Sucks to see this play out, but I think Dion and his agent were irresponsible for casting him as a SG just to get him drafted higher.
I actually love Dion's emotion. Just feel he was miscast from the start. Should have never been put next to a player like Irving. They both need the same kind of 3 and D guard beside them. He'll get that now when he ends up in combinations with Roberson and/or when Russ is sucking wind and lets him handle the ball in their time on the court.
Im more upset with Grant for making two picks that stunted the growth of Irving and left us with two reserves than I am for Dion not turning into what he never showed he could be. Kinda like expecting Tristan to turn into what he is not as well. Would rather move on from him too than pay him 12 mil a season now.
Two very bad draft picks.
Good Luck Ball Hard
It's turning out, that Chris Grant was a pretty crappy GM. Couldn't draft worth shit, all his free agent signings bombed, regardless if they were all his choices, or not.
I guess the only good thing to say about him, is he did very well in trades, and the idea he had wasn't exactly bad. But when you can't make the picks count, it defeats the purpose of what he was trying to do.
Gilbert may be at fault for a lot, but he made the 100% right decision getting rid of him.
It's not exactly that Grant's picks were bad basketball players, he had poor vision though seeing what kind of team we needed to be. He had no idea of what kind of team he envision on the floor when it came to making his draft selections.
He just figured the players he liked, regardless of how their games mesh with each other, would just work. And it clearly didn't. So yes, he's definitely a HUGE reason why the growth of this team has been so stagnant. Hell, as much meddling as Gilbert does, and as much dirt he has on his hands, I still give most the blame to Grant.
If he just made the right picks, things could have looked a lot different, but he didn't.
I'm not saying Grant can't judge talent at all, but to me, it's pretty obvious he's just a scout at best, and he has no idea how to build a team. Being a judge of talent alone, definitely doesn't qualify someone to be a good GM.
He didn't know how to put a team together, and it was obvious with his draft picks, and his free agent signings. The guy just wasn't a good GM, however you want to slice it up.