The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Warhead36]

My guess is that the FO already decided Beal was going to be the pick before they made the trade. I think they have a pretty good idea who the top 2 will be, or at least they know for sure Beal isn't going #2.

[RonArtest15]

I think its pretty much a lock that Thomas Robinson goes #2. IMO, there wasn't a chance we'd let him slip past us at #3.

[nuposse87]

I've been steaming for a bit...but we have to face reality and start hoping that some things occur. My initial thought was....we got raped...the short bus is too long for our franchise...we're doomed... I've kinda calmed down now. My problem with this trade isn't that they are overpriced FAs, we're a bad team so it is hard to attract veterans without overpaying. My problem is the fit, they don't fit our squad at all. They are redundant and would hamper the growth of our young talent who have all shown signs of being good players, well except Crawford. I propose damage control via this:

Okafor for Ben Gordon

Ariza for M. Williams

We get veterans who fit a need desperately on this team and whose contracts should be the same if I recall correctly. So that we'd able to resign wall and seraphin when need be.

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

It's sad that this place has become more of an irrational, automatic-****fest than realGM. Shame hands11 isn't here anymore. He'd be a God now. And who was that other kid that was even worse than hands? I still see his posts in the Stadium sometimes. Indian kid. He was ****ing when we were a playoff team; hated Gilbert. I guess he was ahead of his time.

[RonArtest15]

I've been steaming for a bit...but we have to face reality and start hoping that some things occur. My initial thought was....we got raped...the short bus is too long for our franchise...we're doomed... I've kinda calmed down now. My problem with this trade isn't that they are overpriced FAs, we're a bad team so it is hard to attract veterans without overpaying. My problem is the fit, they don't fit our squad at all. They are redundant and would hamper the growth of our young talent who have all shown signs of being good players, well except Crawford. I propose damage control via this:

Okafor for Ben Gordon

Ariza for M. Williams

We get veterans who fit a need desperately on this team and whose contracts should be the same if I recall correctly. So that we'd able to resign wall and seraphin when need be.

And you don't think people would have a problem with Ben Gordon or Marvin Williams????

That wouldn't be damage control...that's more of a lateral move...and bringing Gordon on board makes no sense considering we're probably going to take Beal and have Crawford in the fold.

Now, if we can find a taker for Blatche (for either Gordon/Williams), then it's a different story.

---------- Post added June-20th-2012 at 04:35 PM ----------

It's sad that this place has become more of an irrational, automatic-****fest than realGM. Shame hands11 isn't here anymore. He'd be a God now. And who was that other kid that was even worse than hands? I still see his posts in the Stadium sometimes. Indian kid. He was ****ing when we were a playoff team; hated Gilbert. I guess he was ahead of his time.

Hands LOLOLOL...I see that dude on RealGM. Biggest Blatche apologist outside of Momma Blatche. Dude is STILL preaching patience with him with the hopes the lightbulb will go on hahahahaha

[Warhead36]

I like having depth. Nene, Okafor, Seraphin, Booker, and Vesley is a damn good PF/C situation with good youth and experience. In all likelihood one of them will be traded, probably Booker, to balance out the roster some more.

Now if we draft Beal we have our potential 10 year backcourt with Wall and Beal combined with veteran toughness inside in Nene and Okafor while still having young players being developed in Vesley, Singleton, Crawford(though I think he should go too but we're probably stuck with him for now)and Seraphin.

We weren't going to be title contenders anytime soon anyway, but this move does help get us closer to respectability. Hopefully by 2014 we'll be a playoff team with young up and coming stars Wall, Beal, and maybe Seraphin. Okafor and Ariza will expire and then we can make a push for a big FA then when D.C. becomes a more desirable city.

[RonArtest15]

I like having depth. Nene, Okafor, Seraphin, Booker, and Vesley is a damn good PF/C situation with good youth and experience. In all likelihood one of them will be traded, probably Booker, to balance out the roster some more.

Now if we draft Beal we have our potential 10 year backcourt with Wall and Beal combined with veteran toughness inside in Nene and Okafor while still having young players being developed in Vesley, Singleton, Crawford(though I think he should go too but we're probably stuck with him for now)and Seraphin.

We weren't going to be title contenders anytime soon anyway, but this move does help get us closer to respectability. Hopefully by 2014 we'll be a playoff team with young up and coming stars Wall, Beal, and maybe Seraphin. Okafor and Ariza will expire and then we can make a push for a big FA then when D.C. becomes a more desirable city.

And I think (the bold part) is what is being missed by a lot of people.

Now, if EG trades Booker and somehow gets another 1st round pick out of it, would you all still be mad?

