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Why would a GM ever be cheap? Every GM in every sport would spend hundreds of millions if they could. Their budget is determined by their boss. Their job is to put the best team on the floor/field within that budget.
I think the Spurs have worked very hard at being cheap and getting as much profit as they can. Staying under the luxury tax. Trying to get 100 million for undisclosed repairs to a practically brand new arena...
Why would a GM ever be cheap? Every GM in every sport would spend hundreds of millions if they could. Their budget is determined by their boss. Their job is to put the best team on the floor/field within that budget.
I agree that given the restraints that exist (poor draft positions, small market, ownership that is (understandably) unwilling to foot the luxury tax), Buford has more plusses than minuses at this point. The faction that will never forgive him for the Scola trade (never minding the off-the-floor externalities that seemed to have caused that deal to occur) will never see things that way, of course, but I think his body of work is generally a good one. At the very least, Buford played a critical role in building a core that would win at least the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th les in the history of the franchise. They've generally made lemonade from what would be lemons for many other franchises. Criticisms are fair, but credit is due as well.
I am curious to know if the anti-Spurs comment was an assumption on the author's part based on the whole small market thing, or if there is something specific he is referring to.
Bilbao Basket, Spain. He's a Top5 of centers in that league after Tiago, Marc Gasol, Felipe Reyes and Curtis Borchardt.
Last edited by Penya; 04-03-2008 at 02:02 PM.
+1
Salary dumps are ordered by ownership -- and every team does it except the Knicks. GMs have to deal.
Consider the luxury tax threshold a hard cap and you will sleep better at night.
Or not.
WTF do I care?
Oh yeah -- almost forgot....
Borchardt!
His knees, his torture.
When he's healthy, he's the best player in Spanish League. But...
LOL. People slam Buford, but his management of the Spurs is part of the reason the Spurs have four championships as well as part of the reason the Spurs are even still IN San Antonio. Not entirely responsible for either thing, but he did his part to help make those things happen.
Every other sportswriter or analyst agrees Buford is one of the top execs in the league's history. Only Spurs fans could possibly be COMPLAINING about the guy who reigned during the time we won 4 championships. And yes, big credit to Duncan, but managing the team around a player of his caliber, putting all the pieces together as well for as long as he has - that deserves some credit too.
Great post FWD
To be fair to those who criticize Buford, there are significant misses on his resume that go beyond the Scola deal (again, not a decision that appears to me to have entirely been his fault) -- missing on Josh Howard being paramount in my mind. But even if you take those two major misses, I think it's really, really difficult to suggest that Buford is inept or deserves little credit for the Spurs' recent successes.
To diminish his role in the Spurs' great run is, in my mind, to ignore the objective truths of history. He's probably not the greatest GM in the history of pro basketball and he might not even be the best in the game at the moment; but he's sure as a far cry from the worst or even being anywhere near the bottom.
It's shameful to me that R.C. Buford has never been named the Executive of the Year (or that Popovich has never gotten that honor on behalf of the Spurs' front office) given the great successes of this franchise in building around a superstar, and then rebuilding a large portion of its roster at least two more times without missing a beat and coming perilously close to a reasonable shot at 5 consecutive les.
It's easy to criticize some whiffs in the draft. Everybody GM does that. And from where they've been picking for the last decade, it's really par for the course. So missing on guys like Barbosa and Howard... it happens. It sucks, but it happens.
The Matt Bonner thing is a head scratcher though. I mean, for the same money, they could've signed Scola when everybody in their dog knew he was 3x the player Bonner is. Surely they could find another big who could stretch the floor as the heir apparent to Horry. , they aren't playing Horry or Bonner right now.
And those salary dumps? You don't have to trade picks (or assets like Scola) to dump salary if you don't sign CBA-lifers like Jackie Butler to $8 million contracts. I mean, even the ing Knicks wouldn't match that offer for that scrub.
But getting back to the main subject.... Donnie Walsh. Has anybody seen the pile of crap he's assembled in Indiana? Blame it on Larry Bird if you will, but Walsh has had his hand in that mess too. My God, they're almost as in bad of shape as the Knicks. Terrible cap and the only decent young asset they have is Danny Granger.
Two words for the RC bashers - Bob Bass. Out
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