The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[StillUnknown]

3 hours ago, RonArtest15 said:

Yup...not getting out of the east without a quasi super team.  Core of Wall/Beal/Porter ain't gonna do it.  Not trying to bring in Boogie pretty much signals that we're OK with wasting more of Wall's years here  in DC.  Some MAJOR changes need to be made before the start of next season. 

 

Figure out a way to dangle porter, some future picks,etc. to get it done. 

 

Boston about to add to the #1 overall pick or Gordon Heyward or both

 

we can't come back with "an improving core" and the "hope of a healthy Mahinmi" as our major offseason acquisitions

[Gamebreaker]

I have no hope that Ernie will swing a trade to upgrade this roster and get some cap space. Our best hope of getting Cousins is he signs here when he's a FA. And that is only after he has an assurance that Wall isn't leaving. 

[RonArtest15]

17 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

 

Boston about to add to the #1 overall pick or Gordon Heyward or both

 

we can't come back with "an improving core" and the "hope of a healthy Mahinmi" as our major offseason acquisitions

 

Exactly...unless something major is done to shake up the core, we'll be forever fighting for the 3-5 seed in the East until Wall leaves DC.  There are tradeable assets on the team.  Gortat and Porter come to mind.  Unfortunately, we have no choice but to cross our fingers that Ernie can pull a rabbit out of his hat. 

[Going Commando]

A Porter sign and trade is unlikely to yield a proper return value.  Have to sign him and then wait until December before you can look into deals.

[Warhead36]

Ernie doesn't have the vision or creativity to pull off any sort of deal. Welcome to the new purgatory.

[StillUnknown]

so if the Fultz to Philly deal goes through, Boston will be sitting pretty with high draft picks for the next couple of season while still being able add salary this year

 

meanwhile, somewhere in America, Grun**** is laughing at Boston for not getting out of the draft completely as he contemplates trading our 2018 1st rounder for bench help that won't help

 

 

i swear i hate sports

[Going Commando]

I think Boston is making the wrong move if they trade out of #1 for #3 and go for Josh Jackson.

 

They could just as easily end up with the next MKG as the next Kawhi in Josh Jackson.  Fultz is a big PG and stud volume scorer who can run an offense like James Harden.  And the truth is, getting Josh Jackson doesn't help you win anything now with Isaiah Thomas.

 

Danny Ainge has one of the safest jobs in the league.  If I'm him, I go to ownership and say look, we need to get the Hell out of Golden State and Cleveland's window.  We are nowhere close to competing with them and getting Paul George or Jimmy Butler won't change that at all.

 

Unlike us, they can start the rebuild today and be almost completely done laying the foundation by the end of the 2018 draft.  That'd push their window five to seven years down the road, outside the window of the Warriors.  All they need to do is move IT and assets for a good young big and keep and use Brooklyn's draft picks.  Go after Andre Drummond, who could probably be had for the right offer.  Then build around him, Fultz, next year's Brooklyn pick, and Jaylen Brown--keep steady vets like Crowder and Bradley to fill in the gaps and lead a young team on some playoff runs.

[Warhead36]

Its hard to tell your owners and fanbase we're going to rebuild after winning 50+ games and the #1 seed in the East.

 

 

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, Warhead36 said:

Its hard to tell your owners and fanbase we're going to rebuild after winning 50+ games and the #1 seed in the East.

 

They're not dumb.  They know they got pantsed by Cleveland and don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of beating the Warriors.  Fans actually welcome rebuilding when they know their current build will never have a chance.  The Wizards just had their most successful season in almost 40 years and the fanbase would support a complete rebuild if we had the #1 pick in this draft and a top 3 pick in the next one.

[Warhead36]

9 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

They're not dumb.  They know they got pantsed by Cleveland and don't have a snowball's chance in Hell of beating the Warriors.  Fans actually welcome rebuilding when they know their current build will never have a chance.  The Wizards just had their most successful season in almost 40 years and the fanbase would support a complete rebuild if we had the #1 pick in this draft and a top 3 pick in the next one.

I think you're overestimating fan IQ. There are lots of tweets out right now by Boston fans crucifying Ainge for this trade.

[Going Commando]

24 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

I think you're overestimating fan IQ. There are lots of tweets out right now by Boston fans crucifying Ainge for this trade.

 

He's not rebuilding.  He's doing the opposite.  He's trying to put role players around IT and Horford win now with them.  It's not a good trade for them.

[Skins199021]

7 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

He's not rebuilding.  He's doing the opposite.  He's trying to put role players around IT and Horford win now with them.  It's not a good trade for them.

Where do you get that? They have an ungodly amount of first round picks over the next 5 years, they have enough cap to add hayward and probably will.

 

 

And you act as if they are done. Having IT-Bradley-Hayward-Horford along with their wing defenders can compete to an extent with the Warriors.

