The First Annual Scott Layden Award

[Brickowski]

I'm instituting an annual award for the league's worst performance by a general manager: the Scott Layden Award.  It will be the antithesis of the NBA's Executive of the Year award.

Right now the leading candidate is Steve Kerr.  In a very short time he has managed to turn an exciting, competitive, well-coached team into a geriatric ward.  He's traded for old, fat has-beens (Shaq) and knuckleheads (Jason Richardson-- who now plays for the Suns, although I wouldn't blame anyone for not noticing after last night's game).  He has signed old cripples as free agents (Grant Hill).  No wonder the holdover players (Nash, Barbosa, Stoudamire) look confused.  Their defense was atrocious.  I never saw the Celtics get so many open shots and easy fast break baskets.

It's already time to rebuild the Suns, and the first step ought to be to fire Kerr.  If anyone thinks there is a better candidate for the Scott Layden Award, feel free to chime in.
 

[BrickJames]

My vote has got to go to Danny Ainge.

Ainge made some terrible miscalculations in the offseason, culminating in letting one of the greatest basketball players of all time and future Hall of Famer James Posey walk away from the green.  We now have no one to guard LeBron Jeebus!

His reluctance to whimsically spend his boss' money for the sake of doing so has left us with a second unit that has no flo'.

With a mediocre 34-9 record, the Celtics will be lucky to make the playoffs, let alone the Finals to defend their title.

[dark_lord]

too bad isiah isnt around anymore....he would be a lock

[BudweiserCeltic]

My vote has got to go to Danny Ainge.

Ainge made some terrible miscalculations in the offseason, culminating in letting one of the greatest basketball players of all time and future Hall of Famer James Posey walk away from the green.  We now have no one to guard LeBron Jeebus!

His reluctance to whimsically spend his boss' money for the sake of doing so has left us with a second unit that has no flo'.

With a mediocre 34-9 record, the Celtics will be lucky to make the playoffs, let alone the Finals to defend their title.

Lol.

Anyways, not a fan of Joe Dumars' moves this season.

[Roy Hobbs]

Judging on this season only, Kerr and Ainge are definite possibilities.  I'll throw Rod Higgins / Michael Jordan's name out there for the Bobcats. 

Charlotte did okay drafting D.J. Augustin, although one wonders if they would have been better off drafting Brook Lopez instead.  Also, Alexis Ajinca doesn't excite me. I didn't like the moves for Diaw, Bell, and Diop, especially since they make little sense in conjunction.

[fairweatherfan]

Ernie Grunfeld of the Wizards.  He overpaid for a guy (Arenas) who won't win you a championship and lately can't even get on the court.  And he did it without any real competition for Arenas' services.  Couple that with the contracts he's given in the past and Washington is crippled for the next few years.

For this year only Ed Stefanski could be a candidate too for overpaying for Brand in a system that he is least suited for, and throwing $13+ mill at Iguodala a year to boot.  Neither of those guys will get the Sixers over the mountain either.

[Brickowski]

In fairness to MJ, the Bobcats have been playing much better since the Richardson trade.  With him gone, other guys actually get to touch the ball.

Grunfeld and Sephanski are definitely in the running for the award.  Brand destroyed the rhythm of the team, and I don't know what the Sixers are going to do going forward.  It will be very tough to unload Brand's huge contract, that's for sure.

[the_Bird]

I'm going to say Charlotte.  I don't think Jordan's watched a game in two years, that's the only explanation as to why he wanted to deal for Raja Bell. 

Phoenix is tough; the owner's a tightwad, which makes some of the moves more difficult to judge.  They haven't had much of an inflow of young talent since ownership has sold off so many of their draft picks (think they'd like to have the Rondo pick back?).  They've signed old players, but they haven't committed many dollars to guys like Hill and they were really signed for their virtues in the uptempo/defense-is-optional game. 

They're also clearly a team in transition; they weren't going to win (or so Kerr judged) with D'Antoni-ball, so now they've tried to become a more traditional squad.  Marion also pushed them into a corner - they HAD to trade him, and given Shaq's improved play this year, that seems to have not been as bad a trade as it appeared a year ago. 

The transition wasn't going to happen in a year.

I'm not saying that they've done a GOOD job (by the time they bring in the right players to help on D, Shaq and Nash are going to be even more run-down), but at least you can see a direction.  Charlotte, on the other hand...  what the hell are they doing?  They have an interesting, young team so they bring in a coach that hates young players and start trading for medicore veterans.  The guys they're bringing in (Bell, Diop) are bench players, and now they've lost a lot of their youth.  I just don't think they know where they're going.

[wil]

The first name that came to my head was John Paxson (that's the Paxson in Chicago, right??)  His drafting has been awful and his trades haven't been any better.  His team is just a mishmash of some decent pieces but nothing really resembling a real team.  They need to dump him and do a total rebuild out there.

