I don’t know the man personally, never met him. I know people who have worked for him, but hold no biases. This is the way I see it:

The man was the best GM in the league in 2007-2008 and built our best team ever. Yes he overpaid for Peja and gave Mo an extra year but he had to because at that time we were a bad team and/or we had other teams after thoses guys. If he doesn’t overpay Peja, that 07-08 is much different and Peterson was a key ingredient as well. 

Admittedly the Posey deal was a bad one, as was the pick of Simmons. As for JuJu, he presented the most value on the board and almost any GM would have taken him at that spot, considering our roster- so I don’t call him an idiot for doing what any good GM would have done. Same with Hilton- I mean weren’t Sene and O’Bryant taken ahead of him in that draft? That was a 7 man draft and we had picks 12 and 15. The plan was to take Brewer at 15 but the Jazz beat us to it. Still, I will say Simmons is a bad pick.

I look at the Lakers and Mavs and they make just as many mistakes- if not more- and all they do is buy there way out of it. If Bower had that kind of money, he would have turned Antonio Daniels and Sual into Caron Butler last year, and he would look like a “genius”. Then he would use the MLE this year and move our expirings for another big guy, etc. etc. 

He made a few mistakes, but show me a GM who hasn’t made as many, if not more. You might get to five. Let’s take this as a fresh start, and judge him from here on. If he makes the smae mistakes, then he is a fool. But look at the draft- he picked project guys and they failed, so last year he changed his draft philosophy, and we struck gold. I have the feeling he learns from his mistakes and we won’t see a repeat of our poor moves. 

Just my take.