# The Official Larry Bird is a worse GM than Isiah Thomas Thread



## Tragedy (Dec 9, 2002)

AKA Why does Bird get a pass while Zeke got lambasted?

Bird took a team that was a potential contender and turned it into a downright mess.

Zeke took a team that was in the cellar, and while he never took them out the celler, they sure as hell got a lot more interesting.


:eek8:


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## Tragedy (Dec 9, 2002)

Even JORDAN gets crapped on.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

trading bayless for rush??? :laugh: idiots.


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## afobisme (Apr 29, 2006)

yeah i was kinda confused with that trade... really weird.

but not as bad as isiah - isiah traded expiring contracts for terrible ones. you couldn't even be that bad if you tried.


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## Hephaestus (Jun 16, 2007)

The Pacers never "grabbed" an absolute steal. Bayless was never Bird's to keep. The Bayless/Rush trade with the Blazers was arranged before the draft ever started. Kevin Pritchard even dropped a hint before the draft started to the Blazers TV guy that he knew the Pacers were drafting a PG today even after the Ford trade was done.

The Blazers paid the Pacers well to help the Blazers arrange that trade. Jack, McBob, and the Blazers eat 7 Mil worth of Ike Diogu salary.


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## Dre (Jun 20, 2003)

Jordan's a close 3rd in this category.


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## mqtcelticsfan (Apr 2, 2006)

Tragedy said:


> AKA Why does Bird get a pass while Zeke got lambasted?
> 
> Bird took a team that was a potential contender and turned it into a downright mess.
> 
> ...


Didn't Bird take over a team with Reggie Miller, Ron Artest, Jamaal Tinsley and Jermaine O'Neal? It's not hard to figure out how this team went south so quickly, and it wasn't Bird.


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## E.H. Munro (Jun 22, 2004)

mqtcelticsfan said:


> Didn't Bird take over a team with Reggie Miller, Ron Artest, Jamaal Tinsley and Jermaine O'Neal? It's not hard to figure out how this team went south so quickly, and it wasn't Bird.


Well, let's see, he held on to Jermy until all his trade value was gone, and traded useful players for garbage, and then to compound it just traded Jerry Bayless, the best PG they would have had, for a much worse PG and a Rush brother, who's destined to be as good as his older brothers. He's done a terrible job with this franchise, there are no two ways about it.


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## mqtcelticsfan (Apr 2, 2006)

ehmunro said:


> Well, let's see, he held on to Jermy until all his trade value was gone, and traded useful players for garbage, and then to compound it just traded Jerry Bayless, the best PG they would have had, for a much worse PG and a Rush brother, who's destined to be as good as his older brothers. He's done a terrible job with this franchise, there are no two ways about it.


So you're basing your opinion on projections of two rookies, and the potential success of TJ Ford?


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## E.H. Munro (Jun 22, 2004)

I've already seen Frod, he's a mediocrity that doesn't fit what his coach likes to do. I understand that it was all he could get for O'Neal because he waited two years too long to deal him, but it's still a crappy trade. I've seen Jarrett Jack, I know how good, or really how mediocre he is. Bird made a deal for a much worse player than Bayless, _and didn't manage to unload any real deadweight in the deal_. At the least if he'd got Lafrentz for Tinsley and garbage he could say that he cleared salary. But he can't even say that about this deal.


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## Futurama_Fanatic (Jul 21, 2005)

afobisme said:


> yeah i was kinda confused with that trade... really weird.
> 
> but not as bad as isiah - isiah traded expiring contracts for terrible ones. *you couldn't even be that bad if you tried.*


elgin baylor?


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## 23isback (Mar 15, 2006)

Dre™;5565623 said:


> Jordan's a close 3rd in this category.


The moves Jordan pulled set up the Wizards to get big players like Jamison Butler and Arenas, he's not as close as you're implying.


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

At least Bird is willing to take risks. The Pacers have been the same stagnant team forever with Walsh running the show. Bayless isn't a gauranteed All-Star. For some reason he did drop and he did have another PG (DJ Augustine) picked above him. Maybe some GM's saw something they didn't like. I don't think this trade was that bad for the Pacers...


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## KingSpeed (Oct 30, 2003)

It's true. Just think- only FOUR years ago, Indiana had the best record in the league. Look it up. 2004. Best record in league. Didn't reach the Finals though.


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## croco (Feb 14, 2005)

rock747 said:


> At least Bird is willing to take risks. The Pacers have been the same stagnant team forever with Walsh running the show. Bayless isn't a gauranteed All-Star. For some reason he did drop and he did have another PG (DJ Augustine) picked above him. Maybe some GM's saw something they didn't like. I don't think this trade was that bad for the Pacers...


