Why Are NBA GMs So Bad? Enter: Sonics new GM Pestri

The world of professional sports is basically a carousel of former players and coaches, which goes round and round until one of them dies, or new blood is introduced via the pathways paved by one of the old school. "Oh, young Douglas? He was an assistant at UNC for 10 years and attended Coach Wooden's camp every year. Bring him in."

But the NBA seems to flaunt this inbred style of personnel moves more than any other pro league. Surely, the coaching circuit is an old boys network. But we want to analyze one particular job in the NBA that baffles us: General Managers. Why, in a world of openly disclosed contracts and simple player evaluations, are NBA GM’s doing such poor work? And why is the changing of the guard taking so long to go into effect?

Sure, the “old boy network” happens in baseball, when the managerial candidates for a vacant job are all up and coming pitching coaches, or bench assistants, but the 65-year old retread is brought in thanks to his "track record" in the clubhouse, or some such thing. But the trend is changing on the diamond with more and more younger faces gracing the dugout. The bench assistants are more often those grizzled faces nowadays, than the managers. The major hot spot is now with GMs in baseball as they are likewise whiz kids with new ideas and a fresh approach to analyzing organizational resources. It's a complex sport with multiple positions, an ever widening international talent pool, and a multi-layered system of minor leagues. There's always room in baseball for a new idea, and a different take on the same old game. That's why it endures, despite no major rule changes in generations.

Billy Beane and Theo Epstein are the golden boys of baseball new GM renaissance. Brian Cahsman of the Yankees was 30 when he took over. John Daniels of the Rangers was born in 1977 for chrissake. Josh Byrnes of the Diamondbacks was 35 when hired after an internship under Theo and the Sox.

Basketball is different, though. The NBA, in particular, is a closed environment. It's a place where the sport that has captured the world's imagination over the last 20 years has gone to stagnate and die. Euroleague is far more innovative and exciting than the NBA, despite having inferior quality talent and a more diluted structure. Why?

The reason that the Euroleague is thriving and the quality of the sport is making leaps and bounds is because European clubs have invested in building. The NBA invests in marketing.

Many European clubs, for example, are part of a larger sports family that owns soccer franchises run like multi-national corporations. European soccer franchises like Real Madrid make US sports organizations look like mom and pop operations, stuck on an old dusty Main Street. They invest in research, medical technology, and multi-layered club systems that bring in young talent from all over the world and nurture it until it's ready for prime time. Those clubs take the word "organization" to another level.

The NBA is easy to figure. There are only so many people with any power in an organization. The GMs generally come from the ranks of the former coaches that couldn't find work, but know their way around the league. The coaches are similarly connected, and maybe you'll see a former assistant get a crack. The problem with the NBA is that there is no vision. No one has a vision and the courage to follow it.

The best visionary decision making has taken place with the hiring of Mike D'Antoni and his system in Phoenix. Enter Steve Kerr to run things. It's the Toronto hire of the people from Benetton Treviso. Hell, Mark Cuban is the owner that skirts the description I made just a moment ago. He flipped the Mavericks (fittingly) on their heads and did things differently. Yeah, he's a goofball, but he's also the kind of spark that the NBA needs to break out of the Stone Age.

The NBA was in this kind of situation before. The ABA was exciting and innovative and fun. The NBA was the Celtics, traditional and stoic and professional. There's certainly more to it than that, however. The ABA tried new things. There was the multi-colored ball and the afros and the fast break. There was an All Star Game that featured a slam dunk contest. The NBA was conservative and locked in the yester year of American society.

The same thing is being repeated today. The NBA is corporate. The NBA is standing in mud. No new ideas, unless you call the various silly rules changes that have gone on every year for the past 15 new ideas.

Where is basketballs version of Bill James? Where are the pioneers of advanced metrics in the sport of basketball? Bill James created a new way to look at the very old and traditional environment of baseball by challenging some of the myths that persisted about how to play. Is it really worth giving up a sac bunt? Run Expectancy charts now tell us no. Is Player X more valuable to my team than the guy on the bench or the guy banging down my door for a tryout? Clay Davenport and the people at Baseball Prospectus continue to challenge the way organizations make decisions about talent and value. Value Over Replacement Player, or VORP is just such a statistic, and you can bet that the best GMs in baseball consider it a powerful tool in their bag of tricks.

Ask Theo Epstein. Ask Billy Beane. Ask Brian Cashman.

Basketball is on the verge of dealing with its environment in this way, but advanced metrics have hardly caught on in any real way. You have people at www.82games.com and at www.basketball-reference.com providing a different look at the sport via data, but it is hardly pervasive. The encouraging sign at this point is the inclusion of additional stats at NBA.com and other popular sports outlets. You see efficiency ratings and data per 48 minutes for the first time now. A positive move in the right direction.

Yes, Ray-Ray, a 31-year old kid from Emerson College is now your boss.

Now let’s take a look at an NBA team taking a risk on new, young GM talent. Adding a young, progressive GM to their club is potentially a saving point for a franchise like the Sonics, teetering precariously on the edge of becoming obselete. If young 31-year old Pestri brings any fresh ideas to the table it will help not only the Seattle club, but just may prove to be the nudge needed to have other clubs follow suit. You may see more Mike D'Antonis and more Don Nelsons at the helms of NBA franchises.

Seattle is basically trying to poach the Spurs philosophy by hiring a young kid to run their squad. Yes, Ray Allen, this little red haired kid has your future in his hands. Goodbye Rashard Lewis, Hello Kevin Durant. And why not? Pestri surely knows just as much about hoops as Isiah Thomas or Danny Ainge from a player evaluation sense. And Pestri surely won’t make the moronic free agent and trade moves of the good old boys. Why? Because he is smarter and shrewder and not interested in giving Mark Aguirre a job for no reason.

What we've seen since is the natural decline of a league which never had fresh new ideas, but rather a stretch of good fortune created by a series of unrelated but collectively dynamic events. It's up to outside forces to change the league, and it looks like they may actually be pressing their cases enough to have that chance. I like Toronto. I like Dallas. I like Phoenix. I like the new direction of the Sonics. If we're lucky, even more new faces will enter and bring new value to the league. If we're lucky the faces that are already starting the change will not stop where they are now. More needs to be done, but it can happen. Keep the faith and demand a better product as fans because no old boy GMs are going to give it to you.