Franchise Fix #6: Clear The Decks
Franchise Fix #5: Know Your Star
On November 13th, the Rockets waived Pops Mensah-Bonsu, a guy who'd played a total of only 13 minutes in their first eight games. The Raptors, Mensah-Bonsu's former team, picked him up off of waivers four days later; Pops hasn't made much more of a splash since returning to Toronto, averaging just over five minutes a night.
This pair of transactions, moving a player from the end of one team's bench to another, made nary a ripple in the unfolding season. Many hardcore NBA fans may not have realized that Pops Mensah-Bonsu had ever left Toronto in the first place; some moderately invested NBA fans may have never even heard of the guy. And yet, his return to Toronto was perhaps the season's most damning example of the Warriors' incompetence.
This is a story about paying attention to detail. This is The Ballad Of Pops Mensah-Bonsu. This is Franchise Fix #7: getting value out all of your roster spots.
Pops Mensah-Bonsu played 283 minutes for the Raptors in '08-'09. That's not a ton, but it equates to about nine games' worth of starters' minutes... that's enough to give you a sense of what a player can do. And in those 283 minutes, Pops left no illusions about his tendencies, grabbing 113 rebounds. He averaged 14.4 rebounds per 36 minutes. That's more than Anthony Randolph averaged, that's more than Andris Biedrins averaged... that's more than Dwight Howard averaged. In fact, had he had enough minutes to qualify, Pops Mensah-Bonsu would have ranked as the best rebounder in the entire NBA last season. And in the thirteen minutes he gave the Rockets this year, he grabbed another four. On the day that Pops cleared waivers, it seemed pretty safe to say that this guy could rebound.
It also seemed pretty safe to say that we couldn't. When Brandan Wright went down on October 4th, our frontcourt was already woefully thin and in need of addressing; the situation not only went unaddressed, but deteriorated further. By November 17th, Biedrins had been already out for four games and Ronny for seven, Azubuike, our best-rebounding swingman, had just gone down for the year, and it had become clear that Mikki's foot issues would prevent him from giving even the mediocre rebounding help he'd historically given. Our only true rebounding asset was Anthony Randolph, and he was (and may still be) in Nellie's doghouse. The upshot of all this was predictable: on November 17th, we were the worst-rebounding team in basketball, and had been outrebounded by at least 15 by each of our last four opponents. We remain on pace to be the worst-rebounding team in league history.
As such, when one of the game's best rebounders hit the waiver wire, you'd think the Warriors' front office would've started connecting some dots. We had a rebounding need as pressing as any NBA team has ever had. And while fourteen of our roster spots were filled by guys who had some type of value or another, our fifteenth was filled by... Devean George, who was only on the team because roster limits precluded us from simply selling Marco Belinelli to the Raptors.
Let's travel back in time five weeks and compare the merits of Pops Mensah-Bonsu to the merits of Devean George. Pops was 26... George was 32. Pops was healthy enough to play, a valuable trait given how short-handed we were at the time... George was not. Pops was great at something we sorely needed... George was not, as even his defense had dipped below average, thanks to a loss of foot speed. Pops had the slight potential, if he learned a couple post moves and some better defensive timing, to be a valuable player in the future... George was most likely on his way out of the league. George's only edge was contractual: he had a $1.6M expiring contract, while Pops only had a $733,000 expiring contract. But contrary to popular belief, small expiring deals don't actually enable big trades. At best, they enable small trades, netting you a guy like Marco Belinelli... or a guy like Pops Mensah-Bonsu.
So when Pops hits waivers, and you're us, the play's pretty obvious: you waive or buy out George and you grab Mensah-Bonsu. What would that have entailed? Making one phone call, sending one fax, and agreeing to take on Pops's salary. That's it. On November 17th, we had (and continue to have) a worse record than Toronto, so we had waiver priority over them; all we needed to do was to signal that we wanted Mensah-Bonsu. We did not. The result? A team with thirteen healthy players, including six bigs, added a useful young power forward at minimum cost. And a team with seven healthy players, including only two bigs, did not.
As I see it, there are six possible reasons why Pops Mensah-Bonsu is not currently a Warrior:
1) We didn’t think he was good enough to bother adding.
2) We thought he had value, but not as much as Devean George's expiring contract.
3) The front office was too busy trying to trade Stephen Jackson to deal with other matters.
4) We were not willing to spend an extra $733,000.
5) Nellie likes the excuse of playing short-handed and undersized.
6) We don't know how to send a fax.
No matter which of the six reasons is true, our front office comes out looking completely incompetent. Pops Mensah-Bonsu is good enough for a bad and injured team to pick up, and he is more valuable than Devean George's expiring contract; if your team’s braintrust thinks otherwise, your team’s braintrust is running a little low on brain. While I’m sure the Jack situation was time-consuming, a decently-run team would have the attention span and energy to work on other roster issues at the same time. $733,000 is little more than a rounding error for an NBA franchise. The “Nellie loves excuses” theory has been bandied about for years, and while I don’t know that I take it seriously, I see where the theory comes from; it’d certainly reflect badly on the team if that were the motivation here. As for the final reason... look, sending a fax is hard. I have botched that task more than once in my day. But I'd like to think the Warriors front office had some cocky young upstart who was capable of putting the paper in the right way and waiting till the ringing stopped to hit "send."