Players always drop on draft night for dubious reasons, that is why guys like Bayless don't end up there they belong.


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

This is bull****. Isiah gets fired and the Knicks take this bum Gallinari, as a favor to D'Antoni. Things are bleak in my hometown.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

Hephaestus said:


> The Bayless/Rush trade with the Blazers was arranged before the draft ever started. Kevin Pritchard even dropped a hint before the draft started to the Blazers TV guy that he knew the Pacers were drafting a PG today even after the Ford trade was done.


Both teams knew Bayless would fall to 11? Doubtful. They may have _hoped_ they'd get a PG (more likely Augustin than Bayless). So basically they got screwed cause they agreed to the deal when they thought it'd be Augustin, not Bayless. Now _that_ I can beleive.


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## thebac (Aug 25, 2004)

Tragedy said:


> AKA Why does Bird get a pass while Zeke got lambasted?
> 
> Bird took a team that was a potential contender and turned it into a downright mess.
> 
> ...


Huh? Isiah ran the team deeper into the ground with each passing year. He had authority to spend as much as he liked, but they only got worse over time. The Knicks were coming off a little more than one bad season (30-52, then started the season 10-18), but they were in the playoffs a year and a half before Isiah arrived.

He was just compiling some sort of fantasy basketball team. Even for the big-name trades, it seems as if the trading partner always made out better than the Knicks.

Having said all that, it seems as if he was pretty good at drafting players, so he does seem like a good evaluator of college talent.

With regard to Bird, the biggest reason that the team went downhill was "the brawl."

He was forced into trading away Artest, and O'Neal (though overrated since his arrival in Indianapolis) just had too many injury issues.

It's quite disingenous to claim that they were a potential contender without taking into account what happened at the Palace of Auburn Hills (unless you want to blame him for that).

Now did he do a good job helping Indiana recover from it? No, definitely not. I would not consider him a good GM, definitely not one of the better ones.

Does he belong in the Isiah Thomas/Kevin McHale class? I don't see that, either.



23isback said:


> The moves Jordan pulled set up the Wizards to get big players like Jamison Butler and Arenas, he's not as close as you're implying.


Huh? Jordan seriously set back the team. He didn't set up the Wizards for anything. They had to package Stack (who they gave up Rip Hamilton for--a younger, better player) with a #5 pick to get Jamison (who, though good, is overpaid). Grunfeld fleeced the Lakers out of Butler for Kwame for who knows what reason. Arenas signed as a free agent.

The only good thing he did during his tenure was suit up himself and pack the arenas.


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## croco (Feb 14, 2005)

HKF said:


> This is bull****. Isiah gets fired and the Knicks take this bum Gallinari, as a favor to D'Antoni. Things are bleak in my hometown.


Uh, come on, Gallinari is not a bum. I understand that a lot of people are down on European prospects, but he has a lot more toughess than most kids at his age. The difference is that he has actually produced in a good league already. Will he be an All-Star type of player ? I wouldn't put money on it, but he will absolutely be a good player in this league.


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## afobisme (Apr 29, 2006)

man, i still can't understand this trade.

if bird made pre-arrangements before the drafts, then he just doesn't know how to negotiate.


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

Well, Chad Ford seems to like it...


> Indiana Pacers Grade: A
> 
> Round 1: Brandon Rush (13), Roy Hibbert (17)
> 
> ...


I would tend to agree with him.

He gave the Blazers a B-.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

I'm quickly realizing that Chad Ford is a goober


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## PacersguyUSA (Sep 1, 2002)

> Indiana Pacers Grade: A
> 
> Round 1: Brandon Rush (13), Roy Hibbert (17)
> 
> ...


Here are the flaws with Ford's analysis:

1. It's a stretch to say Ford is coming off of a career year. Yes his scoring was up by less than 1 PPG, and his turnovers were down by less than 1/game, but his minutes, scoring, assists, rebounds, and steals were all down from his career average.

2. Calling Josh McRoberts a local hero is a joke. I can't think of anyone around here that doesn't think he's a soft, crybaby, tool. I don't think he even won a sectional in high school.

3. A Ford/Bayless/Dunleavy backcourt would have been much more exciting.

4. The addition of Hibbert and Jawai would have been better than Hibbert & Nesterovic.

5. The fact that we had Jerryd Bayless and then gave him away cannot be understated.


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## afobisme (Apr 29, 2006)

wow, chad ford is a fool if he truly believes it's "one of the most sophisticated rebuilding efforts I've seen."


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

If this is how Indiana rebuilds, they will be in the lotto for the next 6 years.


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## Pacers Fan (Aug 25, 2002)

HKF said:


> If this is how Indiana rebuilds, they will be in the lotto for the next 6 years.


That's all? Awesome!


