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Originally Posted by Rednecksbasketball
I wouldn't call O'Connor a genius, or even a good GM. He didn't draft AK that was Layden. he did however pass up Michael Redd for DeShawn Stevenson, Gerald Wallace, Tony Parker, Gilbert Arenas, Jamaal Tinsley, Mehmet Okur, and Earl Watson for Raul Lopez, Passed up Tayshaun Price, Carlos Boozer, and Ron Murry for Curtis Borchardt, Passed on Boris Diaw, and Josh Howard for Sasha Polvolvic, made three stupid draft picks in 04. He has made numerous bad trades, IE the Podkolzine pick(#21) for the eventual (#27) pick. He traded for Haffa. signed such wonderful players as Milt Palacio and Devin Brown. Right now he's just looking good because the team is looking good, if the Jazz were struggling you'd be calling for his head. also, he isn't the reason the Jazz are good. Jerry Sloan is the reason they are good.
Image had KOC made good picks, the 2003 Jazz team could have looked like this:
G-Michael Redd
G-John Stockton
F-Andrei Kirilenko
F-Karl Malone
C-Greg Ostertag
G-Gilbert Arenas
G-John Starks
F-Carlos Boozer
That team could really have gone far in the playoffs.
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Plenty of teams pass on players that happen to turn out better. You credit the GM that made the choice, not the dozens that didn't. Otherwise by your criteria, more than half of the GMs in the league are terrible, because they pass on players in the draft ALL the time that wind up being better than expected.
The point is that he's locked up a great future for this team, for the next 3 years. That's a good GM. Even finding Boozer and Okur and expecting/knowing they would be this good is enough to call him a genius. Both players went from mediocre to the top 5 players in the league at their positions.
And yes, my bad. Layden did draft Kirilenko.