Did you watch the entire press conference?
Jazz hire Celtics Assistant GM Austin Ainge as new President of Basketball Operations
- Thread starter Elizah Huge
- Start date
Are you saying that about me? Did you watch the entire press conference?
When I saw the quote I thought Austin must have meant that he wasn't going to unethically tank.
After watching the press conference I came away with a different perspective. And fwiw, it seems like the beat writers in the room came away with a different perspective as well.
After watching the press conference I came away with a different perspective. And fwiw, it seems like the beat writers in the room came away with a different perspective as well.
I watched the presser and immediately thought this means we trade Lauri and the vets....but that has nothing to do with his tone and it's more about giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's not an idiot. If Ryan is actually impatient and brought AA in to try to quickly turn this around we're in horrible, horrible spot. I refuse to believe we will be this dumb as a franchise.
Thee Idiotic Minivan K
Well-Known Member
I was excited about the hire now I’m genuinely worried about it. Great AA wants to win. Our roster is good enough to just miss the play in which I think means we lose the pick. The only problem with where AA wants to go is is we will win more later if we lose now than if we try to win more this year.
Thee Idiotic Minivan K
Well-Known Member
The problem is we still lose the pick if we don’t sit players.
I'm not sure if I am. Don't recall what you said about it.
Just the idea that executives are going to tell us the truth on something that the league is going to want to punitively punish if they admitted to is crazy.
Tremendous Upside
Well-Known Member
It's hilarious that people keep saying this as if it would be some big change of strategy.
The Jazz have been trying to trade Collins, Clarkson and Sexton for ages.
That's absolutely true, but not the vibe of the press conference or the answer to that question.
It didn't feel like GM speak, or trying to be careful to not get in trouble. The vibe of the conference was that there is a new decision maker in town who wouldn't have done things the way our FO have done things in the past.
TJ’s article echoes what we’ve all been saying. You have to pick a direction. It just so happens to be the case that one of the directions is a horrific option. The nepotism we have to worry about is not DA and AA, it’s Ryan hiring his buddy to do potentially stupid things.
I can choose to believe we’re not actually this stupid.
I can choose to believe we’re not actually this stupid.
Tremendous Upside
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I'm sure it was.
I mean are they gonna say "Danny told me to hire his son"?
I just think it's a new GM who wants to endear himself to the fan base, much of which (on the casual side especially) don't like tanking.
I would bet good money we still see injuries lasting longer than one would expect, another segment of the season where Walker shoots 3s, the team not signing quality UFAs, and playing rookie contract players over vets on lower salaried deals.
Could be for sure.
Could you provide more details on the article? Specifically anything that wasn't said in the press conference. I don't have access to the athletic right now.
homeytennis
Well-Known Member
The forecast for next season could be mass contusions and hamstring tightness for the better players.
There’s really not much beyond the idea that “team sources” back up the idea that it’s one or the other. TJ did not really say that one direction is more likely than the other, just that both are possibilities.
We felt we had no assets, so we parlayed that first seed team into a bunch of assets but... most any of the assets in our chest of real value are... our own assets we would have had anyway. C'est la vie.
And by the two different directions you mean:
1. Ethically Tanking (AKA trading away vets)
2. Adding talent to try and win now.
Anyway, I think the nepotism angle here is a real red herring. Imagine if it was announced that we hired some random guy from a front office who hadn't been a GM yet and all of the sudden he was supposed to be our decision maker. Would we not be asking WTF is going on? But now instead we're arguing whether AA is or isn't qualified for this position. The former situation would be a huge shock having us all wonder what any of this means but now it's swallowed up in the squirrel of "it's Ainge's son." Perhaps he's good. I have no idea. I've always argued that Ainge appears to be operating in a fashion where something falls out of the sky and works for your good, which may happen in Boston but doesn't happen here. I doubt the younger Ainge has that type of experiential bias to believe that, so for all we know this is a good thing. But bigger than this, we just took a team that's the closest we've been to a title in almost 30 years and cashed it in on Ainge-centered plans. If we needed to go in a different (assuming it is different) AA direction, then that time was two years ago. Not now.
But yes, KqWIN has a bit of a point about buddies, at least the way I interpret it. Ryan's connection to Ainge kind of reminds me of The Dude and Walter, where Walter gets him all riled up about a fake kidnapping and then screws everything up, but at the end doesn't have any skin in the game so tells the Dude to not worry about it when it burns to hell.
Spoiler for swears:
I don't know. This seems like we're distracted from the reality of what's happened to this franchise under Ryan's tenure. And all these people with the power to shape this franchise (save Ryan) have no long-term skin in the game, so they'll all be able to walk away like Walter and tell us not to worry about it.
But yes, KqWIN has a bit of a point about buddies, at least the way I interpret it. Ryan's connection to Ainge kind of reminds me of The Dude and Walter, where Walter gets him all riled up about a fake kidnapping and then screws everything up, but at the end doesn't have any skin in the game so tells the Dude to not worry about it when it burns to hell.
Spoiler for swears:
I don't know. This seems like we're distracted from the reality of what's happened to this franchise under Ryan's tenure. And all these people with the power to shape this franchise (save Ryan) have no long-term skin in the game, so they'll all be able to walk away like Walter and tell us not to worry about it.