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

It's sad that this place has become more of an irrational, automatic-****fest than realGM. Shame hands11 isn't here anymore. He'd be a God now. And who was that other kid that was even worse than hands? I still see his posts in the Stadium sometimes. Indian kid. He was ****ing when we were a playoff team; hated Gilbert. I guess he was ahead of his time.

Hands11 posts on another board I frequent and he hasn't changed a bit.

[Mr Awesome]

Draft Josh Jenkins from Vandy with the 2nd Round pick.

Any scouting on this guy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Preld%C5%BEi%C4%8D

Supposedly we got his rights when we traded Jamison to the Cavs. He's similar to Vesely....6'9, but can play SG.

[No Excuses]

Let's keep ignoring that Ariza is not a good player and Okafor is way past his prime.

But somehow we're back to respectability because we traded for veterans and tied up enough cap space to not be able to improve in the biggest area of need: offense.

Edited June 20, 2012 by No Excuses

[Metalhead]

This is a great trade for the Wiz. Nene, Okafor and Seraphin is solid up front.

Now if they could trade down for Portland's two first rounders and pick up Jeremy Lamb and maybe Kendall Marshall, that would be amazing.

[nuposse87]

And you don't think people would have a problem with Ben Gordon or Marvin Williams????

That wouldn't be damage control...that's more of a lateral move...and bringing Gordon on board makes no sense considering we're probably going to take Beal and have Crawford in the fold.

Now, if we can find a taker for Blatche (for either Gordon/Williams), then it's a different story.

Gordon is an efficient scorer who could actually help mentor someone like Crawford or beal. He shot 43% from 3 last season...43!

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gordobe01.html

It is a way more upward move for us considering it fills a need. It provides spacing and gives our bigs room to grown and play.

The ariza trade is just something I'd rather see happen...But when you think about it...Since singleton has some ability to be a 3 and D SF ariza might be a decent enough change up type player. But I am adamant about the Okafor trade. He MUST go.

[Chachie]

I like the trade. Goodbye to Rashard. Ernie would have used next week's late pick on an obscure blonde 6'9" euroboy anyway.

[abdcskins]

I sort of like this trade. We got rid of Lewis, that's enough to be happy about. Ariza is gonna be turning 27 in 10 days and plays really hard. Okafor make me wanna choke a whore. I like that he is a good defender, we suck at defense. Don't like getting get of the No. 46 pick but whatever.

[pjfootballer]

What's an Oke-for?

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

Hands LOLOLOL...I see that dude on RealGM. Biggest Blatche apologist outside of Momma Blatche. Dude is STILL preaching patience with him with the hopes the lightbulb will go on hahahahaha

Hands11 posts on another board I frequent and he hasn't changed a bit.

Haha. Glad I'm not the only one who remembers him. My one and only ban on here was because of him. Probably five or six years ago. Me and twenty-eight were acting like he was Blatche's girl on the side and was getting pounded by him. He reported us and we got banned for two weeks. That's too funny that he's still riding Blatche's sack.

[lovetoaster]

Ernie would have used next week's late pick on an obscure blonde 6'9" euroboy anyway.

Haha...that is almost as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.

[Going Commando]

My guess is that the FO already decided Beal was going to be the pick before they made the trade. I think they have a pretty good idea who the top 2 will be, or at least they know for sure Beal isn't going #2.

How can they be sure? This trade could have waited until after draft day at least.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

That's too funny that he's still riding Blatche's sack.

Nah, he's given up on Blatche more or less.

He still talks about Gilbert though. The whole "you can't win with a scoring PG" line.

Edited June 20, 2012 by BRAVEONAWARPATH

[Thinking Skins]

I'll go on record as liking the trade. It's not like teams were just excited about taking Lewis off our hands. It seems like two teams got what they wanted, the Wizards got some veteran presence and got rid of Lewis, and the Hornets got rid of two guys as they try to rebuild. I think people think that because this isn't a Caron for Kwame trade, that we got dealt with, but I see talent in Okafur and think that at minimum, he's a good backup center who can push fire, playing time. Wasn't he having a real good year in 2010-11? Ariza, I'm not as find of, but Well see. Hopefully we can sure up that 3 spot. At best, I'd hope that he can play like he played towards the end of last year. At least then we can maybe get something for him. Our maybe he's like Heinrich and opts out.

[Going Commando]

This is a great trade for the Wiz. Nene, Okafor and Seraphin is solid up front.

Now if they could trade down for Portland's two first rounders and pick up Jeremy Lamb and maybe Kendall Marshall, that would be amazing.

Why in the hell would we want Kendall Marshall.