In a league this competitive, you can't succeed if you're not constantly working to upgrade every single part of your team. There is no excuse, especially if you're a bad team, to waste roster spots on zero-upside commodities like Devean George and Mikki Moore, or Rob Kurz, or Troy Hudson and Austin Croshere. You have to wring value from roster spots #13-15, and, if possible, beyond (most of the league's smartest teams hold the rights to at least one overseas player). You have to give yourself every possible chance to find a player who can help.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Wait a minute. If Pops Mensah-Bonsu is so great, why did the Rockets waive him?" Always good to hear from you, Mr. Imaginary Quoted Guy. The answer is simple: the Rockets waived Pops because, unlike us, they're sufficiently stacked in fours and fives without him. The Rockets felt comfortable waiving Pops because their frontcourt is slaughtering people. And while we're here, let's take a gander at this fierce frontcourt. Its members:
• Chuck Hayes, who the Rockets signed out of the D-League
• Luis Scola, whose rights the Rockets acquired in a tiny trade designed to save the Spurs some money
• Carl Landry, a Sonics second-round pick that the Rockets acquired for a future second-round pick
• David Andersen, a Hawks second-round pick that the Rockets acquired for cash and a future second-round pick
• Brian Cook, a cap throw-in in an '09 deadline deal that upgraded Rafer Alston into Kyle Lowry
The Rockets also have two additional big men under contract: Joey Dorsey, another second-rounder whose rights they traded for, currently playing in the D-League, and... dang, I swear there was another one... oh yeah, that's right. Yao Ming, their best player and the face of their franchise, who's out for the season and may possibly never return. Between Yao and Tracy McGrady, the Rockets have lost more talent and payroll to injuries than we could possibly dream of. But last April, when Fitz and the usual Warriors apologists were whining about the season we might have had if healthy, the Rockets weren't whining. They were too busy knocking Portland out of the playoffs and taking the world champs to seven games.
We pray for luck. The Rockets make their own luck. Darryl Morey didn't just sit back and relax because he had Yao Ming under contract; he kept working every angle, turning up every stone, hunting for better players to fill out his roster. He assembled a completely viable 4/5 rotation without signing a single free agent or using a single first-round pick; all he needed were some small lump sums of cash and second-round picks. As a result, even sans Yao, Houston is on pace for a fifth seed. And we think losing Andris Biedrins for six weeks is an excuse for being horrible?
The Warriors need better coaching, but even if they get that, to compete, they will still need to up their talent level. And that means more than just praying that a Chris Bosh will fall into your lap; it means constantly evaluating the guys on hand, and searching the league and the globe for guys that might be more valuable. If that means assigning a nerd to monitor the D-League, then you do that. If it means stranding a scout in the former Soviet Union for six months, then you do that. And if it means annoying every other general manager with your constant inquiries about their promising bottom-tier guys, then you do that, too. It's not sexy, but it's how you turn a 29-win team into a 31-win team, and a 31-win team into a 34-win team, and on up the line. Before you get good, you have to get better.
So. From this day forward in HypotheticalWarriorLand, we will see Mikki Moore and Devean George as the fungible talents they are, and we will not hesitate to drop or trade them in favor of young guys with even slight potential. From this day forward, we will devote more time, money and energy to scouting players from other leagues and other countries. From this day forward, we will heed the Ballad Of Pops Mensah-Bonsu. And from this day forward, we will banish all talk of luck from our Oakland offices. It's time we stopped believing in luck, and started engaging in Rocket science.
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3 comments:
Awsome post yet again (first time I've read someone other than Hollinger or J.E. Skeets even mention Pops). Does it worry you that Morey might be looking to trade for Randolph? Morey vs. Dubs 'braintrust' sounds like a theft.
Stunning post. The part that really jumped out at me was the sheer difficult in getting a fax sent from one office into an entirely different office, not only in another building, but an office under the administration of another basketball team. We may have underestimated this challenge until now, and its effect on the Warriors roster and long-term planning. Luckily this problem is easily fixable with a little patience. Although the Celtics currently have the best fax man in the office, there are competent people out there if you take the time to look, and there is also the option of discovering an unknown, trading a little consistency up front for a greater upside, sticking out the learning curve, and then reaping the benefits in the long term.
"Does it worry you that Morey might be looking to trade for Randolph?"
Dear God, you have no idea. Part of me worries that we're going to trade Randolph for Shane Battier, whose loss of footspeed has quietly signaled the end of his usefulness. It would be thoroughly Warriorsy to add a guy because he was in a New York Times article a year ago.
We need to stay miles away from Morey. Any incoming call with a 713 area code needs to be hung up on pre-emptively.
"Although the Celtics currently have the best fax man in the office, there are competent people out there if you take the time to look, and there is also the option of discovering an unknown, trading a little consistency up front for a greater upside, sticking out the learning curve, and then reaping the benefits in the long term."
I have long coveted the Celtics' fax team. But you're right -- paying top dollar for the game's current big dogs is not always the way to play it. If our competitive window doesn't kick in till '11-'12, there's no reason not to take a project faxer and give him two years to learn the trade.
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