NBA GM Rankings - Part 1 - Intro and Awful

In the course of thinking about where Joe Dumars fits in among his NBA General Manager peers, I noticed there was a stunning lack of comparative GM evaluations available on the Internet. Besides some amateur hacks here or there that aren’t worth linking to, I only found this 2007 article by a pretty mediocre basketball writer. With the benefit of hindsight his rankings look pretty awful.

So, to fill the gap I'm ranking NBA GMs myself, complete with Bill Simmons-style awkwardly forced groupings. This is a “who would I hire now” type of evaluation which weighs recent developments more heavily than their C.V. in totality. Look up their individual histories here if you're so inclined.

Here goes the list from worst to first starting with the first group of "Awful":

[oh yeah, the list begins with 29 because I'm omitting Joe Dumars for now...we'll discuss his placement later]

AWFUL
I get frustrated thinking about these people. Why are rich NBA owners so dumb?

Group Quote:
"Can we talk about something other than basketball?"

29. Grunfeld WAS
In Washington since 2003. He over-committed to a middling core and then tried to rebuild without getting rid of his worst contract (Arenas) and giving away his assets without getting anything in return. A few months ago he was trading draft picks for veterans and now he's giving away veterans as fast as he can. That he didn't learn his lessons from his Milwaukee success (namely, you can't win a title with your 3 best players being offensive-oriented wings) is the least of his problems.

28. Stefanksi PHI
Began in 2008. Badly overpaid for Iguadala and Brand, binding up the teams salary cap for several years to come. Didn't learn from his terrible predecessor (Billy King) apparently.

27. Wallace MEM
In Memphis since 2007, before that he was awful in Boston (his highlight was drafting Joe Johnson, who he then traded away for nothing.) Memphis hasn't done much better, despite their surprisingly OK season. Too many draft blunders to list. The Gasol (for Gasol) trade wasn't nearly as bad as was made out, but it wasn't great.

26. Sund ATL
"The expansion Dallas Mavericks hired him in 1979 at 28 years of age, making him the youngest general manager in the NBA's history." Before Cuban bought them, the Mavs were perpetual losers, so of course he's been hired numerous times since then, notably running the Pistons (prior to 2000) and Sonics (prior to the OKC move) into the ground. Random lowlights in Seattle: Drafted center Saer Sene 10th overall and gave Calvin Booth a long term contract. His current team, Atlanta, looks pretty good, but this retread can't take any of the credit since he just got there last year. His only move of note is trading for Jamal Crawford (which does look good so far.) If history is any indicator, he'll screw up Atlanta soon though. Enjoy it while you can Hawk fans.