5
times fans thought managers made the wrong decision
5 times fans thought managers made the wrong decision
May 27, 2022
In the NBA, managers have to be equipped with superb decision-making
skills in order to become great. It’s all about making the big calls
when the time comes. In sport, though, things can sometimes go
spectacularly wrong. In this guide, we’re exploring five times when
managers made the wrong decisions and fans quickly latched on to it.
After all, it is the fans who have to live with those decisions.
Basketball games are rarely a foregone conclusion, and a look at the best NBA odds today
shows that things can change quickly. This is one of the reasons why
the sport is so incredibly popular and thrilling. Since things can
change in a matter of seconds, there is always the potential for the
unexpected.
Billy Donovan
becoming Magic’s head coach
Billy Donovan becoming head coach of the Orlando Magic was something
that was heavily debated at the time. He’d won the NCAA Championships a
couple of times in a row, but was the step up to the Magic going to be
the right decision? Was college basketball experience really going to
qualify him?
Fans were not convinced he would make the list of great
coaches even then, but what happened behind the scenes would have
been fascinating to see. Donovan had just a week in charge before he
decided it wasn’t for him and walked away from the contract, leaving
Stan Van Gundy to step in at the last minute. This was a truly terrible
decision from a manager about their own future.
Kenyon Martin’s
seven-year contract
Nobody knows what injuries are going to do to a player’s career, and we
definitely feel sorry for any promising player who has to deal with
injuries. Kenyon Martin can feel a little bit sorry for himself, too.
However, Kenyon Martin had already shown that he had some injury
problems when the Nuggets decided they were going to give him a $92.5m
contract for the next seven years.
He missed an incredible number of games and even when he was fully fit,
he didn’t really perform to the heights we knew he was capable of, as
an All-Star player. It wasn’t necessarily a bad decision to put faith
in Martin, but signing him up for seven years was a risk and it did not
pay off.
Grant Hill traded for
Ben Wallace
There are some bad trades throughout the history of the NBA but this
was a really shocking one. Grant Hill had done good things at this
level before, and Wallace had some potential, but we didn’t really know
what he could do. Orlando Magic expected that he would take them to NBA
titles in the future.
Ben Wallace would quickly go on to establish himself as an incredible
defensive player, and one of the very best in the league. It was the
Detroit Pistons who were left the happier of the parties in this deal,
especially as he would play a crucial role when they won the
championship back in 2004.
Washington Bullets
signing Juwan Howard
We’re going back a bit now. This is another signing that didn’t work
out and fans would quickly see what a poor piece of business this was.
The Bullets took him on as a franchise player and eventually gave him a
$105m, seven-year deal.
At times, it was painful to see him underperforming, and fans knew the
incredible sums he was getting paid, especially in that era.
Juwan is still involved in basketball and controversy has followed him,
including him being fined
and suspended in 2022.
Knicks signing Jerome
James
The New York Knicks signed James back in 2005, and they paid $30m for
the services of the seven-foot giant at that point, for a five-year
contract.
James hadn’t exactly set the world alight, and was 36th pick in the NBA
draft, before only playing a handful of games for the Sacramento Kings.
The signing was baffling and turned out to be quite a spectacular waste
of money. A lot of fans could see from very early on that he was not up
to the task and questioned the decision to bring him on board.
Summary
A lot of us like to watch sports and think we could do the same job as
the managers, and sometimes, it is hard to argue otherwise, especially
when you see such poor decisions being made by the pros! The five
examples discussed here show just how badly things can go wrong.
