The "Dude": The Mitch Kupchak Thread

[luciano-davidwesley]

i dont have the energy today to document the 20+ bad to horrible decisions mitch has made since taking over. its definitely not 3 or anywhere close to that number. kudos to anyone who feels like documenting them all out.

Only the glaring obvious ones.

- Trading Dwight Howard for Mozgov, taking on an extra year for $18M for two crap 2nds , and receiving basically no cap relief in the present since Dwight took a $5M buyout from BRK anyway. Those 2nds were throw-ins in other deals.

- Hayward signing in a year where we obviously weren't going to have the talent to compete. Single-handedly put the Hornets back on the treadmill. A few less wins and we're in mix for Franz Wagner in 2021, who is arguably already better than a healthy Hayward.

- Stretching Batum in order to do the previous mistake, effectively paying Hayward $39M this year and last.

- Drafting Bouknight while kicking Monk to the curb. Objective waste of an asset. Much better uses for that 11th pick.

- Extending Rozier too early. Mitch painted himself into a corner gutting all our guard depth in 2021, which was an awful move for leverage in those extension talks. Rozier probably makes $20M plus if he was a FA last summer and we for sure try to bring him back, so it doesn't change too much but it's an example of Mitch's brain-dead GMing skills on all fronts.

- Complete inaction at gaining a veteran center worth anything. (Finally seems to be fixed moving forward with Mark) but he effectively wasted 2 "win-now" seasons pretending Plumlee, Zeller, and Biz were good enough.

- Clifford. I don't need to elaborate.

- 13th pick last draft. Currently the return is #28, #43, #52 in the upcoming draft + Bryce McGowens. I'm not so worried about missing out on Duren, with Mark already here. I don't like that SF is our biggest hole moving forward once Hayward is gone, and that AJ Griffin and Tari Eason were right there.

- His inaction at every trade deadline. If we're rebuilding we need bigger deals than Plumlee for a 2nd. If we're trying to win, we need more than 2nd+Ish for Trez, or picking up Brad Wanamaker for nothing. Consistent failures on that front. An average or below team should never be content with its roster. Never.

...

I'm sure there's plenty more, but that's what I came up with in like 15 minutes. Most of them simply stem from awful asset management or just inability to pick a damn direction

[JMAC3]

Only the glaring obvious ones.

- Trading Dwight Howard for Mozgov, taking on an extra year for $18M for two crap 2nds , and receiving basically no cap relief in the present since Dwight took a $5M buyout from BRK anyway. Those 2nds were throw-ins in other deals.

We traded Mozgov like a week later for Biz and 2 more seconds. So basically, we picked up 4 seconds to go from Dwight to Biz. Not amazing, but also those 4 seconds became Hamidou Diallo, Yam Mader, Balsa Koprivica and Cody Martin.

Diallo was traded for 2019 2nd that became Jalen McDaniels
Yam Mader was traded with Kemba Walker for Terry Rozier and Grant Riller
Balsa Koprivica was traded for JT Thor and Mason Plumlee.

Biz also played 3 years with the team starting 97 games in that time span and playing in over 160 games total.
So would I trade Dwight for Biz, McDaniels, Thor, Plumlee and Cody Martin? Yes I would.

[JMAC3]

Here are a few others that are fun to follow.

1. We traded the Knicks Johnny Bryant and 2nds for Willy Hernangomez
the 2nds were Saben Lee and Isiah Livers

2. We traded Clippers SGA for Miles Bridges, Vernon Carey and Scottie Lewis

3. Hornets traded 2nds in 2019 and 2023 for Devonte Graham
the 2nds were Bol Bol and our 2023 2nd TBD
Graham was traded for 15th pick that became Mark Williams

4. Hornets traded 13th pick for 2023 Nuggets 1st, Knicks 2023 2nd, Utah 2023 second, 2023 Miami or Dallas pick (more favorable) and 2024 knicks 2nds.

