The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

There are a couple of interesting tidbits floating around here, not the least is the story that the Bucks are seriously considering hiring Phoenix Suns’ Director of Player Personnel David Griffin to be the next GM.

It is a little tough to judge Griffin on what he has done since taking his current position since the Suns have one of the most impossible owners in the league to work with in Robert Sarver. Since buying the team, Sarver has mandated that the Suns compete for a championship while still keeping under the luxury tax with a roster that includes three max- or near-max contracts. As a result, Sarver has short-circuited the teams present and future by forcing them to sell picks for cap space. This has served the purpose of weakening their current team (you think having Rajon Rondo and Luol Deng would help them now?), destroying their salary structure (by their math, trading Marion and Marcus Banks for Shaq actually saves them money) and mortgaging their future (no Deng, Rondo, or their first rounders in 2008 or 2010).

But what Griffin did — or, at least was a part of — from 2001 to 2005 was a thing of beauty.

Griffin has been with the Suns for 11 years and was promoted to his current position in August of 2004 after three years as the assistant director of player personnel. His job description as the assistant “included player evaluation for the draft and free agency”, which is a positive thing because in that time the Suns made a series of truly ingenious moves — and one can only assume that came with his input:

2001: Traded for Joe Johnson.
2002: Drafted Amare Stoudemire, a very ballsy pick considering the character and maturity questions surrounding Stoudemire, and the availability of Caron Butler at the time.
2004: Traded Stephon Marbury to New York (which doesn’t really qualify as “ingenious”), collecting a ton of draft picks.
2004: Signed Steve Nash (”ingenious”).
2005: Worked out sign-and-trade for Joe Johnson, netting Boris Diaw and three first round picks.

The Suns have made a series of blunders, some of which may reflect poorly on Griffin (drafting Zarko Cabarkapa, signing Marcus Banks) and some which probably don’t (re-signing Boris Diaw, selling every draft pick they can).

It’s impossible to pass judgement on any GM candidate without actually knowing him, but based on the evidence, David Griffin looks like a solid candidate.

Another name that has been bouncing around a little is that of Raptors assistant GM Maurizio Gherardini. To tell you the truth, I don’t think this rumor has any legs. Apparently Gery Woefel mentioned his name on WSSP, and this got back to the Toronto Sun. The Sun then reported (in my favorite lazy-reporter trick) that “Well-respected Raptors assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini has been linked to the vacant GM post in Milwaukee” in a story that includes nothing attributing it to any source. My guess is that the reporter read about Woefel’s comments on a message board and ran with it.

Gherardini has a reputation as one of the finest basketball minds in Europe, with a front office career that dates back to 1975. His sterling record as the GM of Benneton Treviso from 1992 to 2006 (seven Italian Cups and three Italian Supercups, which sounds really cool) is where his reputation was really made.

However, Gherardini has only worked for the Raptors for two seasons, and thus has spent relatively little time actually involved with American players (besides those who weren’t quite good enough for the NBA and were looking to play in Italy). Also, being successful as the GM of a team like Benneton isn’t all that impressive — most European leagues are set up so that the teams with the most free-spending owners are able to set up Yankees-style juggernaunts that result in championships usually being distributed among the same three or four teams every year.

Maybe my ugly-American bias is showing, but I can’t really see how Gherardini would have the familiarity with American players or the connections with other front-office members to be an effective GM. I’m sure he’s a great guy to have around for his insights on European players, though.