"We Only Want to Bring in Character Guys..."

[Puffer]

We hear this all the time from GM's in every sport. Bryan famously repeated this phrase, and then wound up with train wrecks like Turk and Bargs. I believe they picked AB even after they did the psychological testing that showed that he didn't care what anyone thought.

I was reminded of this watching the Masai Ujiri interview when he mentioned, in response to George's question, "Are there any traits that are big red flags in a rookie," or something like that. MU's immediate response was "laziness." Oddly enough both Turk and AB were lazy. AB admitted to it in an interview. Turk didn't need to admit to it, you could see it.

It seems like the common characteristic of MU's dream team (which to this point includes the coach and starting five from Bryan's days) is a willingness to work. Am I just making this up in my own mind, or do you think this would be a deciding characteristic of future picks and FA acquisitions?

Lord knows the league has plenty of talented guys who are happy to coast.

[tenforthewin]

in terms of working hard, I say bringing in Anderson Varejao as our backup C.

[charlesnba23]

That would be great, it suprises me that nobody thought about this before! Cleveland got a team option on him... Not sure they will pick it up!

But I'm pretty sure he'll ask for big money. Probably gonna start somewhere else at the end of the day.

[yabadabayolo]

Than I guess it's safe to say chunky chuck is in raptors uniform for the rest of his career.

[white men can't jump]

Varejao struggles with staying healthy

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[raptors999]

Cleveland has been trying to unload Varejao for years but he gets injured before a deal can be completed.

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[white men can't jump]

Cleveland has been trying to unload Varejao for years but he gets injured before a deal can be completed.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Because he gets injured all the time. And it's not likely to get better next year, when he'll be 32 at the start of the season.

[3inthekeon]

We hear this all the time from GM's in every sport. Bryan famously repeated this phrase, and then wound up with train wrecks like Turk and Bargs. I believe they picked AB even after they did the psychological testing that showed that he didn't care what anyone thought.

I was reminded of this watching the Masai Ujiri interview when he mentioned, in response to George's question, "Are there any traits that are big red flags in a rookie," or something like that. MU's immediate response was "laziness." Oddly enough both Turk and AB were lazy. AB admitted to it in an interview. Turk didn't need to admit to it, you could see it.

It seems like the common characteristic of MU's dream team (which to this point includes the coach and starting five from Bryan's days) is a willingness to work. Am I just making this up in my own mind, or do you think this would be a deciding characteristic of future picks and FA acquisitions?

Lord knows the league has plenty of talented guys who are happy to coast.

If anyone has a link to the Bargs psychological test story, I'd like to see it. The way I remember, BC was actually impressed with the test result, making it seem like nothing would faze Bargs. I recall also thinking similarly to you wondering if that was really a good thing.

Don't have to look further than Hansbrough, the anti-Bargs to see that you may be right. De Colo seems that way also.

[white men can't jump]

If anyone has a link to the Bargs psychological test story, I'd like to see it. The way I remember, BC was actually impressed with the test result, making it seem like nothing would faze Bargs. I recall also thinking similarly to you wondering if that was really a good thing.

Don't have to look further than Hansbrough, the anti-Bargs to see that you may be right. De Colo seems that way also.

It's a test that's commonly used. Here's a tidbit about it from some ESPN story...that is actually kind of hilarious as a whole in retrospect

"They said his upside and potential were off the charts," Colangelo says from the tunnel of the Air Canada Centre as Bargnani drains a three against the Cavaliers. "They said, 'Out of all the athletes we've profiled, we've never seen anything like this.' "

The test showed that Bargnani is virtually oblivious to what others think of him. And his tremendous ability to block out such potentially negative pressures enables him to focus completely on the task at hand. So the expectations and anxieties that come with being the No.1 pick, or the only Italian-born player in the league, or even taking a game-winning shot, don't even register with him.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/s...pnmag/bargnani

It definitely could be positive, but it's a personality test, so results are hardly definitive or accurately project outcomes.

[Scraptor]

We hear this all the time from GM's in every sport. Bryan famously repeated this phrase, and then wound up with train wrecks like Turk and Bargs. I believe they picked AB even after they did the psychological testing that showed that he didn't care what anyone thought.

I was reminded of this watching the Masai Ujiri interview when he mentioned, in response to George's question, "Are there any traits that are big red flags in a rookie," or something like that. MU's immediate response was "laziness." Oddly enough both Turk and AB were lazy. AB admitted to it in an interview. Turk didn't need to admit to it, you could see it.

