Does Nowak draft well? [Archive]

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Knave

11 Jan 2006, 03:37 AM

highlander

11 Jan 2006, 04:02 AM

I'm just asking about the SuperDraft here, not the supplemental draft, not Bobby Boswell - nope, none of that. Just the SuperDraft and whether Nowak has actually picked good players.

Peter's SuperDraft Picks

2005
Nick Van Sicklen - Didn't exactly look promising.
Tim Merritt - Waived.

2004
Freddy Adu - You and I both know that doesn't count.
Kevin Ara - I don't want to talk about this one.
Josh Gros - He turned out OK. Not great. OK.
Kevin Hudson - Never even signed.

Nowak wasn't really responsible for the decision to draft Adu. Of those picks for which he was responsible all he's really got to show for himself is Josh Gros.

Compare that to Steve Nicol's last two drafts ...

2005
Michael Parkhurst - 2005 Rookie of the Year
James Riley - Got a lot of minutes, looked fairly promising.
Tony Lochhead - NZ international, tried his luck in Europe, now returned to MLS.

2004
Clint Dempsey - 2004 Rookie of the Year
Jeremiah White - Well, he went abroad.
Felix Brillant - That one didn't work out well either.

So what's that all come out to?

Josh Gros vs 2 ROYs, one promising player, one NZ international

Hmmm ...
The one thing that I didn't understand - how did we continue to pass on Abe Thompson last year? I keep hearing about how we need a target forward. We could have gotten a very solid one very cheaply, and he was a local guy that everyone in the area knew about. I am glad that Kuykendall is turning out okay, but Abe Thompson should be in a DC United uniform. That was incompetent.

Other than that, DC has never been particularly great at the draft. We have a great history of mid-season acquisitions, but very little distinction in our draft history. I don't think that it is something that our club has ever worked hard to be particularly great at.

Sachin

11 Jan 2006, 06:29 AM

Sundevil9

11 Jan 2006, 07:51 AM

Sachin's right. Organizationally, the team has not done all that well.

Why is that? I don't know the method(s) that United uses in preparing for a Superdraft.

It's obvious that United (and MLS) doesn't have dedicated scouting, it's just the coaching/technical staff going out to a handfull of NCAA games, usually fairly local, and the MLS Combine.

We also don't know who's pulling the strings in terms of the draft. I'd imagine the coaches, Dave Kaspar, and maybe Kevin Payne try and hash out who they want based upon what they've seen. But how much weight does each person have in that process? You'd think that a MLS coach would carry a a lot of weight due to the parity and quick turn around nature of the league. A team can't afford to have too many (or any) 'projects' (ahem-Stokes, Van Sicklen).

Another question falls out of that last one. Does the team draft the 'Best Available Player' or does the team 'Draft by need'? It seems that the team has tried to fill in specific needs in the last couple of years. Especially in the early rounds. Nick Van Sicklen is an obvious example. The team wanted to replace a International Calibre player, and National Team leader with a college kid from Wisconsin. Drafting to fill specific needs seems to be a difficult task. Perhaps it's better to draft 'quality midfielders' as opposed to 'someone who can play the left side of midfield'.

The other aspect is patience. On our part. Can we really say that the 2005 Draft wasn't all that good? If we're looking at 2005 impact then yes. But Kuykendall was another 2005 pick, and he's got some promise, the 2005 draft group has a handful of players with promise. Something that'll change the way we look at how 'good' drafts are is the Reserve Team. The Reserves will allow teams to have a couple of 'project' players. Maybe we're too conditioned to the NBA/NFL quick return type of drafts as expectations, and maybe we should be looking more at the NHL/MLB system types where a raw player goes away after he's drafted only to emerge in a couple of years as a polished player?

Cweedchop

11 Jan 2006, 08:52 AM

In regards to the draft, I think Nowak has underacheived quite a bit. However, considering we haven't had many opportunities to draft quality players (picks traded away under previous management) under Nowak (no 1st round pick last year), it's a bit unfair at this point to say definitively that he doesn't draft well.

I also think it's unfair to criticize the front office in saying that they don't scout well. If that's the case, how did Boswell and Wilson end up on this team? I admit that Clyde Simms landed in our lap mostly because of the off-season attention he garnered with Bruce Arena last winter, but it doesn't mean that United were unaware of him. They did lose to Richmond in the Open Cup with Simms playing for them.

