Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[dangermouse]

We could have got a pick back with the same level of protection. If not slightly better. NOH probably think theyll get really good really quickly with Davis and Gordon. We took on two **** contracts, Bobs took on 1.........

EG is a joke. A pushover.

Does this reveal the Bobs hand in the draft? Going for Robinson or MKG for sure now? Well i guess they could also trade down... Doesnt really show much more than yesterday then.

[Ruzious]

@ruz

I'm not missing any points. We're just disagreeing, like back to the first posts in this thread, about how ready Vesely, Booker, and KS are and how good Okafor is. If you could combine Ves, Boook, and KS into one player, then you wouldnt need Okafor. Problem is all our young guys have flaws, which leads to flaws in team offense and defense, which is what we saw last year. None of them use their strength to get position like Okafor does.

Vesely cant shoot or post up. You dont have to guard him at this point. Booker is a head down player who either takes the long two or barrels into the defender. KS is slightly more of a complete player. He'll work for position, he can make a few moves, and he even moves his feet on D. But none give you the all around impact that Okafor does, individually (And no you cant wrap guys' talents together and say "The rotation as a whole can give you X". basketball strategy only works with the five guys on the court not the whole rotation FOR EXAMPLE: other teams can just use an extra wing to guard Ves who will space the floor and make their offense better. This defeats the purpose of even having Ves on the floor cuz he's out there for his d and energy, but the opposition can play their best offensive players because Ves isnt a threat on the other end.)

From watching him and from all reports, Okafor is the quintessential vet big who makes all the right defensive rotations, boxes guys out then rebounds, sets solid screens, and doesnt take bad shots. I dont think you can use those phrases to describe any of KS, Ves, or Book yet. I do think they're all team players who will benefit greatly from observing some true pro's. They wont take the Nate attitude of "if I'm not on the court, I'm not learning". They'll watch Oak and Nene opperate, and immitate those vets. I think the young bigs will learn a lot about how to play the right way from that tandem.

Edit: if i've ever used the term "insurance policy" it was as a way to describe what Okafor would be if the young bigs weren't actually as good as everyone seems to think. So more like insurance for ALL YOUR expectations. I'm not as high on any of Ves, Book, and KS as a lot of people around here, so to me Okafor was never just an "insurance policy", he is more appropriately described as "Day 1 Starter" you know cuz he's better than the three guys he's supposedly insurance for lol)

Okay, you're just completely wrong. You've just grossly overrated Okafor. He's nothing more than a average NBA player - a mediocre offensive player, a good - but not great - and declining - rebounder, and a very overrated defender. I've already posted in this thread a link to his poor defensive stats along with a good analysis. Seraphin was one of the most improved players in the NBA last season and will likely be a better player as a starter. As a backup, I'd rather have Booker than Okafor. And Vesely isn't going to develop if he doesn't get playing time - which would be a waste of a very good talent and the 6th pick in last year's draft. Having Okafor doesn't mean more than 1 or 2 wins, and he doesn't do anything for the long term. Having him around doesn't mean a damn thing. Players aren't going to get smart just from seeing him do things. And they can learn just as much from a guy like Singleton as they can from Okafor - probably more because Singleton has had to try harder to stay in the NBA. And we have a guy named Nene, if you hadn't noticed.

Exactly how good do you think this team is going to be next season with Okafor, Ariza, and whoever they draft? Do you have any grasp of how bad a shooting team this is - and Okafor and Ariza don't do a damn thing to help that? They're not good. Vic, who was that shooting guard that played with Allen Iverson at G-town in Iverson's last year there? His name is on the tip of my tongue, Vic. He could shoot better than anyone on the Wizards, and he... well... Vincent Chapter? Nah. It'll come to me.

[Ruzious]

I'm not actually going to make a snide post about the futility of cap space and how there's simply no way that an opportunity to add an asset via leveraging cap flexibility like this one could have been foreseen, but if you want to imagine I am, well, imagine it's Very snide.

That's some excellent restraint.

[tontoz]

Ariza, Okafor, and Nene may not have the greatest offensive numbers, but they'll have a positive effect on John Wall's numbers.

Why are you lumping Nene in with those two? .

team play, i dont like numbers. and that's the starting lineup wall -- ?? --Ariza--Okafor--Nene

That explains a lot.

[VictorPage44]

I'm not overrating Okafor, you're overrating our scrubs. But we'll see who's better next season by who starts when the season begins. lets let the coach decide and come back to this in November. Wittman seems fair to me, may the best big win.

