Grading the Grades: A Town Hall 12 Retrospective

[garbageman]

Grading the Grades: A Town Hall 12 Retrospective

By and large, the Town Hall 12 question asking folks to grade their seasons has been one of my favorite Town Hall questions so far, so big ups to @greepleairport for generally trying to keep things different and interesting and giving extra points for praise and coming up with questions like these. This is one of those questions where it's interesting enough to me to see how people grade themselves that I'd like to dig into those answers and see if these self-evaluations match at all with what grades I'd give. Needless to say, some of these were off, some were on, and some of them were graded properly but for the wrong reasons. And still, everybody gets a point...not me, though. I'm going to stretch this into a bunch of points. I'll get the point for actually answering the town hall, up to ten points if I can hit 3,000 words on this article, and a bonus point or two for complimenting the media coordinator, who has been doing a spectacular job at it all.

I usually randomly order these team by team approaches, but this time, it's first come, first served (and believe me, Doug, YOU WILL BE SERVED!) And if you didn't answer the question, tough cookies. You get an automatic F for the big ol' F I don't give about researching your team.


Detroit Pistons
Quailman's Grade: A+
Quailman's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112405#p112405

The biggest beef I have with Quail's evaluation is that he's giving himself a highly touted grade for not doing anything. He made the moves to get his important guys in prior seasons and wasn't able to make any meaningful additions in the offseason. Competing for the division and coming within a game of winning the entire conference was probably not on the agenda until the team started performing well, and while Doug is usually a master of shifting rosters, the structure of this Pistons team is really locked in around the same archetype of a player...the superathletic wing that you can make purple. Lauri exploded in TC, putting him in a class of his own and allowing him to naturally play in the frontcourt, and Carrasco still has growing room, but he may be a better option at the 2 with a pure playmaker, even though he makes up for it in plenty of other ways to where he can be a Johnny Davis style PG.

Still, in a season where the Magic made about ten trades and ended up in no clearer of a position to me than when the season started, perhaps restraint on the trade market (even restraint forced by salary structures and lack of assets) is a worthy argument...though not an A+ level one. Don't get me wrong, the Pistons are going to be good for a long window, but they're also going to be expensive (get your checkbooks and player options out in RFA for SVG and Dawes). I'd say in terms of putting this roster together on a macroscopic scale, the A+ is well warranted for the build as a whole, but I can't in good conscience give Doug an A+ for just this season because he didn't try to fix something that isn't broken.

All in all, his team isn't in the tax and they've got a bunch of purple players. It's what the Mavs should aspire to, but Doug has enough experience not to get caught in a bad spot, which is why I can give him what feels like a generous A- for sitting on his hands and being patient with this build.


Los Angeles Lakers
Mamba's Grade: A
Mamba's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112409#p112409

For someone who claims right off the jump to hate self evaluations, I have to say that Mamba's Town Hall 12 answer was really spot on for me. I like that Mamba finally went all in with this season, although in another sense, I absolutely hate it, because it seems like he has 70 win teams year after year and yet still had a bunch of blue pot rookie guys to trade (probably because he trained them up from green pots, which is something trade partners should look out for from Mamba, Quailman, and even myself).

The Hub move was probably his strongest move, but all the moves he mentions are pretty strong. None of them are absolute 100% moves, but Hub is the type of versatile player that can finally secure him a championship with this build, and upgrading JVG, who's kind of a one trick pony was the right move. Walker was a good pickup for MLE money, sure, but he's not really putting up numbers that the right green vet min couldn't have put up. Ron Harper Jr. was a solid pickup, and I don't doubt Roberto will get some assets back for him, but I was never wild about RHJ getting a 4 year contract given his game's reliance on athleticism. It's not the worst contract, and it was still a solid move, but I think it would've been game over if he was able to get a true, no-nonsense big for Schiff.

