The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Samuels]

I don't have a problem with discipline.

I have a problem playing a style of basketball that doesn't take advantage of the strengths of my best player.

And that's what you'd get with Van Gundy.

Actually JVG will run Wall off pick&rolls constantly which is gonna kill a defense when he develops a better jumper that is playing to his strenghts. They will also play team defense you ever thought thats why the games are low scoring because his teams force you to use up the shotclock.

We don't need Wall trying to play at a breakneck speed running & gunning because it leads to turnovers especially with him. He needs a pick&roll heavy offense that will allow him to attack the rim and put enourmous pressure on the defense. He needs a coach that will make these guys play the right way.

Its pretty damning when Whittman after being named coach says Wall needs to be coachable. Why is he going after him?

I don't care if your John Wall if your not playing hard and listening to your coach sit your ass on the bench, period. He has been playing alot harder recently especially on defense but he was dogging it alot on defense earlier this year.

[Skin'Em84]

What about Sam Mitchell? I dunno why I'm such a supporter of him, but I think he'd be good...or he'd beat up Andray Blatche in the locker room.

We can always go for a new guy, a former player that has been an assistant coach. Someone like Eric Snow, or Van Exel.....

or Vlade Divac.

[WhoRUSupposed2Be]

Vishal had a very good post on here discussing where the problems lie... suggest you all go and find it before bringing up more melodrama regarding a new HC.

[Burgold]

I remember a few years back creating a thread comparing Vinny Cerrato to Ernie Grunfield and was told I was a complete idiot and that the NBA and NFL were too different to compare anyway. I think this was around the time they traded the fifth pick. Seems like the sentiment is turning.

Today, I'm reading more people coming to the conclusion that Grunfield is like Cerrato in many ways. I think personel decisions are a huge part of where we are today.

[chipwhich]

I remember a few years back creating a thread comparing Vinny Cerrato to Ernie Grunfield and was told I was a complete idiot and that the NBA and NFL were too different to compare anyway. I think this was around the time they traded the fifth pick. Seems like the sentiment is turning.

Today, I'm reading more people coming to the conclusion that Grunfield is like Cerrato in many ways. I think personel decisions are a huge part of where we are today.

Ernie hasn't been a great GM as of late.

But he did one thing that nobody else did for this franchise.

He built a roster that carried the team to the playoffs.

In TWENTY PLUS YEARS playoffs were typically unthinkable. He built a roster with four straight years of playoffs.

Cerrato could only dream as much.

Ernie had no idea Arenas was a loon, then would be injured and basically done as an all star. If you take a pile of stink, mold it, and get them to the playoffs, with this franchises history, I would say you are a pretty damn good GM.

[Burgold]

Ernie had no idea Arenas was a loon, then would be injured and basically done as an all star. If you take a pile of stink, mold it, and get them to the playoffs, with this franchises history, I would say you are a pretty damn good GM.

Ernie got off to a pretty good start, but his drafting has been pretty bad and his trades were worse. He probably didn't much choice, but to give Arenas a Max deal, but giving Gil a 100 million dollar deal when he had that type of injury and hadn't recovered from it and apparently never did... he never regained his speed or explosiveness was a bad decision. The free agents he brought in to compliment the big three were not good choices.

I think it's fair to tip our hats to the Ernies for giving Wiz fans a brighter spot in their history, but in the end, Grunfiel failed for many of the same reasons that Cerrato did. Poor drafting. Poor free agent aquisitions and terrible trades.

[chipwhich]

Ernie got off to a pretty good start, but his drafting has been pretty bad and his trades were worse. He probably didn't much choice, but to give Arenas a Max deal, but giving Gil a 100 million dollar deal when he had that type of injury and hadn't recovered from it and apparently never did... he never regained his speed or explosiveness was a bad decision. The free agents he brought in to compliment the big three were not good choices.

