BK approval rating

[Final_quest]

I don't get the comment that we never use cap space. Last offseason we signed the best available free agent to a max deal. The season before that, we did try, but it wasn't the right time. This offseason remains to be seen, but we did aggresively pursue the best PG available followed by the next best thing.

Which offseason in particular are you guys referring to that we let our cap space go to waste?

I thought our signing last year put these comments to be bed, but they still pop up. Kmart was the best available free agent 2 years ago. We tried to sign him, which turned out to be a good thing. Now people want to say that we let our cap space go to waste. I don't get it.

[AHF]

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This is really what he is at his best at. I look at KMart

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You do realize he offered K-Mart a max deal, don't you? For once, him being a bad GM actually helped since K-Mart didn't accept.

And for those that don't think he offered Damp a contract, here is a little bit of info:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1861620

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OAKLAND, Calif. -- Erick Dampier's odyssey will apparently wind up not in the Big Apple but in Big D.

The Dallas Mavericks have agreed in principle to a trade that would send forwards Eduardo Najera and Christian Laettner, two future first-round picks and cash to the Golden State Warriors, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher on Tuesday.

In exchange, the Mavs would acquire Dampier, center Evan Eschmeyer and guard Dan Dickau from Golden State.

The deal, however, cannot be consummated until later this summer because NBA rules stipulate that no player may be dealt twice within a two-month period. Both Laettner and Dickau were traded earlier this summer.

Calls to Dampier's cell phone were not immediately returned Tuesday night and his agent, Dan Fegan, also didn't immediately respond to a message left by the Associated Press.

The trade also is contingent on Dampier reaching agreement with the Mavericks, an NBA source told the AP.

Dampier opted out of his contract with the Warriors in late June and became a free agent. The 6-foot-11 veteran, who spent the past seven seasons with Golden State, met with the New York Knicks and several other teams in recent weeks.

He apparently will also forgo a six-year, $50 million offer from the Atlanta Hawks.

Dampier, drafted 10th overall by Indiana in 1996, hoped to join the New York Knicks as part of a sign-and-trade deal, but the Warriors refused to take on salary to accommodate their former starting center's wishes.

He was also wooed by Jermaine O'Neal, who would have liked to have had the 6-foot-11, 270-pound Dampier do the dirty work inside for the Pacers, who were overwhelmed by Detroit's frontcourt in their Eastern Conference finals loss in this year's NBA playoffs.

Dampier ranked fourth in the league in rebounding and seventh with 42 double-doubles.

The 30-year-old Dampier is coming off the most productive season in his eight-year career. He averaged a double-double with 12.3 points and 12.0 rebounds while also blocking 1.85 shots in 32.5 minutes per game.

The Warriors have made many changes this offseason since finishing 37-45 and missing the playoffs for the 10th straight year.

Chris Mullin became the Warriors' new executive vice president of basketball operations. He fired coach Eric Musselman and replaced him with former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery. Mullin also hired Rod Higgins as general manager.

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The numbers may be off, but it is pretty hard to say they didn't make him an offer. Another example of BK sucking that somehow helps us and people wanting to claim him as "saving capspace", even though he clearly wasn't intending to.

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6 years and 50 M would not have been a bad deal for Dampier. Remember, he ultimately signed for 7 years and 73 M. That is a difference of about 3M per year and a year shorter. Sounds like reasonable restraint not to go higher than that to me.

I do agree K-Mart would have been a disaster but he didn't have the injury history when that offer was made so I fault Denver for giving up that much for him but don't fault teams for going after him. If people think Chris Wilcox is worth 9M/per and Nene is worth 10M/per then how wasn't K-Mart worth pursuing at those dollars given his age and track record?

[RAHMOR]

I gave him a mediocre. While he could have drafted players to gave us a more complete team, I can't really say that he could have drafted better talent. The reason I give him a mediocre is because of our win/loss record. I've tried in the past to ignore it but I just can't anymore.

[Final_quest]

At that time Kmart looked like a good option. I can't blame BK for going after him. It was not an utterly stupid move, and many other GMs went after him just as hard.

Dampier was 4th in rebounding in the league. That being the case BK still lowballed him, and probably knew that his offer wouldn't be taken seriously. I remember JO openly campaigning for the Pacers to do everything possible to bring Dampier in.

[Vol4ever]

Yep, with loads of cap space we should have a chance at getting a decent player. We really need help at the 5 IMO.

Remember when some of the board were saying "We are not going to spend our cap money on a bum, we are waiting until Ben Wallace becomes a free agent"? Then when we apparantly didn't even make a pitch for him he signed with Chicago. I brought the subject up on the board at the time and the same people said "He was overrated and didn't deserve the money!"