On that note, Schiff has been catapulted back and forth between LA and Golden State at least 5 times now, and I figured I'd call out that BS here before I get to the Warriors' section (where I will be lauding them for their schiffty ingenuity).

Back to the grade grades, though, the results speak for themselves. The Lakers are once again the best team in the league after being active and making moves, and more importantly, they're all in. I'll stick with Mamba's A grade, although if I had to move it either up to an A+ or down to an A-, I'd be plussing that shit up for sure.


Golden State Warriors
greepleairport's grade: B+ or B- or A?
greepleairport's explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112410#p112410

I think greeple's right when he says in PBSL, there's more to this league than just managing your team. And this season, and for the past many seasons, he's done a great job as the Media Coordinator and depending on what other aspects of league management he wants to learn, this COULD potentially improve his GMing in a long run because it might earn him a peek behind the curtain if he ever wants to take on more work than media coordinator. Does admin access make you a better GM? Probably not. In some cases, it could dilute your judgment a little bit since the information you can't not see, like overall ratings of insured, renamed, and trained players puts a solid numerical value on a player that doesn't necessarily translate or get used in the weightings and workings of the actual simulator. What it does is make sure you're on top of everything that happens in sim league and making sure you know each team's roster and situation. It's the same benefit as being 100% involved in the game, except it's by force.

In any case, though, that's not really GMing, that's admin, and that's multi-seasonal so I don't think I'm going to consider A the final grade greeps gave himself. I'll average it out to a B, which I think is high if your only metric is winning, but since it's not, I'll consider it a little low. I thought the RHJ contract was a little bigger than I'd want to take on, but kudos to greeple for finding a buyer and getting future value out of that free agent pickup.

He mentioned not being able to move the Nelson contract, which I don't think is a big deal (he can probably get just as much value for him next season) and also thinking that his squad could be a .500 team, which was kind of an overestimation by my estimation, but he still was able to put himself in position for a prime rookie target...if not Dennis Lally, there are a few capable blue pot rookies in the draft file right behind him.

So overall, I think a pretty well GM'd season by greepleairport. Anything you could consider a mishap was quickly alleviated, and the Dubs kept churning in trades to have probably the deepest asset pool if they were to cash in. I'd consider this an A- season, which is probably slightly better than the best you should be able to get for a season where you're competing with the Jazz for last.


Phoenix Suns
Black Superman's grade: B-
Black Superman's explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112413#p112413

I think the B- grade isn't inaccurate, and it might have been selling the Suns short here and weighing the in season grade more heavily than the offseason grade. However, I think that some of the reasoning laid out in Superman's explanation shows a gulf in priorities between me and GMs who grew up in a post-training-overhaul PBSL.

I'll start with the good. The trades that netted the Suns Herman Campbell and Trayce Jackson-Davis was an extremely advantageous one for Phoenix. It's a trade that cashed in on Miami's predicament wherein they probably didn't need to get rid of TJD in a vacuum, but being in the tax that long is boring, so the faster you're out, the faster you can start having fun again, and when you're in the mindset of getting out, it's a justifiable trade. The Bobcats getting Akins for Campbell was a solid trade, too. Also pretty even in a vacuum. This also gives me the opportunity to talk about the Bobcats who probably won't grade themselves, but I just want to say that taking on that Mahmoud contract was possibly the most headscratching move of the season in a season where Nick made like 10 trades. The Garland move wasn't a huge return, but it was something, and that's definitely a net positive, and getting under the tax apron was a huge win (and they should stay out of the tax until they've got to pay big money to TJD and Campbell).

