Was Kevin O'Connor a Good GM? Part 13

Unlucky number 13 for Kevin O'Connor, but lucky number 100 for me! This is my 100th post to this blog, and it has been a really fun, if inconsistent ride. I haven't done a good job of balancing the sports with the superheroes here (especially since I don't get to watch much sports anymore), but my most significant and well-read posts here have been sports related, especially my stories on Gary Sheide and Harvey Unga. Both of those stories definitely could have had more quotes and detail, but I am pretty proud of them because I think they answered some BYU fans' questions that most of the media had kind of neglected. However, the post that got by far the most reads had nothing to do with sports or superheroes. It was my farewell ode to The Daily Universe. I think I was able to write what most people were thinking about that situation, and it got passed around from current and former DU workers and BYU faculty. It was a rather passionate topic. Even a year later, it's still pretty passionate for me. But enough about me, this post was supposed to be about Kevin O'Connor!

A long time ago (longer than I care to admit) I decided to answer the question whether Kevin O'Connor was a good GM. I wanted my answer to be as comprehensive as possible, so I've spent a bit of time examining every move he's made as the general manager of the Utah Jazz. But I took to long. O'Connor has since gone into a semi-retirement and named a Spurs front office man, Dennis Lindsey, the new GM. Luckily for me, however, Lindsey has literally done nothing so far, so this is still very much O'Connor's team and I believe the franchise will be feeling the effects of his tenure for quite some time, for better and worse. Anyway, since this is my 100th post, I'll do something a little special and take a look at O'Connor's last "full" season during the lockout and everything else he did before the start of this season.

Season 13: 2011-12

Thanks to the Deron Williams trade (that is looking better and better every day), the Jazz ended up with the 3rd overall pick in addition to their own pick at No. 12. Getting two lottery picks is a surefire way to kickstart the rebuilding process. Unfortunately, this was the wrong draft to have two lottery picks. With the upcoming lockout, a few of the better prospects decided to spend one more year in college. However, one local prospect was coming fresh off the best season in his school's history, and he appeared to have a skill the Jazz were sorely lacking. Even the strongest Jimmer fans had to admit that No. 3 was a bit of a reach, but No. 12 ...

With the third pick, the Jazz took 7-footer Enes Kanter. I first heard about Kanter in a New York Times piece (of all places). It focused mainly on how the NCAA ruled him ineligible to play at Kentucky because he was allegedly paid to play basketball in Turkey, thus forfeiting his amateur rights. The article tried to portray him as a victim, but I felt no remorse. I still strongly dislike Kentucky, and I was glad to see them get caught breaking the rules. Anyway, the important point here is that Kanter had went without playing competitive basketball for more than a year, and nobody knew how good he was. But the Jazz decided to draft him based on that magical and oh-so-dangerous word: potential. People said he would've been the top pick had he played in college, and in the long scheme of things he'll end up as the best player from the 2011 draft. That remains to be seen. In his rookie year, Kanter had limited playing time behind Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson, but he was one of only two Jazz players to appear in all 66 games (Gordon Hayward was the other). I'd say for the most part, Kanter has not been very good, but he has been showing some signs of promise recently. Just the other day he had 23 points and 22 rebounds in his second career start. Yes, that was against the Bobcats, but it was still nice to see.

Unfortunately, the Bucks took Jimmer Fredette with the 10th pick and sent him to the worst possible situation for him — the Sacramento Kings. (I still think he can make it in the NBA, he just needs to get away from a team with 10 ball hogs on it.) Many BYU/Jazz fans were crushed by this, but I think Kevin O'Connor was secretly relieved. He didn't want to feel forced to pick Jimmer — and he shouldn't have had to feel that way — but I truly believe Jimmer could have and still could be the missing piece the Jazz need. Seriously, they have not had a good shooting guard since Jeff Hornacek, and he retired a decade ago. So with the 12th pick, O'Connor ended up grabbing a necessary shooting guard in Alec Burks. No, he's not a shooter, but he can get to the rim and score points (he averaged 7.2 ppg his rookie year). Currently, Tyrone Corbin has him playing slightly out of position as the backup point guard. I don't think it's really been working.