I will say this, it appears to me that this franchise will NOT spend the money to bring in the BIG time talent. I know, we signed JJ but I am talking about the Ben Wallace's of the NBA.

I believe the motto of the current Hawks is Let's get the young players and say we are trying to be a competitve team, but we will not be active in free agency!

[Final_quest]

That is certainly a selective memory. I believe that few people really wanted to bring in Ben when he became available, but most people expected him to resign with the Pistons.

This offseason the goal was to acquire the best free agent PG available. We offered the best one the highest offer, his team matched it. Then we got the next best available PG.

Last offseason we made a very expensive, aggresive offer to arguably the best free agent on the market, and got him.

The offseason before that we made several large offers to the best available free agents, and got turned down.

If not pursuing Ben is the one move for you that says our franchise is unwilling to pursue expensive free agents, I think you are fooling yourself. Apart from him who was it that you believe we missed out on?

[Lascar78]

BK turned damp down by refusing to offer a big contract.

KMart turned us down.

[AHF]

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But when people say BK has been cap-efficient that is a complete spin. He has only been cap-efficient because K-Mart and Damp turned his ass down because they didn't like our situation (which BK created).

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I don't think that is a complete spin. BK refused to go over the top for Dampier. He made max offers for JJ and K-Mart but neither of those were outrageous offers based on what we knew about them at the time the offers were made, IMO.

He has made several very frugal free agent signings that paid off for us including Zaza and Stephen Jackson. He has passed on going after players like Curry, Dalembert, Chandler, etc. who ended up being significantly overpaid.

I absolutely think he is an example of a GM who has been cap conscious. Given his druthers he still would have made a mistake on K-Mart but players are going to ruin themselves with injuries. That doesn't make the signing of Grant Hill a bad move by the GM at the time, though.

[Final_quest]

That's a much better point than Vol made. A GM is usually remembered for the deals that actually happend, and people don't account for the deals that did not go down.

The fact is the way it stands now, all of our contracts are reasonable and tradeable. Is John Edwards a tradeable contract? Absolutely, because it ends this year and is only for $1 million dollars.

[AHF]

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Take a guess at what knee has been giving him troubles, I bet you could figure that out with this article.

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I assume you read the full article but the point of the article was that K-Mart had proven that those injuries were not a problem for him going forward. Where you left the article it was saying that the injuries could have shown him to be injury prone but actually did not in light of his play and durability since then:

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Instead Martin is on the brink of stardom. He remains a fantastic defender and continues to expand his offensive game. He started all 44 of New Jersey's games this season heading into Friday night's game with New Orleans.

How has he done it?

"I worked, and hard work pays off," Martin said. "I just went out and put the time in. That's all you've got to do."

Last season was a critical one for Martin. He formed a powerful duo with Jason Kidd, and New Jersey went from 26 wins the previous season to 52 and advanced to the NBA Finals.

Although the Nets were swept by the Los Angeles Lakers for the championship, the playoffs were a return to the limelight for Martin. He improved his scoring average from 14.9 points a game in the regular season to 16.8 in the postseason and ended the run with a 35-point performance in Game 4 of the Finals.

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The knee did end up being a problem for him - just like Nene has an injury history and still got 6 years/60M. However, Kenyon had not shown any problems in several years at the time he went on the market. I just don't think that was an unreasonable offer. I would surely be pissed as hell if my GM didn't offer Michael Jordan a max deal because he missed most of an early season with an injury. You listen to your doctors and take your best guess regarding a guy's injury prognosis. It has turned out to be much worse for K-Mart than was projected at the time. (The Utah Jazz were another team that was wooing him, incidently).

Incidently, the Grant Hill example is another where I thought the contract was reasonable at the time but medical issues ruined the value of that deal in a way that wasn't projected at the time. Hill also had prior issues.

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And all this Dampier talk is ridiculous. Some refuse to accept that BK offered him a contract. Others want to say BK "low-balled" him. Everyone knew it was a bad choice to sign him at the time, he was the precursor to Jerome James. Dampier had an injury history and a history of only playing well in contract years. The only other teams interested in signing Damp were New York and Dallas. BK got lucky that Dallas outbid him because if they didn't, Damp would be here at 6 years $50 mil and I guarantee people would call that a cap-killing contract.

