Who's Boston best GM now??

It used to be Belichick (with help from Pioli) hands down. Look at the organization they have built. But long term, once Brady goes......
Look what Theo Epstein is building.
And for one year, has any GM done a better job than Danny Ainge?????

We are very blessed indeed.

Lifer said:

It used to be Belichick (with help from Pioli) hands down. Look at the organization they have built. But long term, once Brady goes......
Look what Theo Epstein is building.
And for one year, has any GM done a better job than Danny Ainge?????

We are very blessed indeed.

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thats a tough choice. i would have to go with Danny. its unbelievably hard to rebuild a nba franchise. you have to be good and lucky at the same time. the giants won a sb with eli freakin manning. the pats will be good even when Brady is gone as long as bb and pioli are still there.

until the sox or the celts begin another dynasty in the next decade


its pioli/bb hands down

patriotspride said:

thats a tough choice. i would have to go with Danny. its unbelievably hard to rebuild a nba franchise. you have to be good and lucky at the same time. the giants won a sb with eli freakin manning. the pats will be good even when Brady is gone as long as bb and pioli are still there.

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I think building a football team is much much harder than either baseball (where you can buy our way to a championship, see:--> Curt Schilling) or basketball (where you can trade your entire future, as the Celts did, for a 2 year run). Garnett has another season or two at most, and then after that, the Celts will revert to last place, while the Patriots will still be contenders.

The Celts made out great in the Minny trade, but then look what Minny ended up with as well:

Al Jefferson, young, 21 points & many rebounds per game
#1 pick this year (Minny's original pick): OJ Mayo or Michael Beasley
#1 next season (likely in the 24-30 range)
2nd rounder this year first pick of the 2nd (from the G. Green/Houston trade)

A bunch of solid bench type players:
Ricky Gomes, 13 points a game
Sebastian Telfair, 9 points a game
Kirk Snyder, nice player

And, they can make a splash in FA this year with the Theo Ratliff money

That's not a bad base at all, and if Mayo/Beasley become the stars people think they can be, you will have a much better team than the Celtics will field in 2 years out. Is the Mayo/Beasley thing a big if?? I'd say it's a 40% shot that they end up playing as advertised, and if they do, then a Jefferson/Mayo one-two punch will be more than enough compensation for letting go of an aging Garnett, not to mention extras such as 2 more draft choices, Gomes, Telfair, Snyder, Ratliff FA.

upstater1 said:

I think building a football team is much much harder than either baseball (where you can buy our way to a championship, see:--> Curt Schilling) or basketball (where you can trade your entire future, as the Celts did, for a 2 year run).

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Agreed, there so many less players in basketball. Gasol to the Lakers, they win the conference. If the Cavs had gotten Gasol to go with James they likely win their conference. If you have a stud, you're one more stud and role players from having a good chance to win it all - and there's lots of salary dump situations available in basketball.

Take any basketball team and give them one stud player, particularly a center, and all of a sudden they become champs instead of chumps.

In football it is far more difficult to build a winning mix. Will one great player help? Yes he will but one great player can not make any where near as much of a difference as in basketball.

Should Ainge be credited with making some great deals this past year? Yes but he needs to do it more than once.

BelichickFan said:

Agreed, there so many less players in basketball. Gasol to the Lakers, they win the conference. If the Cavs had gotten Gasol to go with James they likely win their conference. If you have a stud, you're one more stud and role players from having a good chance to win it all - and there's lots of salary dump situations available in basketball.

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Couldn't agree with you or Upstater more. It's two years and a return to oblivion. The only question is, would you like to trade two years of contention for 10 years of embarrassment? It's amazing how few good players there are, never mind great ones. They have to import less than quick white guys to fill out rosters, the celtics and lakers of the 80's could go undefeated against today's competition. The 60's Celtics wouldn't lose a game in 10 years. Please don't mention Labron James and Michael Jordon in the same sentence. (even though I just did, if it qualifies as a sentence).

upstater1 said:

I think building a football team is much much harder than either baseball (where you can buy our way to a championship, see:--> Curt Schilling) or basketball (where you can trade your entire future, as the Celts did, for a 2 year run). Garnett has another season or two at most, and then after that, the Celts will revert to last place, while the Patriots will still be contenders.