I think it's fair to tip our hats to the Ernies for giving Wiz fans a brighter spot in their history, but in the end, Grunfiel failed for many of the same reasons that Cerrato did. Poor drafting. Poor free agent aquisitions and terrible trades.

Yeah but you don't know how much pressure he got from the two owners. Trading picks for cash, and some of the free agent moves as of late are clearly strategic moves to clear cap room. Those are the desires of Leonsis, not of a GM trying to build a team.

[No Excuses]

The Ernie didn't have any idea about Arenas is a bunch of BS (as usual). Everyone knew that Gilbert was a prankster, and at times, as focused on his celebrity image as he was on the court. He very much knew the risks of his injury, recovery time and his behavior in the locker room.

The problem was that Ernie never bothered correcting it because Gilbert was getting him wins and making him look good. But the potential for disaster was always there. You have to respect the wall of information divide that is between fans and front office members. As fans, we only get to see maybe not even 10% of everything that goes on. Ernie had full knowledge on the type of person Gilbert was. Where Gilbert had room to fail, Ernie never bothered to help him change. But once **** went down the hill, Ernie threw Gilbert under the bus to cover for the disastrous season the Wizards were having (largely in part due to Ernie building a crappy roster). Ernie is a weasel.

Edited January 25, 2012 by No Excuses

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

No to Jeff Van Gundy.

Unless you want to see games played in the high 80s/low 90s.

I can't stand that kind of basketball.

I'm with you. I think people might be glossing over just how goddamn boring the Knicks were in the late 90's. Holy ****. Jeff Van Gundy almost single-handedly destroyed the NBA. Other teams started copying his **** and games were beyond boring. That's why they implemented the defensive 3 seconds and all of that.

[StillUnknown]

http://www.tedstake.com/2012/01/25/changing-out-our-coach/

Changing out an experienced Head Coach on a rebuilding team is a very difficult decision. This team is too early in its development process to know whether the issue regarding our record and development is centered on the coach; his relationship with the players; the system we coach and play; the player’s development curve; the talent level of the players provided, the infrastructure offered or other related issues.

The simple facts are this – we knew we would be in a tough rebuilding process; we knew we had over indexed on young players with 8 of our 15 roster spots being taken by first and second year players .We also knew this lack of experience would be compounded by an absolute lack of contact during the NBA lockout during last off season. We couldn’t provide any coaching or mentoring to young players during the summer and with the shortened and compressed schedule – there would be a lack of true practice time during the season with 18 back to back games.

Be that as it may – we think our team is better than the record we currently possess; and that our young players were not improving at a pace that was more noticeable. I was disappointed that in some games – we lacked confidence and weren’t competitive. I can take losing during rebuilding; but I wanted to see progress as to chemistry being developed on the team. Thus – when Ernie Grunfeld recommended we make a change in the Head Coach after another tough loss on the road; I reluctantly had to agree.

More in the link.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

What about the POS veterans Ted? It's not all about the youngsters.

[Chachie]

The Ernie didn't have any idea about Arenas is a bunch of BS (as usual). Everyone knew that Gilbert was a prankster, and at times, as focused on his celebrity image as he was on the court. He very much knew the risks of his injury, recovery time and his behavior in the locker room.

The problem was that Ernie never bothered correcting it because Gilbert was getting him wins and making him look good. But the potential for disaster was always there. You have to respect the wall of information divide that is between fans and front office members. As fans, we only get to see maybe not even 10% of everything that goes on. Ernie had full knowledge on the type of person Gilbert was. Where Gilbert had room to fail, Ernie never bothered to help him change. But once **** went down the hill, Ernie threw Gilbert under the bus to cover for the disastrous season the Wizards were having (largely in part due to Ernie building a crappy roster). Ernie is a weasel.

While I absolutely agree with you that Ernie waited too long to correct Gilbert's ways, I also think it's unfair to say that anyone threw Arenas under a bus. He's a full-grown adult. He pulled out his firearm and rolled into the street on his own. There's no "misrepresenting" someone who does things like that. The "six shooter" hand play during pre-game player intro was the cherry on top. Arenas dug his own grave.