The 2023 Knicks pick (50th) was traded with pick 45 (Josh Minott) for pick 40 Bryce McGowens.
2024 Knicks pick was traded with Jalen Mcdaniels for Svi Mykhailuk, 2023 Hornets pick and more fav 2027 of Port/New Orleans
Nuggets pick would be 28th, Utah pick would be 42nd as of today and Dallas/Miami would be 51st/52nd

[HornetJail]

yeah Mitch fell upwards when the Magic bailed him out by offering the Hornets a better player than Mozgov on the same contracts, and got better picks. He fell upwards again with the Devonte' trade when the Pelicans got an extremely improbable run into the playoffs. There was like a 90% chance the Pelicans would've just conveyed pick #42 to us instead of #15.

[JMAC3]

Here are a few others that are fun to follow.

1. We traded the Knicks Johnny Bryant and 2nds for Willy Hernangomez
the 2nds were Saben Lee and Isiah Livers

2. We traded Clippers SGA for Miles Bridges, Vernon Carey and Scottie Lewis

3. Hornets traded 2nds in 2019 and 2023 for Devonte Graham
the 2nds were Bol Bol and our 2023 2nd TBD
Graham was traded for 15th pick that became Mark Williams

4. Hornets traded 13th pick for 2023 Nuggets 1st, Knicks 2023 2nd, Utah 2023 second, 2023 Miami or Dallas pick (more favorable) and 2024 knicks 2nds.

The 2023 Knicks pick (50th) was traded with pick 45 (Josh Minott) for pick 40 Bryce McGowens.
2024 Knicks pick was traded with Jalen Mcdaniels for Svi Mykhailuk, 2023 Hornets pick and more fav 2027 of Port/New Orleans
Nuggets pick would be 28th, Utah pick would be 42nd as of today and Dallas/Miami would be 51st/52nd

Mitch needs to hit on a few of these
Nuggets 23' first, Utah 23' 2nd, Dallas 23' 2nd, McGowens, and Portland 27' 2nd.

He currently has those 5 swings to try and equal Jalen Duren and Josh Minott value.


and then he has these 2 pieces to try and equal Jalen McDaniels value.
Svi and our own 2023 2nd.

[JMAC3]

Mitch needs to hit on a few of these
Nuggets 23' first, Utah 23' 2nd, Dallas 23' 2nd, McGowens, and Portland 27' 2nd.

He currently has those 5 swings to try and equal Jalen Duren and Josh Minott value.

and then he has these 2 pieces to try and equal Jalen McDaniels value.
Svi and our own 2023 2nd.

So another way of looking at it is... say we never traded Duren and we kept McDaniels. The two moves people seem to be the most upset about.

We would have our own pick in this draft and that would be it vs having 5 picks this year.

A. Without trades...Vs B.....With trades
Duren...........................Nuggets First
Minott..........................McGowens
McDaniels......................Charlotte 2nd
..................................Utah 2nd
..................................Miami 2nd
..................................Portland 27' 2nd
..................................Svi Mychaluk

Maybe I am getting too caught up in 2nds here but can't believe I am going to ask this. Are we sure we would prefer A to B?

[-Ian-]

Again, people focus on the FO where the main problem is proving your team has playable assets. You can have a bad record, but if you have desirable pieces, you will be able to get something for it.
Especially those on rookie contracts.

And it starts and come from the pick choices, knowing its way harder to mess up on a #1 #2 or 3 then on #10ish. But Kupchak should do a better mix between young (and very young) fellows and more experienced/nba ready prospects. So far he's been gambling on young kids but it did not pay off for most of them (Kai Jones, Thor, Carey, booknight etc).

A lot of the mess comes from Bridges's situation though. It messed up last draft considering it happened at the very worst time and it also jeoperdize roster building and flexibility since you can't even project what it will cost/the return you can get at worst.