The Celts made out great in the Minny trade, but then look what Minny ended up with as well:

Al Jefferson, young, 21 points & many rebounds per game
#1 pick this year (Minny's original pick): OJ Mayo or Michael Beasley
#1 next season (likely in the 24-30 range)
2nd rounder this year first pick of the 2nd (from the G. Green/Houston trade)

A bunch of solid bench type players:
Ricky Gomes, 13 points a game
Sebastian Telfair, 9 points a game
Kirk Snyder, nice player

And, they can make a splash in FA this year with the Theo Ratliff money

That's not a bad base at all, and if Mayo/Beasley become the stars people think they can be, you will have a much better team than the Celtics will field in 2 years out. Is the Mayo/Beasley thing a big if?? I'd say it's a 40% shot that they end up playing as advertised, and if they do, then a Jefferson/Mayo one-two punch will be more than enough compensation for letting go of an aging Garnett, not to mention extras such as 2 more draft choices, Gomes, Telfair, Snyder, Ratliff FA.

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1. Until Jefferson learns how to play defense, he is never going to be an elite player, especially in the West. He's very good, but his D is atrocious.

2. Beasley? The Wolves pick third, one spot too deep. It's an impossibility.

3. Second round picks in the NBA, with few notable exceptions (Arenas/Boozer) are worthless. Outside of the top half of any given draft, you're lucky to find two guys who are real starters on a good team.

4. I don't think they're going to take Mayo. I think he's going to go to the Seattle New Orleans formerly Supersonics but now nameless team to pair with Durant.

5. No free agents are signing with the Wolves right now. They're not competitive, they are not in a high profile city, and good players tend to flow to good teams. Very rarely do you see a major FA acquisition come in and change a franchise. That's why drafting is so important. (And why the lottery is so stupid.)

Baseball shouldn't count. Epstein runs a team with a payroll that's a zillion dollars above anyone but the Yankees and Mets. The only reason his misses don't look that bad (and they have been bad) is because he can go out and buy a replacement a year later, no problem. And they're behind the Rays in the East, who have one of the lowest payrolls in the league. Ainge was pretty average until this year, but I'll admit he did a great job building the Celtics. Chiarelli's even putting in pretty good work for the Bruins, and hockey's a harder sport to build for than basketball (or baseball when you have half a billion dollars to spend on players every year).

Still, putting together a football team is harder than any of them. Especially one that almost went undefeated last year. Pioli(/Belichick) is still the best.

Still Pioli. Ainge was very lucky to have Garnett fall into his lap (to be fair, at least half of being an NBA GM is luck), and Epstein merged A's-style intelligence with a Yankees-style payroll (not a small accomplishment, by any stretch, but nothing like winning multiple super bowls under a salary cap)

Caspir said:

1. Until Jefferson learns how to play defense, he is never going to be an elite player, especially in the West. He's very good, but his D is atrocious.

2. Beasley? The Wolves pick third, one spot too deep. It's an impossibility.

3. Second round picks in the NBA, with few notable exceptions (Arenas/Boozer) are worthless. Outside of the top half of any given draft, you're lucky to find two guys who are real starters on a good team.

4. I don't think they're going to take Mayo. I think he's going to go to the Seattle New Orleans formerly Supersonics but now nameless team to pair with Durant.

5. No free agents are signing with the Wolves right now. They're not competitive, they are not in a high profile city, and good players tend to flow to good teams. Very rarely do you see a major FA acquisition come in and change a franchise. That's why drafting is so important. (And why the lottery is so stupid.)

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Just as an FYI on #2, I'm hearing that Mayo is going to go ahead of Beasley.
On #2, you said outside the top half of a draft it's worthless. But we're talking about the 31st pick in the draft here. Glenn Davis isn't a bad player. The Ratliff money wouldn't land them a major acquisition, but it's a decent contract. An Emeka Okafor could end up there for $10-$15 million a year. Okafor has more offense than Ben Wallace and his defense may soon catch up to Wallace's.

1 - Pioli/BB. They have built a 3 time champion and decade long contender in the hardest sport to do it with salary cap constraints. They have turned over almost the entire roster, multiple times at many positions and still field an elite team.

2 - Epstein. 2 titles for a franchise that had none since the teens speaks for itself. The lack of payroll limits clearly help him but sighting that as the only reason is overly simplistic. The Yankees are spending much more with less success. He has changed the entire philosophy of the organization from hitting to pitching and brought more young talent through the farm system (Youk, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester, Buckholtz, Delcarmen with Hanson, Lowrie, Masterson and others knocking on the door) to help the team than anyone since the 70s and that doesn't include Hanley Ramirez who he traded for an elite #1 starter.

3 - Ainge. A horrendous tenure redeemed when Garnett fell into his lap. Lest anyone forget, but for a bounce of a ping pong ball, Danny's plan would still be going full force. Greg Oden or Kevin Durant would be in Boston, they'd have been the 8 seed at best, and Paul Pierce would have been traded or about to be for 25 cents on the dollar after he did exaclty what Garnett did last offseason and refused to ever play for Boston again. Plan C (B with the young kids and Pierce and Allen would have been disaster) has worked out great and he deserves credit for it. It doesn't put him in the neighborhood with Pioli/BB or Theo.