[No Excuses]

While I absolutely agree with you that Ernie waited too long to correct Gilbert's ways, I also think it's unfair to say that anyone threw Arenas under a bus. He's a full-grown adult. He pulled out his firearm and rolled into the street on his own. There's no "misrepresenting" someone who does things like that. The "six shooter" hand play during pre-game player intro was the cherry on top. Arenas dug his own grave.

They killed his trade value by completely removing his existence from the franchise. I don't think people remember how right after Gilbert's suspension the team wiped away EVERYTHING Arenas related from the arena and around the arena. They offered him no help after his suspension and were focused directly on trying to find a way to void his contract. FWIW, there were several players in the NBA (notably Paul Pierce) who were critical of how the Wizards isolated a troubled athlete that meant so much to the franchise and fan base. Ernie was only concerned about dumping the blame on Gilbert for the teams troubles and giving himself a clean slate for a disaster of a roster.

The fact that Arenas even had the guts to go out and joke about his incident on the court (along with the rest of his teammates btw) tells you the kind of atmosphere that Ernie has developed in this franchise. He simply has never held people accountable or run a tight ship. The lack of professionalism is still here, as noted by the attitude of the current group of players (and the subsequent coddling of losers like Blatche). This kind of buffoonery would never be tolerated on a well managed franchise.

Edited January 25, 2012 by No Excuses

[Clutch03]

What about the POS veterans Ted? It's not all about the youngsters.

I thought the part where he said "via trades - via buyouts" was directed towards the POS veterans.

[StillUnknown]

I thought the part where he said "via trades - via buyouts" was directed towards the POS veterans.

Best thing they can do next season, buy-out Lewis, amnesty Blatche.

[Clutch03]

Best thing they can do next season, buy-out Lewis, amnesty Blatche.

Agreed. I was very happy to see such options on the table. Blatche is the epitome of a player that should be ousted one way or another. I don't have an issue with Lewis except he just doesn't belong here. From all accounts the guy has a decent attitude and atleast knows how to play the game. His issue is that he doesn't have the talent to play the game well anymore.

[Going Commando]

I remember a few years back creating a thread comparing Vinny Cerrato to Ernie Grunfield and was told I was a complete idiot and that the NBA and NFL were too different to compare anyway. I think this was around the time they traded the fifth pick. Seems like the sentiment is turning.

Today, I'm reading more people coming to the conclusion that Grunfield is like Cerrato in many ways. I think personel decisions are a huge part of where we are today.

Ernie is being scape goated. When you get down to it, his drafting has actually been high quality. His trades and FA signings are problematic, but I think they result as much from a lack of organizational direction than from incompetence.

No doubt trading the #5 pick was horrendous but look at the circumstances of the time: we got screwed by the lottery, Rubio didn't seem like he was going to make it to us, it was a weak looking year (we were debating between a stiff like Thabeet and Rubio, who probably wasn't going to come play for us for years). We were still in flux on the big 3 and wanted to try and make another run before it became abundantly clear that was impossible. You can see the seeds of rational thinking behind trading the pick, horrifically short sighted as the move was. The real problem was having no cogent overall direction as an organization, which is understandable since we were going through big ownership changes.

Other than that, his recent drafting has been outstanding IMO. Last year's class was terrific given how much that draft class sucked overall. We probably had the best class in the NBA and salvaged some long term quality from it in getting two guys who look like they can definitely play. In 2010, John Wall was a homerun, and remember, he certainly wasn't a no brainer pick. Just go back and read the debate on whether to take him or Evan Turner on this very forum to see how much support for Turner there was. Booker was a nice value pick and also looks like he'll be a player that can stick and Seraphin was a toolsy, energy man pick that made sense at the point in the draft he was taken even though he's been shaky early on. Putting that clause in his contract to keep him out of the D League was stupid, and it was probably stupid to bring him over from Europe so soon.

