It’s easy to make Michael Jordan a target and mock his tenure in Washington now that he is in a decision-making position as part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. But Jordan did a pretty good job of running the Wizards. He made no more mistakes than most general managers make.
He generally is blamed for his first coach, Leonard Hamilton, the drafting of Kwame Brown and the trading of Richard Hamilton.
Forget the coach thing. Even the successful teams go through them regularly. The Pistons have had three coaches in the last four years. It happens. Perhaps it would have been better to keep and develop Hamilton, but in acquiring Jerry Stackhouse for Hamilton, the Wizards were able to deal for Antawn Jamison, who became an All-Star and part of the foundation of the current Wizards team.
Jordan put the Wizards in position to develop by dealing Juwan Howard. The thought at the time was it would be impossible to deal Howard’s $100 million contract. The Wizards were a financial mess with no salary-cap room and on their way to a 19-win season in 2000-01 with players such as Mitch Richmond and Rod Strickland at the end of their careers. Jordan’s deals put the Wizards in position to get Gilbert Arenas, the star of their franchise, the summer when Jordan was fired.
And as for Brown, well, it’s easy to say the Wizards should have taken Pau Gasol, who went No. 3 to Atlanta. But Atlanta didn’t keep him, trading him, Lorenzen Wright and Brevin Knight for Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Tyson Chandler was picked No. 2 and Eddy Curry was No. 4. It was a poor draft. DeSagana Diop was picked by the Cavs at No. 8 as the NBA apparently was convinced the future was the big high school kids.
Some of the other high picks in that draft were Eddie Griffin, Rodney White and Shane Battier. Golden State may have done the best with Jason Richardson and Troy Murphy, but the Warriors have yet to make the playoffs with them. Some of the players who have gotten huge contracts from that draft are Zach Randolph, Samuel Dalembert and Joe Johnson, and their teams haven’t exactly been great successes. Johnson was a nice piece for the Suns but the fourth option.
If you redid that draft, you’d have Tony Parker in the top three, and he was passed over by 27 teams. Richard Jefferson went in the teens and was part of a trade for Griffin. Vladimir Radmanovic is kicking around now looking for a new deal. That draft’s prize was Elton Brand for Chandler, but there was no way then-Bulls GM Jerry Krause was going to deal with Jordan and allow Brand to remain in the Eastern Conference.
Jordan probably shouldn’t have played, but the team made a lot of money because he did and had two years to get the salary-cap room to make the jump they did after he left. Doug Collins was key in advising Jordan on personnel, which is why the Bucks talked seriously with Collins last summer. Collins helped put the Pistons back on the right track with financial decisions when he coached the Pistons and would be a good addition somewhere in personnel.
As for Jordan, he can’t make it happen because of who he is. But it would be a mistake to discount his ability to assemble a team.
And another thing
While I’m at it, don’t discount Isiah Thomas.
It’s easy–and common–to ridicule his tenure as the Knicks’ GM, and one only need consult the New York newspapers daily. The Larry Brown situation has been embarrassing, though who a year ago was saying it was a mistake to hire him as coach?
The consensus seems to be Thomas will take over as coach, and the way the NBA game is evolving, Thomas may just have a pretty good situation. He took over the Indiana Pacers after they went to the Finals in 2000 and then broke up their team as Rik Smits retired, Dale Davis was traded–for Jermaine O’Neal; nice work, Portland–and Mark Jackson and Chris Mullin were let go. The Pacers won 48 games the season Thomas was fired. Team defense wasn’t Thomas’ forte, but he was offensive-minded and the game has tilted that way.
One figures Stephon Marbury will be on his best behavior when Brown officially leaves. He has been an All-Star, as has Steve Francis. With Jamal Crawford and an up-tempo style, that is a pretty good three-guard rotation. Curry should respond better to the guy who chased him for years instead of the guy chasing him away. Channing Frye looks like he can break through at power forward, and Quentin Richardson or Jalen Rose could play small forward competitively. With a few role players like Malik Rose, whom the Spurs wished they had for this year’s playoff run, and David Lee, it would be a mistake to count out the Knicks too quickly.
