The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Destino]

I couldn't watch the game and I'm a bit stunned that the Lakers won despite a great night from Wall.  Who did Kobe torch and who did he guard? 

[Going Commando]

I can see how you may feel that way about Ernie, especially with the team's plans to land KD. But Randy? No.

Randy won two road playoff series and was basically a Wall broken wrist away from coaching in the ECF. I think he's a good enough coach.

Basically, I think there are about three or four coaches in the NBA that are true difference makers, Pop, Carlisle, Budenholzer. There are a handful that are incompetent--who lose the faith of their locker room and are doomed. Then the rest range from pretty good (Stotts, Spoelstra, Stevens, Joerger, Kerr, Vogel, Rivers, etc.) to ordinary (Wittman, Casey, Clifford). But none have a huge impact on the ceiling of their team. They all provide baseline competent leadership and have the ability to put their players in the best position in the format of the postseason. A team's ceiling comes down to it's player talent. Much more so than in any other sport. Right now, while the team is too young to be consistently good, Randy will do. As long as he maintains the support of the locker room and rises to the occasion in the playoffs, he should be safe.

[Skin'emAlive]

Id do terrible things to have Spoelstra, Joerger, or Stevens coach this team over Randy. You are underselling the impact a good coach can have on a team with good players.

[Skin'emAlive]

The reality here is that Ernie has spent the last two season trying to clear the books in the hopes that Kevin Durant will leave and come here. He has done this by and large by signing 1-2 year deals on players coming off injuries (Webster, Dudley, Anderson), salary dumps (Pierce, Humphries), or vagabonds (Butler). He has also spent the last two 1st round picks on 3's, the very position Durant plays. If this was all some sort of masterplan, its lacking in totality.

 

Meanwhile, Wall is getting older. Wittman is still throwing out regular season garbage, including benching our youngster over a pumpfake. Worst of all, Oklahoma City doubled down on Durant and spent everything they had on upgrading the team to entice Durant to stay (which imo has worked great). He would be a fool to leave honestly. What is our plan when he doesnt come here, because it sure doesnt seem like there is one.

 

Witt is who he is. I try to convince myself that the regular season is just a ruse, and that he saves it all for the playoffs. But that type of strategy is just stupid. Calling timeouts at the right time, playing your best players, and catering an offensive game play to the strengths of your best players seem to be the bare minimum of a coach's duties.

[pjfootballer]

I do not want the Wizards firing front office members off like the Redskins do, nor do I want them catering to the whims of fans. Ernie is a mediocre GM. Randy Wittman might not even be a mediocre HC. But the Wizards are a way better run franchise than the Redskins. The "hope" that Redskins fans are sold each offseason is a sack of bull****.

And Ted, Ernie and Randy don't throw out the same sack year after year? Where's this 50 win team and EC contender **** we keep hearing will happen? Come on man. Some of have been waiting 35+ years for another title. We have yet to even sniff one. At least in that same time, the Redskins have actually won something.

[Rocky21]

Totally and completely humiliating. 

[justice98]

Hard to have a core fanbase when you haven't won more than 46 games in a season since 1979. I mean really guys, how can you not see that? Win 50+ games a season for a few years with some long playoff runs and the fans will be there. We had a great home court in last years playoffs.

I've been a fan of this team since 1977 and it's hard to have faith in the team or show enthusiasm for a team that is satisfied with mediocrity year in and year out.

That's a really good point. My expectations are always gonna cap out at 45-46 wins until they prove otherwise. Edited December 3, 2015 by justice98

[Going Commando]

Id do terrible things to have Spoelstra, Joerger, or Stevens coach this team over Randy. You are underselling the impact a good coach can have on a team with good players.

I'd estimate Randy's coaching mistakes cost us about four regular season wins last year. Four extra losses than if you replaced him with a second tier coach like Spoelstra or Joerger.

And I think he evens out in the playoffs, where the increased time between games and the fixed opponent allowed our staff the prep time to match the caliber of coaching of much better staffs like Thibodeau's and Budenholzer's.

A lot of our regular season underachievement from the previous two years came from running an offensive system that our best players could not execute efficiently. He's updated the system and style of play to fit Wall, Beal, Porter, and Gortat. It stands to reason that, once the the team as a whole adapts to the new offense, Randy will cost us fewer regular season wins.