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Actually, Dampier's numbers haven't been that far off from people like Jamaal Magloire since he went to Dallas and he has legitimately made them a better team by providing some very needed interior presence. He has been overshadowed in the last year by the development of Diop but the important numbers for Dallas (Reb/Blk) are still there. At 8M/year that isn't great but isn't too bad for a real improvement on the boards and defensively in the lane:

2006 5.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 1.3 bpg (Dallas improves)

2005 9.2 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 1.4 bpg (Dallas improves)

I'll readily admit that I didn't want us to sign Dampier and viewed him the same way you did but big men are frequently overpaid and we made a much more reasonable offer than was being talked about with regards to Indiana, New York or Dallas.

By way of reference:

Magloire

2006 9.2 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 1.0 bpg

[Final_quest]

There's no such thing as a perfect GM. Out of Curry, Dalembert, Chandler, Kmart, Kmart was the most likely to be a star. Now you expect our GM to know that he was gonna go down with injuries.

Dampier was disgusted with our offer. There was no way that deal was going to happen.

At the time, I don't think Kmart was a bad option for consideration. You want to call our GM a cap killer because of a couple deals that fell through, nevermind that we have one of the best cap situations in the league. We made a couple of offers 3 years ago that negate that point for you.

I think GMs have enough to be criticized about as is, but your right in a way I guess.

[Dejay]

That's my opinion. If Marvin, Childress, Sheldon, and rest play well and they start winning, I'll be the first in line to admit my guilt and say that BK was a genius. It's all about the results on the court now. Let the performance there speak for itself.

[AHF]

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I assume you read the full article but the point of the article was that K-Mart had proven that those injuries were not a problem for him going forward.

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I did read it all, and obviously those injuries were a problem going forward. Same leg twice, same knee twice. Coincidence? Maybe, but I find that hard to believe.

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Of course it isn't a coincidence. However, you just can't predict the medical with a great degree of accuracy. If Jordan had broken down with foot problems or had a repeat or repeats of the break he had early in his career you could make the same argument about him that you do about K-Mart. I know you would make the same argument about Z except for the fact that he has been really healthy the past several years after looking like he was one foot out of the door in the league due to health problems.

The point is that K-Mart appeared healthy when he was making the rounds and it wasn't an unreasonable projection to anticipate that he would stay healthy, IMO.

[AHF]

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At the time, I don't think Kmart was a bad option for consideration. You want to call our GM a cap killer because of a couple deals that fell through, nevermind that we have one of the best cap situations in the league. We made a couple of offers 3 years ago that negate that point for you.

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You are misreading or misunderstanding what I am saying. I am saying the argument that goes: "BK is a good GM because he has us in a good cap situation", is stupid. I have given out all the reasons for that, so go back and re-read them if you want to understand that.

I am NOT CALLING HIM A CAP KILLER. I am saying that ARGUMENT has no relevance and is based off of results and not intentions. It is like this(I am borowing this, but I forgot who said this), you shoot at someone but miss so does that make it OK? Because the end result did no harm should we just say "oh well, still a good person"?

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I think his intentions are better than most GMs, though. Many would have gone after guys who did become cap killers and BK has actively tried to get below market deals for a variety of players. I think his cap management has been commendable. Not flawless, as you point out, but much better than what we have seen in NO, GS, CHI, PHI, NY, POR, BOS, MIN, etc.

[Lascar78]

I don't know why you would say that though. JJ is the only big contract he has signed, and KMart is the only big (bad) contract he has offered that the player turned down.

Think of all the big deals many (including many here) wanted him to go after

-He refused to pay big for Damp

-He refused to pay big for Curry

-He didn't go after Dalembert

-He didn't go after Chandler

-Refuse to take on AI at that age with that contract

-He refused to take back Franchise or Marbury in an Al trade

there are plenty other examples I'm sure

He has had many, many, MANY opportunities to go after guys that would have been more or less of a quick fix that would have brought back a bad contract, and has showed discipline in virtually every case. Yes the story would look very different if KMart had accepted his offer and that is just luck for BK, but still he only offered 2 big deals (JJ, KMart) despite all the losing and the pressure to do SOMETHING to get bigger names here. His reputation of being tight and not taking on bad big contracts is justified. That is just about the only area in which he is undisputably good IMO.

His drafting is debatable, his trades are debatable, his ability to put a team together will be judged in the coming year. But he certainly has shown me that he is patient and confident enough to not cave and take on big contracts just for the sake of getting names here. KMart is the only instance in which he got lucky that we know of.

[Final_quest]

No, to be good you have to do more than put your team in a good cap situation. My original comment was that a bad GM puts out a losing product with no future because of all the bad signings. Since BK has not done that he should be at least considered as mediocre.

