Charlotte POBO steps down, Langdon a name to watch as replacement

They can take Griffin

Yeah if offered he wouldn’t turn this down, everything else he’s been offered that he turned down was GM jobs.

The good news is that the assistant GM, Bryson Graham, was always given equal credit on the drafting. Not to mention the draft strategy is pretty well established and should be simple to keep going.

We don't know what's actually going on behind the scenes, but between what has been stated publicly and the results we can see with our own eyes I'm pretty sure the following is accurate.

1) Griff squandered assets by not picking a direction and trying to both compete and develop at the same time. That means instead of getting paid to take on guys like Horford, something OKC did, he paid to take on guys that didn't end up helping the Pels like Steven Adams and Derrick Favors.
2) The team swung and missed repeatedly in the draft the first 2 years. Going for high upside in a draft isn't an inherently bad idea, but they clearly were not good at it.
3) While keeping Gentry was probably more Gayle's suggestion than Griff's plan, Griff fired 2 coaches in his first 2 years. For hiring the 3rd coach, it is believed that Willie was Trajan and Swin's choice.
4) We saw a dramatic shift in draft strategy after failing miserably on high ceiling picks like Jaxson Hayes and Kira Lewis Jr. The new strategy of focusing on older players that have proven they know how to play basketball lead to Herb, Trey, Jose, and Naji. Credit for the improved drafting has been given to Trajan and Bryson.

I'm not saying Griffin was not on board with the direction changes that shifted the team from bad decisions to better decisions, but all indications are that the good decisions have come when Griff has stepped back and allowed others to do their job. Hopefully Griff has learned a lot too and can keep things rolling without Trajan if he leaves. Griff has a few good skills, he just needs to focus on what he's good at and let the staff he hired focus on what they're good at.

1) The original strategy was to compete early in the Zion era Zion's injury and Jrue's request out changed the time.

2) No real argument, but a lot of it is luck. And the Nicolo Melli mistake is 100% on Trajan, not Griff.

Dyson was and is still a good pick. Every team has Kiras and Hayes. But the front office put together a very good team. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

Great article.

At risk of sounding obtuse, what do GMs do in the NBA? When thinking of NBA franchises we're conditioned to think of Griff, Connelly, Morey before Langdon, Lloyd, and Brand. I don't know that I've ever heard of Lauscha having anything to do with Saints roster. It feels like NBA GM is equivalent of like an assistant GM in the NFL? It just seems difficult to evaluate their decision making when there are guys over them and it's unclear what their responsibility even is.