Back to the Suns, though. The offseason trades are far more important to the final grade than anything else, and Black Superman at least graded that portion of the assessment accurately with an A. I would place much less importance on the Maxwell Lewis training. Aside from the now A level INS, Lewis is at his potential band in every grade that matters. His PER is still under league average, and the increased INS will help in a couple seasons, but despite the potential color change, I don't see Lewis as the type of player who can be a #1 on a championship squad. The real guy is still seasons away. Herman Campbell's going to be a true difference maker on a team. Sure, I'd want a little more defense, but if the Suns want to keep Campbell, nothing's happening until Campbell's good and ready, and at that point, how much difference will the letter grade in INS matter? It'll help some, and it'll increase his trade value a lot, but I feel when the time comes to really throwdown, having the points to weather a tax bill over multiple seasons is going to come in handy. The teams that are winning are able to manage those tax bills, but a lot of teams with newer GMs might struggle if they don't use their reset time to actually build up their point banks.

On the flipside, I know the Suns were apprehensive about finishing in the middle, but I don't think that's a big deal, especially since they snuck into the 7th seed with as favorable as a matchup as you can get in a 7-2 matchup. For all the wolf crying in the DC threads about how the Suns were tanking this year, I think the only thing that surprised me is that the Suns didn't try winning sooner, recognizing that the Omega division is insanely bad and the GMs also in the middle had less to work with.

Overall, I'd say a B+ is in order, despite going somewhat in depth on the critique, but Black Superman is a GM who's not too old school, but still a proven veteran whose probably at a point where he wants to join the title conversation soon, so I didn't want to be too placating.


Toronto Raptors
pennpanther1's grade: C
pennpanther1's explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112420#p112420

I want to give some big ups to pennpanther this season. I think a C is being way too hard, and I couldn't disagree on the reasoning more. A tanking season isn't necessarily a failure. It's better than a season where you go all in and still don't have a competitve team, and when done properly, it puts you in a better position to be good when you're ready to be good. The Raptors this season weren't ready to be good.

I will say that the A+ was a bit generous for the offseason. It wasn't bad, and I liked that he took swings, but I think the Raptors got lucky that most GMs will match oversized contracts rather than let players go for nothing but the cap space they'd get in UFA or whatever lower than normal return value they'd get in a sign and trade. Gradey Dick is not worth max money, and the Lakers were smart enough to know that. While he had so much promise before an absentee Gary let TC ream him, Booger Smith is not worth a max. And having played 0 PBSL games at all, Candice Parker wasn't a max either (we'll get to LazyTitan soon). Kamari Brown at slightly less than a max though? Smart match. Even without an A rating to be found, Brown was a scoring machine, posting good efficiency and excellent true shooting and points per shot. That 100 JMP is going to make all those B ratings stronger than normal. In his 5th year, Brown was the clear standout of the 4 RFA guys the Raps got back.

I do like that he took swings in RFA, and I like that he kept taking swings in UFA. Getting Ingram and Jarrett to pair with Brown and Dick doesn't make sense if you have championship aspirations, but it was a good move nonetheless, and that's why I hope I gave him good return for them as rentals. Tanking was the right move, and he's guaranteed himself a blue pot rookie in the draft to either pick up or deal to try and supplement Brown and (to a lesser extent) Dick with real talent. I think 5 out of those 7 blues are really appealing players, too. Nobody likes to tank, but sometimes it's the right move, and this time, it was the right move...and it's a more palatable move to make when you start getting better at flipping rebuilds so you don't get attached to young prospects and can swap them for the right competitive pieces faster.

Overall grade: B+


Cleveland Cavaliers
jlmarines grade: A+++
jlmarines explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112426#p112426

I don't want to rain on jlmarines parade too much because this might be the best the Cavs get, but if you're going to give yourself an A+++, you're kind of asking to be taken down a few pegs.

The Darius Garland move was a no-brainer, and while it was far from the trade of the century, it was a move that would've been foolish to pass up. Isaac and Vassell undoubtedly are home-grown certified ballers, and I don't think that's been any secret. Credit patience and a little TC luck for waiting for these two to come into their own. And Chief K and Darius Garland are having great seasons as well, defying father time for at least one more year.

