Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I have to comment on the Presti thing. He is absolutely the best GM out there (I think Cho might have a chance to be up there with him soon though).
Here is the roster when Presti took over:
Ray Allen, Andre Brown, Desmon Farmer, Danny Fortson, Mickael Gelabale, Andreas Glyniadakis, Rashard Lewis, Randy Livingston, Johan Petro, Luke Ridnour, Mo Sene, Chris Wilcox, Mike Wilks, Earl Watson, Nick Collison, and Damien Wilkins
So with that Presti went to work:
He immediately committed to rebuilding. He torched the roster immediately. He sold off Ray Allen for Jeff Green (and later Jeff Green for Perkins).
He did a S&T of Rashard Lewis for a 2nd round pick and a $9M trade exception.
By getting rid of the only talent on the team, he took a huge gamble which turned into the number 2 pick and Durant fell in his lap.
The next year, they sucked and got the #4 pick. He surprised the entire NBA world by picking Westbrook. If you remember, Westbrook was a backup at UCLA and the entire world didn't expect him to go until late in the lottery. He also picked up Ibaka with the #24 pick in the draft. The Ibaka pick was especially brilliant. He originally came from the trade exception that was received for Rashard Lewis. Presti traded to take on Kurt Thomas' salary from the Suns in exchange for 2 first round picks. One of which was Ibaka and the other was Cole Aldrich.
Next, he fired PJ Carlesimo and drafted James Harden. With the firing of Carlesimo, he named Scott Brooks to head coach. Brooks went on to win coach of the year. Again, drafting James Harden came as a shock to the NBA world because there were players out there that were more talented. But it turned out that he was an amazing fit for the team, and went on to be the highest scoring 6th man after the all star break last year.
Keeping cap space alive helped him with the Kurt Thomas turned into Ibaka trade and also helped when they took on Matt Harpring's salary in return for Eric Maynor.
Then, we all know about the Jeff Green for Perkins trade. And it has been belabored beyond recognition on this board as to who got the better end of this deal so I won't go into this one.
Also having the cap space this last year was amazing. He gave Collison a 5 year $25 million deal. The interesting thing about his contract was that it was front loaded with 13M the first year and 3 every year after that. So that allows for the room to extend Westbrook, Ibaka, and Harden when their time is due.
To do all this in 4 years is nothing short of brilliant. I can't wait to see what he does next.
Topic: cross nazr mohammed off the list of potential bigs... (Read 6138 times)