Yeah this team was a bad shooting team because of the guys that were on the team, and the terrible shots they took, not because of the guys we added. The guys we added will make the team collectively take better shots.(because they're part of the team and because it will rub off ---like fairy dust--- for all the kids who played with dolls and never played team sports) We won a decent amount with poor shooting, no defense, and chuckers like Crawford. Hopefully this moves JC to the bench a little more in favor of a big lineup. That alone's gotta be worth at least 1 win over the course of the season.

How many games we gonna win once I draft MKG? I'd predict 35, but that has too much to do with Wall and #3, and not so much with this trade. If Wall makes the jump, and we can get something out of #3, no reason they cant go .500.

Only thing James Singleton can teach these young guys is how to fall out the league every year That's not an example, that's an end of the bench squad filler. Meanwhile somehow that's equated to a 8year NBA starter. you're the one who just way off on this.

[VictorPage44]

That explains a lot.

That's not true. I just dont like numbers when people use them to lie.

[Ed Wood]

We had a decent defense to close out the year last year. Who knows how real that performance was because this team does some terrifically odd things in April, but for that brief (but not brief enough apparently to justify viewing the team as awful and therefore canning its architect) stretch the team was legitimately good even.

And while Okafor and Ariza don't exactly make the team a bad shooting team (though Ariza does help, by being bad at shooting and doing it a lot) neither do they really address that issue. Generally addressing serious flaws in roster dynamics is a goal in free agency and trade acquisitions, but so it goes.

But yes, by all means, if he's on the court for the tip on opening night we'll safely be able to conclude that Etan Thomas is the better man.

[TGW]

But yes, by all means, if he's on the court for the tip on opening night we'll safely be able to conclude that Etan Thomas is the better man.

LOL Ed you have a way of being so nice when you're not being so nice.

Anyway, there's no way Book or Seraphin will start over Okafor when the season starts, because it will totally undermine Grunfeld, and make him look like a bigger idiot than he already looks. You might as well pencil in the starting lineup now, because it's not changing, regardless of whether (or should I say when) Booker and Seraphin outplay Okafor.

[VictorPage44]

Ya Ed, Thanks for joining the discussion.You were way over my head earlier. Is this from Wes's new thread about the puss errrrrr "gentrification" of DC?

[Hoopalotta]

Ok, it looks like we had no way to get the specific Gordon trade done short of amnestying Blatche and absorbing Gordon into naked cap space on one of those deals that's handshaked to before the draft and then completed in July (and it's much more painful into raw cap space in terms of real world financial outlay).

I wonder if Washington said no to a Gordon/Maxiell for Lewis offer? Isn't that a much better deal than what they got? Maxiell is expiring vs Ariza's 2 year deal, plus it seems to me they could fit Gordon in their lineup more than Okafor. Gordon/Maxiell for Lewis would've made sense to me. The deals each team settled on... do not

Maxiell hasn't opted in yet - he can't be traded.

It would be hard to argue against us waiting something like this breaking and then trying to leverage New Orleans harder if that was the deal we wanted, though.

[davidgrant]

GM Ratings. Our Ernie is in the middle of the pack.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/gm-ratings

[montestewart]

GM Ratings. Our Ernie is in the middle of the pack.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/gm-ratings

That system makes "5 Must-Have Fashion Accessories" or "7 Signs He's Not That Into You" look super scientific

[W. Unseld]

The Detroit trade may point against the trade but I think Dwight Howard's clear pre-emptive refusal to extend with Houston coupled with D-Will's refusal to go to Houston EVEN IF another superstar like Dwight Howard would be there shows how difficult it would've been for an even less successful team like the Wiz to use that cap space to sign free agents.

[Dat2U]

I just wanna say it's good to have hoopalotta back. Miss ya bro!

[doclinkin]

Eh. I stayed out of this thread since I was in the mountains when the deal went down and came back only after 70-odd pages of the spick-flecked wide-eyed rat-in-the-kennel full-throated yapping frenzy.

Posted a little bit on the topic in the optimism thread before amusing myself with a Finnegan's Wake prolepsis of the deal. But whatever, I'll weigh in where the real conversation is going on.

Whatever you think of the deal right now, and whatever it does for our long term prospects, capspace and other phantoms-- when I squint at it I foresee that fans on this board and in the stands are really going to come to appreciate our squad next year. They'll prove pretty easy to cheer for. And I see significantly hopeful signs that they will surprise in their results, significantly outperforming the dismal projections made by many in this thread.

This team is going to be a fierce deep tough forceful strong bastard of a defensive monster. Fast, tireless, active, exhausting fast-break power-dunking finisher on offense. And in the half court I think the team will prove a revelation, earning grudging admission and appreciation that it's not as bad as the night terrors suggested.

What do you need for a successful fast break team: First you have to have the ball. And this begins with defense. Tough to run on a made basket and even then you're only keeping even with the opponent if you trade back and forth. So you have to stop the opponent, then secure the rebound.