While drafting players is a key ingredient nowadays with strenghtening your squads, especially now with the Reserve League up and running, what you do outside the draft is equally important. In that regard no one else in the league came close to pulling in the players that United did this past season

Boswell
Simms
Wilson
Erpen

With all that being said, obviously United has to do a better job with regards to the draft. It certainly helps matters though when you can actually draft in the top 10 as opposed to the mid teens. And for what it's worth the Nick Van Sicklen story isn't over just yet.

John_Harkes_6

11 Jan 2006, 09:02 AM

Peter's SuperDraft Picks

2005
Nick Van Sicklen - Didn't exactly look promising.
Tim Merritt - Waived.

2004
Freddy Adu - You and I both know that doesn't count.
Kevin Ara - I don't want to talk about this one.
Josh Gros - He turned out OK. Not great. OK.
Kevin Hudson - Never even signed.
Compare that to Steve Nicol's last two drafts ...

2005
Michael Parkhurst - 2005 Rookie of the Year
James Riley - Got a lot of minutes, looked fairly promising.
Tony Lochhead - NZ international, tried his luck in Europe, now returned to MLS.

2004
Clint Dempsey - 2004 Rookie of the Year
Jeremiah White - Well, he went abroad.
Felix Brillant - That one didn't work out well either.

Come on - that is a leap and you know it. We had no choice but to select Adu and Dempsey was off the board before we picked. Parkhurst was again off the board by the time we got to choose in 2005. So the notion that Nichols picked two ROYs and we got squat is misleading at best. Plus - add in Jaime to this agreement since essentially he was our first round pick in 2005.

Take away Dempsey and Parkhurst and you have Gros vs. Riley. That to me is a push.

Atouk

11 Jan 2006, 09:05 AM

We haven't had a decent draft since 2001 - the year we got Tino, Nellie, Namoff and some stiff.

Since then, Gros has been the only serious contributor that we had to select. Freddy doesn't count because we had no choice but to take him.

SachinHudson's last draft included Eskandarian and Carroll. Both started when we won an MLS Cup final. Stokes and Warren from that draft are also still in the league.

The draft before that included Justin Mapp -- who turned via trade into Dema Kovalenko, who also started on the '04 cup-winning team. Mapp wasn't a bad pick at #4 that year (even if I still agree with the trade because we were overly youthful at the time).

cherno

11 Jan 2006, 09:50 AM

OK, if we're going to look at this, let's really think about it (it is the off-season, what else are we gonna do):

Of the teams that had the same Head Coach for the '04 and '05 SuperDraft we have:

Dallas: Nicol: '05- Moor*, Winston Marshall, Chris Gomez, Nash, '04- Nunez*, Goodson*, Maurin, Wagenfuhr, Miranda

SJ: Kinnear: '05- O'Rouke*, Goldthaite, Victor Arbelaez, Orlando Ramirez, CJ Klaas, Jallow, J. Twellman, '04- Cochrane*, Cronin*, Mike wilson, Pecorelli, Pusek, Dombrowski

Chicago: Sarachan: '05- Barrett*, Jack Stewart*, Will John, Rolfe, Segares, Khumalo, Karim Deitz, '04- Noonan*, Griffin, Pickens, Ibrahim, Stephenson, Clanton, Hucles, Pilarski, McGowan, McManus

Columbus: Andrulis: '05- Marcus Storey, Mediate, Knox Cameron, '04- Marshall*, Wingert, Sutton, Adom Crew, Vercollone, Haefner

KC: Gansler: '05- Sealy*, Pore, Christopher Sawyer, Minagawa-Webster, '04- Taylor*, Hesmer, Alberts, Justin Detter, Ryan Barber

Metros: Bradley: '05- Ward*, Corcoran, '04- Stammler, Wells, Occean, Bradley, Johnny David, Parke

NE: Nicol: '05- Parkhurst*, Riley, Lochhead, '04- Dempsey*, Jeremiah White, Brillant, Dorman

Astericks indicate first round picks. In '05 we had no first round picks. In '04 are only first round pick we were obligated to take Adu, so essentially we had no first round picks. So, excluding the first round picks, would you trade our '04 and '05 draftees for the '04-'05 draftees from any of these teams? I'd pull the trigger on that trade with Chicago in a heartbeat to get Rolfe and Segares. Other than that, I'd think long and hard about trading with Columbus. Storey, Mediate and Wingert have been OK and Cameron is still showing some promise. New England would be tempting. Riley looked pretty good, and we'd have had Dorman so he couldn't sub in late against us and bag those late goal(s?);) . So really, in my opinion, is been the lack of first round picks more than anything that has hurt Nowak's draft record and we've gotten good returns on our first round pick trades. He's done OK (not great) with the picks he's had.

