It can't be that hard, becaue Isiah Thomas claims to be able to do it.
1. Determine what your plans for the team are.
If your plans are to run the team into the ground, like Isiah, let your fans know up front, so they don't waste money on jerseys and season tickets. No one likes being surprised like that when they have money invested and that's time that they could spend waiting for you in the parking lot instead of throwing batteries at you from the mezzanine.
2. Take stock of what you have currently. Be honest.
Listen, some players are just never going to be stars. Some players are never going to be productive. Players like Brian Scalabrine or Benoit Benjamin. So if you have players like this on your team, just go ahead and mark them to be traded. It doesn't matter how hard they work in practice or how good their soundbites are for the reporters. It doesn't matter if they had a good stretch in the playoffs or is dominant against your rival's best player. Sometimes, you've just got a garbage player and it's better for all involved to just go ahead and make a clean break. Lucky for you, there's GMs like Isiah Thomas around who's take these players off your hands and give you more than you probably deserved in return.
3. Be realistic about your draft picks and free agent signings.
On draft day, the first thing you should do is look at your current record. If you have less than 35 wins, then you need to go ahead and draft a player who can produce right now. Your fan base isn't going to wait around three or four years for a player to blossom. Hell, that's time they could be planning that ambush out back. If you have more than 50 wins, you could draft Master P and it wouldn't really matter. When you have that many wins, your draft pick is probably going to get released anyway, unless you got over on a less intelligent GM, like Isiah. I expect the Bulls to do exactly this in the coming draft.
As far as free agents go, understand that you're not going to sign a big name if your team is garbage. I don't care how much the Hawks were under the cap, Kobe Bryant was NOT leaving L.A. for Atlanta. You have to understand that you have to give them a reason to come and if they only thing you can offer them is to make their total career losses more than their wins or to play home games in virtual silence, you're not really in good shape.
4. Draft and sign players intelligently. Refer to numbers 1 and 2 at all times.
If you have a pretty decent point guard, but your starting power forward weighs about 200 pounds and couldn't make a basket if he had both arms in it, you might want to start there. If you have a starting guard who's defense is so bad that his matchup scores less points in the shootaround than he does against your guy, you might want to start there.
Exceptions to this rule are when the best available player in the draft drop into your lap. Although it's understood why Portland drafted Sam Bowie instead of Michael Jordan, draft him anyway. At best, you've got the greatest backcourt ever and at worst, you've got some really good trade bait in Clyde Drexler.
Atlanta fell into this trap in last year's draft by taking Marvin Williams over Chris Paul. Instead of drafting a player who could play NOW, they got a player who they had to wait on. Combine that with an already clogged front court and you could almost hear the 30 or so Hawks fans left slapping themselves on the forehead.
5. Don't sign players you already have. Sign according to your needs. Don't overpay.
You shouldn't have to tell someone this up front, but when your name is Isiah Thomas, you just can't be told enough.
NBA players aren't entirely stupid. If you see a player who's been a lazy slob for four years, occasionally showing flashes of decency, and suddenly, in a contract year, he becomes and unstoppable monster, you still don't want to sign Jerome James or Eddy Curry. At least not to a contract worth tens of millions of dollars.
Let someone else overpay and be the fool! It doesn't have to be you all the time! Besides, you'll have a chance to screw this one up in the draft when you take the high school 7-footer who's never played against anyone taller than 6'9".
Also, if you have a superstar player, you might not want to sign another superstar playing the exact same position to play along side him. It won't work out well. At best, you're going to simply have some exciting news headlines when those two players fight in the lockerroom.
6. Before signing a player, look at the amounts of other offers he's getting. Adjust accordingly.
This one's pretty simple. If a free-agent is available and the highest offer he's getting is for $3.5 million for 5 years, what sense does it make to pay him $7 million for 6 years? Screw what he wants...he'll take what the market will give him. This way, you won't get fleeced like the Knicks did in the Allan Houston deal. Although it was before Isiah, it was equally as stupid. Then-GM, Scott Layden was the pre-Isiah, and shackled their signing power with this one deal, worth over $100 million for a good 7 years. One good knee injury later and the Knicks are still trying to dig out of a hole that Isiah Thomas seems intent on making deeper.
7. Before pulling the trigger on any deal, consult your coach. Consider the feelings of your fans.
If your coach tells you that you need a backup point guard, don't oblige him by trading your starting one. Now, you just have a backup who starts by default and you look like a fool. Not to mention a victim, in the eyes of those diehard fans waiting outside the stadium.
I feel that by following these simple rules, you could be able to at least put a competitive team on the floor and keep the fans from throwing rocks at your car when you pull into the arena. Should you choose to ignore this, just know that security can't catch ALL of the vandals. And the ones who are left still think you deserve it.
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