Sadly, the Jazz didn't have a second round pick (those always seem to work better for O'Connor). The Jazz had sent it to Chicago in order to get a trade exception from Carlos Boozer. But two lottery picks makes up for not having a second-rounder. Of course, it is still too early to judge Kanter and Burks, but I really would have liked to see the Jazz end up with Kawhi Leonard and Kenneth Faried — two guys who are both playing really well for their respective teams right now.

O'Connor's next item of business was to pick up the option on the contract of one of his pet projects — C.J. Miles. I'm going to say it right now: He spent four years too many with the Jazz. We just kept waiting and waiting for him to develop, but it never happened. Maybe he just wasn't aggressive enough. Maybe he worried too much about putting on weight early in his career and helplessly watched that extra weight turn into slowing fat. In any case, I was sick and tired of Miles in his seventh year in Utah, which, mercifully, was his last. He was coming off a career high 12.8 points per game, but his shooting numbers took a dip in 2011-12, and his scoring fell to 9.1 ppg. Today, he is in Cleveland, doing basically the same thing.

The lockout was an incredibly frustrating moment because everybody knew it was going to happen years in advance, but nobody did anything to prevent it. They just let it happen and didn't get serious about negotiating until they realized they could start the season on Christmas, which was all they really wanted. Naturally the lockout didn't change anything and I'm certain there'll be another one as soon as this CBA expires. Anyway, O'Connor didn't have to do anything to do until December, and then he had to hastily throw together some players to fill out the roster. In a curious choice, he decided to focus on old washed-up players who hadn't had a significant moment since 2007. Josh Howard, Jamaal Tinsley and ex-Jazzman Keith McLeod were all brought in to the hasty excuse of a training camp they had. McLeod proved too worn-out and didn't make the team, but Howard and Tinsley surprisingly did. Both these guys had long histories of injuries, drugs and being all-around nuisances. For several years, the Indiana Pacers paid Tinsley millions of dollars to stay away from the team. But old and broken, these guys were now humble players, just grateful to have one more chance to be in the league. For a while there, Howard was somewhat of a surprise, and looked like a major steal for the Jazz. Yes, he was a bit ball-hogish, but he had undeniable talent. But then injuries derailed him again. He only lasted 43 games and averaged 8.7 ppg. This year, he tried another comeback with Minnesota, but only lasted 11 games. Tinsley hasn't gotten much playing time as the third-string point guard, but he, too, has shown a few little flashes of the brilliance he once had. Out of necessity, the Jazz brought him back this year, but he has been hampered by injuries.

When it became apparent that Memo Okur would never play at a high level again, O'Connor asked himself who the biggest sucker in the NBA was. He immediately came to New Jersey, who was happy to reunite Okur with D-Will for the low price of a second round pick and a trade exception. Guess what? Okur did nothing in New Jersey and got traded to Portland, who immediately released him. It really was a tragic end to his career, but at least O'Connor didn't have to give up a quality asset to dump his contract like he did with Matt Harpring.

In February, O'Connor had to grab a couple more players to fill in for injuries. The first was DeMarre Carroll, a high-energy small forward, who surprisingly worked his way into the starting lineup and has deservedly earned a spot on this year's roster. The other guy was Blake Ahearn, a shooter who was never really given a chance. He's out of the league now, so I guess he really sucked in practice.

The lockout season was frustrating. For one thing, I blame the NBA for allowing an inferior product to be on the floor through all the back-to-back-to-backs and lack of training camp, etc. But I also grew weary of everybody using the lockout as the ultimate excuse for anything and everything that went wrong. I was also not a fan of Tyrone Corbin nor the team O'Connor had put together for him. He was finally free of Kirilenko's contract of death, but was unable to do anything inspiring with that added financial flexibility. Instead, he found himself in another rebuilding effort, but without a clear direction. The best guys weren't good enough to take the team very far, and the young, promising guys weren't given the room to develop or prove themselves.

