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The Bryan Colangelo to Masai Ujiri transition.

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  • The Bryan Colangelo to Masai Ujiri transition.

    Tim Leiwike admitted he was unfair in the way he handled Colangelo's departure and he regretted it. He stated that Colangelo had the best of intentions for this team along with an incredible basketball acumen that deserved more credit & respect on the way out. I feel the exact same way, I feel like a lot of Raptor fans peg him as a lame duck GM who made a ton of bad decisions (which of course he did have a fair share of). And while I agree Colangelo did a lot of directional flip flopping during his tenure along with making some questionable trades/draft picks that warrants a little wrath he ultimately made some good moves towards the end that paved the way and put Masai in this great position today. I think he deserves credit for that, after building that multi year contender in Phoenix we all had massive expectations that didn't work out here but because of his final moves I hold no ill will towards him. It actually ended up being a perfect transition between two great friends in Bryan and Masai and one that could build a winner for us.

    As good as Masai's moves have been (and they definitely are top notch) a lot of what's working so well right now has Colangelo's fingerprints all over them. Drafting DeRozan, Valencunias, Ross. Bringing in Lowry and Dwayne Casey with his defensive minded approach. Re-signing DeRozan to a great deal that allows us future flexibility. Masai has now made the perfect financial moves in dumping Gay & Bargniani plus bringing in & trading for the right role players to fill out the roster (Vasquez, Patterson, Hansborough, Salmons) which has perfectly complimented the team. Don't get me wrong I'm not comparing these two at all because Masai has been the man so far but like I said I feel people only dwell on the bad Colangelo did here while overlooking the good. He's responsible for all 5 current starters and the coach right now and the truth of the matter is if we do end up contending over the next few years with Lowry, DeRozan, Valencunias, and Ross while having Casey at the helm people will have to give a lot of credit to Colangelo's final drafts and moves he made before departing..
    Last edited by Raps76; Sat Mar 8, 2014, 11:40 AM.

  • #2
    Really? If we're going to rehash old debates I think I'll just copy and paste my responses...

    But in case you forgot why he is bad, we have Landry Fields under contract -- because we were trying to get a senior citizen under contract! He held on to Bargs for WAY too long. Massive player turnover every year, and then questions of why there's no chemistry. Fired his best coach (because he wanted to discipline Bargs, was defense first, wasn't his "guy")...His "guy" was a solid assistant, but horrible head coach who was given WAY too much time.

    I haven't even started with the desperate moves -- Gay, "Ball", JO, etc..the idea that the team was a "player away." Most importantly, Ed Davis is stuck on a BENCH in Memphis right now.

    Stop trying to rewrite history. I was asking for him to step down and let Masai run things years ago. A good amount of YOU GUYS agreed. Now that the team is doing well you're giving him praise?

    If a corporation is about to go bankrupt and a new CEO steps in, utilizes the talents of the employees better, and gets them into the black no one says, "Maybe the last CEO was good, his practices led to hiring all these amazing people." No! They say, "The last CEO was an idiot! He had all this talent around him and screwed up!"

    You guys kill me.

    Also, nothing wrong with drafting Bargs, but that extension was weird, and more importantly, for a GM who had a reputation for correcting his mistakes BC never moved Andrea when it was obvious that he had overpaid the kid.
    http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/forum...asai+colangelo

    For the record, the difference between BC and Masai is that Masai acknowledges that the head coach is his partner, adjusts his rosters to placate the coach's needs/wants instead of using the coach like a pawn. There was a lot of talent on the roster, but how could anyone succeed when a coach who preaches discipline and defense is asked to play Andrea a billion minutes. Stop trying to rewrite history. BC was awful.

    Back when the Clippers were a laughing stock a lot of quality players played there too. Sports are dominated by those who best manage the talent they acquire. Merely getting good players, doesn't matter if the GM does one thing and the coach wants another. Please enough with these threads!

