The Worst Executive Run In Basketball History

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
There are three cardinal sins for every NBA general manager. Drafting busts.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
This man was a bona fide scrub.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:06)
He can't play.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:07)
Trading away hall of famers.

**Magic Johnson** (0:09)
This is the most shocking trade in NBA history.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:12)
This is the worst moment in the history of my life.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:14)
And overpaying or sending a ton of draft picks for mediocre players.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:18)
To me, this is a great day for Brooklyn.

**Charles Barkley** (0:20)
We've got pieces now that we can compete for a championship.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:23)
But there have been plenty of GMs who made stupid trades, signed bloated contracts, and drafted bad players. But these GMs, they messed up the most and set their franchises into years of despair. These are the worst general managers in NBA history.
After he won his sixth championship in 1998, Michael Jordan quickly returned to the NBA in January of 2000, becoming the president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards and a minority owner of the team.

**Michael Jordan** (0:49)
I have an attitude about the way I play. I have an attitude about the way I win. My job and my responsibility with this organization is to see if I can pass that on to the players in those uniforms.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:59)
In his first offseason as an executive, MJ hired Leonard Hamilton as the Wizards' coach, giving him a five-year, $10 million contract, despite no previous NBA experience. Hamilton got the job thanks to a friendship with Jordan and finished with the lowest-winning percentage of any coach in Wizards' history to coach at least 82 games. However, a poor season gave the Wizards the first pick of the 2001 draft, and Jordan could have gotten a superstar, as 65% of all players selected first overall became All-Stars. But MJ failed spectacularly, famously using the number-one pick on Kwame Brown.

**SPEAKER_9** (1:32)
It's the first pick in the 2001 NBA draft. The Washington Wizards select Kwame Brown from Lynn Academy, Brunswick, Georgia.

**Michael Jordan** (1:45)
None could change our minds in terms of what this kid could do in the long range for the Washington Wizards.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:52)
Who would become a historic bust. After selecting Kwame, Michael unretired for the third time and became a player for the Wizards, which required him to relinquish his ownership share and step down from his executive role, as NBA rules prohibited a player from being involved in team management. But Jordan was still the de facto GM of the team, and he didn't fare much better in the years that followed, making some very questionable decisions. For the final season of his playing career, Jordan traded Richard Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse in a move that was supposed to help Jordan the player, but hurt Jordan the executive, since Hamilton was four years younger and would have been a great player to build around. He also signed his good friend Charles Oakley, who didn't have much left to offer other than six fouls a night, and would finish the season with more fouls than points during his 42 games in Washington. After he retired for good after the 2003 season, MJ expected to officially return to his role as the president of basketball operations. But the Wizards owner, a Poland, had different ideas. Firing Jordan due to poor results and bad internal relationships with the team.

**Michael Jordan** (2:54)
Sometimes not being as successful is a great send-off.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:58)
But Jordan didn't have to wait long to get involved with an NBA team again. On June 15th, 2006, Jordan bought a minority stake in the Charlotte Bobcats, becoming the team's second largest shareholder behind majority owner, Robert L. Johnson. As part of the deal, Jordan took full control of the basketball side of the operation. And just like with the Wizards, his first major decision was drafting a major bust. In the 2006 NBA draft, with the third overall pick, Jordan selected Adam Morrison.

**SPEAKER_9** (3:24)
With the third pick in the 2006 NBA draft, the Charlotte Bobcats select Adam Morrison from Gonzaga University.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:35)
Who averaged 28 points per game during his junior season at Gonzaga. But his game didn't translate to the NBA, and Morrison couldn't cope with the physicality at the highest level, playing just 122 games for Charlotte, while averaging 9 points on 37% shooting. Brandon Roy, Rudy Gay, Rajon Rondo, and Kyle Lowry were all better options in the draft, and Jordan already had two colossal mistakes under his belt, and it wouldn't stop there. In the 2007 draft, MJ selected Brandon Wright with the 8th pick, who averaged 7 points per game in his career, while he could have drafted Joakim Noah, Thaddeus Young, or Mark Gasol. In 2008 and 2009, Charlotte drafted DJ Augustine and Gerald Henderson, who were both solid players, but there were far better options available, like Brooke Lopez, Serge Ibaka, and Drew Holiday. In 2010, the Hornets didn't have a first-round pick, while in 2011, Jordan finally made a solid pick, selecting Kemba Walker, 9th overall. But even though Kemba became an all-star, Charlotte could have also ended up with Clay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, or Jimmy Butler, who were all drafted that year. And Jordan's mistakes didn't only happen in the draft. In fact, they were arguably even worse in free agency. MJ traded for a Saganda job and paid him $7 million to sit on the bench for four seasons, since he only averaged two points per game in his career. He also traded for an injured Tyson Chandler and then gave him away for peanuts just a year later. Jordan gave big contracts to mediocre players, like Matt Carroll and Tyrus Thomas, and traded away Gerald Wallace, the team's best player, for 20 cents on the dollar. Five coaching changes in six seasons illustrated the dysfunction of the franchise, and many employees complained about Jordan's impatience to make big swings in the short term without considering long-term stability. And because he often hired friends and their family members, Jordan stopped speaking to Charles Barkley, who openly criticized his leadership on TV.