The Amazingly Suck Theodore Leonsis Thread

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

CCJ, whether you like the folks running the Wiz or not, Javale McGee is ENTIRELY responsibe for his reputation. He looks like an imbecile, because he IS an imbecile. The Wiz are a lousy franchise in large part because they have relied on McGee, Blatche, and Young to be the core of the team. They are what they are - not because of anything the Wiz organization has done. Generally, for a human been to change, they have to undergo a traumatic experience. And they're all probably too laid back to have an experience like that.

And whether your read my post well or not every player who leaves the Wizards ends up better off.

The environment in Washington's locker room is ripe for strife and blame to be directed at the players. To make a prime example of that dunk is the stuff I have disliked Saunders for since 2009, shortly after he became coach. That dude cannot coach well enough to lack sensitivity to the image of other players.

It would be great to have a coach embrace his players and have their backs for a change. This guy only does that for Andray Blatche.

[Nivek]

Flip's NBA coaching record: 637-523 -- winning percentage: .549.
Eddie's NBA coaching record: 257-343 -- winning percentage: .428.

Perhaps the difference in their records with the Wizards has something to do with the talent they've been asked to coach.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Flip's Wizard record: 26-56, 23-59, 1-12.
61-127 or .324
Zero playoff appearances

Eddie's Wizard record: 25-57, 45-37, 42-40, 41-41, 43-39, 1-10
197-420 or .469
4 consecutive playoff appearances, in bold


EJ made the playoffs when his veterans were hurt
Flip had Hinrich, Arenas, Haywood, Butler, Jamison, Foye, Mike Miller, Oberto. Saunders also had many excuses why his teams lost using the same players Eddie won with. Recall, Jordan made the playoffs with Arenas hurt.

Eddie Jordan did not throw players under the bus. I like Eddie much better as Wizards coach. I thought Jordan was the worst defensive coach, possibly ever. I hated when he went small to protect the paint. Thought he should have used Haywood over Etan and that Jamison and Butler were too small to beat Cleveland in the playoffs. That all said, I RESPECTED EDDIE JORDAN. I cannot say the same about Flip Saunders. I also BELIEVE EDDIE JORDAN WOULD HAVE THIS SAME GROUP WINNING A WHOLE LOT MORE GAMES!

Flip might have been great everywhere else but here. But as Wizards coach he has epically failed.

[dandridge 10]

CCJ, whether you like the folks running the Wiz or not, Javale McGee is ENTIRELY responsibe for his reputation. He looks like an imbecile, because he IS an imbecile. The Wiz are a lousy franchise in large part because they have relied on McGee, Blatche, and Young to be the core of the team. They are what they are - not because of anything the Wiz organization has done. Generally, for a human been to change, they have to undergo a traumatic experience. And they're all probably too laid back to have an experience like that.

And whether your read my post well or not every player who leaves the Wizards ends up better off.

The environment in Washington's locker room is ripe for strife and blame to be directed at the players. To make a prime example of that dunk is the stuff I have disliked Saunders for since 2009, shortly after he became coach. That dude cannot coach well enough to lack sensitivity to the image of other players.

It would be great to have a coach embrace his players and have their backs for a change. This guy only does that for Andray Blatche.

CCJ, I think you have a legitimate complaint that Flip cuts Blatche more slack than McGee for similar mistakes. However, IMO, I think Flip should be harder on Blatche, not easier on McGee. McGee has been here long enough to know what is going to get him in Flip's doghouse. If he knows it, but continues to do it, its on McGee not Flip. With that said, I'd like to see more room in Flip's doghouse for Blatche.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

dandridge, if he were consistent I wouldn't have posted. You have observed exactly why I am posting.

Be consistent in punishing offenses!

Yesterday, Flip selectively chose to punish a showboat dunk but ignored technical fouls, forced shots, and lazy defensive rotations. McGee beasted in the first quarter. He did some great things early. When the Rockets made their run, Blatche had come in the game along with Crawford. McGee was flat out getting owned, but the Wizards lost momentum after Flip's timeout. They came out of the timeout missing three pointers, not getting good shots.

Saunders has made an example of McGee but I don't recall him ever doing this with Blatche or Crawford or Wall or Young.

Flip went overboard and now yet another Wizard player is considered even more of a knucklehead.

[MF23]

I'd like to see Flip gone because he won't put everyone in his doghouse. This team has McGee and Wall who are real difference makers. There is no evidence to suspect they won't be receptive to a hardass coach. The Wizards have a chance with those two but it seems like tanking this season is more important than their development.

