Would you trade Towns

[Monster]

Jim Peterson would be a disaster. He praised the last 2 hires big time. He said he thought Thibs would build this franchise up like Reevedid with the Lynx. He was part of the group that hired Rosas. If you hate the Rosas hire you want nothing to do with Peterson leading it. I say this I I think Jim Pete is a smart basketball guy and someone who any basket all organization would be fortunate to have around in some role. I also can't see him leading an organization.

A former player like Prince is an interesting option.

If we are really serious about getting someone good hire them away from someone else.

Personally I think Rosas might be more of a middle of the road GM like this thread is sorta looking for. I think if he can get the coaching hire right we may move in the right direction. That MIGHT even mean Ryan Saunders is that guy. We are just 4 games in I want to continue to see more but it's obviously not encouraging except that magical Jazz game. Still not surprisingly there have been lots of blowout around the league early on and teams of various talent levels have been on the wrong side of things.

Good points about Jim Peterson, but I think that just means he has bad judgment when it comes to hiring basketball executives. I have more confidence in his ability to make judgments about head coaches and players. Nonetheless, I don't think I'd have him on my list for a new President of Basketball Operations.

My assessment of Rosas doesn't turn much on the results of the past 4 games. It's far more tied to my assessment of the decisions he's made over the past year and a half that have cumulatively resulted in an incredibly unbalanced roster. Some particulars include:

1. Trading up to get Garland without knowing for sure he would get him
2. Drafting Culver after trading up even though Rosas wanted to build the team around 3-point shooting
3. Trading for Rubio - using valuable expiring contract to get him
4. Drafting Edwards instead of drafting Wiseman or trading down for more value
5. Drafting Bolmaro and failing or use our #17 and 33 draft picks to add any size or 3-point shooting
6. Re-signing Juancho given the other bigs available on the free agent market
7. Paying Juancho $7M per year - makes a bad decision to re-sign Juancho even worse
8. Trading both of our 2021 picks for DLO and his max salary
9. Trading for Allen Crabbe last season when it was clear he had nothing left
10. Ending up after the trade deadline with salaries exceeding the luxury tax, which no lottery team should do
11. Releasing RHJ before this season even though our roster desperately needs size and rebounding
12, Hiring Ryan Saunders as head coach - a guy who had never even been a top assistant much less a head coach at any level of basketball and who has no gravitas or presence.
13. Slavishly building the roster around some ill-defined "system" or style and, even worse, building this supposedly fast, full-court, high ball-movement style around two pillars, KAT and DLO, whose talents don't align well with that style. Some of us have been down on DLO, but to be fair, this system isn't well suited to his talents or skill-set - yet another example of failing to tailor the system to the talents of the key players.

There's room to disagree about most if not all of these nine moves individually. But for me it's the combination of all of them and the resulting roster that troubles me. Obviously, the jury's not entirely out of Rosas. We'll have to see how the team gels as the season progresses and what moves he makes by the trade deadline. Moreover, I feel better about the Edwards pick after watching him up close so far this season. And the current front office should be commended for finding Naz Reid and JMac as undrafted free agents last year. So we'll see. But my opinion of Rosas right now doesn't turn on the last 3 lopsided losses. Those losses simply put the spotlight on the Gersson's terrible roster construction.

Jim Peterson would be hiring all the people around him. You are only as good as the people around you. Not having a good judgement when it comes to executives at the President of basketball operations is a pretty bad area to be bad at.

So far nobody has come up with someone with legit experience as an executive that we should hire. I'd like to hear some names not people with no experience and quite frankly some of them would be less qualified than the resume Rosas had when hired.

Side note: It would be awesome if Reeve was hired and she was awesome but it would be pretty risky.

[Monster]

To get back on topic:

Would I trade Towns? Idk maybe what kind of deal would come across my desk to make me consider it? Obviously it would have to be huge.

Naz Reid is nice and you can sign decent centers for next to nothing but Towns is clearly a massive upgrade from those guys. It's sort of like a few months ago when people including myself were wondering if it was worth paying Dalvin Cook all that money when you had a guy like Mattison. Cook Showed this year he is on a completely different level and worth the money if he stays healthy. Towns would get a ton more in trade than Cook would be high level players like Towns are also MUCH harder to add to a roster than a RB in the NFL. It more like trading a good young QB because you aren't winning enough and they are expensive.

