08-19-2022, 01:25 PM
(08-19-2022, 12:38 PM)mvossman Wrote: I'm not so sure this is true. My understanding is Cuban is the reason why we did not draft Giannis. In fact, over the last 20 years this FO greatest asset was Nelson identifying elite European talent (Dirk, Giannis, Luka). That is gone now. The rest of our drafting history has not been great, but most of that was late first round picks, or no picks because we traded them away.My hope is Nico brings discipline and structure. I think it is unfair to think that Nico is Jerry West 2.0. The Mavs recently hired a guy from Brooklyn who is well thought of apparently. Hopefully other changes are happening inside the scouting team to bring new blood in. With more structure and discipline hopefully this curtails Cuban from winging it or listening to a new voice.
I think the Green pick is not part of any long term issues, it was a symptom of more recent mass dysfunction in the FO (which I lay totally at Cuban's feet). If Nelson was running the draft room like he should have been (instead of bailing like a little bitch) I would not be surprised if we ended up with Bane. He seems like a Nelson kind of pick (see Brunson).
The reality is that we still have Cuban running the show, and below him a guy with no NBA front office experience. I think it is reasonable to hope that we wont suffer the dysfunction that led to the Green pick, but I have no reason to believe our drafting performance is going to be any better than it has been the last 20 years when you take into account the huge hits (Dirk, Luka) the should have been huge hit (Giannis) and the fact that we were generally picking late in first round or not at a
Maybe it is unfair to characterize the previous regime this way because Cuban plays such a big role, but it always felt like they are going off on feel and hunches. Hopefully the new regime is more organized, disciplined and has a well thought out plan. I mean up until a few years ago we didn't even have a draft board which is really surprising.