(07-06-2021, 07:54 AM)Kammrath Wrote: Also, I am NOT suggesting "making Luka GM" and that is a gross misrepresentation of my suggestion. It is seeking INFORMATION from Luka, who KNOWS about his teammate. THEN letting the GM use that information to build the team in the right way.

Quote:I would honestly ask Luka. He knows.

I would ask him, "Is KP a guy you are ready to roll into battle with? Is he capable of helping you to that next level?"

If Luka wants to give it one more season I am ALL IN. If Luka has seen enough, I trade him now regardless of the return.

(07-06-2021, 07:54 AM)Kammrath Wrote: Then there should be zero trading of KP if that is what you want. Kidd and Nico don't know. They haven't been in a work environment with KP. They haven't walked alongside him psychologically through the rigors of the season. If you want Kidd and Nico to truly make the decision themselves (and do it in an informed way) then you have to NOT trade KP. 

(07-06-2021, 10:01 AM)khaled1987 Wrote: a suggestion that the Mavs are run extremely amateurish

(07-06-2021, 10:01 AM)khaled1987 Wrote: So, while I understand your intentions isn't to make him GM, the consequence of what you want is 100% in this direction.

(07-06-2021, 10:17 AM)Kammrath Wrote: What I was suggesting was this:

If I was the GM I would seek Luka's opinion on THIS situation and value his opinion very highly. Doesn't mean I listen to him everytime. But I think if I am NEW then he would know and have information that would be helpful. AND I DO want Luka to be happy about who his "number 2" guy is. I not only want that, I NEED that. Making your star's input valuable and trying to put him in a good chemistry situation is not making him GM. There is so much more to GM than that.

(07-06-2021, 10:17 AM)Kammrath Wrote: What I was suggesting was this:

If I was the GM I would seek Luka's opinion on THIS situation and value his opinion very highly. Doesn't mean I listen to him everytime. But I think if I am NEW then he would know and have information that would be helpful. AND I DO want Luka to be happy about who his "number 2" guy is. I not only want that, I NEED that. Making your star's input valuable and trying to put him in a good chemistry situation is not making him GM. There is so much more to GM than that.

(07-06-2021, 09:42 AM)Kammrath Wrote: There are lots of different possibilities here. Don't take my musings and speculation as me thinking "I KNOW" (I don't).

(07-06-2021, 10:30 AM)mavsluvr Wrote: I understand the reasoning here, and Luka would be likely to know a lot about KP. 

I guess the issue here is that the front office/coaches should put Luka in position to enjoy a constructive locker room with teammates who want to support him. If he is passing on unfavorable observations to management, even at management's request, that may not be the best thing for his relationships with the other guys. If it has come to a situation where it's Luka or KP, then I guess it's probably appropriate to ask for that information. My experience has been that when management starts asking co-workers (not direct supervisors) for their opinions about a particular colleague, the management has pretty much already decided to dump the guy and is collecting information to document their decision. 

It seems like a lot of other personnel (not players) could give Nico and Kidd the same information that Luka could, if they're looking for factual observations. I guess if they need to know if Luka wants KP gone, maybe they could ask him in some way that doesn't totally undercut KP (assuming they are still amenable to keeping him themselves). Like, maybe, are you willing to go to war with every player here, or no?

(07-06-2021, 06:33 PM)DrMav Wrote: I know that it was no secret that Luka and Barea were buddies, but I think KP and JJ were as well. If there’s anything to the mental aspect being a significant contributor to the decline this season, maybe JJ coming to the coaching staff will help as well (assuming that actually happens).

(07-06-2021, 04:52 PM)Scott41theMavs Wrote: Do I think Luka should have player GM-ing power a la Kyrie? No. Do I think they should ask him about KP? No. 

However, if he has expressed to them of his own volition that he does not want to play with KP and has asked for KP to be traded (you know, a respectfully private version of the Kidd-Jackson thing), they would be abject fools to disrespect that. What, is Luka supposed to just bend over to their disrespect because he's a Euro? Nah. It's not about him being immature, whether that plays into it or not. A 22-year-old knows whom he can mesh with on and off the court and who he can't. If that doesn't matter, then neither does keeping your franchise player, evidently. 

If Luka wants KP gone, we should be done here (short of simply finding the best deal). Of course, if Luka wants Bob gone, he should have been fired already. At a certain point, when you have the best generational talent since Lebron (as others have noted), you have a choice between respecting him, and losing him. I pray they choose the former. Finally, I recognize that there's a huge difference between Luka saying "I don't like KP" vs. "Trade KP or else." There's plenty of wiggle room with the former. Not with the latter. We don't know what Luka has said. The NMBT does, and they should therefore know what their options are.

(07-06-2021, 07:36 PM)mavsluvr Wrote: I think this view is headed in the right direction. The main point is that any discussions like this have to be conducted with great sensitivity to avoid introducing new problems and not necessarily solving the one you might have. I don't know if they have it in them. I also don't know that they don't, of course. 

I think my addition to the view would mainly be that the above scenario is not really how stuff like this takes place. Suppose Employee A has a serious complaint about Employee B. Employee A does not have supervisory responsibilities over B. (If he did, it would be his job to evaluate B and report up the chain, if necessary.)