Plus finding Nick Young and Javale McGee where we did in the draft was impressive bargains for each.

His drafting isn't reason we're terrible right now because I don't think he could have realistically gotten any more out of his past two drafts than he did. And when you get down to it, he's made some good trades ever since Leonsis took over and established a clear, strong organizational direction and vision. Crawford, Evans, and the first (Singleton) for Hinrich and Hilton Armstrong was a heist. Unloading Arenas on a division rival (who was forced to use up their amnesty on him) to take a year off an awful contract and simultaneously put a ton of pressure on Orlando's ability to keep Dwight Howard was another coup and clear win for us.

Not signing more veteran scoring FAs is a legit cause for concern. We should have found someone more than just Roger Mason and Ronnie Turiaf. Turiaf's injury has hurt.

This team is awful today mostly because of the lockout and by our lack of direction prior to Leonsis taking over. We have more second year players on the roster than any other team in the league and they were absolutely screwed over by the lockout, more so than anyone else was. Four 2010 first round picks. These guys looked great and put together a strong stretch run together to end the 2011 season and now they all look like they've regressed. There is no chemistry or cohesion and none are scoring and playing like they did in March and April of last year.

We played competitive basketball and beat good teams like the Celtics last season when Lewis, Jianlian, Blatche, and Young all went down... The chemistry was palpable. Jordan and John looked like a lethal back court and Booker was stepping up big, scoring, rebounding, playing tough defense. Seraphin at least looked like a legit NBA player.

As a minimum, we've got to find a way to get rid of Lewis and Blatche and replace them with cheap veteran quality that understands it's role is clearly defined as depth, not sitting the fence as undeserving starters because of their contracts.

I think Ted will stay the course on the direction of the rebuild and we'll see results start to come from our approach. Our roster construction makes a lot more sense when we do get rid of Blatche and Lewis and find legit starting forwards.

I can see our talent level skyrocketing in two years if we draft Anthony Davis to be our long term PF or find a terrific wing in the draft (Quincy Miller?). I still firmly believe DeMarcus Cousins will be on the first train to D.C. once he can hit the open market giving us a potential 20 and 10 pivot.

We'll be alright in the long term so long as we hit a home run with this year's lottery pick.

[Destino]

Best thing they can do next season, buy-out Lewis, amnesty Blatche.

Best thing he can do for next season is create on off season "optional" program to work with shooting coaches. The option being start on the bench if you don't participate.

[StillUnknown]

Best thing he can do for next season is create on off season "optional" program to work with shooting coaches. The option being start on the bench if you don't participate.

I can get with that.

[Rocky21]

http://www.tedstake.com/2012/01/25/changing-out-our-coach/

when Ernie Grunfeld recommended we make a change in the Head Coach after another tough loss on the road; I reluctantly had to agree.

I wonder if this is true.

And great post as usual SteveMcQueen. You actually gave me a reason to be a little optimistic.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I think Ted is a bigger problem. He seems to have learned the absolutely wrong lessons from the Caps rebuild. The Caps didn't get good because they sucked and drafted high. They got good because they sucked at the proper time and were able to draft outstanding players. Just winning the lottery is not enough; you need to win it in the right year and then make the right choice. Irving is probably going to be a good player but Cleveland is not going to win a title because of him.

(By the way, "waiting for a superstar" can be endlessly frustrating too. I've been in Houston since 2008 and the Rockets are perfectly poised to trade or sign a top ten player...except they can't get one).

