Judging General Managers in the NBA: Best 5 and Worst 5

Oftentimes in the NBA, blame is associated only with the coaching staff of a losing team. Unfortunately, coaching changes do not always change a squad's fortune. If your favorite team has been struggling to move up in the league for a couple of years now, there is a good chance that your team has a poor general manager.

But how do you find a bad general manager? The truth is that it is not as easy as it might seem. A lot of general managers enter bad situations and need time to fix the mess they were handed. Even so, there are indicators to bad management in the NBA. The following guide should help you know what makes a good, and bad, general manager:

• A good general manager should a plan for the team to build around. A good example of this is the Phoenix Suns. Going into the summer of 2004, the Suns decided that they were going to outbid the Mavericks for Steve Nash. They knew that Nash was a pass-first point guard who needed teammates that can hit open shots and spread the floor. As a result, the Suns also acquired Quentin Richardson, Raja Bell, James Jones and Kurt Thomas to compliment Nash. For this reason, they refused to overpay for Joe Johnson as they knew Nash could get the same contribution Johnson made out of Bell. The Suns have benefited from Bryan Colangelo's excellent management and will certainly miss him as he has moved to Toronto.

Now let's look at an example from the other side. When Isiah Thomas first came into New York, his job was to revitalize a mediocre team. But what did he really do? He overhauled the roster for a bunch of overpaid and selfish players. He drafted talented young rookies but then hired a coach, Larry Brown, who has a reputation of burying first and second-year players at the end of the bench. How did he expect to win?