Proving your team has playable assets is a FO problem. As evidenced by the GM survey before the season, none of the other GM's respect ours, or give a **** about our team. We're the afterbirth of the league. And it isn't really an emotional take....its proven by our record and media attention. No one cares... we are a filler franchise. Not one poster here should be okay with this. Its not being negative all the time...its about change. Its hard for me to see change until MJ sells the team or changes his philosophy and gets rid of all the good ole boys in the clubhouse

Do you have a link of this particular GM survey? Thanks.

[fatlever]

happy to hear lockedon hornets echo my outrage over mitch's comments last week.

[amcoolio]

Again, people focus on the FO where the main problem is proving your team has playable assets. You can have a bad record, but if you have desirable pieces, you will be able to get something for it.
Especially those on rookie contracts.

And it starts and come from the pick choices, knowing its way harder to mess up on a #1 #2 or 3 then on #10ish. But Kupchak should do a better mix between young (and very young) fellows and more experienced/nba ready prospects. So far he's been gambling on young kids but it did not pay off for most of them (Kai Jones, Thor, Carey, booknight etc).

A lot of the mess comes from Bridges's situation though. It messed up last draft considering it happened at the very worst time and it also jeoperdize roster building and flexibility since you can't even project what it will cost/the return you can get at worst.

Proving your team has playable assets is a FO problem. As evidenced by the GM survey before the season, none of the other GM's respect ours, or give a **** about our team. We're the afterbirth of the league. And it isn't really an emotional take....its proven by our record and media attention. No one cares... we are a filler franchise. Not one poster here should be okay with this. Its not being negative all the time...its about change. Its hard for me to see change until MJ sells the team or changes his philosophy and gets rid of all the good ole boys in the clubhouse

Do you have a link of this particular GM survey? Thanks.

https://www.nba.com/news/2022-23-gm-survey

[yosemiteben]

Proving your team has playable assets is a FO problem. As evidenced by the GM survey before the season, none of the other GM's respect ours, or give a **** about our team. We're the afterbirth of the league. And it isn't really an emotional take....its proven by our record and media attention. No one cares... we are a filler franchise. Not one poster here should be okay with this. Its not being negative all the time...its about change. Its hard for me to see change until MJ sells the team or changes his philosophy and gets rid of all the good ole boys in the clubhouse

Do you have a link of this particular GM survey? Thanks.

https://www.nba.com/news/2022-23-gm-survey

Not sure how this proves your point.

[Rich4114]

I think it’s now really difficult to sit there and say that Mitch is the GM to construct a team to be a perennial winner. We have enough body of work between his time here and LA to know what his trends are. His trends are that he burns first round picks, is ultra conservative on trades and when he does pull the trigger it’s either underwhelming or really short sighted. Then there’s the coaching decisions. How in the hell do you re-hire the guy you fired when you first showed up?

Anyway, I think if MJ is going to keep the team he needs to blow up the front office and start again. Next front office would be inheriting a far better situation than what Mitch did. So I guess there’s that (thanks Cho!). Which leads me to coach.

Steve Clifford was absolutely never the right fit for this roster and I’m not even sure he’s capable of coaching a team that isn’t loaded with stars past the first round. His system has not evolved and his late game “plays” often can’t make it to a successful in bounds play. He also hates playing young players which is why the last Clifford team was too old. He wants to slow it down no matter what he eludes to when discussing pace. That literally plays against this rosters youth and strength. I get you can’t depend on transition offense too much, but at least JB let them be who they were. That could’ve been fixed by addressing the center spot in a real way sooner.

But hope is not all lost. The caliber of coaches available for Mitch or a new GM to pick this off-season could be incredible. The top of the list has Udoka and Malone. Then what if someone like Nick Nurse becomes available? I’d take any of those three guys over Clifford and that includes Udoka and his drama.

Let’s thank Mitch for taking us this far and laying a foundation to work with. Let’s thank Clifford for coming into a dumpster fire and helping some guys like LaMelo maybe mature a bit. Don’t double down on poor choices.