That’s also why no one should quite count on the Bulls getting Ohio Sate-bound big man Greg Oden next season with their ability to swap picks with then Knicks. It makes this draft important for the Bulls.
Underdog’s tale
One of the big story lines in the NBA Finals has been all the guys with a shot at finally being on a championship team, such as Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton, Shandon Anderson, Derek Anderson, Antoine Walker, Stackhouse and Keith Van Horn. There are always those guys who have come from nowhere, like Darrell Armstrong.
But there’s no one quite like Dallas’ Adrian Griffin, who has been starting much of the Finals. Said Griffin: “I know when I look back on my life this is probably the year I’ll say was special. I know I’ll be telling this story, sitting around not being on a team and then starting in the Finals.”
Griffin’s story of being undrafted and working his way out of the CBA and Europe is not unfamiliar to Bulls fans because he played for the Bulls in 2004-05. Looking to make a move with all the uncertainty about Curry, the Bulls let him go. Griffin, however, has high praise for GM John Paxson. The Bulls actually thought Griffin was retired when they got him from the Rockets in a salary-dump deal in 2004.
“John Paxson called and said he was sorry about my injuries and that I couldn’t play,” Griffin recalled. “I said I’d been working out, and he was like, `You can play?'”
Griffin had a good season for the Bulls but began this season without a team and wasn’t signed by the Mavs until after Thanksgiving. It’s likely no one appreciates being in the NBA more than him.
Griffin grew up in Wichita, where his father was a janitor and with his dad and brother collected soda cans to help feed the family. Eventually, his father, David, who died in 2000, went back to school and became a pastor. His mother, Helen, 49, missed the first game of the Finals to attend her high school graduation; she returned to school 33 years after dropping out.
No surprise then that Griffin does so much dirty work for the Mavs.
“My parents showed me about hard work and never giving up,” Griffin said. “The NBA is a blessing. I know how some guys look at it, but I want to play as long as I can because it’s not reality. I know that from growing up. I’ve seen more money in one season than if you totaled up every penny my parents made in their lives.”
Life’s good at 81
Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay was off from broadcasting the Finals on ESPN Radio last weekend to get a checkup in Houston regarding his cancer. Ramsay mostly has kept quiet about his illness. He is undergoing chemotherapy, and the results have been positive. Ramsay did talk about it with an old friend, Seattle columnist Steve Kelley, who covered Ramsay’s 1977 Trail Blazers, the last NBA team to recover from a 2-0 deficit in the Finals.
Said Ramsay: “I’m 81 years old. How many people 81 have been able to do what I’ve been allowed to do? If this is the end of my life, I have no regrets. I’d like to stay longer, and I enjoy doing this and would like to continue to do this. I’m getting good care. I’m doing whatever I can. If it works, that’s fine. If it doesn’t work, then that’s life. But looking back, I’ve had a charmed life.”
Ramsay did say he is leaving ESPN because they have taken his partner, former Bulls broadcaster Jim Durham, off the regular broadcasts for next season. Said Ramsay: “I didn’t want to [call the Finals] with anybody else. There’s nobody better. Why on Earth would you move him off the games?”
Durham will do other assignments for ESPN.
Final shots
The Bobcats are offering 500 upper-deck seats next season for $199, an average of about $4.70 per game. . . . Commissioner David Stern recently addressed the idea of the NBA heading off the corrupt amateur system, and it seems the NBA players association is on the way with its Top 100 High School Camp at Virginia Commonwealth University, starting Tuesday. No shoe companies, scouts or agents are allowed. The camp includes mentoring programs with the Bulls’ Chris Duhon and Michael Sweetney and Chicagoans Bobby Simmons and Eddie Johnson. . . . A telephone poll conducted last week in Seattle found 78 percent saying they’d rather see the Sonics leave Seattle than use tax money to renovate their arena.