Cherno

John_Harkes_6

11 Jan 2006, 09:54 AM

owendylan

11 Jan 2006, 10:20 AM

I think our draft record is a lot like other teams, up one year down another. I agree that overall scouting in the US at mainly college talent is severely lacking. I would think that most of the coaches and team execs get their first real look at a non-local plyer at the combine and it's hard to really know anything after a couple of days. Sure the players who were on a big team or who won something are known to everyone but players that are taken after the 1st round I don't think the coaches have much to go on. I know that college coaches are doing quite a bit of sellling players and contacting front office to give them a heads up on a player, sending in video etc. . . But overall I think that scouting pretty much sucks.

BigKris

11 Jan 2006, 10:29 AM

And besides - the MLS draft is nice but this league is still at the point where one acquisition (Gomez) is far more important than any first round draft pick. Not to say you can keep going to that well but for the most part the draft develops role players (outside the first two or three picks) and allocations make the world go round.

I think this is an important point - how much should we care about the draft, really? Outside of NE, who over the years has drafted something like five or six stud players, most of the "difference-makers" in this league are guys you get either by allocation or some other special arrangement (case in point: the general consensus that "Freddy doesn't count" if you're analyzing DC draft efforts).

My analysis is that United's front office has made an intentional choice that their strategy is going to be (a) investing in building ties and doing scouting in Latin America, particularly Argentina, for key/core talent, and (b) monitoring the A-league to identify cheap, needs-driven role players.

NicktheGreek

11 Jan 2006, 10:33 AM

Prowess in draft selections isn't something that should be evaluated in MLS. In addition to skill, speed and strength considerations MLS front offices have to determine if the new pick can move back into mom's basement, or get a job at costco because no one can survive in DC on the 25k starting salary alone. You can almost make more money getting drafted by the army than MLS.

Sundevil9

11 Jan 2006, 11:02 AM

JoeW

11 Jan 2006, 12:57 PM

OK, if we're going to look at this, let's really think about it (it is the off-season, what else are we gonna do): (snip)Dallas: Clarke: '05- Moor*, Winston Marshall, Chris Gomez, Nash, '04- Nunez*, Goodson*, Maurin, Wagenfuhr, Miranda

SJ: Kinnear: '05- O'Rouke*, Goldthaite, Victor Arbelaez, Orlando Ramirez, CJ Klaas, Jallow, J. Twellman, '04- Cochrane*, Cronin*, Mike wilson, Pecorelli, Pusek, Dombrowski

Chicago: Sarachan: '05- Barrett*, Jack Stewart*, Will John, Rolfe, Segares, Khumalo, Karim Deitz, '04- Noonan*, Griffin, Pickens, Ibrahim, Stephenson, Clanton, Hucles, Pilarski, McGowan, McManus

Columbus: Andrulis: '05- Marcus Storey, Mediate, Knox Cameron, '04- Marshall*, Wingert, Sutton, Adom Crew, Vercollone, Haefner

KC: Gansler: '05- Sealy*, Pore, Christopher Sawyer, Minagawa-Webster, '04- Taylor*, Hesmer, Alberts, Justin Detter, Ryan Barber

Metros: Bradley: '05- Ward*, Corcoran, '04- Stammler, Wells, Occean, Bradley, Johnny David, Parke

NE: Nicol: '05- Parkhurst*, Riley, Lochhead, '04- Dempsey*, Jeremiah White, Brillant, Dorman
(snip)

Very well done.

1. The lack of lots of impact rookies is affected by several variables, one of which is coaching turnover. There are some guys Rongen drafted that Hudson didn't care for. Then Hudson showed low regard for some youth (like dealing Mapp).

2. Nowak was dealt a pretty bad hand when he arrived. In a nutshell:
--to comply with the cap we had to cut our starting right back (Reyes) and release an allocation (Ivanov) and let another guy who started regularly (Stoichkov) go and encourage an icon in the franchise (Etcheverry) retire. And that was without making any big additions.
--first round pick? what first round pick? It was dealt for cap room to acquire Cerritos.
--rookies hadn't played much (only Eskandarian) and even then the experience wasn't a confidence builder. If you predicted good things from Alecko in 2004, it wasn't on the basis of what he showed in 2003.
--so he had to get improvement by growing from within (like Carroll and Eskandarian), low draft picks that were reaches (Ara and Gros), and low budget signees (Perkins and Moreno--who basically came here to end his career from the perspective of everyone in MLS other than Jaime).