[Nivek]

C'mon CCJ. I know you want to fire Flip, but we don't need to play make-believe to do it.

Eddie had an Arenas who was one of the elite offensive weapons in the league. Flip had A slowed-down broke-down Arenas who'd lost his burst and his leaping ability.

Hinrich was in decline by the time he got to DC. And he got hurt.

Flip had Haywood for 49 games. During a season in which Arenas was a shadow of himself, Caron Butler played like ass, and Jamison began his age-related drop-off (something a lot of guys do at age 33). Mike Miller and "injured" went together in a lot of sentences that year. The team was 19-33 when the front office decided to blow it up. They went 7-23 after they dealt Jamison.

And let's recall that the year before Flip arrived, Washington started 1-10 under Jordan, and finished 18-53 under Tapscott. Flip didn't inherit a powerhouse or even a playoff team. He got a bad team. At the time, most thought it was primarily due to injuries and that the team would turnaround when Arenas returned.

But, Arenas was bad, and it turned out some guys had gotten older and started to decline, some guys got closer to the end of their contracts and started worrying about personal agendas, and the team talent base got thinner at exactly the moment they needed more depth because the youngsters were so limited.

I am not arguing that Flip has done a great job because I don't think he has. I think he ought to be fired. In fact, as you well know, I don't think he should have been hired in the first place. But, we don't need to make up stuff to justify canning him. And pretending that Flip and Eddie had remotely situations is making stuff up.

Eddie went 25-57 in his first year with a young roster (and a sometimes-injured Arenas). The next year, he got Jamison.

Flip went 26-56 during a "blow it up" season. Then 23-59 in a season kinda similar to Eddie's first year with the team. But Flip hasn't gotten a Jamison. And he doesn't have a Haywood or even a Larry Hughes, much less the offensive machine that was Arenas. Go back and look at that roster Eddie had in year 2 and compare it to this one. Position by position, is there ANYONE on this roster we'd take over the guys Eddie had that season?

I think most of us with a brain would take Arenas over Wall, Hughes over Young, Jamison over Blatche, Haywood over McGee, Etan over Seraphin. Closer calls on Dixon vs. Crawford and Jarvis vs. Lewis. I think most of us would take Booker over Ruffin. The point is that Eddie had a lot more talent than Flip by his 2nd season with the team. I just don't see any way to logically argue otherwise.

[LyricalRico]

I'm not as critical of EG's rebuild as some other people; I think that his draft choices are fairly defensible, overall, and have generally been good picks compared to his other options.

Agreed. I think Ernie has done a solid job since Ted took over, especially when it comes to accumulating picks. The results of the picks have been somewhat mixed, but the moves made to acquire the picks have been good and at the time the picks were made they were absolutely defensible.

Do you have to put some of the blame for the bad environment on Ernie because of his commitment to Blatche? Yes. But you can also make the case that the players are just not developing under the current staff. That's where Flip comes in. To Ruz's point, you can't put all of the lack of player development on Flip because the players have to choose to buy in. But the argument can be made that a different voice/approach could potentially get the players to buy in more than they have.

Of course bringing in a new voice means firing Flip and paying two coach's salaries, which is why I think the coach is ultimately Ted's call and he is hesitant to fork out the cash during a losing season. The problem is that while he's saving money now, he could be costing the team down the road because of the damage that could be done to the guys that actually have a chance to be quality players. That's where the "amazingly sucky" label applies to Ted IMO.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

C'mon CCJ. I know you want to fire Flip, but we don't need to play make-believe to do it.

Eddie had an Arenas who was one of the elite offensive weapons in the league. Flip had A slowed-down broke-down Arenas who'd lost his burst and his leaping ability.

Hinrich was in decline by the time he got to DC. And he got hurt.

Flip had Haywood for 49 games. During a season in which Arenas was a shadow of himself, Caron Butler played like ass, and Jamison began his age-related drop-off (something a lot of guys do at age 33). Mike Miller and "injured" went together in a lot of sentences that year. The team was 19-33 when the front office decided to blow it up. They went 7-23 after they dealt Jamison.

And let's recall that the year before Flip arrived, Washington started 1-10 under Jordan, and finished 18-53 under Tapscott. Flip didn't inherit a powerhouse or even a playoff team. He got a bad team. At the time, most thought it was primarily due to injuries and that the team would turnaround when Arenas returned.