But even if it doesn't, getting those extra four or five wins a season isn't worth the instability that comes from firing a coach. Especially one who seems to still have the support of our locker room, and especially the support of our star player. You can poison the well and break up the locker room that way.

Things have to get much, much worse to justify firing Randy IMO. I actually think he's improved too. Settled into the job and started installing a system that suits our core players. I don't blame him for the poor record so far. The record is more on Ernie and the players themselves. Randy built an offense to suit Wall, Beal, Porter, and Gortat, and each of them sucked through the first month of the season. And Ernie hasn't acquired a suitable group of power forwards to run the system yet. Wall was playing so bad in November, this team can not win with him performing that way. There wasn't much Randy can do to get around that.

But Wall and Gortat are rounding into form and Beal and Porter will too eventually. Still going to have a profound deficiency at PF limiting our ceiling unless Ernie pulls off a miracle trade, but when our top four all perform we'll start winning games again.

[Going Commando]

And Ted, Ernie and Randy don't throw out the same sack year after year? Where's this 50 win team and EC contender **** we keep hearing will happen? Come on man. Some of have been waiting 35+ years for another title. We have yet to even sniff one. At least in that same time, the Redskins have actually won something.

The Redskins were legitimately great under JKC's ownership. Under Snyder's they're maybe one of the five worst run franchises in all of major revenue American pro sports. The Wizards under Abe were similarly terrible. But under Ted, they've manage to reach a level of respectability and reliable competitiveness in a third of the time that Snyder's owned the Redskins. I'll buy what the Wizards are selling any day of the week over the Redskins.

[StillUnknown]

The Redskins were legitimately great under JKC's ownership. Under Snyder's they're maybe one of the five worst run franchises in all of major revenue American pro sports. The Wizards under Abe were similarly terrible. But under Ted, they've manage to reach a level of respectability and reliable competitiveness in a third of the time that Snyder's owned the Redskins. I'll buy what the Wizards are selling any day of the week over the Redskins.

 

I would buy a flaming bag of dog**** over what Snyder sells

 

doesn't make Ted's seeming unwillingness to move on from Grunfeld any more logical

Edited December 3, 2015 by StillUnknown

[Going Commando]

The reality here is that Ernie has spent the last two season trying to clear the books in the hopes that Kevin Durant will leave and come here. He has done this by and large by signing 1-2 year deals on players coming off injuries (Webster, Dudley, Anderson), salary dumps (Pierce, Humphries), or vagabonds (Butler). He has also spent the last two 1st round picks on 3's, the very position Durant plays. If this was all some sort of masterplan, its lacking in totality.

 

Meanwhile, Wall is getting older. Wittman is still throwing out regular season garbage, including benching our youngster over a pumpfake. Worst of all, Oklahoma City doubled down on Durant and spent everything they had on upgrading the team to entice Durant to stay (which imo has worked great). He would be a fool to leave honestly. What is our plan when he doesnt come here, because it sure doesnt seem like there is one.

The plan, if Durant stays in OKC, is to continue building around Wall, Beal, Porter, and Gortat. It's not like we can only use all of that cap space on Durant. The next two summers will have some of the deepest FA classes in a while. We can use the money we've cleared for Durant to sign a variety players.

The team isn't desperate to sign Durant to be competitive long term because it already has a foundation in star caliber talent in Wall and Beal.

And the Otto and Oubre picks were pure BPA picks IMO. That's the right call and it means we're not putting all of our money on Durant.

If you look at most FA signings throughout the NBA, a lot of the best role players come from the situations you mentioned. Guys signing for low dollar exceptions after coming off injuries or previous bad situations. You might only get a dozen or so free agents each summer who are entering their primes and command dollars and widespread interest.

When I look back at any FAs we passed on in order to save money for 2016, the only one I really feel regretful about is Patrick Patterson. And I'm not sure he was going to leave Toronto.

Besides, the plan to clear space to sign Durant was a sound one. We'd be howling if we punted away any chance of him in order to sign some role players. And when you make a plan like that, I think you have to see it through, even if it's tempting to abandon it beforehand when an enticing role player becomes available.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

I would agree that I don't think any coach is going to turn crap to ice cream and that this falls heavily on EG.  It just seems like something has to happen for better or worse if they continue the pace they are on. 