 

You have a loser attitude if you think every team should just concede for 4 years and not try and win. We should be all in right now because we don't have the flexibility of the Celtics. For me its do everything to get Cousins now... or bust. If you/Wizards are content with maybe getting to the eastern conference finals until Beal/Wall fade away.... then stand pat

Edited June 18, 2017 by Skins199021

[CrypticVillain]

Is there a way we could get Paul George?

[@DCGoldPants]

No. If he's deciding his own destination. He's going to be able to force it. 

[RonArtest15]

10 hours ago, @SkinsGoldPants said:

No. If he's deciding his own destination. He's going to be able to force it. 

 

He has a year left on his deal...it would be a one year rental if the Wizards were to acquire him for this year.  Assuming he doesn't re-sign. 

 

He can't force anything.  Pacers essentially control where he'll end up before he hits free agency in 2018. 

 

All I know, is that something needs to happen here in DC to get a legit 3rd star player. 

 

Mehic gets it:

 

 

 

And this is what I hate SO much about this team.  Screw not wanting to "risk it."  Show Wall that you're serious about making a run.  Can't keep wasting his prime.  I'd 100x/100 be content with losing Otto IF that meant keeping Wall happy and making this team better in the short term. 

[Bozo the kKklown]

Wall is a free agent in 2019.

 

Sign Cousins or George next summer and Wall will sign his max deal in 2019.

 

The Wizards can't do anything this offseason due to the horrible summer of 2016. 

[Going Commando]

10 hours ago, CrypticVillain said:

Is there a way we could get Paul George?

 

Via trade?  I think so.  Trade Otto for him.  That probably beats most of the offers Indy will get.  But the catch is that it either has to be a sign and trade, or it has to happen in December.  We'd have to tell Indy to hold off on dealing George before then and hope they listen.

 

This is probably our only shot at building a kind of super team of our own.  If we deal for Paul George and get him in house, then we get his Bird Rights and the ability to sign him to bigger deals in the summer.  Then step 2 is to start clearing as much salary as possible and/or start working on trades for Cousins that don't include Wall/Beal/George.

 

Hard to tell what Paul George's cap hold would be for the summer of 2018, but I'll estimate somewhere around 23-24 million.

 

24 million +

25.4 for Brad +

19.2 for John +

15.9 for Ian +

13.5 for Marcin +

8.6 for Kieff +

5.4 for Smith (player option) +

3.1 for Tomas +

.8 for Martell

 

Also options on Oubre for 3.2 and McCullough for 2.2.  We'll certainly pick up Oubre's.

 

Also cap holds for min contracts of about 3 million.

 

That's 122 million in commitments on a 103 million cap with a 125 million tax.

 

So basically you'd have to cut salary like crazy to try and work in Cousins, and/or get him to sign a 1+1 at a steeply reduced rate.  First and foremost, Kieff and Marcin should be easy to deal.  They're good starters who are expirings on affordable deals.  Smith should also be easy to trade, or he may simply opt out.  Moving those three drops 27.5 in salary, putting us at about 96 million in commitments.  Now the only thing we can do is try and deal Mahinmi for an expiring, which would put us at just over 80 million in commitments, and give us about 22 million in cap space against a 103 million dollar cap.

 

If the cap comes in higher than it's projected (and I think that it might, as the 103 projection is a static projection from the previous season and the cap has been going up annually for a while), then we'll be able to come really close to offering Cousins a max contract in the summer of 2018.  We might be able to convince him to sign a 1+1 at a slightly reduced rate, with the expectation that he'll have the ability to re-up at a max the next summer.  Then when he's in house, you re-up Paul George.  Then next summer you re-up Wall and Cousins (and hope they don't take it into their heads that they could go and play somewhere else together).

 

That'd give you a Roster of Wall + Beal + George + Cousins locked up long term.  That might be able to compete with Golden State, particularly on the back end of their window.  It would be a monstrously expensive construction, and Ted would be locked in to paying a ton of tax.  And we probably wouldn't be able to keep Oubre and add decent role players unless George, Wall, and Cousins were giving us some discounts.  But nevertheless, it is our only real chance at building a legit super team.

[Going Commando]

It's not clear to me that Mehic realizes Otto is a free agent.  Moving him is not simple.  You either have to work a sign and trade with Indy once free agency begins, or you have to sign him and wait until December to deal.  If Indy makes a Paul George deal this week for draft picks, then we're **** out of luck.

[RonArtest15]

3 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

It's not clear to me that Mehic realizes Otto is a free agent.  Moving him is not simple.  You either have to work a sign and trade with Indy once free agency begins, or you have to sign him and wait until December to deal.  If Indy makes a Paul George deal this week for draft picks, then we're **** out of luck.