Al Jefferson led the way with 19.2 ppg and 9.6 rpg. Not quite the 20-10 the Jazz needed/expected, plus he averaged an underwhelming 2.9 free throw attempts per game. I know this isn't a fair comparison, but Karl Malone's career low was 5 free throw attempts per game in his rookie season. When the team's leading scorer is a big man, he needs to get to the line more than three times a game. It's just an absolute necessity. Paul Millsap averaged 16.6 ppg and 8.8 rpg. He's become a rather interesting player for the Jazz. He used to be hands-down my favorite because of his energy and hustle, and while he's continued that for the most part, I feel like he hasn't developed into the kind of player he could have become. He's grown a bit moodier with age, and will periodically fall into slumps — the worst was after he was snubbed for the All-Star game. I also think he's really become limited trying to share the post with Jefferson. Millsap was great playing alongside Okur, but has always felt really awkward next to Big Al. Another strange thing with Millsap has been his 3-point shooting. In a couple of big games, he inexplicably made some miracle 3s, and since has become accustomed to launching many ill-advised 3s in close games. If he would develop a 3-point shot, he could spend more time at small forward (a move that was rather successful for Utah). But Millsap hasn't become a good, or even a decent 3-point shooter, yet he keeps taking them. It truly is perplexing.

Utah's third-leading scorer was a surprise for me: Gordon Hayward with 11.8 ppg. He really is developing into a pretty good player. I'd like to see him get a few more rebounds and become a more consistent 3-point shooter, but so far, I have been pleasantly pleased with him. Next on Utah's scoring chart was Devin Harris with 11.3 ppg and 5 apg. Those numbers just did not cut it for Deron Williams' replacement. Ultimately, Harris did not fit in with the Jazz. He could not consistently get the ball to Utah's bigs and he could never figure out how to take advantage of his great speed. On more than one occasion, his teammates and coaches publicly pleaded with him to be more aggressive. It just never happened. But one bright spot for the Jazz was the emergence of Derrick Favors, who put up 8.8 ppg and 6.5 rpg. Unfortunately, his playing time has been limited behind Jefferson and Millsap, and O'Connor did not do anything about that. More on this later.

One sore spot for the Jazz was Raja Bell. He started the first 33 games of the year and averaged 6.7 ppg, but he was not the lockdown defender he once was, and the Jazz were actually quite dreadful with him on the floor. He got hurt, which turned out to be a blessing for the Jazz, then when he came back, he got into a fight with Tyrone Corbin and was benched. Apparently the fight was so bad that he didn't even come back to training camp this year. O'Connor did not move him, and he has a listed salary of nearly $3.5 million this year to stay away from the team. I don't know how much of that he's getting, but I consider this one of O'Connor's latest failures.

The other two Jazz players I've haven't talked about yet are Earl Watson and Jeremy Evans. Watson continued his trend of doing nothing spectacular, but everything else rather decent. He's a reliable backup point guard, but he did get a bit bent out of shape when Tinsley replaced him while he was hurt. The Jazz did, however, convince him to come back this year, but he has spent a bit of time being hurt again. Evans again only would come in for an occasional alley-oop, but this earned him a spot in the dunk contest. The poor contest is now worse than ever with the league allowing fans to now vote for the winner through texting and Twitter. Somehow, Evans was able to pull off the victory, despite a really lame sequence he had with the painfully un-funny Kevin Hart giving him Karl Malone's jersey. He did have a nice dunk over Hayward, though. This year, he went back to defend his title, but didn't really have anything that new to show off. He dunked over (a sitting) Mark Eaton, and then for his grand finale dunked on a painting he painted of himself dunking on his painting. He lost and the dunk contest lost big time. It's now gotten so bad that Magic Johnson has offered to pay LeBron James $1 million to join the contest. Like that'll ever happen. Anyway, back to basketball that matters.

When Kevin O'Connor traded away Deron Williams, he should have put the Jazz in full rebuilding mode. New coach, new team. Start fresh with everything. It would have been annoying to have to restart again so soon, but Boozer was already gone and Memo was lost, so it really would have been the prudent thing to do. Instead, O'Connor tried to keep a competitive core of veterans together to return to the playoffs. But Harris couldn't figure anything out, Bell got put in the doghouse, and Howard got hurt. So while the remaining pieces did comprise a playoff team, it was a 36-30 playoff team that snuck into the eighth seed by the skin of its teeth, only to be mercilessly swept by the Spurs. The weirdest thing about this was absolutely nobody wanted the Jazz to go to the playoffs this year. Everybody knew they'd get swept, and they'd rather have the lottery pick to prepare for the future. But the Jazz went to the playoffs anyway, and they had to constantly defend themselves for doing so. When you have to defend yourself to your fans for wanting to make the playoffs, you know something is wrong.