 

Gortat's comments from a few days ago are rather glaring in relation to EG, and while he probably should have kept the comments to himself, its hard to dispute what he said.  I'm sure they are posted in here somewhere, but the comments in relation to heightened expectations for the team but they really got no better in the offseason.  I would imagine when this all-in for Durant mission fails we should be seeing the end of the EG era here in Washington.

[Going Commando]

I would buy a flaming bag of dog**** over what Snyder sells

 

doesn't make Ted's seeming unwillingness to move on from Grunfeld any more logical

Firing Ernie carries a huge amount of risk now. The time to do it was in 2010. 2012 at the absolute latest. After this core developed into a playoff caliber squad, built very specifically around Wall, it became too late. Now if you clean house, a new GM comes in and has his own vision and wants to build a core in his own way, he could break up everything. I'd rather have Ernie selling off second round picks and signing Alan Andersons and Martell Websters than watch Beal or Porter grow into star players for some other franchise. Or heaven forbid that happening with Wall.

[StillUnknown]

Firing Ernie carries a huge amount of risk now. The time to do it was in 2010. 2012 at the absolute latest. After this core developed into a playoff caliber squad, built very specifically around Wall, it became too late. Now if you clean house, a new GM comes in and has his own vision and wants to build a core in his own way, he could break up everything. I'd rather have Ernie selling off second round picks and signing Alan Andersons and Martell Websters than watch Beal or Porter grow into star players for some other franchise. Or heaven forbid that happening with Wall.

 

You don't stick with a bad option because you didn't fire him when you should have years ago. You are locking yourself to guy who has never constructed a team that has won more than 46 games in a consistently weak Eastern Conference, and is presently in charge of team that is floundering under the expectations that we should be a 50 win team.

 

when you look at it through that prism, what exactly would a new GM be breaking up? basketball purgatory at best?

[Going Commando]

RealGM is a fun place during slumps. I just read one of the forum mods say he'd trade Beal right now for a late lottery pick.  SMDH.

You don't stick with a bad option because you didn't fire him when you should have years ago. You are locking yourself to guy who has never constructed a team that has won more than 46 games in a consistently weak Eastern Conference, and is presently in charge of team that is floundering under the expectations that we should be a 50 win team.
 
when you look at it through that prism, what exactly would a new GM be breaking up? basketball purgatory at best?

I'm not ready to accept that 46 wins is as good as it gets for the Wall/Beal/Porter era. I still think Beal is going to end up being an All Star and Porter will be close to that. I'm not giving up on them because they're struggling with consistency at ages 22 & 24.

[pjfootballer]

The Redskins were legitimately great under JKC's ownership. Under Snyder's they're maybe one of the five worst run franchises in all of major revenue American pro sports. The Wizards under Abe were similarly terrible. But under Ted, they've manage to reach a level of respectability and reliable competitiveness in a third of the time that Snyder's owned the Redskins. I'll buy what the Wizards are selling any day of the week over the Redskins.

 

Seriously?  I think you're letting your love and bias for the NBA come through.

 

What part of Ted has been "great" so far.  Since he was part of the ownership of the team since 1999  (majority owner in 2010), we've had 10 losing seasons, 5 winning seasons and one .500 season.  You call that great?   We have peaked a high of 46 wins under Leonsis. 

 

Under Pollin after the 1978-79 season, we had 15 losing seasons and 5 winning seasons, with a peak of 45 wins.

 

Nothing has changed dude.  Other than the late 90s Webber, Howard, Strickland team, neither owner has givne this fanbase ANYTHING to look forward to since 1978. 

 

These are all facts.

 

What about the Gilbert gun fiasco?  Is that what you would call good times?  How about the fact that Snyder gets blamed for being "buddy, buddy" with Vinny, yet Ted doesn't have the guts to fire GMs when they suck.  He held on to George McPhee "way" too long and seems to love what Ernie has done so far. 

 

I really don't get how you can say the Wizards have been run any better than the Redskins since 1999. I'm not a Nats fan, but I feel they have probably been the best run team in the area.  The Capitals "may" have a chance this year, but I'm still skeptical when it comes to the playoffs.

