04/20/24
April 01, 2004
ESPN is reporting the Raptors' GM, Glen Grunwald, has been fired. No link yet.
posted by lew to basketball at 09:47 AM - 5 comments
This was a power play by the Raptors' president and CEO Richard Peddie to cover his own ass now that the negative effects of his meddling are being exposed. Kevin O'Neill was Peddie's choice - Grunwald wanted Dwane Casey, an assistant coach with the Sonics. O'Neill has been a disaster and now Grunwald gets to take the fall for it. Glen is a genuine nice guy and he has a sharper basketball mind than most people give him credit for. I sense that he's well-respected around the league so I'm sure he'll land on his feet with another team if he wants to.
posted by Scott Carefoot at 12:53 PM on April 01, 2004
That's quite a conspiracy theory, Scott. From all indications, I've heard that Grunwald was ok with O'Neill's hiring. And looking at the season objectively, O'Neill has put together a reasonable season (especially when is comes to team defense) given the team's lack of height, lack of point guard, injuries, and general player turmoil (AD, Vince's motivation, etc). In case you're interested, there's a summary of the Grunwald events on my site, TotalRaptor.com.
posted by lew at 01:34 PM on April 01, 2004
Grunwald is a very good talent evaluator. He made the Raptors a playoff team. He built the entire squad around Vince. Trouble is, Vince (or any other member of the starting 5) hasn't been able to stay healthy. O'Neill is a great coach, but their were so many injuries and so many mish-mash lineups during the season that their was no oppurtunity to generate any kind of cohesiveness. This is just a case of someone needing to take the fall. Unlike down in Orlando, this is a shame. But Glen should land on his feet. As for Peddie, I don't think he so much foisted O'Neill on Glenn so much as he highly recommended him. But if its all the same to you, I think he has and will be sticking his head in to personnel matters too much. Lets hope this doesn't effect the future of the franchise, I'd like to see the NBA in Canada last.
posted by lilnemo at 03:17 PM on April 01, 2004
That excuse needs to go - Vince is healthy and has played more games this year than Kobe, Iverson and Duncan. It isn't his fault. The team is full of players who really at the end of the day aren't all that worried about losing. Aside from Vince, Jalen and Bosh (with apologies to a clearly worn out Donyell Marshall and a busted-to-the-point-of-complete-ineffectiveness Alvin Williams) the rest of the team doesn't play hard and that has made our bench the worst in the league. Grunwald is a bit of a casualty but I still don't think he did a great job. After his 'summer of summers' in 2000 failed miserably he could seem to make any positive steps. Everything was a backfire. New blood is needed. For the sake of the guys we have that are worth a damn.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 03:11 AM on April 02, 2004
ESPN link.