Re: Rant on Peter May article

[Kestas <kkv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:51 AM 2/8/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> There are so many things that bug me about this article but I'll try to 
> stay focused on the key points. For one, the piece is a split between 
> May's usual slip into "Captain Obvious" mode (yes, the Baker trade is a 
> disaster, and yes, at this point it would be nice to have Amare Stoudemire 
> and Tony Parker over Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte) and a headtrip into 
> 20/20 hindsight, which to me is sports journalism at its worst. You have 
> on several occasions made the point that the local media made little 
> mention of the loss of David Eckstein to the waiver wire at the time yet 
> have since continued to bemoan the move as another example of Red Sox 
> front office incompetence. I believe the same principle applies here. For 
> example:
>
> -It seems obvious now that the C's should have held onto the Denver pick 
> instead of using it in 2001. However, at the time, the Nuggets had 
> improved by about 10 games that year with McDyess, Van Exel, and LaFrentz. 
> Yes, Dan Issel was incompetent but that didin't mean you should bet the 
> bank on it. It was a tougher call that May portrays it to be and only in 
> hindsight can you see the true ramifications of it now.
I can't believe this specious, yet constantly recurring argument that we 
can't really blame a team's management for its screwups because the media 
and the fans didn't foresee the right course of action either. Dude, if the 
management can't do better than the media and the fans in obtaining the 
right personnel for their team, why the hell does the team need these 
people in the first place? It's not the fans and the media who are being 
paid millions of dollars to make the correct decision. It's like saying a 
pilot shouldn't be blamed for crashing a plane due to his incompetence, 
because the passengers and the flight attendants couldn't fly the plane any 
better than the pilot.
As for Wallace, he doesn't even have that excuse in his defense - just 
about everybody saw what a disaster the Baker trade was going to be for the 
Celtics, and most fans' preferred  picks in the 2001 draft were also better 
that the BDT's.  If you'd listed all the available trades and draft picks 
on a board and thrown darts at it blinfolded, you'd do better than the BDT. 
Dumb & Dumber are doing worse than chance, folks.
Kestas