4 - Harry Sinden. What? He isn't the GM anymore? Well he still sucks.

dhamz said:

4 - Harry Sinden. What? He isn't the GM anymore? Well he still sucks.

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Ignorance looks good on you. Sinden hasn't been the GM in more than a decade. Moreover, he was removed from any decision-making position when Peter Chiarelli was given the reins.

primetime said:

Ignorance looks good on you. Sinden hasn't been the GM in more than a decade. Moreover, he was removed from any decision-making position when Peter Chiarelli was given the reins.

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Sarcasm looks lost on you.

Your question is hard to answer because we have uncapped and capped situation in sport.

Uncapped: Redsox
Cap: BB and his people. Celtic is not bad because they are back in NBA final in 23 years. Awesome.

upstater1 said:

I think building a football team is much much harder than either baseball (where you can buy our way to a championship, see:--> Curt Schilling) or basketball (where you can trade your entire future, as the Celts did, for a 2 year run). Garnett has another season or two at most, and then after that, the Celts will revert to last place, while the Patriots will still be contenders.

The Celts made out great in the Minny trade, but then look what Minny ended up with as well:

Al Jefferson, young, 21 points & many rebounds per game
#1 pick this year (Minny's original pick): OJ Mayo or Michael Beasley
#1 next season (likely in the 24-30 range)
2nd rounder this year first pick of the 2nd (from the G. Green/Houston trade)

A bunch of solid bench type players:
Ricky Gomes, 13 points a game
Sebastian Telfair, 9 points a game
Kirk Snyder, nice player

And, they can make a splash in FA this year with the Theo Ratliff money

That's not a bad base at all, and if Mayo/Beasley become the stars people think they can be, you will have a much better team than the Celtics will field in 2 years out. Is the Mayo/Beasley thing a big if?? I'd say it's a 40% shot that they end up playing as advertised, and if they do, then a Jefferson/Mayo one-two punch will be more than enough compensation for letting go of an aging Garnett, not to mention extras such as 2 more draft choices, Gomes, Telfair, Snyder, Ratliff FA.

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Garnett has another season or 2? He's 31. He'll be an ELITE player for at least 2 more years, and a very good player for at least 3 more after that.

Snyder is a JAG, and Telfair is someone who they actively wanted off the team. He is a cancer, and not talented enough to be worth the headache. You also can't hold Minnesota's pick against the Celtics, since it's impossible to say where the pick would land. If Garnett hadn't been traded, it most definitely would not have been the #3 pick. Ricky Gomes is a good bench player, and Jefferson could one day maybe be almost as good as Garnett is right now. I love the Garnett trade from every angle, even though I like two of the players that we gave up.

If there's any trade worth taking issue with, it's the Ray Allen trade. Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, and the Jeff Green pick for Allen? It helps them this year, and probably next, but after that West and Green will both be better than Allen.

In 2 years, the Celtics will not be in last place. They'll be in the playoffs, and not quite as good as they are now, but still awfully good. Garnett will be 33/34, Pierce will be 32, odds are that Allen may be retired by then, but if not he'll still only be 34. Rondo, Perkins, Davis, and Powe are all young guys, and they'll fill in the roster with mid-tier free agents. Sure, they'd be better off in 5 years if they'd kept West, Jefferson, and Gomes, but that's not a nucleus that you're winning a championship with anyways, so what does that matter?

Also, most people in the league aren't 100% sold on Beasley's or Mayo's work ethic, not to mention that there's never any guarantee that your pick is going to wind up in the top 3 anyways.

primetime said:

Ignorance looks good on you. Sinden hasn't been the GM in more than a decade. Moreover, he was removed from any decision-making position when Peter Chiarelli was given the reins.

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Did you hear that *WHOOSH*? It was the sarcasm flying rigiht over your head.

upstater1 said:

Garnett has another season or two at most, and then after that, the Celts will revert to last place.

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There is no way possible you can predict the NBA 3 years from now being it's a one-move-can-change-your-whole-franchise league.

Celtics need to win this NBA champtionship FIRST. Lakers is too good right now.

Lifer said:

Look what Theo Epstein is building.

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He's done a great job espcially with the farm, but let's not forget that the Sox manage to outspend all other teams except the Yanks and that there's no cap in MLB.

And for one year, has any GM done a better job than Danny Ainge?????

We are very blessed indeed.

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Agreed, but BB still gets my vote though the gap is closing.