As a result of the Al Jefferson trade, the Jazz lost their first-round pick, which was only lottery protected. There was a chance they could have had Golden State's pick from the Deron Williams trade, but that was top-7 protected, and the Warriors were much more adept at tanking than the Jazz, and were able to keep their pick. So after suffering an embarrassing defeat in the playoffs, the Jazz went into the 2012 draft will only the 47th pick. Everybody reminded us that Millsap was the 47th pick, but I don't think the Jazz's pick this year, Kevin Murphy, will have a Millsap-like career. Murphy was a big scorer in a little school, Tennessee Tech, and he has so far done absolutely nothing in the NBA.

Knowing that he would soon be retiring, Kevin O'Connor then quickly completed the last couple of moves on his bucket list. His first move was to rectify what he considered his biggest mistake — letting Mo Williams go. I really don't know what O'Connor sees in him. Yes, he did sneak into one All-Star game because he happened to be the default second-best player on a Cavs teams carried by LeBron James, but other than that, Mo Williams hasn't been that good. In fact, many Cavs fans blame him for costing them a title. But that didn't stop O'Connor. He involved himself in a good old-fashioned super-complicated four-team trade involving trade exceptions and draft rights to guys who will never play in the NBA to bring Mo back to Utah.

Now that he had his desired point guard, O'Connor needed to get rid of Devin Harris (who really needed out, anyway). For some reason, though, the best available player for Harris was notorious draft bust Marvin Williams. Remember Marvin Williams? He came off the bench while at North Carolina, but Atlanta was so excited by his potential, they took him in the draft ahead of Deron Williams and Chris Paul. Marvin has not done anything really good his entire NBA career, and he was recently called the worst small forward in the NBA by ESPN. I think I believe it.

O'Connor's final move as the Jazz GM was yet another attempt at replacing Jeff Hornacek. This time it was Randy Foye, who has been ... OK, I guess. I don't know, I haven't seen many Jazz games this year partly because I'm so busy at work, but mostly because I don't like the Jazz anymore. Things really did start to slip after Larry H. Miller died, then they took a drastic fall once Jerry Sloan left. And now look at the Jazz. Not too long ago, they suffered their worst home defeat in franchise history. Franchise history! Do you know how bad the New Orleans Jazz were? Larry Miller and Jerry Sloan would have never allowed their team to lose by 45 on their home court. Sure they could lose by 20 or so, but 45? Part of the blame lies with Greg Miller, a lot of it with Tyrone Corbin, and a sizable chunk belongs to Kevin O'Connor. In any case, he really has not helped the situation. The last three moves he did were fine, but he failed to make the most important move of addressing Utah's log-jammed front court.

And so, on Aug. 7, 2012, Kevin O'Connor officially stepped down and named Dennis Lindsey the new general manager of the Utah Jazz. O'Connor is still with the team in an advisory role, and it remains unclear how much he's been pulling the strings this year. In any case, nothing has happened. Lindsey inherited a team that could maybe make the sixth or seventh seed of the playoffs, but really needed to be blown up and rebuilt. He needed to do something about Raja Bell and he needed to move either Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson. These were just no-brainer necessities. However, Lindsey and the Jazz decided the best plan of action this year would be to ride things out and see what happens in the offseason. So the Jazz have struggled this year. There are too many good low post players who can't get on the court, the backcourt has struggled behind three old and perpetually injured point guards, and as far as I know, Raja Bell is being paid more than $3 million dollars to do absolutely nothing. It'll be really interesting to see what happens to the Jazz in the future. I really do not like Tyrone Corbin as the coach, but I think there are some promising pieces on the team in Kanter, Favors, Hayward and Burks. I don't know if Lindsey will be a good or bad GM — so far he hasn't done anything.

So now we've arrived at the moment you've all been waiting for: Was Kevin O'Connor a Good GM?

