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10:11:00 PM EST
Simmons on NBA GMs
Since I am reeling from Michigan's spanking at the hands of USC tonight, I'll just pass along some highly recommended reading: a column from February 2006 by Bill Simmons, titled "First Annual Atrocious GM Summit," in which Simmons imagines himself moderating a panel discussion of the worst GMs in the NBA, as they pat each other on the back while recounting their idiotic exploits. The Wall Street Journal, in a year-end retrospective, deemed this piece one of the top two sports journalism pieces of 2006.
There appears to be growing dissatisfaction with Simmons in the sports blogosphere, a sense that his shtick is getting old. But, this column is a masterpiece: a brilliant combination of humor and killer analysis. Depressingly, from the standpoint of a Knicks' fan, it prominently features not only Isiah (whom the conferees declare is, indeed, the worst of the worst), but his predecessor, Scott Layden.
In any event, Simmons "dream panel" included:
" Philadelphia's Billy King; former Raptors GM Rob Babcock; Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak; former Knicks GM Scott Layden; former Cavs GM Jim Paxson; Minnesota's Kevin McHale; former Orlando GM John Weisbrod; and, of course, Isiah Thomas of the New York Knicks. Sadly, Wes Unseld was unable to make it after he accidentally traded his first-class Delta Airlines ticket to Houston for three Southwest Airlines tickets to Atlanta.
(Note: We were going to invite Elgin Baylor, but he was ruled ineligible for the discussion after pulling off the Cassell-Jaric and Radmanovic-Wilcox heists. That's not the Elgin we once knew and loved. Come back to us, Elg.)"
It's a long piece, but this "exchange" down toward the bottom, between Simmons, Thomas and Layden is too good not to reproduce here:Simmons: Scott Layden, you were really a pioneer of sorts in terms of screwing up cap space and taking on terrible contracts.
Layden: Why thank you.
Simmons: You traded for cap-killers like Glen Rice, Luc Longley, Travis Knight, Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley. You gave Allan Houston $100 million when he couldn't have gotten more than $71 million anywhere else. You gave Charlie Ward $28 million. You traded Marcus Camby and a lottery pick that could have been Amare Stoudamire for Antonio McDyess and his bum knee. By the time you got canned, they were a lottery team. Looking back, did you go overboard? Were you too incompetent?
Layden: Oh, absolutely. There's an art to being an atrocious GM -- you can't just destroy a team without leaving any semblance of hope. By the time I got fired, we had one of the highest payrolls in the league and no real assets other than Houston and Sprewell, who weren't even All-Stars. So Knicks fans were depressed, but even worse, they couldn't look at the team and say, "Well, this guy's a name, and we have this guy, and maybe we can trade this guy … " All the hope had been beaten out of them.
To me, that's the beauty of what Isiah has been able to pull off. Casual hoops fans can look at the Knicks' roster and say, "Wow, we have Marbury, Eddy Curry and Jalen Rose?!" Diehard fans can look at the roster and say, "This is just crazy enough that it might work," or "Maybe we can package some of these guys for a superstar." So there's a little bit of hope there, even if it's misguided, ridiculous and inane. When I was there? No hope whatsoever. And that was my biggest mistake.
Simmons: So you like what Isiah has done?
Layden: Hell, yeah. Take the Francis trade, if it happens: Logically, it makes no sense because Francis and Marbury are the same player -- expensive, shoot-first point guards with huge entourages and attitude problems who have never won anything. Even if you're getting Francis for nothing, it still makes no sense on paper.
For example, let's say you spent $3,000 on a living room sofa two years ago that you didn't really like. To make the sofa stand out a little less, you bought a leather chair for $2,200 that doesn't match --.
Simmons: Marbury is the sofa and Jamal Crawford is the chair in this case?
Layden: Precisely. And the room still looks bad. So now, you're on Craigslist and you see that someone is selling another $3,000 sofa for $900 that's almost exactly like the sofa you have. And there's no way you would ever want two big, ugly sofas in the same room. It would just look ridiculous. But your mind-set is, "Hey, how can I turn down a $3,000 sofa for $900?" So you buy the sofa and stick it in the room, which is now cluttered with stuff since you also spent another $10,000 on some crummy art, a coffee table with support problems, two giant bookcases that have to be turned sideways, some wobbly end tables and a smashed sculpture that was patched back together with duct tape. But since it's too late to go back, you spend another $5,000 on an interior decorator to make the room work. Well, you know what would happen? He wouldn't be able to make it work. You bought too much crap.
See, this is why Isiah is a genius: He's assembling the basketball version of that nightmare living room, and he has the fans convinced that either the expensive interior decorator -- in this case, Larry Brown -- will be able to make everything work, or he can somehow swap some of that furniture to one of his neighbors for a first-class piece of art. And he's spending an ungodly amount of money! And you never hear rumors that he might get fired! I think it's a tribute to him and his staff. He's the best-ever at being an atrocious GM. He really is.
Thomas: Thank you, Scott, that means a lot.
Simmons: Lemme ask you, Isiah -- the one red flag seems to be that you're spending an alarming amount of money. Just this year alone, you have a $123 million payroll for 15 wins. When the luxury tax kicks in, you will have shelled out nearly $200 million for a 25-win team. Doesn't fiscal responsibility matter here?
(There's a beat, and then everyone laughs.)
As a friend of mine likes to say: cruel...but fair.Enjoy.
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