Grange: What is Colangelo's biggest error in Toronto?

[BallaBalla]

I don't think we're quite on the same page.

For what it's worth, I preferred Aldridge over Bargnani at the time because I thought he was much more of a sure thing. Some of this was no doubt caused from being able to watch Aldridge play in the NCAA for two seasons where Bargnani was virtually an unknown. There were also a couple of highly drafted european big men in previous seasons (Darko, Tskitishvili) who came to the NBA with similar scouting reports as Bargnani and ended up being big flops. Overall I think drafting Bargnani first was a mistake, but didn't become a glaring one until Colangelo stubbornly propped him up as a franchise cornerstone and made so many moves to seemingly cater to him.

My larger problem is with those who say things like "How was Colangelo supposed to know that Turkoglu would be such a bum?" or "the Jermaine O'Neal deal was a good idea at the time. Colangelo just got unlucky". I have heard countless variations of this sentiment during my time on the RR forums and I find it mind boggling.

First off, NBA general manager is a position which should be judged on results, not good intentions, no matter what type of external variables may be in play or how unlucky a person may seemingly be. The most infuriating part of Colangelo's reign however is that I don't think you can say that BC got unlucky at all... I just think he got duped, or did a poor job basically at his position. All it would have taken was a quick search at basketball reference to see that JO missed almost as many games as he played in the four years leading up to Toronto trading for him, and that his stats were quickly submarining. A similar search of Turkoglu's career prior to Colangelo throwing a boatload of money at him would have revealed that Hedo had been an average player for most of his career, save for the last two seasons in Orlando where he was playing for his big pay day.

I remember there were fans (I was one of them) who were echoing these things at the time, and yet Colangelo seemed to lack any type of foresight whatsoever.

I could not agree more with what you wrote here. Although I wanted BC to actually trade the pick that year, then Draft Bargs, then Gay AND THEN Aldridge, your overall point is very profound.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the most correct. If you were to play BC in a game of mini-golf, he would rather bank it off the all 50 obstacles at crazy angles to try and get the hole in one, instead of just making the straight putt.

His moves dictate themselves. He thinks he knows something that we don't, or that he can convince players to be "come around" or be something that they're not (i.e. Derozan, etc.)

At the end of the day, in basketball, the talent level of a cornerstone player is really easy to see. There are only 15 guys in the league that are game changers, and the team with one of the top 5 will usually win the championship. You have your Lebron's Melo's and Durant's as tier one players and you have you Kobe's Dirks D-12's as tier two.

BC gets so much in his own way that he cannot even properly assess his the talent he has, and realize that we do not even have a tier 3 type player on this team (i.e. the josh smith's and steph curry's)

[ceez]

Grange just tweeted he has it on good authority Colangelo isn't going anywhere anytime soon

[Eric Akshinthala]

Grange just tweeted he has it on good authority Colangelo isn't going anywhere anytime soon

All that's left after this year is a Team option for next year and if MLSE picks it up, I totally support it. Not that his(BC) job has shown results but letting him stay IMO is the best of their bad options.