 

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. If you guys want other fans to be diehard Wizard fans, they need to go to the next level, which is 50 win seasons and competing for titles.  Otherwise, NOBODY will care outside of us loyal fans.

Edited December 3, 2015 by pjfootballer

[StillUnknown]

I'm not ready to accept that 46 wins is as good as it gets for the Wall/Beal/Porter era. I still think Beal is going to end up being an All Star and Porter will be close to that. I'm not giving up on them because they're struggling with consistency at ages 22 & 24.

 

 

see I just don't trust Grunfeld to put the pieces around them to get them to the next level

[Skin'emAlive]

Well first, Randy's coaching mistakes may cost only 4-5 games. But then you have to factor in the development problems that run much deeper beneath the surface. Its not even like our losses this year have been all that close. There have been multiple non-comps. We have 3 top 5 draft picks starting on this roster and yet I would venture to say Brad Stevens has a group with more potential in less time and lower picks. If we even come close to beating Boston this year in the regular season, I would be shocked.

 

Additionaly, lets take a look at Randy's super up-tempo offense. We have clamored for a faster paced offense for a while. Wall, Otto, Brad, and Marcin all seem to be a great fit at running the court. But the implementation seems to be counterproductive. We are sprinting and throwing the ball up the court without even thinking, all in the name of going faster. Of course its going to result in more turnovers. I could go on, but I think i already made my point ealier in this thread.

 

The Redskins sucked for close to 20 years because they didnt have a quarterback. Its really that simple in the NFL. If you dont have a good qb, you have nothing. We had one for a season, won the division, looked great with a promising future, and had the world loving or hating us. Then he broke and that was that. Having Cerrato and others running the show certainly did not help, but by and large the suck was a result of not having a great quarterback. We can hope that Cousins turns out good. But his ability isnt as transcendent and requires better support from the FO. I like the foundation that is set to encourage growth though. You cant get that by sticking with suck for too long. (see Cerratto era).

 

Ted should have fired Ernie the second he bought the team. Any brainless child could draft John Wall and Bradley Beal. And for as much as I love Otto, many could argue that taking Noel with that pick would have been a better choice with regards to Wall/Beal. But the point remains that the 3 guys who are regarded as the foundation of the team are picks that took almost no scouting or ability to make. Ernie then surrounded Wall with a cast of backups and vets. Even now in this fast-paced offense, our FA pickups have been two guys coming off surgery, 1 guy from a broadcast booth, and a 31 year old heat check. In fact, the only addition to this team that has the ability to run the floor and play defense is that guy our coach is currently giving the rookie business.

[Going Commando]

see I just don't trust Grunfeld to put the pieces around them to get them to the next level

I think the heavy lifting is probably already done. It's going to take longer than we want, but I think that when Wall, Beal, and Porter reach their mid to late twenties, they will naturally power us to the next level. Ernie's job is really just about maintaining a solid supporting cast of role players around them from here on out. I think he can do that. I think almost any GM in the NBA could. In the meantime, I'm just looking for incremental progress from those three players. Monitoring them for growth.

I don't know if Wall/Beal/Porter in their prime is enough to win us a championship. But I'm confident that it will be good enough to compete for one with a straight face. And I think that's about the best any non-Lakers/Spurs fan can realistically expect.

And yes I realize I could be wrong about the potential of Wall, Beal, and Porter. I don't think I'm that far off, but I could be. And yes I realize one of them could suffer a career-ruining injury. But that potential albatross hangs around every franchise that's building around a foundation of specific players.

[Destino]

RealGM is a fun place during slumps. I just read one of the forum mods say he'd trade Beal right now for a late lottery pick. SMDH.

That's nuts and would set the wizards back at least 3 years, and that's if they draft a future allstar. That said, I'd send an offer of Beal, Oubre/Otto, and an unprotected 1st for Boogie to the Kings weekly.

[tshile]

So the team underachieves during the regular season, and the fans don't show up enough to prevent the opposing team's fans from taking over the arena and booing our stars. Depressing. 

 

DC is not a true sports town.

 

It has a lot of people that love sports, and attend sporting events. But it doesn't have its people behind its own teams.

 

There are various reasons for it, but the bottom line is that we are a crappy sports town.

