On Highsight: Our FO Could Have Done Better

San Antonio’s front office, underrated as it is, is considered by many as one of the best in the league.  Whether in terms of drafting relatively unknown players, or pulling off shrewd trades and signings, the Spurs organization is a model that everyone else wants to emulate.  I, on the other hand, am a grumpy fan and want to nitpick: I think we could have done better.  Read on to find more reasons to crucify me.

Since that fateful day in 1997, when the balls bounced our way, the Spurs, in my opinion, have had six quality picks.  Yes, just six in almost thirty picks.  Two of those, we all know, turned out to be coups--Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.  Here are my other four.

In 2002 the Spurs drafted John Salmons, who has recently proved to be a decent player, albeit playing for the Kings.  That seems to be a decent draft pick, except when you realize (which you actually already know) that the Spurs immediately traded him.  This could easily be seen as a mistake.  But the fact that the person he was traded for, Speedy Claxton, was used extensively in the 2003 playoffs--including the championship-clinching game--balances it out a bit.

Claxton’s semi-heroics, however, would not have been too necessary had the Spurs not traded their next quality draft pick, the Brazilian Blur, Leandro Barbosa.  One could argue that trading that pick eventually landed us a championship.  We traded Barbosa to the Suns for a 2005 pick.  Then, we used that pick to trade for Nazr Mohammed, who helped us win the 2005 championship.  This is valid, but weak: Although he started a lot of games, Nazr’s numbers could have easily been replaced by Rasho and Horry and/or another big.  Besides, that 2005 pick turned out to be David Lee.  I would definitely take Barbosa over Claxton, and David Lee over Mohammed.

George Hill also proved to be a good pick at the end of the first round in 2008--certainly a lot better than the PG picked at around the same spot four years earlier, Beno Udrih.  The Slovenian guard hasn’t been quite the player that the Spurs had hoped he would be.  Hill, on the other hand, seems to impress his coaches more and more each day.

The sixth quality pick, of course, is Luis Scola.  We messed that up.  Enough said.

That gives us the six quality picks I was talking about: Manu, Tony, Salmons, Scola, Barbosa, and Hill.  Three of those, we traded.  What makes it worse is that aside from those draft hits that we traded, there is a number of draft misses that could have been used for very good players instead.  In 1998, we passed on Earl Boykins, Mike James and Brad Miller.  That could’ve been 10 pts 4 assists, or 12-8-3.  Instead, we got Derrick Dial, who as an NBA veteran, barely made noise in the D-League.  In 2000 we picked Chris Carrawell, who never played, over Michael Redd.  In 2001 we drafted Bryan Bracey instead of Carlos Arroyo, Jamario Moon, or Andres Nocioni.  I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.  Of course, as this post’s title suggests, I know that highsight is 50/50.  But still, looking back, I can say that we could have done so much better.

People, Spurs fans or not, have been praising the Spurs FO for their wily picks and excellent moves.  But this shows how the FO isn’t really the draft thief everyone made them out to be.  We’re still on a wait-and-see approach on the verdict on Ian Mahinmi, Tiago Splitter and our 2009 draftees.  Blair seems promising and will probably contribute a lot this season, but even if you count him, that makes the FO seven for 28, or 25%.  Considering that a team basically has two draft picks a year, that means that we’ll get one good player every two years.  That’s just not good enough for this hypercritical fan.

Go ahead, Spurs FO.  Keep that up and I’ll take to rooting for the Knicks.

Okay, maybe not.

Here's the raw (i.e., unaesthetically formatted) data I used.  What I deem were good moves are in bold, similarly colored cells are corollary moves, and players in parentheses were drafted by another team.

 

PLAYER	CLASS	PICK	NOTES
Tim Duncan	1997	1
(Charles O'Bannon)	1997	32	Traded to Detroit; We could've gotten Capt Jack
Felipe Lopez	1998	24	Traded to Vancouver for Antonio Daniels
Derrick Dial	1998	52	D League; Over Earl Boykins, Mike James, Brad Miller
Leon Smith	1999	29	Traded to Dallas for the rights to Gordon Giricek and draft pick; over Chris Andersen, Raja Bell
Manu Ginobili	1999	57
(Dalibor Bagaric)	2000	24	Pick traded to Chi
Chris Carrawell	2000	41	Over Michael Redd, Brian Cardinal, Jason Hart; didn’t play
Cory Hightower	2000	54	Traded to LA for future picks
Tony Parker	2001	28
Robertas Javtokas	2001	56	Still in Europe (born in 1980); from LA
Bryan Bracey	2001	58	Over Carlos Arroyo, Maurice Evans, Jamario Moon, Andres Nocioni
John Salmons	2002	26	Traded to Philly for Speedy Claxton
Luis Scola	2002	55	From LA
Randy Holcomb	2002	56	Traded to Philly for Speedy Claxton
Leandro Barbosa	2003	28	Traded to Suns for the pick that turned out to be David Lee
(Andreas Glyniadakis)	2003	30	Pick traded to Detroit for Menkee Bateer
Beno Udrih	2004	28	Over Varejao, Chris Duhon, Trevor Ariza
Viktor Sanikidze	2004	42	From Atlanta for the pick that turned out to be Cenk Akyol
Romain Sato	2004	52	Pick from Grizz for Gordon Giricek; He has been waived
Sergei Karaulov	2004	57	Overseas
Ian Mahinmi	2005	28	Over David Lee, Brandon Bass, Ronny Turiaf, Von Wafer, Monta Ellis
(David Lee)	2005	30	Pick traded to NY, along with Malik Rose, for Nazr
(Cenk Akyol)	2005	59	Traded for Sanikidze
(Mardy Collins)	2006	29	Pick traded to NY, along with Malik Rose, for Nazr; we could've gotten Steve Novak, Boobie Gibson, Leon Powe, Paul Millsap
Damir Markota	2006	59	Traded to Bucks for 2007 pick (Marcus Williams); over JJ Barea, Walter Herrmann
Tiago Splitter	2007	28	Over Carl Landry
Marcus Williams	2007	33	From Bucks; Over Glen Davis, Josh McRoberts, Marc Gasol
Giorgos Printezis	2007	58	Traded to Toronto for 2008 pick
George Hill	2008	26	Over Mario Chalmers
Goran Dragic	2008	45	From Toronto, traded to Phoenix for Malik Hairston and 2009 pick (Blair)
James Gist	2008	57	Over Joe Crawford*
(Rodrigue Beaubois)	2009	25	Pick traded to OK, along with Barry and Elson, for KT
DeJuan Blair	2009	37
Jack McClinton	2009	51
Nando De Colo	2009	53	Who we got for Scola
(Robert Vaden)	2009	54	Pick traded to Cha for Ely