I saw someone mention this somewhere, but I would not be against entertaining moving Cliff to the front office as GM or director of player personnel. How ironic and hilarious would it be for Clifford to take Mitch’s job then move back into his old condo lmao.

[JMAC3]

I think it’s now really difficult to sit there and say that Mitch is the GM to construct a team to be a perennial winner. We have enough body of work between his time here and LA to know what his trends are. His trends are that he burns first round picks, is ultra conservative on trades and when he does pull the trigger it’s either underwhelming or really short sighted. Then there’s the coaching decisions. How in the hell do you re-hire the guy you fired when you first showed up?

Anyway, I think if MJ is going to keep the team he needs to blow up the front office and start again. Next front office would be inheriting a far better situation than what Mitch did. So I guess there’s that (thanks Cho!). Which leads me to coach.

Steve Clifford was absolutely never the right fit for this roster and I’m not even sure he’s capable of coaching a team that isn’t loaded with stars past the first round. His system has not evolved and his late game “plays” often can’t make it to a successful in bounds play. He also hates playing young players which is why the last Clifford team was too old. He wants to slow it down no matter what he eludes to when discussing pace. That literally plays against this rosters youth and strength. I get you can’t depend on transition offense too much, but at least JB let them be who they were. That could’ve been fixed by addressing the center spot in a real way sooner.

But hope is not all lost. The caliber of coaches available for Mitch or a new GM to pick this off-season could be incredible. The top of the list has Udoka and Malone. Then what if someone like Nick Nurse becomes available? I’d take any of those three guys over Clifford and that includes Udoka and his drama.

Let’s thank Mitch for taking us this far and laying a foundation to work with. Let’s thank Clifford for coming into a dumpster fire and helping some guys like LaMelo maybe mature a bit. Don’t double down on poor choices.

I saw someone mention this somewhere, but I would not be against entertaining moving Cliff to the front office as GM or director of player personnel. How ironic and hilarious would it be for Clifford to take Mitch’s job then move back into his old condo lmao.

I really don't understand the mantra that Mitch burns 1st round picks. That looks like a hit rate of 7/9.

Lakers picks in 2014,15,16
Julius Randle, DLo, Brandon Ingram.

Hornets picks in 2018,19,20,21,22,23
Bridges, PJ, LaMelo, Bouk/Kai, Mark

Also, I really don't blame Cliff for the year. He has been playing the young guys a decent amount IMO. I would be fine moving on from him as the coach and giving him a role in the front office, but nothing close to GM level. Seems like MJ, Mitch and Cliff are aligned though, so I would give him something like World Wide Wes has in Knicks, Senior Basketball Advisor.

Ideally, I think Mitch as President of basketball ops with a younger GM is the move. That way MJ can't bully the new GM, Mitch can play the mediator to prevent us from making dumb moves.

[JMAC3]

Do you have a link of this particular GM survey? Thanks.

https://www.nba.com/news/2022-23-gm-survey

Not sure how this proves your point.

I agree here, looking through the survey not sure I took offense to anything in particular.

[luciano-davidwesley]

I think it’s now really difficult to sit there and say that Mitch is the GM to construct a team to be a perennial winner. We have enough body of work between his time here and LA to know what his trends are. His trends are that he burns first round picks, is ultra conservative on trades and when he does pull the trigger it’s either underwhelming or really short sighted. Then there’s the coaching decisions. How in the hell do you re-hire the guy you fired when you first showed up?

Anyway, I think if MJ is going to keep the team he needs to blow up the front office and start again. Next front office would be inheriting a far better situation than what Mitch did. So I guess there’s that (thanks Cho!). Which leads me to coach.

Steve Clifford was absolutely never the right fit for this roster and I’m not even sure he’s capable of coaching a team that isn’t loaded with stars past the first round. His system has not evolved and his late game “plays” often can’t make it to a successful in bounds play. He also hates playing young players which is why the last Clifford team was too old. He wants to slow it down no matter what he eludes to when discussing pace. That literally plays against this rosters youth and strength. I get you can’t depend on transition offense too much, but at least JB let them be who they were. That could’ve been fixed by addressing the center spot in a real way sooner.