Let's quickly review: In 13 seasons, he saw the Jazz make the playoffs nine times and win three division titles. He was bold and wild at times, conservative and stubborn at others. Around the league, he had the reputation of being one of the smartest GMs in the NBA. Among Jazz fans, his name was constantly cursed when things went wrong, but rarely praised when things were good. He oversaw the twilight years of the Stockton-Malone dynasty and saw his own Boozer-Williams dynasty quickly fade away. He benefited from a passionate, hands-on owner, who probably did a lot to keep him in check, and he had a Hall of Fame coach who constantly found ways to win no matter who was on the roster. But once both of those guys were gone, things got kind of ugly. With the team stuck in the dreaded position of being too good for the lottery but to bad for the playoffs, O'Connor decided it was time to bow out. He inherited the team right after it made it to the Finals. He gave it to Lindsey right after it got swept in the first round.

Every GM makes a lot of mistakes. Legendary GM Jerry West said the best GMs get it right about half the time. So did O'Connor get it right half the time? Let's look at his biggest failures and successes:

Failures:

• Drafting DeShawn Stevenson
• Drafting Raul Lopez
• Trading for Curtis Borchardt
• Signing John Amaechi
• Trading for Keon Clark
• Drafting Kris Humphries
• Drafting Kirk Snyder
• Signing Andrei Kirilenko to a 7-year max extension
• Letting Raja Bell go in 2005
• Trading away Eric Maynor
• Trading away Ronnie Brewer
• Letting Wesley Matthews go
• Failing to trade or release Raja Bell in 2012
• Failing to trade Paul Millsap or Al Jefferson

Successes:

• Signing Matt Harpring
• Trading Keon Clark for Tom Gugliotta and draft picks
• Signing Memo Okur
• Signing Carlos Boozer
• Trading up for and drafting Deron Williams
• Drafting Paul Millsap
• Trading for Derek Fisher
• Trading Deron Williams for Derrick Favors and draft picks

I'll admit putting together that list was eye-opening. It was easy to spot the failures — the only real challenge was determining if something was significant enough to mention. Finding the successes was a bit of a challenge. Most of the ones I did pick only had short-term results, and I'm really not sure about a couple of them. Boozer did help the Jazz a lot, but after a few years they couldn't wait to get rid of him. He caused at least as much harm as good. There's also the Deron Williams paradox on my success list. It was a good move to acquire him because it led to immediate success; but it was also a good move to quickly trade him when he became a butthead. But it probably would have been better had he drafted Chris Paul in the first place.

Generally speaking, I think O'Connor relied too much on numbers and not enough on personality. He failed to keep in mind that Utah is a unique place with an owner, a coach and a fan base that expects and rejoices in high-character, hard-working guys. O'Connor routinely ignored this and repeatedly brought in players with histories of trouble with the law and drugs, only to watch them fail miserably in Utah and leave as soon as possible.

O'Connor was able to successfully rebuild the Jazz into a contender after Stockton and Malone left, but his new dynasty wasn't sustainable. The players were paid too much and had too big egos, and the whole thing collapsed in a quick and messy way. Now the Jazz are in no-man's land and O'Connor has abandoned ship. If I took over the Spurs today — a perennial title contender — and drove Greg Popovich away and left the Spurs as a fringe playoff contender, you'd probably call me a failure, even if I had lost Hall of Famers Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

My final verdict:

Kevin O'Connor was an average GM. I think some national writers and talking heads gave O'Connor too much credit because they didn't pay that much attention to the Jazz, and they lived completely in the here-and-now world of instant success, which O'Connor was pretty good at. I think some Jazz fans were a little too harsh with O'Connor because they were too close to the situation and either took his successes for granted or attributed them to the players or coaches. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, it could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse. Remember how long it took Chicago to get back on its feet? Or look at Sacramento and its decade of futility. Then again, it's hard not to look at Oklahoma City's success despite being a small market or Denver and Indiana winning games without a bona fide superstar.

What does it mean to be a good GM? Do you need championships and playoff appearances to be successful? Or is merely putting together an entertaining product enough? Or, could you argue, in the high-pressure of the NBA, a good GM is someone who is merely able to keep the franchise financially viable and not constantly be on the look-out for new owners or cities to move to?

I know history will look back kindly on Kevin O'Connor. We usually remember things a bit better than they were and tend to forget the bad. But right now, with the current state of the Jazz and the timing of O'Connor's departure, I'm pretty upset with him. You just don't leave a place in worse shape than you found it.