This team has been awful in both regards. Late season however simply by jettisoning JaVale, before Nene joined the team even, we began to show an uptick in our defensive habits and improved interior dEFG%. Pick and roll defense, interior lane clogging, etc all improved by degrees. Adding Nene (when healthy) only improved the effect. Our late season run was fueled by defensive stops, detering interior attack with wideload minsters in the paint, even forcing 24-second violations.

However, our defensive rebounding has been notoriously awful for years, and the big Brazilian himself has never been much of a defensive boardsman for all his brawn.

This fact is deceptive though, since plus/minus stats show that whatever his personal box score tally the team generally improves their defensive rebounding when Nene is on court. That is: he boxes out, he seals his man from the lane, and wideload that he is he'll often screen two opponents to allow his interior ally to snatch the pill.

Still, playing next to him we had the raw but developing ex-rookie Kevin Seraphin, who himself posted similarly aenemic board totals in his short career, both here and overseas. Infact if anything there was a slight suggestion that his game was significantly similar to Nene in improving the board work of his teammates, though the effect wasn't as pronounced.

But here in tangent to the pair we add a player who, while suffering a leg tweak this year (injury history is not common in his career, posting back to back to back 82 game seasons before that) and taking a slight hit in his per40 boardwork in the shortened season, in his career has proved a rock-steady consistent double double machine, despite playing somewhat out of position as an undersized athletic center.

In rebounding, Okafor is the ideal complement to both Nene and Ksera. Active in pursuit of the ball, in position and in motion, calculates trajectory, uses speed anticipation and athleticism to outwork opponents and chase down bounces even out of position. Remember being startled at the rebounding acumen of Antawn Jamison, well picture that same skill with more muscle and moxie and no tendency towards any Ole' flinching from contact. You force a miss, Meka will go get it.

Good, we got the ball.

Next thing you need for an uptempo squad is the willingness to run hard, every possession. Recall how breathless we were at the possibility that JaVale would help our team earn the rep as the fastest end-to-end squad in the league. His speed at his size ought to have seen opponents huffing dust chasing after our big boy in the middle.

Except he wouldn't run. Unless of course he had the ball in his hands and could dribble the length of the court. He had a kick-the-cat rage-inducing tendency to sorta lazily float around on court until he felt he could star. Now it turns out some part of that was conditioning and exercise induced asthma and swollen ovaries and I don't know whatever excuse you want to come up with for him. Laziness. No matter what he never proved able to help the team much in this regard. Low IQ, poor situation recognition, lame lack of a competitive nature, disinterest, whatever. He wanted to earn style points from the judges more than respect from his peers and opponents.

Now let me say this: I've followed Meka since he was prospect for UConn. He is a 6' 10" center (maybe) in a league that requires 7 footers at that position. But has been able to play the position because he is the hardest-working best-conditioned player in the spot since Alonzo Mourning. He's in the weight room at dawn on game day, leastways he was at UConn. I was concerned for him coming into the league because he already had back spasms from how hard he worked, figured he was an injury risk,. But despite being undersized for the 5-spot he proved solidly durable, constantly tuning his body to meet the challenge. Playing undersized, yes, but active enough to make up the difference. He will run. Every minute he earns, he'll work.

An uptempo team takes its toll on the bigs most of all. For all the hair tearing angst on here at the supposed redundancy of adding another undersized Big many on this board fail to recognize the weapon that a deep frontcourt bench can prove to be. Especially for an uptempo squad. With this team we can afford to play 48+ minutes, 82+ games of run-them-to-death go! go! go! hyperactive basketball, without grinding our big men into the grave. Starter, finisher, bench, whatever, I suspect the roles of our 3 Bigs will alter depending on their condition and play. 'Interchangeable' is no epithet. We can bring bruisers off the bench in barrage after barrage, substituting freely, and when the opponent flags we can downshift and floor it, bringing even faster players like Booker and Vesely. Whatever he match-ups suggest.

And on defense, we can feel free to never be namby pamby on the inside, never allow a lay-up without a contusion. Nobody gets to nurse their 6 fouls, because we've got an even bigger and stronger guy on the bench behind him well rested and champing at the bit.

This team is going to be a nightmare to play defensively. No single longarmed shot swatter to evade (Seraphin has an aptitude there, despite lesser height) but whenever you turn the corner to drive the lane there will be an ogre in your path blocking you, bumping you with his belly putting, his armpit in your face. And yes, quite possibly hacking at you with clubbing forearms. We may not earn respect in the nationwide media, but teams will hate to face us. Trevor Ariza will be an excellent defensive role-model for JWall or even MKG if he's the best available.