Now because he offered Kmart a large contract, to me, does not negate the fact that he is a cap conscious GM. At the time Kmart was a highly sought free agent, and he still has potential to be the player that Denver expected him to be. Even though he is a bad contract he does not compare to some of the utterly terrible contracts in the league.

My point is that I still believe BK deserves the reputation of being an effective cap manager. The fact that Kmart got injured does not change that.

[AHF]

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The point is that K-Mart appeared healthy when he was making the rounds and it wasn't an unreasonable projection to anticipate that he would stay healthy, IMO.

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My whole point is that you said he had no injury history.

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I think you are misreading my point.

I see myself saying:

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I do agree K-Mart would have been a disaster but he didn't have the injury history when that offer was made so I fault Denver for giving up that much for him but don't fault teams for going after him.

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That may be interpreted to mean that I didn't think he had any injury history but I certainly didn't intend that as I was well aware his POY last season at Cincinnati was cut short when he broke his leg. My point was that he didn't have the injury history that would warrant not making the offer.

I thought that was clarified:

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Given his druthers he still would have made a mistake on K-Mart but players are going to ruin themselves with injuries. That doesn't make the signing of Grant Hill a bad move by the GM at the time, though.

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Here I compared K-Mart with someone else who had a history of injuries but didn't project as breaking down the way he did.

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The knee did end up being a problem for him - just like Nene has an injury history and still got 6 years/60M. However, Kenyon had not shown any problems in several years at the time he went on the market. I just don't think that was an unreasonable offer. I would surely be pissed as hell if my GM didn't offer Michael Jordan a max deal because he missed most of an early season with an injury. You listen to your doctors and take your best guess regarding a guy's injury prognosis. It has turned out to be much worse for K-Mart than was projected at the time.

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Of course it isn't a coincidence. However, you just can't predict the medical with a great degree of accuracy. If Jordan had broken down with foot problems or had a repeat or repeats of the break he had early in his career you could make the same argument about him that you do about K-Mart. I know you would make the same argument about Z except for the fact that he has been really healthy the past several years after looking like he was one foot out of the door in the league due to health problems.

The point is that K-Mart appeared healthy when he was making the rounds and it wasn't an unreasonable projection to anticipate that he would stay healthy, IMO.

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If there is any lingering confusion, the point was that K-Mart had been healthy for several years when the Hawks offered him and neither Atlanta nor the other teams in the FA market had significant concerns about him being injury prone. That is largely a decision based on the advise of doctors and the GM's willingness to accept risk. BK obviously has shied away from others who had a history of injury risk so I infer that the doctors told him there was nothing indicating he would break down.

My bottomline is that I don't think the K-Mart offer is an example of a GM who is throwing away money irresponsibly. Some guys have recurring injuries (Larry Johnson, Grant Hill, etc.) and bust your deal based on those problems and some guys don't (Michael Jordan, Zyndrunus Ilgauskas). You listen to your doctor and make your best judgment.

[gutz]

No offense here guys but I think we can all agree we love our team and the players it consists of now. Don't you think its up to Coach Woodson at this point to get this team to wins some games? I mean we have a star in JJ that BK went out and got. We have 2 budding superstars in Josh Smith(great pick by the way) and Marvin Williams that BK drafted. We have a solid PG finally in Speedy that BK got and we also have a young solid C in Zaza that BK got for the cheap. I mean he has put together a solid team as of now and its up to Woodson to get them to win not BK. And BK has done a great job at managing the cap period. He made one offer to a player he was really trying to get in K-mart and now he got hurt. Other than that he has done exceptional unlike these other moronic GM's like Isiah who offer big contracts to bums like Jerome James. Come on people he has done great in that dept.

[Final_quest]

BK's critics can't even give him credit for managing the cap well because he made a contract offer to Kmart. Ignore all the evidence of every other move he's made, and the ones he didn't make.

Sure, if you want to focus on a contract offer that got turned down he is a cap killing, terrible GM. I voted him as a mediocre GM, but even I can see that he's been very responsible with the cap.

[KB21]

Unlike some other GM's, Billy has resisted the temptation to go for the quick fix by overspending in free agency. He took over this job with a plan to rebuild this team and rebuild this team the right way with no quick fix, and he has stuck with that plan. There simply aren't many GM's that would have done that.

Billy has made excellent draft picks in his time in Atlanta, and I think he did something no other GM could have done. He made moves early on that put this team into a good position relative to the salary cap. Those moves helped produce Joe Johnson, who will be a fixture in Atlanta Hawks basketball for a long time.