, not on the Bulls, not on the Lakers) is much more effective AND valuable than anything Webber brought to the table with his $400 K price tag.

webber if i remember right was on the bench so i am glad he wasn't fouling him..... that would be a T and more points...

everybody on the floor and the coach are at fault for that insane streak... and to blame webber being here for it is just nuts.

I love ben more then anybody but if we paid him what he felt he was worth it would have destroyed this team for years to come, chicago has already seen they overpaid.

The first move was a big surprise and i didn't like it. Draft choices made Delfino's trade much more logical. I'm afraid it can be a big year for Carlos. It was a very good trade for him. He should get more minutes, more shots. I believe that he's got a lot of potential which we haven't seen yet. We got nothing special in return... Joe must believe in rookies.

I like drafted players. Stuckey seems to be a good player. He's going to help us a lot. Afflalo's role will be smaller but he should get his minutes. Draft gave us much needed depth. We needed young guards and Joe drafted them.

Billups' contract is a very good deal. He isn't overpaid, it's not too long. He was the best pg available for that price.
I don't need to write anything about Amir's contract .

I'm waiting for a trade of Murray. We should get rid of him. Giving him minutes will hurt rookies. Stuckey needs major playing time to get comfortable with the system before the playoffs.

I would like to see a trade for a SF. We can't give much but I believe in Joe . I'm not sure if using the MLE will be a good idea. There are not many players left who can really help us. If Dumars uses MLE, contract should be no longer than 2 years.

Nothing special have been done this offseason. I hope it's not the end of our moves.