What is the line where you blame the ownership/managers over the players?

[John8204]

The natural default seems to be it's the millionaire players fault not the billionaire owners for when a situation ends up poorly. In my lifetime I've seen a dynasty blow it's self up (Chicago), a franchise fail to rebuild with three generational talents (New Orleans), and every ten years players leave Philadelphia and turn their careers around.

I've seen players receive giant contracts only to have the teams wealch on the deals and turn franchise superstars into millionaire hobos bouncing from team to team just to fit in obligations of other franchises.

Is it just easier to rip the players because they are on the court, and they have to answer our questions.

[Norcaliblunt]

Most owners get ripped by the local fans and media daily. It’s just that other cities and fans don’t see or hear about it regularly. ESPN isn’t ripping apart every teams ownership and management on their shows for obvious reasons and it’s boring.

But I will say legendary owners who have actually accomplished shit get ripped all the time. Look at the Buss family, Jerry Jones, Al Davis etc.

And the worst of the worst Donald Sterling and Bob Sarver are straight hated more than any player who has played for the Clippers or Suns.

[ILLsmak]

Making a championship team is hard. The amount of players who can star for a ring are is small. The amount of role players who can play alongside them is also small. Coach just has to not be a clown.

Then you get into the two things that people can influence outside of trying to acquire those players: tanking and hoping for a generational player who stays or building a really good team and hoping to win some fluke years. Take Boston for example loool ok I’ll stop.

But I feel the same as I do about college, I want a solid team, a brand, and hopefully some day we can win. People wanna win so bad that they do crazy things. Legit like 25 teams are playing themselves every couple of years trying to become a contender.

And you get teams like Indy and Cle… who ‘seem’ close. Watch them play themselves soon trying to get that guy.


-Smak

[Real Men Wear Green]

Single bad seasons are always the players' fault. Perennial ineptitude is always bad ownership. Good owners can have a few rebuilding years as part of the cycle of winning and losing the aging of stars creates but they make the right moves while rebuilding and come back strong. Good players can give bad owners some winning seasons but inevitably get put into bad trades or just leave as free agents when the team is poorly run.

There are sure to be some exceptions but that's generally how it works.

[Xiao Yao You]

Larry miller was too cheap to ever put a team around stockton and malone or fire the coach so he deserves plenty of the blame for that failure and that continued til they sold the team. See if the billionaire changes that. Jury still out

[iamgine]

There is no line. You blame who you want to blame.

[BarberSchool]

There is no line. You blame who you want to blame.

This.

It’s all situational, and situation-specific.
There is no standard “always this” or “always that”.
If we look into recent history, there may be some loosely correlated patterns that emerge, with similar circumstances, but that would still likely only be a minority contributory factor to most future comparisons.

For instance, in this recent Dallas situation, while it is true Luka is and has been out of shape much of his NBA Career, drinks more alcohol & uses more tobacco, than an NBA superstar should, loafs on defense mad possessions …. none of that even shares more than 1-2% of the BLAME, for how insane, detached, greedy, pigheaded, seemingly corrupt, and definitely highly delusional in multiple ways the Behavior of the Adelson’s/DuMont/Nico were thru all stages of this “worst trade in NBA history by far” debacle.

There really is no path forward, save for maybe a half century of time passing, to undo the generational damage the Adelson’s/DuMont/Nico did to the Mavericks franchise and the greater Northern Texas fanbase. 98-99% of all BLAME, currently and will forever, be placed squarely upon them, and they have no choice but to wear it, stop making excuses and pointing fingers, and own that they themselves, have effectively ruined the good will and adoration, that it took Dirk’s entire career of loyalty to Cuban(Chabenisky), and all of the additional good will and adoration created by the passing of the torch to an absolute all time great in Doncic. The Adelson’s/DuMont/Nico are all collectively one or the most egregiously self-defeating PRODIGAL SONS in all of NBA history. They pissed it all away so poorly, that no other explanation Besides wild corruption and intentional self-sacrifice for the greater good of the league’s most storied franchise, and non-basketball ambitions, could possibly explain such seeming stupidity.

Another recent example is Prokhorov, who got absolutely fleeced by Danny Ainge and others, who actually deeply understand the sport, and don’t just delusionally assume that numerical analyzation can yield successful business moves within the sport, like it can in other business ventures, less dependent on truly exceptional human capital.

I think the common thread between both of the above situations, where ownership is RIGHTFULLY given 95%+ of the blame for massive fu@kups, is they BOTH Prokhorov and the Adelson’s/DuMont/Nico, while different in many ways, are both heinously guilty of underestimating just how wildly different and insulated their psychology and instincts are highly different and contrary, even outright repulsive and alien, to the typical American sports fan, to the regional fanbases in those respective regions, and again, foreign and alien to the greater American culture as a whole. They both likely assumed superlativeness, when in fact, they were deeply ignorant, alien, delusional, prodigal sons, stepping in deep deep sh!t and horrifically ruining their own investments.

Whereas, on the flipside, an example where players are to blame, can be found in Philly. the blame for the 76ers seasons, goes much much much more squarely on the shoulders of the key underperforming superstar players themselves.