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Is He the Right Man?

carolina-chuck

By carolina-chuck,
in Charlotte Hornets

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carolina-chuck Newbie

carolina-chuck

Posted
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Just something to talk about that had not been mentioned before. 

 

RICH CHO. The question is, is Rich Cho the right guy for this job?

 

I think that he's a guy that we all like. For whatever reason, we just do. Maybe he's Asian and we think that Asian people are just smart? lol. But, really I think it's bc we as fans have been seduced by his philosophy of trying to become the next OKC. 

 

But, have we? NOPE. As much as he have bragged about the OKC philosophy in front of our eyes, we are a long way from that. In his three seasons as the GM of the Bobcats, CHO have made some questionable moves: draft picks (hindsight 20/20): Biyombo, MKG, and Zeller and the hiring of Mike Dunlap. Now, we're left thinking that he's going against his own words/philosophy by trying to win this season and putting us out of a high lottery pick.

 

We all like Cho but when you really look at it, he never really had a respectable background: assistant  GM for OKC and only "one" year as the GM for the Portland Blazers (2010-2011).

 

What's yall take on this?

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Proudiddy Grand Master

Proudiddy

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I've thought about this as well...

And you're right, I get the feeling that among our fan base, Cho is well-liked. I think his background and having helped build the Thunder, as well as NOT being Rod Higgins have all worked in his favor with us, lol.

Now, that being said, my initial thought on this discussion was, "the jury is still out."

BUT, then I thought about a few things, and to this point the answer has to be, "NO, not to this point." Why? Well, look at how our draft picks have panned out so far. Aside from Kemba, everyone else has been a HUGE disappointment. I'm convinced Cody will be a good player in the league. Perhaps even very good. Kemba is very good. But, the problem is, none of the picks have been GREAT. It's possible they will be, but right now, they aren't.

He talked about building through the draft and acquiring assets were the keys to building a winner. We then go out and sign Big Al to a big contract after repeatedly missing on GREAT players in the draft. So, it appears we have abandoned, or at least forgotten, our original strategy he laid out.

Now, what I can say about Cho is that he has been a major upgrade to our front office overall. We have not been raped in any trades since he's been in charge, and in fact, we've come out on top enmity every trade he's made since he's been here. That tells me that he is either really connected throughout the league, or he is just very affable and teams like doing business with him.

Now, back to the negatives... for all the good he's done in trades, his advanced analytics haven't done squat in drafting. So, awesome trading led to us getting two picks in 2011. We got a good core piece, potentially great in Kemba, but what did we do with the other pick (that was actually two picks ahead of Kemba)? We took the exact guy I said we should avoid... and I dont have advanced analytic software, lol. We took Biz. Who did we miss out on? Klay Thompson. Kawhi Leonard. Nikola Vucevic. Kenneth Faried, among others... those are HUGE misses when looking at what Biz is right now. You can't miss like that.

2012, more of the same. We took yet another guy I was certain we shouldn't - MKG. Who did we pass up? Bradley Beal, Dion Waiters, Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes, and Andre Drummond among others. All are pretty much better than MKG is, as of right now, and odds are, they always will be. His offense is just atrocious. IMO, he's a much more athletic Sefolosha. You don't draft "glue guys" with 2nd and 7th overall picks, or you'll suck for a long time. That is why we still suck.

Also, Cho was pretty much fired from Portland. So what happened there? Well, perhaps there isn't a positive correlation there with him being let go, but it's certainly interesting that they are now one of the best teams in the league. The difference? They hit on draft picks and invested wisely. Then again, you have to give Cho credit because he obtained some of those draft picks (like when he famously raped us for Crash lol). But, as I said, Cho appears to be an awesome "trade man," if that's even a term, lol. He definitely knows how to flip things for better and more assets. Where he is failing miserably is what he does after he obtains those assets.

So, IMO, we can't complain too much because he has been A HUGE upgrade over our previous GMs. He is most likely the best we've ever had. We also know he is great in pulling off favorable trades. So, that alone is worth keeping him. He just doesn't draft well at all. Hopefully he stops worry in about stats and metrics and just uses his eyes to decide whether a guy can play ball or not. Hopefully he makes some adjustments or he just gets lucky and hits on a franchise player soon enough. As I said, he's worth keeping for his other abilities, we just have to hope he gets the drafting part figured out.

So, I guess he IS the man for the job after all, he just hasn't been to this point - if that makes any sense at all.

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thatlookseasy Newbie

thatlookseasy

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By far the best GM this franchise has had, makes great trades and gives out sensible contracts.  He was responsible for giving the front office a real long term plan (as far as I can tell the first one the franchise has ever had), and completely turned around the team's salary cap situation (people forget it was a train wreck when he took over).

 

The only thing he has not done well is drafting players, which is unfortunately the most important part of the job with a rebuilding team.  We need to get him some new scouts or something.

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Buzz Newbie

Buzz

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Yes Cho's drafting has been questionable.

 

The MKG and Zeller picks both surprised me when they happened, especially the Zeller pick.  I know it's early in his career, but Zeller is a 7-footer who does not play under the basket much, it seems like he's better when playing like a traditional power forward then when trying to be a stretch four and missing jump shots.

 

I've never understood the passing on Bradley Beal or Ben McLemoure when you need scorers, 3 point shooters.

 

This team is amazing in the fact that they can hang with Indiana and Miami one night, then get killed the next by a lesser team the next.  The big issue is consistency.

 

It also sucked that Jeffery Taylor got hurt, he was starting to develop, he had a great leap and he could also hit the 3 from the corner.  But like everyone else on the team it seems, he also had his cold streaks.

 

What that tells me, even if the team makes the playoffs this year, they are not consistent enough to win 7 game series, so they need more talent, via draft or otherwise.

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Dorian Gray Proficient

Dorian Gray

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We took the exact guy I said we should avoid... and I dont have advanced analytic software, lol. We took Biz. Who did we miss out on? Klay Thompson. Kawhi Leonard. Nikola Vucevic. Kenneth Faried, among others... those are HUGE misses when looking at what Biz is right now. You can't miss like that.

 

This is the biggest thing to me, personally.  Cho seemed absolutely infatuated by Bismack, and I'm not entirely sure why.  Sure, the guy is super athletic, but he was raw as hell as a basketball player and still is.  He was a gigantic project to take with that pick.  And that's not just an "in hindsight" observation.  I went to the draft party at Time Warner that night and everyone around me wanted Kemba and Kawhi.  EVERYONE.  These are fans we're talking about, not experts with all this analytic magic.  Had we done that, there's no need to draft MKG and we probably end up drafting Drummond.  So now you're talking about a core of Kemba, Kawhi and Drummond, which is pretty damn nice.  Does he still take Zeller in this scenario?  Probably, because he had the "Bismack Crush" on him too.  But even in that instance, we don't need to offer Big Al his big contract because now we have two promising young big guys down low and a ton of cap room.  I feel like the poor drafting has really derailed the rebuilding movement.

 

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teeray Rookie

teeray

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I wasn't a huge fan of the Biz pick or the MKG pick. I loved the Kemba pick. Was pretty indifferent about the Zeller pick.

So drafting has been suspect to this point IMO. But he got Big Al here, and he has worked the trade market very well IMO getting assets like draft picks for aging players and bad contracts.

But for him to get over the hump he needs to hit on a draft pick this year.

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