But hope is not all lost. The caliber of coaches available for Mitch or a new GM to pick this off-season could be incredible. The top of the list has Udoka and Malone. Then what if someone like Nick Nurse becomes available? I’d take any of those three guys over Clifford and that includes Udoka and his drama.

Let’s thank Mitch for taking us this far and laying a foundation to work with. Let’s thank Clifford for coming into a dumpster fire and helping some guys like LaMelo maybe mature a bit. Don’t double down on poor choices.

I saw someone mention this somewhere, but I would not be against entertaining moving Cliff to the front office as GM or director of player personnel. How ironic and hilarious would it be for Clifford to take Mitch’s job then move back into his old condo lmao.

I really don't understand the mantra that Mitch burns 1st round picks. That looks like a hit rate of 7/9.

Lakers picks in 2014,15,16
Julius Randle, DLo, Brandon Ingram.

Hornets picks in 2018,19,20,21,22,23
Bridges, PJ, LaMelo, Bouk/Kai, Mark

Also, I really don't blame Cliff for the year. He has been playing the young guys a decent amount IMO. I would be fine moving on from him as the coach and giving him a role in the front office, but nothing close to GM level. Seems like MJ, Mitch and Cliff are aligned though, so I would give him something like World Wide Wes has in Knicks, Senior Basketball Advisor.

Ideally, I think Mitch as President of basketball ops with a younger GM is the move. That way MJ can't bully the new GM, Mitch can play the mediator to prevent us from making dumb moves.

I'm pretty sure Mitch averaged around having the 2nd or 3rd pick overall between 2014-2016. Also the Lonzo pick was clearly the wrong guy. So I'm not giving him too much credit when he was drafting 2nd or 3rd overall each year, because he assembled bad teams around a massively declining and overpaid Kobe.

I'll give him credit with his drafting overall in Charlotte but 2021 was an all-time dumpster fire. He also gave away SGA for two extra second round picks for Miles lets not forget.

Bouknight, Jones, Thor, Lewis *shudder* - It's looking like none of those picks will even be worthy of being end of bench guys. Thor and Kai MIGHT become semi-playable at some point - probably a 20% chance each.

[yosemiteben]

Thor and Lewis weren't 1st rounders.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Thor and Lewis weren't 1st rounders.

I never said they were

[JMAC3]

I'm pretty sure Mitch averaged around having the 2nd or 3rd pick overall between 2014-2016. Also the Lonzo pick was clearly the wrong guy. So I'm not giving him too much credit when he was drafting 2nd or 3rd overall each year, because he assembled bad teams around a massively declining and overpaid Kobe.

I'll give him credit with his drafting overall in Charlotte but 2021 was an all-time dumpster fire. He also gave away SGA for two extra second round picks for Miles lets not forget.

Bouknight, Jones, Thor, Lewis *shudder* - It's looking like none of those picks will even be worthy of being end of bench guys. Thor and Kai MIGHT become semi-playable at some point - probably a 20% chance each.

You kind of just proved my point for me.

1. Lonzo wasn't picked by Mitch, so you are wrong there. And at the same time proved that drafting #2 isn't a guarantee when done by someone else.

2. Scottie Lewis was picked 56th, no GM should be judged for picking a guy there. Basically after 50, most agents would prefer their players to go undrafted so they can pick their landing spot. So that takes a lot of guys out of consideration on top of it already being a late selection.

3. Pointing to Thor as a bad pick at 37 is a weird decision when Mitch has literally crushed the 2nd round. Martins, McDaniels, Richards, Graham... If your argument is that he is a bad drafter because he misses sometimes then that can be said about every GM

[luciano-davidwesley]

Interview with Mitch

Watch on YouTube

[-Ian-]

Read on Twitter

[LofJ]

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