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## luther (Nov 2, 2007)

While i don't really like their draft much--either dealing Bayless or taking Hibbert--I still think they are better than they were a week ago today. And even the Bayless trade wasn't awful to me, just not a win.


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## afobisme (Apr 29, 2006)

HKF said:


> If this is how Indiana rebuilds, they will be in the lotto for the next 6 years.


yeah that' right huh.. maybe i'm wrong and chad ford is right. by pocking horribly now, it ensures that the pacers will be there in following years. bird is genius.


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## Dre (Jun 20, 2003)

That Pacers roster is apathy city. Like could there be a more drab roster....


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## HKF (Dec 10, 2002)

Dre™;5568776 said:


> That Pacers roster is apathy city. Like could there be a more drab roster....


Hibbert, Diener, Granger, Rush, Shawne Williams, Dunleavy, Foster, Murphy, Ford, Jack is not bad talent on other teasm. Together, I just don't know. 

Granger on the Lakers is whoa. Dunleavy playing with Lebron would be nice. Ford on the Knicks could be good. Jack in Orlando could be a good thing too. Murphy playing next to Dalembert could be good too.

I am going to give the Pacers a slight little benefit of the doubt. Last year they won a lot more games than I thought they would. I was thinking they were a top 3 worst team in the NBA.

Then Dunleavy decides to have his best season ever and Granger becomes the leader of this team. They got rid of O'Neal who never played anyway and are still transitioning into O'Brien's octane offense.

I expect they will go with:

G - Ford
G - Dunleavy
F - Granger
F - Murphy
C - Hibbert (he will beat out Jeff Foster and Rasho, both of whom are expiring contracts and may be packaged with Tinsley).

Bench:
Tinsley (if they can't move him), Jack, Diener, Rasho, Foster, K. Rush, B. Rush, Daniels, Baston, Williams, McRoberts

The bench is downright awful if they can't get rid of Tinsley just looking at this, they may buy dude out.

Bench Depth Chart:

G - Jack/Diener
G - Rush/Rush
F - Williams/Daniels
F - Baston/McRoberts
C - Rasho/Foster

Foster could easily be moved to a team like Utah looking for another big. I also forgot that Kareem Rush is a free agent, so he could be gone anyway.


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## Dre (Jun 20, 2003)

They could all be good roleplayers somewhere, but together that's just a poor team after 3 years of rebuilding.

Hopefully they can get something halfway decent for Tinsley, but they're still missing a best player who's even a borderline all-star. If Dunleavy has a year like last year, I'd package him with Murphy and/or Jack and picks and see if I can net a star with low value.

Bird really messed up trading Ron Ron for basically nothing though.


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## croco (Feb 14, 2005)

Dre™;5569831 said:


> They could all be good roleplayers somewhere, but together that's just a poor team after 3 years of rebuilding.
> 
> Hopefully they can get something halfway decent for Tinsley, but they're still missing a best player who's even a borderline all-star. If Dunleavy has a year like last year, I'd package him with Murphy and/or Jack and picks and see if I can net a star with low value.
> 
> Bird really messed up trading Ron Ron for basically nothing though.


The problem is that they haven't really tried to rebuild until now. Trading Jermaine O'Neal was the first step and the concession that they can't go with that roster longer.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

croco said:


> The problem is that they haven't really tried to rebuild until now. Trading Jermaine O'Neal was the first step and the concession that they can't go with that roster longer.


And they waited too long to take that step. Bird has basically been paralyzed since the brawl in the Palace. He couldn't commit to either keeping the team together or breaking it apart and starting over. So he did neither. 

He gave up key players in Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson, but didn't shop his biggest trade asset in Jermaine O'Neal. Some of this may be easier to see in hindsight, but with Reggie Miller also departing, I think it was clear that the veteran team was weakening and O'Neal was unlikely to be the centerpiece of another title contender.


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## a_i_4_life (Dec 24, 2004)

Seattle's GM is twice as bad as both of those


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

> They could all be good roleplayers somewhere, but together that's just a poor team after 3 years of rebuilding.


It hasn't been 3 years of rebuilding. This is the first signs of rebuilding we have really shown. Bird (or walsh or both) didn't want the team to take a step back in order to get better. So they just tinkered with the roster a little bit the past two offseasons. They made no effort to accquire younger talent or expiring contracts until now.


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## afobisme (Apr 29, 2006)

oh they did make some efforts... they talked to the lakers last year and tried to get bynum/odom.


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

> oh they did make some efforts... they talked to the lakers last year and tried to get bynum/odom.


Right... Is that really rebuilding? The year before they traded away a 1st round pick for Al Harrington. Then traded Harington away for Dunleavy and Murphy... guys with long contracts. Last year they just pretty much added Rush and Diener to the same team. Not really 3 years of rebuilding by any means.


