Absolutely it’s a straw man. Your original post insinuated that my criticism is based on him not nailing every pick. Which clearly isn’t the case. If the Jazz aren’t going to score in free agency then they cannot have misses in the draft. Lindsey hasn’t just erred in late first round picks, but also mid first and lottery picks too.
You are correct, I apologize. My post was more directed toward those who hammer on DL for not nailing late first round draft picks as evidence of his lack of competence, which strikes me as a incredibly silly argument, and not a straw man. Your post was more limited in scope, and you were not implying he should nail every pick, so, I guess straw man.
Still, for me, the issue is not how GMs do in a vacuum, it's how they do relative to other GMs. No GM nails every pick, none. For example, Hinkey whiffed on Okafor, Noel, Fultz, and arguably Saric. I'm guessing you can go down every team and find multiple draft picks that didn't pan out.
Also, one has to look at how other potential picks in the same range, which might have been selected by the GM, have done. In other words, if you team's pick doesn't pan out, but then neither did the picks who might have reasonably been thought to be the opportunity cost for your pick, then that's just a bad draft class, not bad GMing.
Nor is the correct frame of reference a team, and GM, who got lucky with late 1st or 2nd round draft picks that significantly outperformed expectations. Sure, there's some skill there, but also a tremendous amount of luck.
One thing we don't see in nearly any of the critiques of DL is consideration of the above types of context.
