Buchanan absolutely should get an A+ for the Wallace trade. Everything else he did though, trading for Felton, singing Kurt Thomas, signing Crawford, etc sucked. I thought of the list more as who I feel was the most competent GM with the best process and best decisions at the time - not necessarily the best results of their moves as GM. In terms of result yes his brief time and getting Dame might make him #1. But in terms of ability to communicate what free agents roles will be, acquire the best guys, and exclude the luck factor (which IMO was a massive component of the eventual Dame acquisition) I'd rank him low. Just didn't seem competent as a GM. He was just too inexperienced and young to be the lead decision maker at that time, maybe he would be much better now. Yeah he was only an interim so perhaps he could just be removed from the list.
Fair points on Petrie - I honestly didn't follow details of moves back then (think I was 10 when he was hired), so more it just seemed like a well run period of the team with a lot of good players.
Still think I'd have Pritchard up high on that list at #2 or #3, obviously the Aldridge Roy draft which I give him the bulk of the credit for was great. But he also got Rudy, signed James Jones, Przybilla, there were tons of players that provide huge benefits. Drafting Roy with flagged medicals was totally fine, even with injuries it was a great pick. The contract extension, or more his process and role in it - is something to fairly criticize him for though. Oden selection I have always been ok with and again think its people just evaluating results not the process, basically every team but Orlando with Dwight Howard would've taken Oden.
Its more that this is a very sad list though - outside Trader Bob and Pritchard I wouldn't want any of these guys to be the GM. So thats 80% basically not good hires. That was part of the reason I was never strongly in the fire Olshey camp - just was concerned a change was more likely to be worse than better.
Cronin we'll just have to see... I loved his return and process on the Dame trade, as well as Scoot/Sharpe selections. Most everything else that he has done or times he has sat back and not done anything I have been mildly to massively disappointed with.