Ultimately the return would likely have to be so ridiculous That I couldn't pass it up even if I was open to trading Towns which I am. To me I look at the team and the roster and everything and it's absolutely a work in progress...and to some extent that's almost being kind to just what kind of turnover and how much guys have played together etc. I know Many don't like what Rosas has done and there are fair criticisms there but even if you think he has done a solid job it's easy to say he has had some challenges that were unforeseen that he has had to deal with. That's the life of an professional sports executive but still it shouldn't be dismissed. If Towns could be healthy for a stretch of what like 25 games and we could see wha things look like With this group that would be like kinda nice and stuff.

[Lipoli390]

Monster - No argument from me on Jim Peterson. As I noted, he wouldn't be on my list.

As someone who's been involved in a fair amount of hiring, I've learned that a candidate's resume isn't very reliable. It gives you a surface snapshot, but tells you very little about an applicant's abilities or judgment. The point is that you have to dig deep (often confidentially) into exactly what a candidate did in his or her prior positions and then really push them in interviews. So for me it doesn't matter a lot how many years someone was in an NBA front office. It's what they did and the judgment they showed when they were there and it's the intelligence and acumen they show in their interview.

Gersson's reflexive recourse strings of empty platitudes and cliches suggest to me someone whose thinking doesn't go very deep. Also, what I recall reading about him left me with the impression that he didn't really distinguish himself in his time with the Rockets front office. His obsessive focus on some ill-defined system is another red flag that Glen Taylor should have picked up on when he interviewed him. But that problem is that Glen Taylor doesn't apparently pick up on much when he makes these hiring decisions. Heck, he's the only owner in the League who would have hired David Kahn.

My issue with hiring Thibodeau as PBO wasn't just the fact that he had absolutely zero front office experience. My issue was also with his temperament and reputation as a loner who doesn't work well with others. I thought at the time it was even more problematic to give him both roles, which negates the necessary checks and balances a good NBA organization requires.

So I don't have a list right now. But I'd like a new owner who we can trust with a decision that ultimately requires good judgment about people - something that Glen Taylor clearly lacks at least in the NBA context.

[Monster]

Monster - No argument from me on Jim Peterson. As I noted, he wouldn't be on my list.

As someone who's been involved in a fair amount of hiring, I've learned that a candidate's resume isn't very reliable. It gives you a surface snapshot, but tells you very little about an applicant's abilities or judgment. The point is that you have to dig deep (often confidentially) into exactly what a candidate did in his or her prior positions and then really push them in interviews. So for me it doesn't matter a lot how many years someone was in an NBA front office. It's what they did and the judgment they showed when they were there and it's the intelligence and acumen they show in their interview.

Gersson's reflexive recourse strings of empty platitudes and cliches suggest to me someone whose thinking doesn't go very deep. Also, what I recall reading about him left me with the impression that he didn't really distinguish himself in his time with the Rockets front office. His obsessive focus on some ill-defined system is another red flag that Glen Taylor should have picked up on when he interviewed him. But that problem is that Glen Taylor doesn't apparently pick up on much when he makes these hiring decisions. Heck, he's the only owner in the League who would have hired David Kahn.

My issue with hiring Thibodeau as PBO wasn't just the fact that he had absolutely zero front office experience. My issue was also with his temperament and reputation as a loner who doesn't work well with others. I thought at the time it was even more problematic to give him both roles, which negates the necessary checks and balances a good NBA organization requires.

So I don't have a list right now. But I'd like a new owner who we can trust with a decision that ultimately requires good judgment about people - something that Glen Taylor clearly lacks at least in the NBA context.

Thanks for your response. IMO as someone who doesn't do it much at all hiring certainly isn't an exact science. I'm not saying doing the due diligence is not worthwhile it's just pretty difficult. It's not as much of a crapshoot as say drafting players probably but it's not easy I'm just saying this in general. I agree with you that some people make some pretty easy to avoid mistakes. My previous boss seemed to avoid those which is kinda impressive.

Thanks for going with the Thibs example. :) No experience.

