NBA GM Ratings: Using the Goodman Scale To Review -- Pete Babcock

Previously on "Why Hawks Fans Are Constantly Paranoid Their Franchise Will Screw Up on Draft Night":

We reviewed the Billy Knight Era -- where we saw an overall 0.75 rating on the Goodman Scale for measuring NBA GMs on their draft acumen.

Now, it's on to the Pete Babcock Era. With Billy Knight making such blunders on draft day, I think we tend to forget how the very nice man Babcock made such a mess of the draft.

Well, good news! Thanks to Jeff Goodman creating an easy to follow grading system, we can go back to revisit if our memories were simply jaded and if Babcock's record comes close to matching our recollection.

On with the show!

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Comparatively speaking, Billy Knight's 0.75 looks awesome next to Babcock's -0.426.

Babcock drafted for over a decade and had two solid starters to show for it: Stacey Augmon and Jason Terry.

But it wasn't just the lack of long term starters, it was the litany of guys who washed out of the league so quickly, like Ed Gray, Roshown McLeod and Priest Lauderdale. We even gave a higher grade to Dion Glover and DerMarr Johnson, though they were both out of the league by the age of 27.

Even the higher picks didn't come close to panning out, like Douglas Edwards and Rumeal Robinson and Alan Henderson only seems better in memory because he stuck around so long -- he really didn't play very much after his first couple of seasons.

The other good pick was Chris Crawford, who became a bench player out of the #50 position. And the reward was a legendary 7 year contract after the Knicks series in 1999. Ahhh, Pete.

The opportunity cost was no better for Babcock than it was for Knight, as Pete began to trade away picks for Lorenzen Wright and Shareef Abdur-Rahim that isn't reflected in this score.

His biggest draft gaffe, however, came in the 2001 draft, after he traded the rights to Pau Gasol for Shareef, he also acquired the #27 pick, which he was all set to use on one of his short list of point guard prospects. Ultimately though, with all of his choices still on the board, he punted the pick for a future pick.

Tops on that list? Tony Parker, whom Babcock said they just didn't know if he could play at the NBA level and so, despite targeting him as their guy at point guard, they passed.

The same guy who took 7'4 Priest Lauderdale because "what the heck at #26, you take some chances" passed on a potential Hall of Famer because he didn't want to take that same chance.

And that's how the Hawks fans have the history and scars they have today.

Coming up: The Rick Sund Era!