The 56-26 record is well earned, but beyond what I've mentioned above, the Cavs have holes that they could have addressed beyond the Garland trade if they were serious about winning a championship. They're a team that can be straightforward to gameplan against due to frontcourt fouling problems, size mismatches all over the place, and less depth than other teams with similar records. In a 5 on 5 match, the Cavs could stand up to anyone, but the teams they had trouble with in the last couple of sims were teams with better benches. It would've been nice to see them capitalize further on a hot start by trading for some depth. There will undoubtedly be some sort of dropoff in Garland and Chief K next season, so the window on this build isn't as wide open as teams like the Spurs or Pistons.

While it's nonetheless been a great season for the Cavs, I'm going to drop them a whole letter grade for their excess plussing in a season where they could've--and perhaps should've--done more. Final grade, B+++


Dallas Mavericks
LazyTitanSmash's grade: D
LazyTitanSmash's explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112433#p112433

LT's assessment is rightfully hard on himself. He slashed his team to the bone at trade deadline and didn't get under the apron. Now, with Dominitrix approaching an RFA max for a team that's going to be more expensive next season, the Mavs have a situation where there may be too many mouths to feed and too many contracts to pay.

Now, I loved the Mavs going out and getting Jordan Poole. With Scoot and Dominitrix, they got a great PG who had a solid year for them. As far as the offseason goes, what I didn't love so much was matching that Parker max. Candice Parker hadn't played a PBSL game yet. Orchestrating a sign and trade for even points or a pick would've saved the Mavs enough money to get under the tax and even add more depth and talent without going over the apron. As it stands, Parker played with less than average efficiency and didn't win rookie of the year despite having 4 years to develop.

The obvious elephant in the room is the redshirting of Angel Reese. Reese looks ready to play, and if you're going to be a championship contender, you need to play players who get you valuable stats for minimal salary. That 20mm on the bench is the difference between the apron and the Mavs final bill. It'd be insane to get rid of Reese, but it's a good idea to play the folks your paying in a tax year. I think Reese would've had at least as good a season as Parker, likely better.

Now the future is as bright in Dallas as it is expensive. If I were in charge of this team, I'd worry about a championship first and tax second. I think with three young blue/purples on the roster, as long as the window's open, they should be able to dip into the tax a bit, stay active enough to pay their bills, and if they go over or decide that the window's closing, they have plenty of time to churn those star players to a hearty rebuild. The only concern is making sure you're not in the red when you need to resign players. This means that training might be a luxury that's wise to forego.

But for this season, the Mavs could've ran away with their division and reset their tax in one fell swoop.

Overall grade: C-


Memphis Grizzlies
K-100's Grade: B+
K-100's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112438#p112438

It's kind of hard to grade K-100's grade against his explanation because he has one of the most unorthodox styles of running a team. It breeds both great success and long periods of restoration as the cost of bank-breaking championship builds, and during those stretches of limited GM functionality, K-100 trots out weird gameplans and coaching styles to both fend off boredom and rig the stats to try and squeeze out any points he can.

This is both exactly what he needs to do and also a flawed indicator of what works and what doesn't. Is y/b Tennessee Rainwater going to be impactful as a b/b on a competing team because of his stats this year? Or are those stats just manufactured by the gameplan and circumstance. Is Raphael Gordon a good idea at starting C like Vaughn Millsap was? Was Millsap even that good of an idea at C just because he won an all star appearance out of it? Who the heck knows?

It's a success to be out of the tax, but the Grizz mention the Ridenhour and Blair contracts, and next year there might not be tax teams willing to take on these big contracts. It'd be a punch in the gut to get out of the tax only to be unable to really participate in UFA due to the lingering costs of long contracts you had to take on to get out of the tax.

Overall, getting out of the tax is a win, and as K-100 mentions, there are building blocks he has to play with. But overall, I'm not inclined to give the Grizzlies much higher than a B.