I think Glen bringing back Flip was actually something that wasn't terrible. I think the problem that could have become the case was if Flip never gave up the coaching job to another qualified candidate. We will never know. Hiring the right coach is a big deal. I think Flip was a good coach but doing both would have kept him from being competent at either and for this franchise competent would be nice. Lol

Competent is why I'm not quite out on Rosas. Naz Reid and McLaughlin are positives. Malik Beasley even with his issues looks like a pretty good move at this point in time. There are negatives absolutely but I want to see where we go from here. Does Rosas end up trading for a young PF in a few weeks? Does some young guy step up and looks to become a cornerstone or even more? I think Rosas does have enough paths with talent within the organization that can make this team worth watching. I don't think the roster is devoid of talent. Let's see where we go the next 15 games or whatever.

[Lipoli390]

Monster - I'm not sure about Flip. It was classic Glen Taylor, returning to the comfort of the Country Club after the David Kahn disaster. But at least Flip had a track record that showed some good front office judgment as McHale's GM. Flip and McHale made some smart moves like drafting KG and Wally Z. But according to McHale, Flip was the guy (as head coach) who made the decision to let Billups go in favor of keeping a starting Terrell Brandon.

Flip's tenure here was a mixed bag. On the plus side, I liked his LaVine pick and the Love for Wiggins deal made a lot of sense at the time. He certainly hit the mark picking Towns at #1. Moreover, based on what I've heard from people in the organization back then, I think he would have traded Wiggins while Wiggins still had value. I heard that he was almost at his wits end with Andrews lack of intensity in practice. But Flip also made some terrible moves that I thought were bad at the time - drafting Bazz instead of McCollum or Giannis and trading the 27th pick for cash instead of taking Gobert.

Overall, I don't think Glen has ever hit the mark with any of PBO hiring decisions. His first decision to hire McHale was probably his best. But I'm just stating the obvious. The Wolves wouldn't be as bad as they've been for so long if Glen's PBO hiring decisions were good. :)

[Monster]

Monster - I'm not sure about Flip. It was classic Glen Taylor, returning to the comfort of the Country Club after the David Kahn disaster. But at least Flip had a track record that showed some good front office judgment as McHale's GM. Flip and McHale made some smart moves like drafting KG and Wally Z. But according to McHale, Flip was the guy (as head coach) who made the decision to let Billups go in favor of keeping a starting Terrell Brandon.

Flip's tenure here was a mixed bag. On the plus side, I liked his LaVine pick and the Love for Wiggins deal made a lot of sense at the time. He certainly hit the mark picking Towns at #1. Moreover, based on what I've heard from people in the organization back then, I think he would have traded Wiggins while Wiggins still had value. I heard that he was almost at his wits end with Andrews lack of intensity in practice. But Flip also made some terrible moves that I thought were bad at the time - drafting Bazz instead of McCollum or Giannis and trading the 27th pick for cash instead of taking Gobert.

Overall, I don't think Glen has ever hit the mark with any of PBO hiring decisions. His first decision to hire McHale was probably his best. But I'm just stating the obvious. The Wolves wouldn't be as bad as they've been for so long if Glen's PBO hiring decisions were good. :)

Flip's mixed bag was a welcome change from David Kahn's flaming paper bag of poop. We all want a high level GM but I think it would be nice to have someone that was at least that mixed bag. Set the bar lower and we will have more chance of success! Lol

One thing I think is worth considering is whether or not Rosas learns from his mistakes. People will make mistakes. Will Rosas be aware and learn or just admit them and then plow on and not get better? I believe that GMs aren't a finished product. Are some guys that hit the ground running and seeming nail it? Yes. We aren't paying Rosas to being a self guided intern or something but IF he is actually worth of having his job maybe there will be some growth. It's 5 games in so we have to monitor this closer but they are currently middle of the road in 3 point attempts. They are also nowhere near the fast pace team of last seasons here they led the league in FG attempts. Russell could be part of that but I thought I noticed a more deliberate style even in preseason although they do want to get some easy transition buckets which isn't a terrible idea obviously...but don't throw the ball away. It will be interesting to see where they land as a team in terms of TO's. They are doing ok with that now which was always one of the things Flips teams would do take care of the ball.