It's not passing on Naclerio that did Norm in, it was passing on everyone. At the time, NYC may not have been producing a dozen lottery picks, but Norm lost a lot of players from the city that we needed. Just about everyone. The only one he landed was Hardy, and Norm didn't even know what he had.
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Not to defend Norm, but Burrell was a good get (and would have been better with a different staff for four years), and from what everyone says Rob Thomas pre-injury was a legitimate top recruit. Omari also got recruited by some big boys but apparently got out of shape and was never the player everyone thought he might be. The problem with Norm was not only did he not get enough of the good NYC players (or the top ones, as we have done recently with Harkless and Obekpa), but he didn't compensate that loss by getting highly ranked guys from outside NYC.