3. I think it's a bit of a mistake to look only at draft picks. Why exclude Boswell b/c technically speaking he wasn't part of the "Superdraft"? Originally there was going to be territorial rights for players not chosen and then clubs like Dallas and Columbus and KC realized "whoah--that means we're hosed but clubs like SJ and DCU will clean up with all of that California talent and ACC players". What would have happened if the league had thought it out was--just expand the superdraft by 2-3 rounds. For that same reason Perkisn needs to be included. Sure, he wasn't drafted but he was about the team picking and then trusting rookie Americans.

4. Drafting strategy has been somewhat different. Except for 2001 (when our salary purging of Llamosa, Agoos, Presthus, Williams) allowed us to draft college graduates and guys like Nelsen who were serious about overseas offers (remember, he was on trial with Grasshoppers of Zurich and expected an offer until they last-minute brought in a European player) we haven't focused on college seniors as much as some other sides. Instead, our cap has meant that we drafted guys like: Micah Cooks, Bobby Convey, Santino Quaranta. In otherwords, players who are cap exempt. I know Quaranta was drafted the same year as Lisi and Nelsen. But the point is that drafting a big name college senior who can contribute in year one--that's something NE has been able to do (quick: name a P-40 player who has ever worn a NE kit? Hard to do unless you go back to Jamar Beasley) but we often avoided.

MLS can't succeed unless teams show some ability to grow the Gavens, Conveys, Beasleys, Szetelas, Quarantas, Cartographers and Magees. In otherwords, the underage players. We can't count on building our WC team from the Noonans and Olsens and Eskandarians (ie: guys who went to school for 3 or 4 years, graduated and show up over 20 and physically mature instead of 15-16-17 and still lots of growing to be done--physically and otherwise).

So, Knave, if we were to add a measure of how teams have done developing youthful (ie: rookies 19 or younger when they join the team) to your draft standard, then NE has done pitiful--perhaps the worst in the league. But that approach (picking younger players) means deferring instant gratification: getting a Convey (and I agree--we need to exclude Adu) who plays a lot in year one as a 16 or 17 year old is very rare. So to do something I think is essential for US soccer (ie: investing in youthful players and growing them into productive pros and national teamers) means picking guys now who may not really contribute for 2-3-4 years. Afterall, that is pretty much what the deal of Mapp for Kovalenko was all about: Mapp was irresponsible and contributed little as a rookie but was fast with a world of potential. Kovalenko would contribute right away, was gritty and you knew what you were getting.

I think DCU's track record drafting is actually pretty good. I think we have a fine record institutionally of growing youngsters. I think Nowak in particular (his insistance on standards--which kids need, his experience as a 15 year old pro, his willingness to give serious minutes to unproven players who earn it in practice) is outstanding at growing inexperienced players. I also think that the team (whether this is Nowak or Kasper or whomever) has shown some flair in seeing a player in one position (Olsen as an outside mid, Adu as a forward, Gros as a forward) and projecting them in another position they excel in (Olsen as a holding mid, Adu as an A-mid, Gros as a winger). And that's a big part of evaluating and growing talent.

Zman Gunner

11 Jan 2006, 01:22 PM

I think that KPN can take legit citicism for the Ara and Van Sicklen picks - they were early enough picks for which we should have been able to get serviceable players. It is hard to criticize the pick of Merritt as he was the last pick of the Superdraft as the other players taken in that round did not do much and some of them did not even make their team or last the whole season. If you throw Supplemental picks into the mix, Kuykendall was a decent one - the jury is out on Nickell - and Terris was a non-factor before getting cut.

The terms of comparing NE vs. DCU draft track records - there is another way to view it. I preferred our trade of our 2005 1st round pick to get Moreno (who helped us win MLS Cup) vs. NE's return on all of their #1 picks (Dempsey, Parkhurst - very good players - still looking to win a MLS Cup). Plus, it is not as if DCU passed on either of those NE players (Adu was a done deal in 2004, we would have picked behind NE so we could not have gotten Parkhurst in 2005). I agree that Riley could have been a better option (decent cover at both RB and RM) in the 2nd round than Van Sicklen. Going back to 2003, we had two good picks (Esky, Carroll) and two dogs (Stokes, Warren) in terms of picks in the top 2 rounds.