[KCattheStripe]

Charlotte did okay drafting D.J. Augustin, although one wonders if they would have been better off drafting Brook Lopez instead.  Also, Alexis Ajinca doesn't excite me. I didn't like the moves for Diaw, Bell, and Diop, especially since they make little sense in conjunction.

I agree about drafting Lopez, although I think the Augistin draft is better when you consider that they may get a good package for Felton. I also agree that their recent trades make little sense in conjunction. I did however like the Richarson trade for them though, because Diaw at the power forward gives Okafor more room to operate in the post. But the addition of Diop, if he starts, completely negates that. However, if they traded Carroll and --- to have a legitimate defensive presence in their second unit, then they did nicely.

[Andy Jick]

i'm going to give kerr a little slack here...

he understands that the way this team was going (all offense and no defense) would NEVER win a title in phoenix.

so he brings in a new coach with a new philosophy and it's very PAINFUL for this team to make this change, notably steve nash who still makes remarks regarding this new direction.

kerr is put in a tough position, and he's going to end up blowing that team apart.

ironically enough, our own danny ainge inherited a team that, though they were close in 2002, danny felt it would never win a title.

i'd prefer to nominate colangelo of toronto...he's done NOTHING to make that team better and they're getting worse.

[Hoyo de Monterrey]

As with any important award, it is important to get the intention behind it completely correct. For example, is the Layden Award designed to go to a GM who has consistently shown no organizational direction or purpose and is set up to fail for years to come (Old Isaiah, Chris Wallace come to mind)?

Or does it go to the GM who has taken a team in the course of a year and ruined a chance for a title, maybe not making them as bad as a Wallace team, but much farther from a championship then the other team. I'm guessing we are looking at whatever GM has done the most damage in a calendar year.

In which case, the only true option is Kerr. That team is nowhere near championship ready as presently constructed, and they need some serious help to get back to contention. Their defense is horrid, and the offense only looked even slightly effective when Nash was running his three dribbles and a shot offense towards the middle of the game, and even that was very inconsistent.

[Brickowski]

As with any important award, it is important to get the intention behind it completely correct. For example, is the Layden Award designed to go to a GM who has consistently shown no organizational direction or purpose and is set up to fail for years to come (Old Isaiah, Chris Wallace come to mind)?

Or does it go to the GM who has taken a team in the course of a year and ruined a chance for a title, maybe not making them as bad as a Wallace team, but much farther from a championship then the other team. I'm guessing we are looking at whatever GM has done the most damage in a calendar year.

In which case, the only true option is Kerr. That team is nowhere near championship ready as presently constructed, and they need some serious help to get back to contention. Their defense is horrid, and the offense only looked even slightly effective when Nash was running his three dribbles and a shot offense towards the middle of the game, and even that was very inconsistent.

Yes, that was the idea, but we can also institute the Scott Layden Lifetime Achievement Award.  The first winner was, of course, Scott Layden himself, but his successor, Isiah Thomas certainly deserves to be nominated, not only for ruining the Knicks, but also for destroying an entire league prior to his NBA tenure.

Rick Pitino is also in the running for this award.

[Hoyo de Monterrey]

As with any important award, it is important to get the intention behind it completely correct. For example, is the Layden Award designed to go to a GM who has consistently shown no organizational direction or purpose and is set up to fail for years to come (Old Isaiah, Chris Wallace come to mind)?

Or does it go to the GM who has taken a team in the course of a year and ruined a chance for a title, maybe not making them as bad as a Wallace team, but much farther from a championship then the other team. I'm guessing we are looking at whatever GM has done the most damage in a calendar year.

In which case, the only true option is Kerr. That team is nowhere near championship ready as presently constructed, and they need some serious help to get back to contention. Their defense is horrid, and the offense only looked even slightly effective when Nash was running his three dribbles and a shot offense towards the middle of the game, and even that was very inconsistent.

Yes, that was the idea, but we can also institute the Scott Layden Lifetime Achievement Award.  The first winner was, of course, Scott Layden himself, but his successor, Isiah Thomas certainly deserves to be nominated, not only for ruining the Knicks, but also for destroying an entire league prior to his NBA tenure.

Rick Pitino is also in the running for this award.

Plenty of good options here for a lifetime achievement award. It's funny too because I feel almost like those Atlanta fans who were convinced Dominique was just as good as Bird.

Everyone knew Bird was the better player, but some Atlanta fans would blindly stick by Dominique as their guy. I feel the same way, in that I know Isaiah may have been the worst ever GM, but because I was close to it and suffered personally so much during the Pitino era I almost want to vote for Pitino. I'm pretty sure it's Thomas though haha

[Brickowski]

We can bestow as many Lifetime Achievement Awards as we want.

In fact, I wonder if we should cut Isiah just a little slack for the first two years of his tenure, because he was attempting to clean up after Scott Layden (unsuccessfully, I might add).