quote:
Grevis Vasquez is lights out this year.

Gordon is a max contract "top 3 SG"

Aminu is having a career year.

Ryan Anderson is a top 10 PF in the league.

Davis should be rookie of the year.

Lopez is having a career year.

First of all, you KNOW that's not true (which is why I assume you put it in quotes). Second, Monty almost certainly had a pretty big say so in getting every one of those players here (including EG's potentially bad contract, as well as AD, who was a no brainer).

He is making some terrible decisions/rotations, and the team is underachieving for a supposedly defensive minded coach, but he also seems to be doing a fairly good job developing talent (masterful job with the underachieving Aminu) and finding undervalued players (Vasquez, Ryno, to a lesser extent Lopez). And, given what's happened since the start of February, we can't overlook that Rivers may have actually been a good pick. Given that AD was a sure thing, Rivers is the only other 1st round pick that Monty has been involved with choosing.

Right now, based on his short career, I'd compare him to Andy Reid: does a lot of really good things to go along with some bafflingly stupid gameday decisions, especially in crunch time. It will be a tough decision for Benson to make. You could say that he deserves to finish what he started and complete the team that he wants with the substantial capspace we'll be having next season, something that he hasn't had the opportunity to do since coming here. He could also just as easily focus on Monty's bad decisions and decide that he doesn't want him having a say so in the most immportant offseason since 2009 (after the Spurs series).

Finally, everything I just said may be bullshite if Demps was the main guy behind Rivers, Ryno, Vasquez, and Lopez. That would leave Monty as a factor in developing Aminu (clearly) and possibly Vasquez (his improvement is a bit overstated as I think he was really underlooked last year) to go along with a lot of iffy in game decisions. I don't think any of us have any way of knowing exactly how big of a role Monty has in trades/draft picks.

ETA: Let's not forget the Okafor/Ariza trade, which pretty much said "frick the 2012/13 season, let's sacrifice it in favor of 2013/14 flexibility." It would be unfair to let him make that trade (that I'm pretty sure 100% of the people on this forum supported) and not letting him survive the benefit.

This post was edited on 3/7/13 at 4:49 am