 

We leave our baseball games in extra innings in the playoffs because omg it's too cold.

 

We cheer as loud as we can when our football team is on offense.

 

We have trouble filling a venue with our own. The Caps fans seem to think they are different in this regard, but the Verizon center has had a lot of empty seats the last few years. I guess constantly making the playoffs has grown boring or something.

 

The wizards are not exactly special in this regard.

 

Terrible sports town.

Edited December 3, 2015 by tshile

[StillUnknown]

I think the heavy lifting is probably already done. It's going to take longer than we want, but I think that when Wall, Beal, and Porter reach their mid to late twenties, they will naturally power us to the next level. Ernie's job is really just about maintaining a solid supporting cast of role players around them from here on out. I think he can do that. I think almost any GM in the NBA could. In the meantime, I'm just looking for incremental progress from those three players. Monitoring them for growth.

I don't know if Wall/Beal/Porter in their prime is enough to win us a championship. But I'm confident that it will be good enough to compete for one with a straight face. And I think that's about the best any non-Lakers/Spurs fan can realistically expect.

And yes I realize I could be wrong about the potential of Wall, Beal, and Porter. I don't think I'm that far off, but I could be. And yes I realize one of them could suffer a career-ruining injury. But that potential albatross hangs around every franchise that's building around a foundation of specific players.

 

for the sake of the franchise, I hope you're right about your belief of Grunfeld to do that

 

I'm all-in on Wall & Beal. I'm still in "wait and see" on Otto. He's a quality player no doubt, but I'm not certain he's the 3rd in a big three type. He has to become a better scorer, tired of seeing him in single digits.

[Going Commando]

I really don't get how you can say the Wizards have been run any better than the Redskins since 1999.

PJ Ted took over the team in 2010. In five seasons we've made the playoffs twice, won a series in convincing fashion each time, and were a hair away from the conference finals last season. Snyder's owned the team for 15 seasons and only three have been winning seasons. And eight of those seasons have been last place finishes. The only three times we had good seasons, we didn't sustain any success from them. It was immediately back to being a laughing stock. I think you can expect, with confidence, for the Wizards to be a consistent playoff participant moving forward. I would be thrilled if the Redskins got to even that level of competence.

[Going Commando]

for the sake of the franchise, I hope you're right about your belief of Grunfeld to do that

 

I'm all-in on Wall & Beal. I'm still in "wait and see" on Otto. He's a quality player no doubt, but I'm not certain he's the 3rd in a big three type. He has to become a better scorer, tired of seeing him in single digits.

I was rock solid confident Wall would be a perennial All Star. I don't think I ever really wavered on that.

I'm very confident Beal will be a perennial All Star too, but less so than I was with Wall. He's not as good as Wall was.

Porter... I'm not too sure what he's going to be. Put it this way, I think he has the offensive skills to eventually make the odd All Star game in his career. When the stars align type situation.

I agree that Porter needs to start scoring more consistently. It would help if he got to use his high post game more, but that really isn't a part of our offense at all. He is so low usage that he has to be extremely efficient to score in volume. When he starts hitting his three ball, he'll get back into double digits. Given how big a part of his shooting opportunities the three ball is, he's just not going to score much if he can't get them to drop.

It's really stalled out the effectiveness of our offense having both him and Beal simultaneously struggle from three. Wall is our most consistent three point threat right now. It's not good.

[Going Commando]

That's nuts and would set the wizards back at least 3 years, and that's if they draft a future allstar. That said, I'd send an offer of Beal, Oubre/Otto, and an unprotected 1st for Boogie to the Kings weekly.

I honestly don't know if I would do that. I think it could prevent us from being able to acquire a third star. And if it went poorly with Cousins, then the situation could blow up and get everyone fired.

I would probably just stick tight with Wall, Beal, and Otto. Let them age, get more consistent, and build chemistry. Hell, maybe Oubre becomes something good for us down the line and you have a deep team where the pieces fit well together. I think your floor with that construction is an annual playoff team. The ceiling might be that your team unexpectedly grows into a monster where the result is far greater than the sum of the individual parts. That's what happened for Golden State. Remember, people thought they were crazy for not trading Klay Thompson for Kevin Love. I thought they were.

Edited December 3, 2015 by stevemcqueen1