But, Arenas was bad, and it turned out some guys had gotten older and started to decline, some guys got closer to the end of their contracts and started worrying about personal agendas, and the team talent base got thinner at exactly the moment they needed more depth because the youngsters were so limited.

I am not arguing that Flip has done a great job because I don't think he has. I think he ought to be fired. In fact, as you well know, I don't think he should have been hired in the first place. But, we don't need to make up stuff to justify canning him. And pretending that Flip and Eddie had remotely situations is making stuff up.

Eddie went 25-57 in his first year with a young roster (and a sometimes-injured Arenas). The next year, he got Jamison.

Flip went 26-56 during a "blow it up" season. Then 23-59 in a season kinda similar to Eddie's first year with the team. But Flip hasn't gotten a Jamison. And he doesn't have a Haywood or even a Larry Hughes, much less the offensive machine that was Arenas. Go back and look at that roster Eddie had in year 2 and compare it to this one. Position by position, is there ANYONE on this roster we'd take over the guys Eddie had that season?

I think most of us with a brain would take Arenas over Wall, Hughes over Young, Jamison over Blatche, Haywood over McGee, Etan over Seraphin. Closer calls on Dixon vs. Crawford and Jarvis vs. Lewis. I think most of us would take Booker over Ruffin. The point is that Eddie had a lot more talent than Flip by his 2nd season with the team. I just don't see any way to logically argue otherwise.

Caron started jacking shots the same way Crawford, Wall, and Young do. Caron never played like ass under EJ. Nivek, here are Jamison's game logs from 2009-2010. He played well.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... elog/2010/

The 41 games where Jamison played "age-related" badly, he average 20.5 points, 8.8 rebounds. Not make believe, check his splits, below. Jamison averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds in January his last season as a Wizard. In fact, his numbers didn't drop off until he went to Cleveland.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... lits/2010/

As far as EJ's 1-10 start goes, take a look at the records of every single Wizard opponent the first 11 games. None of them had a losing record before the game was played.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 90WAS.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 10DET.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 50MIL.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 70WAS.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 80ORL.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 20WAS.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 40MIA.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 80WAS.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 90ATL.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 10WAS.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 20NYK.html


EJ had clearly lost the team at that point, but he was coming off of a playoff season where Gil came back and basically ruined the chemistry of that team in the playoffs. Jordan got fired the next season at 1-10. Washington should have been favored in only 2 of these games, at most. Okay, that might have been justified but he got a quick hook and Ernie Grunfeld has kept his job to this date.

I think the Wizards continue to lose because they don't do people right.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Some people have a tremendous amount of patience with Flip Saunders, but Eddie Jordan is considered a bad coach by many of those same people.

I don't get it.

Eddie Jordan didn't get Rasheed and Ben Wallace, Chauncey, and Rip. Jordan never coached Sam Cassell, KG, and Sprewell. Jordan had Arenas and a lot of shooters, but no defensive players aside from Haywood. Jordan made the playoffs and advanced one of the four times. Flip didn't not advance with Garnett for something like six straight playoffs.

I think Eddie Jordan is a better coach than Flip Saunders because I like the way Eddie kept problems in house. Eddie put out an entertaining team, no matter how bad his roster was.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I'm not as critical of EG's rebuild as some other people; I think that his draft choices are fairly defensible, overall, and have generally been good picks compared to his other options.

Agreed. I think Ernie has done a solid job since Ted took over, especially when it comes to accumulating picks. The results of the picks have been somewhat mixed, but the moves made to acquire the picks have been good and at the time the picks were made they were absolutely defensible.

Do you have to put some of the blame for the bad environment on Ernie because of his commitment to Blatche? Yes. But you can also make the case that the players are just not developing under the current staff. That's where Flip comes in. To Ruz's point, you can't put all of the lack of player development on Flip because the players have to choose to buy in. But the argument can be made that a different voice/approach could potentially get the players to buy in more than they have.

Of course bringing in a new voice means firing Flip and paying two coach's salaries, which is why I think the coach is ultimately Ted's call and he is hesitant to fork out the cash during a losing season. The problem is that while he's saving money now, he could be costing the team down the road because of the damage that could be done to the guys that actually have a chance to be quality players. That's where the "amazingly sucky" label applies to Ted IMO.

