Rob Pelinka Discussion: BBall Ops Pres + GM (AKA: Lucky Rob)

Sam Quinn should be fired immediately for that disaster of a list. Forget the Lakers FO ranking - I don’t care to argue that - but Philly and Jazz in the top 10? Atlanta at 11? Denver down in the 20s?

His list rewards building teams that underperform and then tearing them down to sell hopium with future draft picks, most of which will amount to nothing. This article was clearly intended as rage bait.

 

gm vilification and hero worship both make me laugh, for reasons i've stated a zillion times. ranking gms is a tremendous waste of everyone's time.

and that aside, yeah, philly's PG mozdeng is a real feather in the cap. or do we give them credit for digging out of their own hole?

and he mentions ayton/laravia as a poor use of the mle. uh...who did better than that this summer? mle acquisitions are almost always disappointing, as are mid-first round picks. look it up on both accounts.

does the presti section begin "after being gifted shai gilgeous alexander, whom even the thunder did not think was going to be a franchise cornerstone..."? "three of the last four thunder lottery picks have totaled 200 nba minutes...whiff, whiff, whiff" rite gaiz? am i doing it right?

lame work, sam.

 

We will see where things go from here, but I think Walter knows what is needed in the front office and is already putting the building blocks in place. Tim Harris stepping aside is big and the Rambis family is definitely next (or should be lol). I wonder how much Jeannie will want to be involved with things if she isn't working with her friends anymore. Still feel like her job is going to be more of a title while they not so quietly put their own power structure in place.

Big summer for any holdovers who want to stick around including Rob.

 

jeanie's not making choices, imo, and it seems rob's been told that while he's still nominally in charge, he will not be doing this the way he's been doing it.

none of this changes the fact that almost all nba front offices are similarly competent, and a lot of the variance is stuff purely out of people's control. on the rare occasion when terrible/stupid decisions are made, the responsible individuals are removed from their positions and replaced by another league-average manager.

the most difficult issue is ownership groups, tbh. like, sacramento sucks because their owner is a meddling moron. gs managed to fumble a pretty sweet situation because its owner thought he was smarter than his front office folks (imagine if they'd drafted wagner instead of kuminga). we made some bad decisions in part because our owners couldn't afford to compete with ballmer.

well, our ownership has changed. so does the current "front office" comprise the ownership, too? and if so, why aren't we near the top? sam's belief here is that mark walter bought the team, but the plan is to just continue running it exactly as it was?

all this is purely aside from "anything we do well is luck and anything we do poorly is a skill issue".

 

This season we aren't doing s***. He's put the pressure squarely on himself to have a perfect to almost perfect offseason and good season of quality basketball to keep his job; that's where he's at, IMO.

If he fails, he'll be gone, and rightfully so.

 

Well, as is said often in my field, the s*** rolls downhill.

I generally reference everything as the front office given the reasons you state. Particularly given the somewhat roundtable approach Jeannie seamed to employ.

Thinking of the Clipps, If I'm being fair to old regime, I honestly think Jerry West and Balmer did quite a number on the overall reputation of our front office and how it was being run. Rob's reputation didn't help but the way West badmouthed us to anyone who would listen really stuck with some in the media and my understanding is it went way deeper than the handful of mean quotes that have floated out there. You think back to the crazy stories being put out to Ramona and crew about Pelinka not knowing the salary cap and, well, I've always had my suspects on who that kind of talk was coming from. One was for sure across town with the Clippers and the other may have actually been down in Miami.

We will never get that full story, but the difference in how the Clippers blatant cheating scandal is being treated by the media and the round the clock coverage given to offhand quotes by say Rich Paul is glaring (and some of the comments were bad but they weren't a scheme to circumvent the salary cap you know). Same with how they are treating Riley who has clearly lost his fastball.

Media bias exists. Another reason I think we need a guy with some good old fashioned charm in the front office.

 

i think the impact of the media on actual goings-on in the nba are pretty limited (though non-zero). i'm more annoyed in how it affects fan perception and thus my experience of following the team.

i do wonder if ramona wishes she could take some of that back, as she's clearly backed the wrong horse. the "scrambling" stuff basically had a similar effect on her as chris broussard's "mark cuban's driving around houston" stuff.

you'd hope this would be a cautionary tale for real reporters. now, the bloggers and podcasters...they seem to embrace this stuff to the point of schtick. like, irwin's anti-rob thing is basically on the level of skip bayless and lebron. to the point where even if and when they have a valid criticism, it makes me question the validity all over again.

 

To clarify a bit, I was mainly thinking of the media's own views of various front offices. I don't think they have much influence on actual moves either.

 

Different franchises have different expectations. We are not Sacramento, we should expect to be in a contender status, in every season with superstar talent. We've lost 3 straight playoffs series, to lose a 4th means 3 straight first round exits. That should be an unacceptable outcome. If you strive to be elite, failure should have consequences.

Denver fired a Championship winning GM and HC, and are still considered to be a legit contender. Sometimes we hold on to familiar things, for fear of the unknown. I don't think ultra successful people move like that. A lot is riding on this postseason IMO, I don't think this..." Let's focus on building around Luka this summer " is to be construed ,as some garuntee that Rob, will be the guy doing this building at all.

Coming up short in the postseason is either a roster or coaching issue. The GM is responsible for both.

 

I don’t think anyone in the front office is guaranteed a spot. Everyone from Rob on down will have to show they can fit in to the new vision for the team.

 

denver didn't fire tim connelly (who built their title team). he went to minnesota. they fired calvin booth, who briefly bungled connelly's work.

and i'm not sure what coming up short is in these playoffs. we wouldn't be favored in a series against 4 or 5 other WC teams. that could mean a first round exit.

rob's proving ground will be this summer. if whatever plan he's detailed to walter doesn't come together, he'll be out right away, imo. he's put a lot on it.