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I think the coach should get discipline of some type. A verbal warning may be sufficient, given the lack of history. This isn't the same as two players getting physical in practice. Coaches due to their stature should be held to a higher standard of restraint.

I have 2 FRONT Row seats to tonights Chicago City Limits (comedy) at the Barns (Wolf Trap).
Can't go since Jacqui's SLHS team has a regional semi-final game tonight at Robinson.

Looking to sell the Barns tickets for face value (only $24/ticket).

call/txt me if interested
703-581-2193

Well.

I made my commitment. One of us had to go - it was Ernie or me. EG is still here doing whatever the hell it is that keeps him hired... so it's time for me to make this breakup official.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Former Team,

Washington Wizards, you were fun for a while. We had some really good years. I mean, I always suspected that you weren't as into us as I was... I was always looking to make a long term commitment, and you were always trying to shave salary or trade away our best young players. Still, I will always remember how you looked when Gilbert was draining threes and making swag an everyday word. Those were special times.

Part of me will always love you. I know that. But I also know that you're just no good for me anymore. You don't care about me the way I used to care about you, and you don't want to change. You're happy being the laughingstock of the NBA... and I'm not.

I can do better than you, Wizards. I always could. I stuck by you when I thought you could change, when I thought you could BE the team I wanted you to be. But I know better now. You're no good for me, and I'm done with that.

We'll still be friends. I'll watch Beal and Wall. Hell, I'll finally be able to enjoy it when the team wins games it shouldn't, pushing them away from a draft pick they desperately need to actually be relevant. I'll be able to appreciate what's good about you when I don't have to care about the bad.

One last thing - thank you. Without the torment of living with such a screwed up team, I never would have found such an amazing community of people to share my pain with. I'm going to keep on with them. In a very real way, they've become more important to me than the team that brought us together in the first place.

See you later, Wizards. I'm sure you'll find some other fan to fill my place. As for me, I'll be playing the field. I have a date with the Spurs tonight, and maybe the Rockets later in the week... I've always wanted to spend time with a smart franchise... not that you would know anything about that, right?

- Sincerely,
Aaron

South Lakes won their regional semi-final game last night vs defending State champ
Oakton thus qualifying for a trip to the State Final round. Jacqui didn't sniff the floor
but it's great for her to get the exposure of a nice post-season run as a member
of the team.

dobrojim wrote:South Lakes won their regional semi-final game last night vs defending State champ
Oakton thus qualifying for a trip to the State Final round. Jacqui didn't sniff the floor
but it's great for her to get the exposure of a nice post-season run as a member
of the team.

Go Seahawks!

deepest post-season run for the SLHS girls since Christy Scott was a player and
they won the State title with an undefeated season (1986?).

We'll see what happens Sat night (6 pm @ Robinson) vs higher ranked Edison.
Either way, they're going 'down the road' to Richmond.

ps - they've already had several upsets against higher ranked teams this year.
CH Flowers, Mt Vernon, Centreville...Christy has these girls playing some ball.
And they're only losing 2 seniors so they should have a reasonably strong team next year.

Mods, curious why the what to watch, Wiz or Bayou doc thread got locked...
Considering the range of things we talk about, not sure I see the justification.
But I'm not a mod...I do have lots of (foggy) memories from shows
at the Bayou, notably Renaissance and Sea Level and my guitar mentor
Glen Kuykendall who got a warm up gig in front of Robin Trower.
Also saw Dave Mason and JJ Cale there among others...

SLHS lost on Saturday night to Edison. But I was surprised last night
to be informed they are still playing another round at Robinson in/near
Fairfax. So they won't be going 'down the road' without another W.
SLHS plays Stonewall Jackson on Friday night. So I'll be selling my
Knicks tickets.

dobrojim wrote:Mods, curious why the what to watch, Wiz or Bayou doc thread got locked...
Considering the range of things we talk about, not sure I see the justification.

I locked it because WTA can't start a thread every time he gets a bout of nostalgia. It was more a random thought than anything.

Today is supposedly going to be the worst day of winter in terms of rain/overall nastiness.

