by benji on Sun May 07, 2006 2:23 am
Kiki was a better GM than most in the league because he at least appeared to know what he was doing.
-He replaces Dan Issel.
-Trades LaFrentz, Van Exel, Saint-Jean and Avery Johnson for Juwan Howard's expiring deal.
-Trades Posey to the Rockets
-Then trades McDyess for Camby, Mark Jackson's contract and Nene
-He bombs on the Skita pick, but that draft was f-ed up. Skita was compared to Dirk, Nene to Rodman. Now we know Nene can't jump at all.
So he goes into 2003's offseason with a frontline. Camby and Nene, he finds Chris Andersen and gets Elson to come over.
-Drafts Anthony. Easy pick, even if Wade is the better player at this moment, Anthony was a better pick. Why? He's a SF, they were rotating Skita, Ryan Bowen and Donnell Harvey through the SF spot. Those are guys with 02-03 PER's of 5, 12 and 12.5. (Anthony posts 17.5 in his rookie year, and White backs it up with 16.3)
-Then he bats 1.000 in the free agent market, landing Andre Miller, Earl Boykins, Voshon Lenard, and Jon Barry as his new backcourt, without breaking the bank for any of them really. (Consider deals for Derek Fisher and Adonal Foyle that offseason...) Junior Harrington, Chris Whitney, Yarbrough and White were the backcourt the year before featuring PERs of 6.5, 9.2, 9.5, 9.7. In 03-04 the new four had PERs of 18.8, 16.2, 13.5 and 14.6. Replacing that backcourt was like adding Shaq to any other team.
-The Martin signing can be slightly forgiven, even if the guy was coming off a fluky contract year and never deserved the max. They also lost Andersen and Doleac so they would've needed to sign a big guy anyway.
If he made a bad move it was his last one:
-Trading White and Tskitishvili to Golden State for Najera and a pick. Had they not made this deal, they could've waived Lenard and traded one of their draft picks and been $10 million under. There were a lot of SG's available in this last offseason.
Other than Elson, DerMarr and Evans, due to that shortsightedness, they're stuck with this team for a while. Only Patterson, Buckner and if they want Nene come off the books after next season. Since Melo will want and should recieve a max contract, they'll be over or at the cap with four players in Anthony, Camby, Martin and Miller.
Unfortunately, Karl might be given more power...