Edited January 25, 2012 by Lombardi's_kid_brother

[Skin'emAlive]

I dont think it took a genius to figure out flip had to go, just as i don think it takes one to realize ernie has consistently destroyed this franchise. He has done a terrible job of getting this team ready to compete. There are too many instances of his ineptitude that have been mentioned that i believe I would be beating a dead horse to mention them at this time. But what i will say is that he is really good at drafting developable players. Then the second that they are good enough to contribute, we seem to lose them. We lost Roger Mason this way the first time around. Traded Caron and Haywood ( in a career high year) and Stevenson ( our best defender since Larry Hughes) for absolutely nothing. Traded Antawn Jamison for a bad of chips. Destroyed any/all trade value of any of our low-iq/aging players by exposing them and/or not pulling the trigger on trades (blatche/young/jamison) And he signed Blatche to an extension, which in my book was the biggest failure he has had overall. No, i dont trust him to flip the script here. I trust him to draft another booker/dominic mcguire/pecherov/vesely. Guys that can contribute to a good team, and that is it. Im sans the optimism until ernie is gone.

Ive seen this movie before.. i dont need to have a wait and see approach at this point with ernie to know its going straight to dvd.

[shuler74]

Pay Nicolas Batum whatever he wants if he becomes a restricted free agent ....pick up the unibrow...these are true rebuilding pieces to go along with wall.....not blatche, ny, or mcdumb

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2012/01/deadline_looms_for_trail_blazers_nicolas_batum_to.html

Edited January 25, 2012 by shuler74

[DjTj]

I think Ted is a bigger problem. He seems to have learned the absolutely wrong lessons from the Caps rebuild. The Caps didn't get good because they sucked and drafted high. They got good because they sucked at the proper time and were able to draft outstanding players. Just winning the lottery is not enough; you need to win it in the right year and then make the right choice. Irving is probably going to be a good player but Cleveland is not going to win a title because of him.

(By the way' date=' "waiting for a superstar" can be endlessly frustrating too. I've been in Houston since 2008 and the Rockets are perfectly poised to trade or sign a top ten player...except they can't get one).[/quote']What choices has Leonsis really made, though? He bought the team, won the draft lottery, picked John Wall, and traded away Gilbert Arenas. I don't think there were any other rational options. And now the Wizards, like many other NBA teams, have a payroll with expiring contracts that that puts us in a position to sign a big free agent in the coming years. I don't think there were any other rational options.

There are small moves we can all disagree with, but the overall strategy is basically the only one we can pursue. You're right that waiting for a superstar can take a while, but I don't see that the Wizards have much of a choice other than waiting.

---------- Post added January-25th-2012 at 12:48 PM ----------

I can see our talent level skyrocketing in two years if we draft Anthony Davis to be our long term PF or find a terrific wing in the draft (Quincy Miller?). I still firmly believe DeMarcus Cousins will be on the first train to D.C. once he can hit the open market giving us a potential 20 and 10 pivot.

Sign Cousins. Draft unibrow. Hire John Calipari to coach John Wall's senior year? Final Four baby!

[Rocky21]

I dont think it took a genius to figure out flip had to go' date=' just as i don think it takes one to realize ernie has consistently destroyed this franchise. He has done a terrible job of getting this team ready to compete. There are too many instances of his ineptitude that have been mentioned that i believe I would be beating a dead horse to mention them at this time. But what i will say is that he is really good at drafting developable players. Then the second that they are good enough to contribute, we seem to lose them. We lost Roger Mason this way the first time around. Traded Caron and Haywood ( in a career high year) and Stevenson ( our best defender since Larry Hughes) for absolutely nothing. Traded Antawn Jamison for a bad of chips. Destroyed any/all trade value of any of our low-iq/aging players by exposing them and/or not pulling the trigger on trades (blatche/young/jamison) And he signed Blatche to an extension, which in my book was the biggest failure he has had overall. No, i dont trust him to flip the script here. I trust him to draft another booker/dominic mcguire/pecherov/vesely. Guys that can contribute to a good team, and that is it. Im sans the optimism until ernie is gone.

Ive seen this movie before.. i dont need to have a wait and see approach at this point with ernie to know its going straight to dvd.[/quote']EG is a doofus but we got a #1 draft pick for Jamison. I wish he hadn't have signed Blatche to an extension but many here have said that we didn't overpay so it was alright.