[doclinkin]

As for half court. Eh, it's late, this is long, I'll follow up in another post but here are my notes for later:

Okafor without Chirs Paul: WTF? Created more of his own offense, had to shoot more jumpers, but somehow his percentages at every range improved? eFG fell because he had to shoot more jumpers instead of dunking. Which shows his usual rage to improve. Knew he'd have to shoot, worked on his jumper.

Now he'll play with a set-up man in John Wall, while showing an ability to hit a wide-open shot, while playing for a coach who allows and encourages his bigs to show that midrange shot.

Nene displayed nice range heretofore unseen in Denver under the encouragement of Wittman. Seraphin has a developing shot with nice efficiency that teams will have to guard. Makes all three bigs a threat for both pick and roll and pick and pop. If JWall turns the corner on a pick and their man collapses to the lane, he has the option to kick to a big man wide open. One of them will be left open on almost every play, or else the lane will be empty. All three plus Booker, and even Vesely, set punishing stunning staggering and sticky picks. Playing defense while on offense. Hockey style body Czechs. Picture trying to chase John Wall at top speed and meeting a pick set by Seraphin. A double screen of Nene then Booker.

Neither Nene nor Okafor has played next to a big of similar calibre. Both have been the primary Big on their squads playing often with undersized bigs next to them, not similar muscle.

Upgrade in IQ, Okafor's insane course load at UConn and near 4.0 GPA. Nene & Meka: great tutors for all of our young Bigs. Not to mention another tie to HOFer, Okafor studying with fellow Houstonian/Nigerian Olajuwon. Now ditto KSera. Maybe add the Dream to the bench next to Sammy? Picture KSera and Vesely learning the footwork for the Dram shake. Seraphin already has the hookshot to pull it off (Ves doesn't have the hands though).

Easy to root for: hardest working collection of smart good guys who never cheat the fans of effort, and you will never flinch in the offseason if you see their name in the news.

Brings us to Blatche. Too bad. Okafors' weight room leadership. Alas. Rehab and trade? Pipe dream?

^^^ Will clean all that up later.

[Ruzious]

I'm not overrating Okafor, you're overrating our scrubs. But we'll see who's better next season by who starts when the season begins. lets let the coach decide and come back to this in November. Wittman seems fair to me, may the best big win.

Yeah this team was a bad shooting team because of the guys that were on the team, and the terrible shots they took, not because of the guys we added. The guys we added will make the team collectively take better shots.(because they're part of the team and because it will rub off ---like fairy dust--- for all the kids who played with dolls and never played team sports) We won a decent amount with poor shooting, no defense, and chuckers like Crawford. Hopefully this moves JC to the bench a little more in favor of a big lineup. That alone's gotta be worth at least 1 win over the course of the season.

How many games we gonna win once I draft MKG? I'd predict 35, but that has too much to do with Wall and #3, and not so much with this trade. If Wall makes the jump, and we can get something out of #3, no reason they cant go .500.

Only thing James Singleton can teach these young guys is how to fall out the league every year That's not an example, that's an end of the bench squad filler. Meanwhile somehow that's equated to a 8year NBA starter. you're the one who just way off on this.

In every sport that I've followed, the best coaches are the guys that had to fight for a roster spot; because they didn't have great talent, they had to learn the game and be smarter than everyone else. It's foolish to just assume players will learn more from Okafor than James Singleton. To expect that simply having Okafor to watch... rather than Singleton or any other "scrub" who's had to fight year in and year out for a job... will make a significant difference... makes no sense.

And you're predicting 35 wins. Wow. Do you understand that 35 wins means a lousy team? If they win 35 games with the trade, they'd likely win 33 or 34 without the trade while doing a better job of developing Vesely, Seraphin, and Booker.

[leswizards]

And you're predicting 35 wins. Wow. Do you understand that 35 wins means a lousy team? If they win 35 games with the trade, they'd likely win 33 or 34 without the trade while doing a better job of developing Vesely, Seraphin, and Booker.

By itself, I don't see how this trade helps the Wizards win any extra games. Okafor is not a huge upgrade over what the Wizards already have in the front court, and while Trevor Ariza is an upgrade at SF, I don't see it being enough to add all that many extra wins.

Having said that, the front court is now overcrowded with talent, and if EG were to trade one of those players (preferably Okafor) for a decent SG or SF, and were to trade Chris Singleton for a swing man then I could see this trade helping the Wizards winning quite a few extra games.

[Ruzious]

I agree 100%, Les. The problem is - that's a big If that I don't expect to happen.

[tontoz]

That explains a lot.

That's not true. I just dont like numbers when people use them to lie.

By all means please give some examples of people using numbers to lie.