The Amazingly Sucky Theodore Leonsis Thread

[Jay81]

I will delete this thread once he

1) gets rid of the medical staff
2) gets rid of Ernie
3) and gets rid of Flip

until then..he is a bad owner of the Wizards. Enjoy the ketchup though!

[dandridge 10]

I nominate this as the dumbest thread ever.

[JonathanJoseph]

Ridiculous

[fishercob]

Ji, have a nice day.

[TGW]

Ji, eat a dick.

[GhostsOfGil]

booo this thread

[Chaos Revenant]

it bothers me that tapscott is still in the Wizards organization.

[DallasShalDune]

This is insane. Did anyone expect us to be even a .500 year team this year?

[Wizards2Lottery]

I would have preferred that Ted fire the moron who created the mess we were in last year but the #1 pick bailed out Ernie big time.

Ernie isn't held accountable for his stupid decisions enough. But I'll trust what Leonsis is doing. Eventually he will start to realize how big of a moron his GM is.

[pineappleheadindc]

OK - we (the mod community here) like to mod gently. So this can stay.

But Ji...this thread is not your finest moment.

(And how about you check into the weather thread to update us on the chances of snow this weekend).

[tontoz]

I would have preferred that Ted fire the moron who created the mess we were in last year but the #1 pick bailed out Ernie big time.

Ernie isn't held accountable for his stupid decisions enough. But I'll trust what Leonsis is doing. Eventually he will start to realize how big of a moron his GM is.

Now that you mention it i think it would be a good idea to give a call to Kevin Pritchard. He was the best GM in the league during his time in Portland. I have no clue why he got canned.

[AceDegenerate]

It seems to make all too much sense that Pritchard is exactly the type of GM for an owner like Leonsis who's entire philosophy is built around stock-piling young talent. I don't know why he was canned either so there is probably way more to it than meets the eye, but Grunfeld is certainly the type of GM I would envision Ted hiring had he not already had the job before the ownership change happened.

[Wizards2Lottery]

I would have preferred that Ted fire the moron who created the mess we were in last year but the #1 pick bailed out Ernie big time.

Ernie isn't held accountable for his stupid decisions enough. But I'll trust what Leonsis is doing. Eventually he will start to realize how big of a moron his GM is.

Now that you mention it i think it would be a good idea to give a call to Kevin Pritchard. He was the best GM in the league during his time in Portland. I have no clue why he got canned.

As long as it isn't Ernie. The guy has done nothing in his tenure as a GM over here to prove that he is capable of building a team that can be competitive in the playoffs and advance out of the first round. The "best" team that he put together ended up being dismantled half way through the season. He traded a top 5 pick for two guys who aren't even on the roster anymore.

I wish I sucked so bad at my job that I cost my company a fortune but instead of firing me they had me fix that mess with 100% backing.

[thinker07]

I don't how anyone can blame Ernie for everything. He works within certain parameters and guidelines. When ownership tells him to keep Gilbert happy and insure that he signs a contract extension, I guess he drafts and signs free agents around that strategy. If the team belonged to Ernie I don't know that he would have decided to build a team around Gilbert and then sign him to his massive contract. Gilbert wants Deshawn - sign him. Gilbert wants Jamison - sign him. And so on. Before last year, Abe was on his last legs and wanted one last run for a championship so he told Ernie to go for that strategy. In that scenario it maybe makes sense to trade the #5 pick for Foye and Miller. Again, if Ernie owned the team I doubt that he would have made that deal. I don't think that it's Ernie's fault that Gilbert did what he did (or got hurt prior to that either). Once adopted Dad Abe says sign him, that deal was done.

And some decisions make sense at the time but just don't work out well. That doesn't make them bad decisions necessarily.

[Chaos Revenant]

Bumping this thread, because while it is the first year of a rebuilding effort, there are several things that seriously cause one to question whether this guy is the great hope for this organization. The most troubling thing to me is how Ted has seemingly retained much, if not all of the status quo ante we had with Abe. Same coach. Same GM. Same medical staff. Same "director of player development".

Contrast with what Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen did in Ashburn. Yes, they made some errors. But, the one thing you cannot say they have done is retain a failed status quo - they cut over 10 players (players that might have helped them win a game or two more this season, like ARE who has had a mini-resurgence back in Pittsburgh), they got rid of a QB that may have been a decent transitional guy but represented half a decade of failure, and was a poor leader, they blew up the defense without regard to what we did before, and we held guys like Haynesworth accountable (while refusing to give up on taming him until the very last).

When something does not work, you don't keep going with it in the hopes that they'll get it right THIS time. You get rid of it and bring in something that does not work? How would you have reacted if Shanny had kept Blache as DC, and Smith as OC? Campbell at QB? Vinny in a lower FO capacity? Think about it?

You can't talk about rebuilding with new players without undergoing an organizational rebuild. We still have the same organization we did last year for the most part.

If this continues, Shanahan's Redskins WILL win a Super Bowl before Leonsis's Wizards win an NBA championshp, because Shanahan has come in and not only changed the status quo, he exploded it. Leonsis, for the very most part, has stuck with the status quo.

Now, Leonsis is a good owner, and he has shown he can preside over a quality organization. But he has to be more proactive in making organizational change in order to achieve his goals.