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    • #3
      blackjitsu wrote: View Post
      Really? If we're going to rehash old debates I think I'll just copy and paste my responses...

      http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/forum...asai+colangelo

      For the record, the difference between BC and Masai is that Masai acknowledges that the head coach is his partner, adjusts his rosters to placate the coach's needs/wants instead of using the coach like a pawn. There was a lot of talent on the roster, but how could anyone succeed when a coach who preaches discipline and defense is asked to play Andrea a billion minutes. Stop trying to rewrite history. BC was awful.

      Back when the Clippers were a laughing stock a lot of quality players played there too. Sports are dominated by those who best manage the talent they acquire. Merely getting good players, doesn't matter if the GM does one thing and the coach wants another. Please enough with these threads!
      Thanks for the link @blackjitsu, apologies I'm relatively new here and didn't realize this had already been discussed so in depth. I agree with most of what you're saying but just have to clarify this isn't a comparison at all, Masai is meant to be the GM here and the perfect man for the job. I just think we should tip our hat to the final moves Colangelo made as he redeemed himself on his way out and set the table for Masai to work his magic to perfection. Masai himself has "praised" Colangelo on numerous occasions for leaving him with a ton of good players and options.

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      • #4
        I don't feel sorry for Colangelo, his massive ego and his starched collars. Outside of his suits, I don't miss him at all.
        “The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” - Martin Luther King

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        • #5
          No GM is perfect.

          They all make mistakes.

          The key is to make your mistakes smaller than the times you get it right.

          I was a big fan of Colangelo for a long time but still gave him the benefit of the doubt until the Clippers game last season when he basically through the team and Casey under the bus during an in game interview.

          With that said, Colangelo certainly got some things right but his mistakes ended up being larger than those things.

          Considering how things worked out this season in the first 18 games - even without Bargnani! - it was clearly the right decision to let Colangelo go.

          This would have been a luxury tax team LOTTERY team on par with the current Knicks team.

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          • #6
            Matt52 wrote: View Post
            This would have been a luxury tax team LOTTERY team on par with the current Knicks team.
            Except with our draft picks.
            "Bruno?
            Heh, if he is in the D-league still in a few years I will be surprised.
            He's terrible."

            -Superjudge, 7/23

            Hope you're wrong.

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            • #7
              One aspect of BC's tenure and probably the most significant...rarely mentioned was his vision for the team. He wanted an offensive team. He finally realized (before hiring Casey) that he had to change gears to Defense. A bit late.

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              • #8
                Bendit wrote: View Post
                One aspect of BC's tenure and probably the most significant...rarely mentioned was his vision for the team. He wanted an offensive team. He finally realized (before hiring Casey) that he had to change gears to Defense. A bit late.
                But with all his meddling last year he went back to offence once his tank was over and he wanted to accelerate things.

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                • #9
                  Raps76 wrote: View Post
                  Thanks for the link @blackjitsu, apologies I'm relatively new here and didn't realize this had already been discussed so in depth. I agree with most of what you're saying but just have to clarify this isn't a comparison at all, Masai is meant to be the GM here and the perfect man for the job. I just think we should tip our hat to the final moves Colangelo made as he redeemed himself on his way out and set the table for Masai to work his magic to perfection. Masai himself has "praised" Colangelo on numerous occasions for leaving him with a ton of good players and options.
                  What were these final moves BC made?

                  Do you have any links for this "ton of good players and options" praise? Sorry, but I can't see him praising BC for Gay, Bargs, Fields or Klieza which was basically half the rotation.
                  If we knew half as much about coaching an NBA team as we think, we"d know twice as much as we do.

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                  • #10
                    It's unfortunate I guess, but GM's and people in similar positions are ultimately judged and remembered for the bad moves, not the good ones. And this is magnified when the bad outweighs the good, which was evident in the on-court product we experienced as well as the amount of roster turnover while BC was here. He had plenty of time to turn the franchise around, but he didn't. Also, one bad move can derail a team, and even if 10 great moves were made previously, it matters not in the long run.

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                    • #11
                      Matt52 wrote: View Post
                      But with all his meddling last year he went back to offence once his tank was over and he wanted to accelerate things.
                      Agree. I should clarify my post....his original vision was incorrect/flawed....trying to adapt the Phoenix running model to different/ill suited personnel. And he saw Bargs to be the best selection in the draft to support that style.