Boston Celtics
AngryBanana's Grade: B
AngryBanana's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112455#p112455

I like how AngryBanana broke out his explanation so it's easy for me to get a good recap and summary of their season. To be honest, I think some of the things listed as positives don't exactly jell with each other. A lot of the Celtics season was a tug of war of decisions between preparing for the future and trying to win now. I think it's this very waffling that led to a heartbreaking miss of the playoff due to a tiebreaker with the Nuggets.

Lew Alcindor is a nice looking prospect, but given that they were able to get Ebbe Clauer in the middle of the season, you can't help but wonder how strong this team would be with Akins, Clauer, and Gates. And think of who else they could've pivoted to get instead of Akins if they had decided to win now around Gates from the get go. Now, there was no way to know that the stewards would flip Clauer to a team like the Magic who would so soon let him go, but I feel like the Celtics could've benefitted by not leaving themselves in limbo. The Clauer trade was probably too good not to do...even if he doesn't really fit the Celtics timeline if they wait for Alcindor, they can probably resign and trade Ebbe for more than they paid for him.

But all in all, especially with a veteran GM, the wavering direction has me thinking that the "somewhere in the B range" would be on the low end of the scale. Where the Cavs got a B+++ from me, the Celtics get a B---


San Antonio Spurs
Eazy P's Grade: C+
Eazy P's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112473#p112473

A lot of folks talk about the Lakers' last 5 years or so and are gobsmacked that they haven't won a ring from this build. I'm looking at the Spurs. With BI and Hub anchoring a growing cast of soon to be megastars, I thought for sure the Spurs would win any rings the Lakers left on the table. They were looking stronger and stronger every year, and then this offseason happened.

I figured that with a massive tax bill coming up, the Spurs might pass on a max contract for pre-TC bump Tony Newland. Of all the Spurs young players, he was the one who wasn't contributing as much last year. In retrospect with the TC bump, the contract doesn't look that bad, but if you looked at his attributes and the odds always being against a bump (though SAS might iknow something we don't), I didn't like the decision not to try and S&T for Newland, and it might have been one I'd decline knowing that I had Kozak and Ingram to resign.

With Newland taking up 60mm, I figured the Spurs wouldn't want Hub and BI, but certainly one or the other. They dealt Hub to get Richard Reed and tax relief and lost Ingram in UFA. At a distant third in their division, the Spurs still found themselves 100mm over the cap with a sizeable bill they might not be able to pay off with this season's earnings. They're still projected to be in the tax for several seasons if they don't trade out of it, and the repeater keeps coming. They've got a lot of weapons to choose from, but chances are, they're going to have to make some difficult decisions and sell off some of their talent before Kirkland and company can find themselves in as favorable a position as the Spurs were as recently as last season.

Since Eazy is one of the best GMs in the game, I'm taking away his + and sticking him with a straight C, but can't go much lower than that on a team that won 53 games.


Indaina Pacers
PaulyP's Grade: B
PaulyP's Explanation: viewtopic.php?p=112474#p112474

Overall, I'd say this is a pretty standard season for the Pacers and what we've come to see from them in the last sim decade or so...build the team around Herb, don't oversaturate it with star power, get a decent pickup in UFA (Quincy Johnson), resign guys who have been productive, and have an overall really solid season.

I think they're a team with more depth than star power, and I think it's a team that lives and dies by Herbert Jones. The Pacers have a decent frontcourt, but it's not one that's much built for the playoffs, despite Pauly's knack for strong game planning. That got them to a pretty dominant 59 wins in a tough division. Despite the division's strength, they were able to rest starters in the final sim, so they're doing something right, even if they're not making ultra flashy moves or signings (for my money's worth, I would've dealt Spooner for a dominant big this season if not earlier).

I like their grade of a B and think it's accurate, but since I think they got more than their money's worth for their roster without going over the apron, and since they're sitting above me in the standings, I'm going to reward them with a B+.

[greepleairport]

4000+ words, +10pts
Always enjoy your analyses, sir.