Atouk

11 Jan 2006, 01:45 PM

Then Hudson showed low regard for some youth (like dealing Mapp).Low regard? Or simply less regard for young Mapp than slightly-less-young Quaranta and Convey, plus the knowledge that we could really use someone like Dema.Afterall, that is pretty much what the deal of Mapp for Kovalenko was all about: Mapp was irresponsible and contributed little as a rookie but was fast with a world of potential. Kovalenko would contribute right away, was gritty and you knew what you were getting.Exactly... we already had young "high potential" guys in Convey and Quaranta and adding another very young player with the #4 pick in the draft was setting us up to be successful in the long term, but not in the short. As we'd more-or-less sucked for a couple of years already at that point, it was time to get better. And we did.2. Nowak was dealt a pretty bad hand when he arrived. In a nutshell:
--to comply with the cap we had to cut our starting right back (Reyes) and release an allocation (Ivanov) and let another guy who started regularly (Stoichkov) go and encourage an icon in the franchise (Etcheverry) retire. And that was without making any big additions.
I agree with much of that, but not all. Reyes (our starting right back in '02, not '03) being cut was being dealt a better hand than year before in which Hudson had Reyes injured all season (hurt in early April '03 against Richmond) yet still eating our salary cap money. Further, some would argue that being allowed to "encourage an icon to retire" was being dealt a better hand than Hudson, who was forced to sink or swim with an aging Etch. Anyway, I don't mean to be too much of a Hudson apologist, but I don't necessarily agree that life was harder for Nowak than for Hudson, either.

JoeW

11 Jan 2006, 03:26 PM

Atouk, good points all but keep this in mind...

1. Hudson came into a bad situation (terrible defense, losing team, huge turnover in leadership the year before). But by year two he had a lot of edges:
--lots of high draft choices (4 in the top 20 including the #1 pick in the draft).
--lots of cap room.
--two allocations.
--a player or two who signed for extremely low salary and then part of it didn't count on the cap (Stoichkov).
--he got to play with a higher/bigger cap than other MLS teams (b/c Stewart was basically cap-reduced cuz we used an allocation on him and then we traded our #1 to get cap room).
Now, I'm not arguing MAE was in his prime, Stoichkov was a great acquisition, Ivanov was the second coming of Lubos Kubik and Earnie Stewart would lead the league in scoring.

If the personnel on the team were bad or unproductive, they were mostly players that Hudson acquired or decided to keep. For instance, I think it's fair to criticize Nowak for drafting Ara. It's not fair to criticize him for not drafting a high pick when Hudson traded it away. I don't criticize Hudson for the lack of good defenders when he got here. But then there were players he let go or traded for, cap decisions he made--and he has to own those results.

2. He left Nowak with a terrible team--one that got into the playoffs b/c Dallas was an all-time terrible team and Columbus stunk. That team was terribly over the cap (more so than any other in DCU history--and we wrote the history of being over the cap). He (Hudson) inherited a young team with talent but then didn't develop any of the rookies he acquired (either trading or cutting them or didn't play them). His allocations mostly didn't work out.

3. Nowak came into a situation with:
--no high draft picks
--very raw young players
--a critical young player who was in a funk from the year before and wanted out
--significantly over the cap
--no allocations
--no ability to acquire new players except guys on the margin (ie: players no-one else wanted like Moreno or young Americans like Gros and Perkins) UNLESS he did substantial cost-cutting.

Now we can argue that cutting Reyes or letting MAE or Stoichkov go was a good thing. But the point was that the team had been built (to a certain extent) around them and when you have to gut your team just to be compliant (not gut to get talent, just gut to be able to file your roster) than that's not a good position you were left with.

Knave--I get you're only talking about the Superdraft. But that distinction when it comes to Boswell, Kuykendall and Perkins is a false one. The whole issue(s) with the draft it seem to me are:
--does a team/coach do a good job of spotting raw American talent (ie: non pros who aren't in a pro environment like USL)?
--can that coach develop that talent into productive, contributing front-line players?

I'd argue that if the Superdraft had been 4-5 rounds, than DCU would have drafted Kuykendall and Boswell. Instead we have this silly distinction of superdraft and then the draft that followed it.

