2026 NBA draft thread

[F Gump]

Sorry. Just trolling Mr Gump.

I’m definitely on your side on this one. There’s a huge amount of variability in player outcomes that simply can’t be anticipated, regardless of how “expert” someone is.

Our human nature wants to reduce either success or failure to a single variable or individual. So we ascribe greatness to a GM who “finds” a great player in the second round. So maybe it was incredible insight. But maybe that player could have just as easily been Sam Bowie.

Too quick to give credit or blame.

You are trolling the idea that the right GM can make a major difference. But I think you're trying to use a water pistol to fight against a fire hose of evidence that demonstrates that roster-building is part skill, part art, and luck is not that much of a factor when you have a superior level of skill and art to surmount the choices that have degrees of chance in the mix. 

The fail is in a focus on any single decision. The reality is that each team is made up from the results of layers of processes, with hundreds of decisions, with each player representing MULTIPLE choices (skill, contract, fit, cost to acquire, etc) and the best GM will give himself way more chances to get the roster right than the crappy one will. 

One other major point. In Dallas we have been handicapped by INFERIOR GM-ing for decades. If any of us observers can't see that the Mavs have been fighting with their hands tied due to the GM job being manned by someone who is not as skilled as others, we aren't looking. (And the answer to that is not "any ole GM will do" but rather "this time, finally, let's get the very best GM there is.") Cuban thought he could GM just as good as anyone else, but he was pantsed with lots of regularity, sad to say. And he hired someone even worse, to take the reins - someone with no skills and no experience. Ugh. How stupid. And why wouldn't you hire the best for the job that sets your course year after year, rather than a trainee?

Presti, please.