                      Disclosure...I was a big supporter in his first years....until the Bosh cockup and Bargs extension.

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                      • #12
                        ah hell I'll throw in my two cents

                        Kleiza: was a good pickup on a reasonable contract. HINDSIGHT: Injury ridden positionless albatross. REWRITE: Kleiza stays healthy and averages 17pts and 6 rebounds on healthy knees. I don't blame Colangelo for this.

                        Fields: was a great pickup on a terrible contract. Consensus is he is overpaid to the tune of 2 to 4 million per year. HINDSIGHT: Our glue man fell apart at the seams. Injuries have derailed he career, although I still have hope for him. REWRITE: Fields becomes our defensive ace 6th man, and contributes 14 pts 6 boards and 4 assists a game off the bench. On a 3 year 12 million dollar deal. I blame Colangelo for overpaying him but not for acquiring him. I really like Fields and what he is about.

                        Gay: a passive volume shooter who is semi engaged on defense and a black hole on offense. Should be getting Batum money not more than Lebron money. HINDSIGHT: a passive volume shooter who is semi engaged on defense and a black hole on offense. Should be getting Batum money not more than Lebron money. REWRITE: Gay trade falls through and we keep Ed Davis. I cheered for this trade at the time but only because I failed to scratch the surface. Gay was not the reason Memphis was winning and they figured that out. We thought they were dumb for getting rid of him. Gay was not helping us win basketball games. We figured that out and got rid of him. The fact that Masai was able to flip him for an entire bench and pushing our previous bench to the 10 - 15 man role looks more and more brilliant by the game. BC is at fault here because he swung for the fences when we weren't ready to yet.

                        Bargnani was the right pick to make and is the epitome of why tanking for a number 1 pick isn't a guarantee. Doing that draft over I would be hard pressed not to pick him again. Extending him before he proved himself was mistake number 1, Not trading him sooner was mistake number 2.
                        For still frame photograph of me reading the DeRozan thread please refer to my avatar

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                        • #13
                          3inthekeon wrote: View Post
                          What were these final moves BC made?

                          Do you have any links for this "ton of good players and options" praise? Sorry, but I can't see him praising BC for Gay, Bargs, Fields or Klieza which was basically half the rotation.
                          Basically the things I mentioned were all the positive final moves made towards the end of his tenure (last few yrs). Obviously he still made some incredibly bad ones too but I'm just discussing how his final positive moves are paying some big dividends now. Gay, Bargniani, Fields, Kleiza were the bad ones but thankfully Masai undid the majority of that while also tapping into the great potential he left behind.

                          Masai links below praising Colangelo or discussing the roster pieces he inherited (vid 2 of intro press conference):

                          https://twitter.com/RaptorsMR/status/332628574471352320
                          http://www.nba.com/raptors/video/pla...aiujiri-060413
                          http://www.thestar.com/sports/raptor...lacements.html
                          Last edited by Raps76; Sat Mar 8, 2014, 06:21 PM.

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                          • #14
                            Raps76 wrote: View Post
                            Thanks for the link @blackjitsu, apologies I'm relatively new here and didn't realize this had already been discussed so in depth. I agree with most of what you're saying but just have to clarify this isn't a comparison at all, Masai is meant to be the GM here and the perfect man for the job. I just think we should tip our hat to the final moves Colangelo made as he redeemed himself on his way out and set the table for Masai to work his magic to perfection. Masai himself has "praised" Colangelo on numerous occasions for leaving him with a ton of good players and options.
                            No worries Raps76, welcome to RR!

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Matt52 wrote: View Post
                              The key is to make your mistakes smaller than the times you get it right.





                              Considering how things worked out this season in the first 18 games - even without Bargnani! - it was clearly the right decision to let Colangelo go.
                              The key is to make mistakes and still be successful.

                              Although I think MLSE did not handle the situation (BC firing) fairly, I agree that bringing in Masai was the right move. A BC managed team would have been a fringe play-off team at best or possibly a non play-off team. Bargnani would have been gone but not Gay.
                              Attitude Is A Choice.

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