---------- Post added June-20th-2012 at 05:28 PM ----------

I like having depth. Nene, Okafor, Seraphin, Booker, and Vesley is a damn good PF/C situation with good youth and experience. In all likelihood one of them will be traded, probably Booker, to balance out the roster some more.

Now if we draft Beal we have our potential 10 year backcourt with Wall and Beal combined with veteran toughness inside in Nene and Okafor while still having young players being developed in Vesley, Singleton, Crawford(though I think he should go too but we're probably stuck with him for now)and Seraphin.

We weren't going to be title contenders anytime soon anyway, but this move does help get us closer to respectability. Hopefully by 2014 we'll be a playoff team with young up and coming stars Wall, Beal, and maybe Seraphin. Okafor and Ariza will expire and then we can make a push for a big FA then when D.C. becomes a more desirable city.

I'm OK with Crawford staying so long as he's a backup and not the starter. As a developing sixth man he's a pretty nice option because he can run the point.

Ariza is a millstone though. For a 9 year vet, his PER is terrible. A PER under 15 on an offensively challenged team like ours is really only acceptable from a developmental player. I'm worried that Ariza gums up our backcourt and perimeter minutes making it hard for young pieces to develop. I don't think his perimeter defense offsets his negative offensive value... I think we'd have been better off sticking with Vesely and having him develop as our perimeter defender.

Okafor is alright, I've much less of a problem with him and I think he actually adds value to the roster if he's healthy. He's got a career PER of 17, which is good enough to be an important starter for us on both ends. But the problem is he hasn't been himself for several years. He's not the rebounder he once was, and that's what we really needed to add from a significant front court acquisition. He scores efficiently and he defends--when healthy--but I wanted us to go out and get a rebounder. Seraphin and Nene score efficiently and they defend. He feels too redundant. Could have used someone to scoop up all of the rebounds to be had.

An interesting stat is that Nene improved our team rebounding rate significantly by coming in without actually piling up rebounds on his own. I'd have to go searching around for the actual number, but take my word for it that it was a big improvement over both JaVale and Seraphin. That means he boxes out really well. Knowing that, we could have capitalized on that talent and found a PF with a talent for pulling in rebounds--T Rob or maybe even Ersan Ilyasova. They could have been an animal on the glass and formed an ideal pair with Nene.

But really, this trade is bad because we gave a team everything they wanted without demanding they sacrafice anything in return. We were used. We should have insisted they give up the tenth pick or told them to go pound sand. If not that, at least a future consideration we could deal with.

I also think we need to find a new home for one of Vesely/Booker/Singleton. One of those guys no longer has a place on our roster in the short term.

And I also think we're absolutely handcuffed into taking Beal at 3 now. I'm not disappointed about the prospect of taking Beal at all. Love him as a prospect. (Still a little apprehensive that we won't take him though...)

But I don't like the thought that Beal is probably going to be our only significant addition to improve the offense for next season. That's a HUGE burden to place on a 19 year old rookie SG. What else can we do though? We have no cap flexibility this year or next. I was hoping we'd be able to improve our offense with a multitude of low key signings but we are not going to have the roster spaces for that and probably don't have the cap space either.

This was a bad deal. Ernie deserves to get roasted for this.

[endzone_dave]

A trade of medicre players is supposed to make us Wiz fans excited.

[Hersh]

Let's keep ignoring that Ariza is not a good player and Okafor is way past his prime.

But somehow we're back to respectability because we traded for veterans and tied up enough cap space to not be able to improve in the biggest area of need: offense.

I don't understand this trade it all. We just helped New Orleans create lots of cap room by taking on two players that didn't stay healthy last year and their $44 million in contracts ($30 million in additional salary over the next two years when factoring in the buyout of Lewis if we didn't trade him) and we didn't come out with their second 1st round pick??? Ernie just got absolutely fleeced. How does this trade get the Wiz closer to becoming a championship team? It just seems to impede the growth of the young players.

[BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93]

Because obviously there were clear better alternatives. Because DC is a huge FA attraction. Because our GM has a sterling prior draft history. Everyone needs to stop ********, it makes us no worse and a little bit better. Sounds like decent deal to me. If we stayed pact, we'd pick another **** Euro kid in the 2nd round and trot out a bunch of low basketball IQ bafoons AGAIN. At least we have some semblance of veteran experience now

[StillUnknown]

We better play lockdown defense next season, offense will still struggle with only one credible shooter in the lineup, assuming we draft Beal. If Charlotte drafts him, or another trades with Charlotte for his rights, we're pretty screwed.

I can understand the need to put forth a credible product on the floor, but the more I think about it, I don't like the deal.