 

I think from Mehic's POV, he realizes that the Wizards have to do something to make the team MUCH better.  They could stand pat and just see what happens this year with the majority of the squad returning (with the hopes of signing either Boogie/George next summer.)  However, that's a major risk seeing what happened last summer with the big FA debacle when there was plenty of money to spend. 

 

I think you go all in and try to bolster the team this summer by making a splash.  Scared money don't make money.  Time to get aggressive and creative.  It just sucks that EG is the one who will oversee all of this...and yet again, clean up his mess that he made. 

[RonArtest15]

Will George end up here in DC?  Probably not.  However, what's encouraging is that the Wizards are looking for a way to make it happen (according to a VERY plugged in, DA.)  That leads me to believe that they're going to try to add another piece to the starting lineup before the new season begins. 

 

A little nugget from DA:

 

Quote

Washington, to a lesser degree, could fit the bill, too, and the Wizards are looking for a way to make a George deal happen. They don’t have a player of Love’s caliber to put in a deal; they’re not moving Bradley Beal after the 23-year-old just had his best NBA season. Playing alongside Washington’s backcourt of Beal and John Wall, after all, would be the selling point for George in D.C.

Wizards small forward Otto Porter also had his best season and would almost certainly have to be in a potential George deal for it to make any sense for Indiana, but he’s a restricted free agent and would lose tens of millions of dollars if he agreed to a sign-and-trade deal with anyone this summer (fewer years, smaller yearly raises) instead of re-signing with Washington. There’s literally no incentive for anyone to do a sign-and-trade anymore, which was the point of changing the CBA — to make it easier rather than harder for teams to keep their own players.

 

Link

Edited June 19, 2017 by RonArtest15

[Going Commando]

2 hours ago, RonArtest15 said:

 

I think from Mehic's POV, he realizes that the Wizards have to do something to make the team MUCH better.  They could stand pat and just see what happens this year with the majority of the squad returning (with the hopes of signing either Boogie/George next summer.)  However, that's a major risk seeing what happened last summer with the big FA debacle when there was plenty of money to spend. 

 

I think you go all in and try to bolster the team this summer by making a splash.  Scared money don't make money.  Time to get aggressive and creative.  It just sucks that EG is the one who will oversee all of this...and yet again, clean up his mess that he made. 

 

I think the bold play is to go after both Boogie and PG and sell them on trying to pull a Bosh/Wade/LeBron here in DC.  But the issue is cap space.  We don't have any and it'll only be realistic for us to get to max contract room for one guy next summer.  That means we need to be trading for both George AND Cousins IMO, which is tough when our assets aren't that great outside of Porter, who himself is an RFA.

 

What we need is for Indy to fail to make a Paul George trade this summer.  If they do, then Otto goes on the table as a trade asset.  And I think a 1:1 Otto for George offer gets it done.  That's us assuming a **** ton of risk actually, because we could be dealing a top six SF for a five month rental.  In fact, I'd rather dangle Oubre + Mahinmi/Gortat + draft picks for him.

 

Then you've got to make another in season deal for Cousins.  I'm thinking that Oubre + Mahinmi/Gortat + Kieff might get that done.  He's probably not going to cost as much as George since he already got traded once for friggin Buddy Hield.

 

Setting yourself up with a Wall/Beal/George/Cousins roster would be a coup.  It's a little unbalanced with too many ball handlers and not enough role players/defenders.  And it's not as good as Golden State's construction.  But it's a little younger than theirs, and it's definitely better than Cleveland's team.

 

The real coup of all coups would be to hardball New Orleans and Indy, move all of our big contracts, and come away with George and Cousins without dealing Otto.  That would yield a starting five so loaded that we might actually be able to hang with Golden State.

[Warhead36]

I just don't think Grunfeld has the creativity or savvy to pull off something like that. We're not talking about Pat Riley here. Grunfeld is like the 50 year old who is still a low level sales associate at Best Buy.

[justice98]

I dont think Paul George wants any parts of coming to the Wizards.  When somebody makes it known they want to go to LA, I don't think DC is really in the running.

[Going Commando]

4 minutes ago, justice98 said:

I dont think Paul George wants any parts of coming to the Wizards.  When somebody makes it known they want to go to LA, I don't think DC is really in the running.

 

If you gave Paul George a choice between two identical contracts with the Wizards and Lakers and he had to think for more than a second about picking the Wizards, then I wouldn't want him.  I'm already not crazy about the idea of trading Porter for him.  If he actually preferred the situation in LA to ours then Hell no would I mess with him.  You scrap that plan and go after Boogie Cousins instead.

[Gamebreaker]

Did he actually say he wanted to go to the Lakers, or is that the usual speculation from the media that comes with every big name player? I can't see a superstar, who wants to escape Indiana because he believes he has zero shot at a title, wanting to go to LA where the FO is even worse and and the competition even harder. If so, he just wants more "exposure" for his brand and he doesn't want to win.