I'm trying to prove that I could have built a much better team than OZ made, obviously I have the ability of hindsight right now, but I'll try to focus on available information at the time the deals were made. More importantly I'll prove OZ was a retard. Here we go: 1) SuperDraft 2000: Obviously, I would have taken Bocanegra instead of Shack with our first pick in the draft. Nick Garcia and him were the obvious first choices, everyone knew this, and from what I read back them Boca had a leg up on Garcia. 2) Dispersal Draft 2002: I would have traded with Colorado and with the 4th pick I would have taken Ralston. Before the draft the buzz was either him or Mastroeni as the two top players, and I couldn't have agreed more. With regards to Ralston, good wing midfielders in this league seem to be more rare than a 50K diamond. Ralston is the best of the best, and we all new Villegas a really bad, even before OZ traded him away. Ralston was a much better choice than Serna, who had already proven to be a head case. I then would have taken the 3rd choice on the SuperDraft belonging to TB, like we did, in the first round. 3) SuperDraft 2002: It was already a well know fact that NE was looking for a player like Hernandez. They needed help with their defense big time. Playing Hernandez at midfield looked like a bad idea from the start. Plus they already had Diallo and APC from the Dispersal Draft. So I would have traded Hernandez for their 2nd pick, maybe adding something to sweeten the deal (your guess is as good as mine, but I really think we could have done this). With it I would have picked Twellman. Please keep in mind NE didn't need him at the time at all... he started the season on the bench. I read a lot, lot, lot of good stuff on him before the draft. It was obvious he was going to be a very good player. I would have picked up Davis with the 3rd and definitely Kyle Martino with the 7th pick. I must have read 1000 favorable report on him prior to the report. 4) Countess for Winston Griffiths was a stupid, stupid move. I would have never made it. I do have to give props where props are due¡K trading for Jolley and Hernandez made sense. And Hamman for Kamler, although unimpressive was OK given that Mike didn't want to go anywhere else. I would have also gone ahead with the Villegas/Perez for Ziade/Lisi trade. Back them we would have only had one SI's on staff (Faria), so I would have used one of them for a Discovery defensive midfielder. Or just used Moore or Paule So we would have had a team of: -----------------Twellman---------Faria------------- ------------------------Mathis------------------------- Davis-----------SI/Moore/Paule or Martino--------Ralston Kamler---------Bocanegra------Jolley-------Petke ------------------------Howard------------------------ This year I wouldn't have made the Pope/Moreno/Williams trade, plus we would have probably made play offs in 2002 so we would have had a pick around 4/5/6. Faria for Bradley was genius. But that wasn't OZ was it. I would have traded Countess to Dallas for it's 4th pick and picked up Magee for Bradley, and used our pick in the first round to get Gaven for him as well. Saving our 1st round in next year's draft and allowing us to keep Davis, although if Dallas really wanted Davis we could have offered him to SJ for the #3. They just lost their starting GK after all. So this year our team would have been: ------------------------Twellman---------Mathis--------------------- Davis-- Mario Alberto or another SI or Martino--------Ralston Kamler or other---Bocanegra---------------Jolley-----------Petke ------------------------------------Howard------------------------------ Best in MLS with Bradley coaching!!!!!!!!!!! What do you guys think?
I already said I would have picked up Magee with by trading with Dallas or SJ... as for Regan I wouldn't have minded trading our second round for Regan. Maybe play him as our left side defender, instead of Kamler.
I thought of that too... it's the only reason why I wouldn't want all of this to have happened... but wouldn't we have a great team right now? Hell at least OZ could have made one of my suggestions... it just seems like he screwed it all... every time he could have made the right move he went the other way.
Real, its all good and well to post this, thanks for posting intelligent thought on these boards for a change, but, its hard to know if in 2000 or 2001 we would have drafted this player or that player. Certain teams have a superior eye for talent, in retropsect, its easy to point out the mistakes. Would you have selected Faria in 2001? Chances are....no. Thanks for the thoughts and effort, its appreciated, but its easy to make these assessments several years removed from the decisions. Even the NFL where there is both league and then individual team scouting and access to games and tapes are much more readily available, the draft is still a crap shoot.
Dude, this was really kewl and all, but the past is the past. We can't change it so don't dwell on it. Move ahead and make better decisions - that is my reaction to the post. What if's can drive a man insane.
My reaction is I can't even remember where I was in 2000, you can rememebr who you WOULD have picked in the dispersal and super drafts? Wow, that's pretty impressive (or fictitious)