RealGM: Classics - An Inactive Trade Deadline

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An Inactive Trade Deadline

26th February, 2006 - 11:22 pm

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By Ashok Ayyar

I haven’t looked into the salaries of NBA general managers, CEOs, presidents, or whatever they call themselves; but maybe I should. I can think of a dozen GMs right now who have not done anything for the last 4 months. I challenge anyone to name another job where you can escape the throes of (gasp) productivity for months at a time.

Winning games is the bottom line of team performance. You can declare success in numbers like jersey sales, corporate sponsorships, and winning all back-to back road games in the month of February when the team was trailing by at least 10 points with exactly 5:36 minutes left on the clock, and snow on the ground outside the arena. Some people, especially those in the broadcasting booth, do apprise us of arcane facts like those. But we have learned to mute everything they say and just look at the win-loss column. If a team is struggling by this point in the season, with no prospect of improvement, it is a GM’s duty to make a move—any move—that has a chance of improving the team. But few GMs out there had the guts or talent to construct a deal come Thursday’s trading deadline.

For the most part, I speak of blockbuster deals that should happen more often. Clearly, Garnett in Minnesota is never going to produce a championship. Nor Iverson in Philly, nor Pierce in Boston. But every team that isn’t winning absolutely must attempt to find a combination that does work. Even winning teams who aren’t atop their division should swing for an improvement to bring them over the edge.

One such move I liked was the Clippers trading for Vladamir Radmanovich. While the Clippers got the better end, both teams arguably improved (or at least Seattle got something in return for free agent Radman in Chris Wilcox); likewise, every team that isn’t on top should actively seek trades, year-round. Waiting for the off-season is a poor strategy; does anyone think the Hawks have anything to lose by making a trade right now? Is management content for them to wallow at status quo?

In the rest of the business world, if management strings together poor quarters consecutively, they will see the door. In the NBA, bad performance never touches the GM. The only GMs that get sacked are those that make blatantly foolish decisions, i.e. moronic trades or grossly overpaying (and even overpaying is hardly an offense: almost every team has one or two bad contracts on the books).

It is easy to think of a dozen teams that have no prospects of winning this year, and whose front office was totally indifferent and unwilling to do something about it by trading. For any fan, it is frustrating to watch your team mire in mediocrity without any hope for the rest of the season.

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