You can also blame some of the development issues on EG for drafting potential over production. I don't find much fault with EG post-Ted for the reasons Illuminaire and Lyrical Rico mentioned.

As far as firing Flip goes, I don't mind seeing him stay and the Wizards tank another 15-20 games. I think the Wizards need to make their changes before the All Star break. Fire EG and Flip because Ernie is a lame duck GM, and the next GM will want Flip gone, any way.

I think as far as paying salaries goes, why not just have interim GM and interim coach the rest of the season. Make Sheppard interim GM and make Woodson interim head coach. Save the money. Continue to tank. Take the time to do a really thorough search to bring new management and coaching.

I don't find Ted Leonsis sucky at all ... yet. He's going to make some changes. I think he did so with the Caps and he'll do so with the Wizards. I am just venting on Flip. It gets really old to bring attention to the team over an impulsive player's decision to go off the backboard and slam. Unnecessary carping and whining to a team that cannot win and needs to keep things as positive as possible.

If Leonsis did fire Flip it would be a huge relief to many, especially the players IMO, but it isn't necessary that Leonsis do so. In fact, I want this team to stink a while longer.

[Nivek]

The 41 games where Jamison played "age-related" badly, he average 20.5 points, 8.8 rebounds. Not make believe, check his splits, below. Jamison averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds in January his last season as a Wizard. In fact, his numbers didn't drop off until he went to Cleveland.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... lits/2010/

In 08-09, Jamison had a PER of 20.6. In 09-10 WITH THE WIZARDS, his PER was 17.5. This was primarily due to him shooting worse -- despite having a slightly lower usage rate overall.

But you know what -- I'm done with this. Going over this same argument over and over again is a waste of time. Make up whatever you want about Flip. Pretend that he and Eddie had exactly the same situations and that Flip has done much worse. Ignore whatever information is inconvenient to your argument.

[crackhed]

what matters is the record imo, and on that count it's hard to see any justification for maintaining the status quo.

wizards w/l record (%)
2008–09: 19 / 63 (.232)
2009–10: 26 / 56 (.317)
2010–11: 23 / 59 (.280)
2011-12: 01 / 12 (.077)

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The 41 games where Jamison played "age-related" badly, he average 20.5 points, 8.8 rebounds. Not make believe, check his splits, below. Jamison averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds in January his last season as a Wizard. In fact, his numbers didn't drop off until he went to Cleveland.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... lits/2010/

In 08-09, Jamison had a PER of 20.6. In 09-10 WITH THE WIZARDS, his PER was 17.5. This was primarily due to him shooting worse -- despite having a slightly lower usage rate overall.

But you know what -- I'm done with this. Going over this same argument over and over again is a waste of time. Make up whatever you want about Flip. Pretend that he and Eddie had exactly the same situations and that Flip has done much worse. Ignore whatever information is inconvenient to your argument.

Anything?

--Flip was on the grassy knoll.
--The captain of the Exxon Valdez was drunk and asleep, but before he dosed off he let Flip man the ship.
--Flip let the dogs out.
--What happened to Tupac and Biggie Smalls? You guessed it. Flip knows.
--Who was D.B. Cooper? Again, ask Flip.
--The Great Chicago fire? It wasn't Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Flip wasn't born, but some how ...

[LyricalRico]

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Okay, I feel bad now. I feel like I'm cracking on Flip harder than Bill Maher did Tim Tebow. I have to stop the hate. It isn't right.

I apologize.

Also, Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Jeffrey Hazelwood, though accused of being drunken at the time of the accident was cleared of those charges at trial.

I have been lied about and laughed at in real life on more than one occasion. I would never deliberately do that to anyone, including and especially Flip Saunders.

It is one thing to disagree with a coach, but I am sorry if I have slandered anyone unknowingly. I'm just having a laugh.

[Jay81]

Fantastic article from Eric Bickel lol..no really

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/01/ ... e-wizards/

[Jay81]

i was mocked for creating this thread last year.

Naso much now eh?

[Dat2U]

Eddie was a solid assistant coach that was overmatched as a head coach. He rode the coatails of Gilbert Arenas' fliration with being an elite player to a few playoff appearances, otherwise he was a miserable failure here, Sacramento and Philadelphia.

I'm no fan of Flip but comparing him to the glory days of EJ is like comparing the color and size of turds. Either way they both stink. This is just an excerise in futility.

[montestewart]

i was mocked for creating this thread last year.

Naso much now eh?

They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But then, I began to play.