Spring is right around the corner. Can't get here fast enough...

South Lakes HS in the State quarterfinal at Robinson Sec school near Fairfax
at 6:45 tonight.

Go Seahawks.

Massive snowstorm on Wednesday...really? This close to spring? Come on, I am so sick of winter!

Been updating old spreadsheets with the revised, updated and improved PPA I've been using this season. Remember that trade the Bullets made that brought them Ike Austin. Here's how it looks using PPA (average = 100; higher is better; 45 = replacement level):

Bullets trade
- Ben Wallace -- 148
- Terry Davis -- 93
- Jeff McInnis -- 44
- Tim Legler -- 28

Bullets receive
- Ike Austin -- 60

Wallace would go on to post multiple seasons in the 200+ range (All-NBA territory) and win a championship in Detroit.

Oops.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard about that trade - at a beach house in Bethany - and I felt ill immediately. It was as bad as the day I heard about the Schilling-Finley-Harnisch for Glen (don't call me Big baby) Davis trade. Same trade, different sports. And the Orioles are only now recovering from that one.

I saw Ben Wallace's first game on the Bullets, I hadn't even realized he had checked into the game when all of a sudden this hand came out of nowhere and reached above everyone else to grab a rebound. I seriously think the ball was above the top of the backboard. And I thought "Man, Webber really got up for that one." Except it wasn't Webber. I knew right then that Ben would be special. And I was devastated when they sent him packing. In many ways, that was even worse than the Webber for Richmond trade. Really.

the ironic thing was that ORL, having gotten Big Ben, proceeded to deal him
to DET for Grant Hill. Should have been a good trade for ORL except that
Hill went on to be injured for pretty much the duration of the contract.
The only consolation ORL got outta that was being bad enough to draft
Dwight Howard.

Nivek wrote:Been updating old spreadsheets with the revised, updated and improved PPA I've been using this season. Remember that trade the Bullets made that brought them Ike Austin. Here's how it looks using PPA (average = 100; higher is better; 45 = replacement level):

Bullets trade
- Ben Wallace -- 148
- Terry Davis -- 93
- Jeff McInnis -- 44
- Tim Legler -- 28

Bullets receive
- Ike Austin -- 60

Wallace would go on to post multiple seasons in the 200+ range (All-NBA territory) and win a championship in Detroit.

Oops.

I was posting on AOL back when this happened. My first rant online was on just how dumb it was to trade away Ben Wallace for Ike Austin.

Stats Inc put out an article prior to the deal stating that Ike Austin was the least efficient scorer in the league. Austin had lost weight in a contract year and had only had one good season. Ben Wallace, much like recently traded Tobias Harris, was a player with terrific per-minute stats but he wasn't getting any playing time due to high draft picks ahead of him. I knew the instant they made that trade that it was a bad one. That Ben Wallace deal was typical of this franchise. It was a precursor to the their worst deal of all times.

After just two or three years earlier trading away Tom Gugliotta and three 1st round picks (IIRC) to get Chris Webber; Abe/Wes decided it was a grand idea to trade Chris Webber for decrepit Mitch Richmond and senile Otis Thorpe. Everybody knew that was a bad deal except the two guys who did it.

As hard as it is for me say this, Wes and Abe were smarter about deals than Ted and EG.

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:After just two or three years earlier trading away Tom Gugliotta and three 1st round picks (IIRC) to get Chris Webber; Abe/Wes decided it was a grand idea to trade Chris Webber for decrepit Mitch Richmond and senile Otis Thorpe. Everybody knew that was a bad deal except the two guys who did it.

If you compare Mitch Richmond's three years as a Wizard (1999-2001) with Gugliotta's same three year span, Gugliotta is arguably a much more valuable player.

You are right, the Wizards also gave up three 1st round picks in the trade for Webber. The 1996 pick (#11) was ultimately used for Todd Fuller, but Kobe, Nash, Stojakovic, Jermaine O'Neal, Ilgauskas, and lesser useful players were still on the board. The 1998 pick (#5) was used for Vince Carter, with Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Rashard Lewis, and others still on the board. The 2000 pick (#7) was used for Chris Mihm, and that wasn't as great a draft class, with the likes of Jamal Crawford, Michael Redd, and Turkoglu as the best still on the board.