It seems like the common characteristic of MU's dream team (which to this point includes the coach and starting five from Bryan's days) is a willingness to work. Am I just making this up in my own mind, or do you think this would be a deciding characteristic of future picks and FA acquisitions?

Lord knows the league has plenty of talented guys who are happy to coast.

This subject is a huge pet peeve of mine, for a number of reasons.

First, character is such a broad term that it can be used to suit any number of narratives. I personally believe that character as Colangelo used it was meant to cover attitude, work ethic, sportsmanship, and willingness to learn.

Let's examine some of his hits and misses. Amir, Demar, Lowry, Ross, and Val all seem to embody strong character by this definition. This is why they seem to have such great chemistry. I could go on and on about each guy, but suffice to say that they all seem very committed to the team, the city, and have been eminently coachable. The only guy with a small knock on him prior to coming here was Lowry, as he was viewed as antagonistic towards coaches, but he was obviously cut from the same competitive cloth as Rondo and Kobe... fiery-competitive, not a bonehead like Andrew Bynum who just shot threes in practice.

The misses... Gay played poorly here, but put on the weight at Casey's instruction, never had a bad word for the team, and now that he's lost the weight has rebounded nicely in Sacramento. He struck me as a solid character guy. Fields, who hasn't played much, has been very professional.

James Johnson was shipped for character reasons. Drummond was passed on for character reasons; this was a huge mistake... he is a strong character kid, but his performance in college seemed to indicate questionable work ethic, so Colangelo flubbed this one.

Bargnani is lazy, but not a locker room cancer or malcontent. The Caliper test was supposed to measure toughness under pressure; unfortunately Bargnani cared so little about external cues that it also made him immune to everything else too. In hindsight, this would have been difficult to foresee imo.

Turk was a trainwreck but had shown little evidence of poor attitude until we signed him.

So, on the whole, I'd say Colangelo was successful in acquiring positive character guys.

The bigger problem I have with the "character guys" argument is that it suffers from terrible survivorship bias. People always want to gamble on guys like Michael Beasley and JR Smith and the like, because they are so talented, but after they wash out from the league or regress to their boneheaded ways nobody ever talks about them again.

When things are going right, there is little talk of positive character, but when things go wrong, it's "how did we not see this coming?" A lot of Raps fans wanted to acquire Brandon Jennings. Who wants him now?

Colangelo deserves blame and criticism for a lot of things, but picking character guys is not one of them. I actually think this is the best part of his team-building philosophy, and to point at Turk and Bargs alone is being really selective about your examples.

[white men can't jump]

This subject is a huge pet peeve of mine, for a number of reasons.

First, character is such a broad term that it can be used to suit any number of narratives. I personally believe that character as Colangelo used it was meant to cover attitude, work ethic, sportsmanship, and willingness to learn.

Let's examine some of his hits and misses. Amir, Demar, Lowry, Ross, and Val all seem to embody strong character by this definition. This is why they seem to have such great chemistry. I could go on and on about each guy, but suffice to say that they all seem very committed to the team, the city, and have been eminently coachable. The only guy with a small knock on him prior to coming here was Lowry, as he was viewed as antagonistic towards coaches, but he was obviously cut from the same competitive cloth as Rondo and Kobe... fiery-competitive, not a bonehead like Andrew Bynum who just shot threes in practice.

The misses... Gay played poorly here, but put on the weight at Casey's instruction, never had a bad word for the team, and now that he's lost the weight has rebounded nicely in Sacramento. He struck me as a solid character guy. Fields, who hasn't played much, has been very professional.

James Johnson was shipped for character reasons. Drummond was passed on for character reasons; this was a huge mistake... he is a strong character kid, but his performance in college seemed to indicate questionable work ethic, so Colangelo flubbed this one.

Bargnani is lazy, but not a locker room cancer or malcontent. The Caliper test was supposed to measure toughness under pressure; unfortunately Bargnani cared so little about external cues that it also made him immune to everything else too. In hindsight, this would have been difficult to foresee imo.

Turk was a trainwreck but had shown little evidence of poor attitude until we signed him.

So, on the whole, I'd say Colangelo was successful in acquiring positive character guys.