Employee A almost never comes in and says, "Fire B. Let me know when it's done." A presents specific complaints about B, and it is up to the organization to decide what, if any response the organization should make. If the management sides with A, in many cases they just take whatever action they take and usually do not get back with A about any disciplinary action taken against B. 

I know of one system where, in situations where the organization sided with B occurred, a supervisory employee would sit down with A and say, "Ideally, we would prefer that there were no animosities between employees. But at the end of the day, we really don't care, as long as everyone conducts themselves professionally and it doesn't affect the work. But there is something you should know. B is more important to us than you are. So, if it's you or B, it's B." B was never informed about the conversation, but A either adjusted his attitude or left the company. 

Of course, if it's a matter that A is reporting sexual harassment, embezzlement, drunkenness on the job, or other scandalous/illegal matters, you can't just decide on the basis of which employee would be more problematic to let go. 

Rarely, a case occurs where A comes in, reports the complaints, and says, "It's him or me." Usually, that is a case where A does not have the authority to fire B, but knows that he has the upper hand as the more important employee. In that case, the organization may let B go. 

But the overall point is that, if the organization has not already decided to let B go, they need to be very careful about the optics of appearing to stir up trouble if they are seen as encouraging employees to carry tales and undercut their co-workers. And indeed, if they allow A to dictate the firing of B, or even go on a firing spree at A's request, when that is not the normal authority of a guy in A's position, that creates its own can of worms, which may be worse than the original problem. 

tl;dr    This situation needs to be addressed with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. It would be best to shield Luka from direct involvement, to the extent possible. (May not be possible.) Does the front office have what it takes to navigate this situation delicately? Possibly.

(07-06-2021, 08:22 PM)Scott41theMavs Wrote: In this situation, A is the most single coveted worker in the entire industry, with the promise of years of near-monopoly and stratospheric success for your company for years to come. All the sharks of your competitors in the industry are swimming around the boat, waiting for you to piss off A badly enough for him to leave the company. 

Meanwhile, B was a promising worker that you sank many company assets into acquiring from a competitor and then signed to an extremely lavish salary to prevent him from moving to different competitors. Since then, he frequently calls in sick, to the extent that he might be a guy whose health might be so poor that he eventually ends up on disability, but the rules of your particular industry is that he will almost certainly still suck up the company's vital financial resources in a way that will prevent you for a few precious years from assembling the team of workers that you need to put around A in order for him to establish the industry domination of which he is so capable. When he is available to work, the one area in which B was once believed to be so dominant in the industry has in fact tanked company productivity and the ability to succeed to an absolutely ruinous extent. There is some hope that his problems in this area are due to a particularly bad illness a year ago, and that he might improve with some rehabilitation and training during the industry's dormant season, but that's extremely speculative; most believe that the damage done by the illness simply destroyed his abilities in this one-time strength to such an extent that he will always be a drain on company success for the length of his employment. 

Meanwhile, B has been limited by management to areas in which he can succeed for the company as much as possible, but constantly complains that his strengths are in areas he was never known to be good at, and that A simply doesn't appreciate his abilities and works to undercut his personal (as opposed to the company's) ability to succeed. B is by far the company's most serious problem to middle term success with A. A is fed up with B's grousing and annoyed at his drain on the company's success. It is obvious that B undercuts A's happiness working for the company and causes many human resource problems with the working staff as a whole, working significantly against corporate unity and worker morale. 

Basically, B resents A but knows he has no leverage against him. There is the opportunity to send B to one of the company's 29 competitors. There is some hope around the industry that B could once again become a valuable worker in the field, but everyone everywhere knows that the risks are high. The return on B in negotiating with another competitor will likely not be as wonderful as the promise of B once looked, but the health issues associated with B, the dramatic drag he represents on worker morale, and the hard work which it would take for A and B to be made to work well (or at least not damagingly) together could slow down future success that A is ready to produce right now with the correct team of workers around him. Negotiating B to a competitor, while not having completely ideal results, could at least speed the process of allowing A to bring the company tremendous success.

If A quietly reports to HR that he wants B to be moved to one of the company's competitors, it's crucial to the company's future to pull the trigger. Waiting too long to do so may lead to A valuing the huge contributions he could begin to make to the field today over the tremendous cash earnings he can only make with your company - or, lead him to be contracted to those earnings and then insist, even publicly, to be negotiated away to a competitor who will still have to pay him the same amount. That has indeed happened in the industry before, but never has there been a worker as transcendent and promising as A who has threatened to do it. In short, if A wants B gone, even politely so, the company would be cataclysmically foolish to fart around with the situation.

(07-06-2021, 04:52 PM)Scott41theMavs Wrote: Do I think Luka should have player GM-ing power a la Kyrie? No. Do I think they should ask him about KP? No. 

(07-07-2021, 12:37 PM)Chicagojk Wrote: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRCLX8nLbQo/?hl=en

(07-07-2021, 01:37 PM)cow Wrote: "In desperate need of some leg days my guy"

Literal laugh out loud.

(07-07-2021, 01:52 PM)ItsGoTime Wrote: Exactly, legs is how he’s going to be able to lower his center of gravity to help defend the post and post up. It’ll also help with quickness. However, all he needs to do is continue doing those hug exercises, cause that’s how THJ earned his next payday! KP going for the best hugger award!!!