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## gambitnut (Jan 4, 2003)

Minstrel said:


> And they waited too long to take that step. Bird has basically been paralyzed since the brawl in the Palace. He couldn't commit to either keeping the team together or breaking it apart and starting over. So he did neither.
> 
> He gave up key players in Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson, but didn't shop his biggest trade asset in Jermaine O'Neal. Some of this may be easier to see in hindsight, but with Reggie Miller also departing, I think it was clear that the veteran team was weakening and O'Neal was unlikely to be the centerpiece of another title contender.


Right. A number of Blazer fans, including myself, only care about winning, not the character of people we will never meet, and were unhappy with trading away our core, Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Well, etc., in an effort to please some fans by getting rid of the "bad guys". I was among them, but I also felt like we had lost our real PG, Pippen, and our guy to bang with Shaq, Sabonis, so I expected them to fall off pretty quickly anyway. That made me fine with trading our core away. I'm quite happy with the results now! Indiana just got a slower start in trading away their core for younger players. We'll see if they have the same luck and take advantage of it as much. I think they missed their first piece of luck by agreeing to trade the 11th pick before they realized that it would be Bayless.


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## E.H. Munro (Jun 22, 2004)

afobisme said:


> wow, chad ford is a fool if he truly believes it's "one of the most sophisticated rebuilding efforts I've seen."


I'm reminded of a story that a friend with a CS degree told me once. A little nugget given to him about Windows Vista by one of his professors. "It's a tremendously sophisticated operating system. Unfortunately it doesn't work." So, I would like to say that for once I agree with Chad Ford. Larry Bird's rebuilding effort is tremendously sophisticated. :bsmile:


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

well it wasnt just Chad Ford that liked the draft for the Pacers... most analysts did..

Yahoo(Dwyer) 10 out of 10


> Indiana Pacers
> 
> Additions: Brandon Rush, Roy Hibbert
> 
> ...


Yahoo (Draft Express) B+


> With their backs against the wall, the Pacers managed to land a sweetheart deal by packaging Jermaine O’Neal to the Raptors for T.J. Ford (filling their void at point guard), Rasho Nesterovic (filling their void at center) and the 17th overall pick. This gave them the flexibility to target the best overall player on their draft board and pick up a nice asset in Jarrett Jack with two proven and polished college players: Roy Hibbert and Brandon Rush. All in all, this was definitely a home run draft for Indiana. They are a better team, with better character in the locker room, deeper off the bench and also more flexible financially to go out and continue to add pieces in their rebuilding process.


Marty Burns (SI) B+


> Larry Bird promised changes, and he delivered. All told, the Pacers added seven new players (Jawai is expected to go to Toronto as part of the O'Neal trade). Who knows if it will work, but give Larry Legend credit for trying.


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## croco (Feb 14, 2005)

It would have been a much better draft had he not traded Bayless after drafting him. It depends on perspective, I think they took two steps forward with trading Jermaine O'Neal and getting Ford/Hibbert for him and then took one step back with the Bayless trade. Overall it's still a step forward, but not as big as it could have been.


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## Knick Killer (Jul 16, 2006)

Larry Bird has proven himself to be a pretty bad GM. But no way is he worse than Isiah Thomas.


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## Minstrel (Dec 31, 2002)

Judging from the success of Jordan, Bird and Thomas, I suggest no one offer Magic Johnson a GM position.


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## rock747 (Aug 3, 2004)

I don't get the bird criticism yet... He is just really starting his tenure as a GM now.


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## Wade County (Jun 22, 2003)

Hate that Bayless trade...but they were definately due to blow their team up and rebuild. Its not that Rush and Jack are that bad players - just I feel that Bayless was a top 4 talent that they got lucky with. You shouldnt trade that luck.


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## Blazer Freak (Jul 11, 2004)

The deal was supposedly already in place before the draft had even started so the Pacers were going to trade the 11 to Portland no matter what. Atleast that is what I have gathered from reading recently.


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## Wade County (Jun 22, 2003)

Still - if Portland at #13 knew that a top rated PG was gonna slip (and they knew it would be Bayless) - why didnt Indiana? Unless they just really didnt rate him...which I find hard to believe.

Still feel that Portland robbed them there. 

PG - Bayless/Blake
SG - Roy/Webster
SF - Webster/Outlaw
PF - Aldridge/Frye
C - Oden/Pryzbilla

Thats a nice team right there.


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## jokeaward (May 22, 2003)

Let's be honest, Ford+Rush could be better than Ford+Bayless.

I Thomas was much worse. Steve Francis, Jamal Crawford, Stephon, AND Nate Robinson.


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