Maybe the Bullets/Wizards would have blown all those picks, but any discussion of what a bad trade Webber for Richmond was doesn't give the full story if it doesn't mention what the Bullets gave up to get Webber in the first place.

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:
As hard as it is for me say this, Wes and Abe were smarter about deals than Ted and EG.

No . . . just no. The Unseld tenure was a 4 year disaster marked by stupid trades and clueless cap management far worse than Ernie's regime which has been more of a John Nash like period of low mediocrity.

Wes's tenure was historically bad, right there with Ted Stepien's Cleveland 1st round selling spree or the year Buffalo traded Moses Malone, Bob McAdoo, and Adrian Dantley getting back . . . Lonnie Shelton, John Gianelli, and Jim Price.

If 4 years Wes (a) gave Juwan Howard a superstar contract giving him a long-term deal as the 3rd highest paid player in the league . . . when the league had voided Howard's deal with Miami and left him with no leverage, (b) traded Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland who was a talented player but had bounced around the league because it was obvious to everyone who met him that he was a fathead (Yo, gimme a hotdog as long as I'm on the bench here) AND took the bad contract of Harvey Grant then resigned Strickland to a fat deal, (c) trade 24 year old team star Chris Webber (after all, we had Juwan to play his position) for aging Mitch Richmond AND took back the bad contract of Otis Thorpe too, then resigned Richmond to a new deal killing more cap space, (d)traded Ben Wallace for Ike Austin who had never been more than mediocre (after all, we had Jahidi White who could do everything Wallace could and shot better plus we threw in Jeff McGinnis in the deal too though that's no biggie). That's 4 years in which Wes showed that, although he was my favorite player growing up, he was one of the league's all-time greatest chumps as a GM.

Ernie hasn't approached that level of ineptitude.

And for that matter, this really isn't a "random thought" argument; it's a legit board subject.

penbeast0 wrote:

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:
As hard as it is for me say this, Wes and Abe were smarter about deals than Ted and EG.

No . . . just no. The Unseld tenure was a 4 year disaster marked by stupid trades and clueless cap management far worse than Ernie's regime which has been more of a John Nash like period of low mediocrity.

Wes's tenure was historically bad, right there with Ted Stepien's Cleveland 1st round selling spree or the year Buffalo traded Moses Malone, Bob McAdoo, and Adrian Dantley getting back . . . Lonnie Shelton, John Gianelli, and Jim Price.

If 4 years Wes (a) gave Juwan Howard a superstar contract giving him a long-term deal as the 3rd highest paid player in the league . . . when the league had voided Howard's deal with Miami and left him with no leverage, (b) traded Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland who was a talented player but had bounced around the league because it was obvious to everyone who met him that he was a fathead (Yo, gimme a hotdog as long as I'm on the bench here) AND took the bad contract of Harvey Grant then resigned Strickland to a fat deal, (c) trade 24 year old team star Chris Webber (after all, we had Juwan to play his position) for aging Mitch Richmond AND took back the bad contract of Otis Thorpe too, then resigned Richmond to a new deal killing more cap space, (d)traded Ben Wallace for Ike Austin who had never been more than mediocre (after all, we had Jahidi White who could do everything Wallace could and shot better plus we threw in Jeff McGinnis in the deal too though that's no biggie). That's 4 years in which Wes showed that, although he was my favorite player growing up, he was one of the league's all-time greatest chumps as a GM.

Ernie hasn't approached that level of ineptitude.

And for that matter, this really isn't a "random thought" argument; it's a legit board subject.

Agree with all that, although I was looking at some archival board posts recently, and I noticed that in the old days before I was here, the random thoughts thread seemed to be more focused on random basketball thoughts.

Amazing weather this weekend. Played pick up football yesterday, pick up soccer today. My knees are killing me. Hope this weather stays.