Atouk

11 Jan 2006, 04:06 PM

2. He left Nowak with a terrible team--one that got into the playoffs b/c Dallas was an all-time terrible team and Columbus stunk.Sorry to keep the topic off of draft picks for another moment, but to be fair, Hudson's last team was 10-11-9, while Nowak's first was 11-10-9. If there are excuses for our getting into the playoffs in '03 (lack of quality in the competition), they'd have to be about the same in '04.

(And while Hudson's team was in disarray after his second year, it did flame out of the playoffs less spectacularly than and by the same 0-4 score as Nowak's second-year team).

As far as leaving him with a bad team, 6 of the 11 starters in the MLS Cup final were acquired in Hudson's two years -- Rimando, Petke, Stewart, Carroll, Kovalenko, and Eskandarian. One was acquired by Arena (Olsen), two by Rongen (Namoff and Nelsen), and two by Nowak (Gomez and Moreno). So, Hudson left him with 9 of 11 Championship starters.

shawn12011

11 Jan 2006, 04:16 PM

JoeW

11 Jan 2006, 04:45 PM

Sorry to keep the topic off of draft picks for another moment, but to be fair, Hudson's last team was 10-11-9, while Nowak's first was 11-10-9. If there are excuses for our getting into the playoffs in '03 (lack of quality in the competition), they'd have to be about the same in '04.

(And while Hudson's team was in disarray after his second year, it did flame out of the playoffs less spectacularly than and by the same 0-4 score as Nowak's second-year team).

As far as leaving him with a bad team, 6 of the 11 starters in the MLS Cup final were acquired in Hudson's two years -- Rimando, Petke, Stewart, Carroll, Kovalenko, and Eskandarian. One was acquired by Arena (Olsen), two by Rongen (Namoff and Nelsen), and two by Nowak (Gomez and Moreno). So, Hudson left him with 9 of 11 Championship starters.

Atouk, this is part of the problem with very high level stats (like: LA won two cups this year or the 2003-2004 teams had almost identical records). I would ask you two questions and assume for a second that the 2004 team lost in the first round of the playoffs (ie: didn't win the MLS Cup).
1. Which MLS coach did a better job developing youth and getting young players or rookies to contribute? I think you'd say Nowak. He not only got Gros and Perkins, but he got Carroll and Eskandarian to be major performers (and there were bit players under Hudson). Hudson said that Carroll was not a D-mid (though, in fairness that might have partially been a system thing), that Eskandarian lacked the quickness to be a good pro.
2. Which DCU team played better soccer--the 2003 or 2004 version? In 2003, we eeked out points, relied on a lot of dives to get PK calls, yelled at refs and trash-talked. Oh, and were gifted points by a horrid Dallas team. In 2004, DCU was the equal or the better (in terms of run of play) for almost every team we played that year with exception of perhaps 3-4 matches (mostly in mid-season).

Now if you look at the 2003-4 records, I think you see a tougher league in 2004 with not as many easy points. To argue the teams were roughly equal is really unfair to the 2004 side. To also argue that 6 of 11 starters came from Hudson's era actually points out what I'd said earlier--that when Nowak arrived, his hands were tied. He had no allocations, no high draft picks, and was hit with huge cap commitments. Maybe Ivanov would have been a fine defender with Nowak--but we'll never know b/c we could afford him. Maybe Reyes would have become the outside midfielder charging down the flank--but we'll never now b/c we could afford him. Nowak had to gut the team (in terms of cutting players the team was built around) and that still didn't give him any room to add new talent--it just made him cap compliant.

It's not like we traded Eddie Pope but got an allocation or cut a player to be able to get a better player. We cut our A-mid, withdrawn-forward, central defender, right side back and got nothing from it. Maybe those cuts made the team better but I doubt they weren't made on the basis of talent but on economics.

Here's another way to look at this: Nowak basically took Hudson's subs (the guys that Hudson didn't trust) like Namoff and Carroll and Eskandarian and turned them into strong MLS players. And then he's taken guys like Gros and Boswell and turned them into strong MLS players. And he's taken a guy like Jamil Walker who was initially unimpressive with SJ (but eventually turned into something good under Yallop then unimpressive with Kinnear and and then Chivas and now back as a contributor for us).

This thread is about how well Nowak drafts. My argument is that the draft is really about how well a coach spots talent and then trusts and grows inexperienced Americans. I think Nowak's track record is in spotting the hidden gem in a Carroll, Gros, Boswell or Kuykendall and then growing it. We've benefited from the recommitment of Moreno and acquisition of Gomez. But the rest of this team is mostly about Nowak seeing something other people didn't see and growing it.