The bigger problem I have with the "character guys" argument is that it suffers from terrible survivorship bias. People always want to gamble on guys like Michael Beasley and JR Smith and the like, because they are so talented, but after they wash out from the league or regress to their boneheaded ways nobody ever talks about them again.

When things are going right, there is little talk of positive character, but when things go wrong, it's "how did we not see this coming?" A lot of Raps fans wanted to acquire Brandon Jennings. Who wants him now?

Colangelo deserves blame and criticism for a lot of things, but picking character guys is not one of them. I actually think this is the best part of his team-building philosophy, and to point at Turk and Bargs alone is being really selective about your examples.

I think the issue isn't BC's views/philosophy on character-based selection in roster building...

It's that he was an impatient flip flopper, mostly because he would feel pressed into doing something pretty much every season or two in order to try and reap some ridiculous benefit from some move. The only real character question mark was Turk (that I can think of off the top of my head)....Bargs turned out to be one, but it was definitely not certain right away or obvious from his Caliper test.

But he couldn't be patient, and he couldn't control himself. Trading for a washed up JO. Using far too much money on a role player like Kapono. Trying to rectify the JO mistake by trading him away for Marion, who clearly had no real desire to be in Toronto. Turk. The whole Rudy Gay fiasco. A lot of these guys didn't have bad character, but were all pretty bad moves for one reason or another, and all could have easily been avoided with better planning and patience. They were kind of overreactions to try and force something to happen, and were all bad choices.

*And from a media perspective, probably every GM in the league talks a big game about picking/building based on character. BC did a fairly good job sticking to it at least through the draft. Lots of teams just talk it, but in practice have no clue wtf they're doing.

[white men can't jump]

We hear this all the time from GM's in every sport. Bryan famously repeated this phrase, and then wound up with train wrecks like Turk and Bargs. I believe they picked AB even after they did the psychological testing that showed that he didn't care what anyone thought.

I was reminded of this watching the Masai Ujiri interview when he mentioned, in response to George's question, "Are there any traits that are big red flags in a rookie," or something like that. MU's immediate response was "laziness." Oddly enough both Turk and AB were lazy. AB admitted to it in an interview. Turk didn't need to admit to it, you could see it.

It seems like the common characteristic of MU's dream team (which to this point includes the coach and starting five from Bryan's days) is a willingness to work. Am I just making this up in my own mind, or do you think this would be a deciding characteristic of future picks and FA acquisitions?

Lord knows the league has plenty of talented guys who are happy to coast.

Moving away from BC, I just don't think we can really have any clue how things will play out, even if an aversion to laziness is the most critical red flag MU looks for.

I'm hoping it's mostly an obvious factor that leads to solid signings and trades, because you have an actual NBA track record to look at.

The draft is just so much of a gamble no matter what. There's no guaranteeing that even if you look hard for something, it'll turn out to be true for a young man who at 19 or 20, could still change a lot as he matures. Could be a hardworking dude who just isn't ready for the load of the NBA, and becomes lazy because of the heavy load and high pressure. That's where you hope culture built and the environment in the organization help avert such things from happening and keep kids on a good path.

[Superjudge]

Let's examine some of his hits. Amir, Demar, Lowry, Ross, and Val all seem to embody strong character by this definition. This is why they seem to have such great chemistry.

The misses... Drummond was passed on for character reasons; this was a huge mistake... he is a strong character kid, but his performance in college seemed to indicate questionable work ethic, so Colangelo flubbed this one.

So I'm trying to follow along here.

ross, big character guy, definite hit, one of the reasons Toronto is closing in on its best ever season.
Drummond, miss, was gonna be a huge character guy.

Toronto picked Ross, a hit, over Drummond.... also a hit.

Sooooooooo Colangelo is to blame for.......er......what?

What did he flub? Ahhhh I get it, he should have drafter them BOTH!!!!!!

[Puffer]

In general I agree with the above posters. BC DID pick up character guys but as WMCJ says, he seemed to get impatient and would then jump to make an immediate impact. That's the way it looks, at least.

I think it is safe to say, based on one (almost) season of MU that patience is a big part of his approach. If he does as well as BC, in terms of picking character guys (reference starting five) but doesn't get impatient and put his principles aside to jump at what looks like a short term solution, then I will be well satisfied.

[jacobdr4]

Because he gets injured all the time. And it's not likely to get better next year, when he'll be 32 at the start of the season.

I'd also rather not take on that boat of a contract. Varajao gets the same amount as demar even if it is just for one year.