Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza-Part II

[leswizards]

Ted has made it clear that he was NOT going to buyout Lewis. So as we assess the trade--and evaluate EG as it relates to the trade--I hope we can agree to start with the reality that EG's boss, the guy who pays the bills, instructed EG to trade Lewis.

I'd love to hear trade idea's involving Lewis since that was the only option EG was apparently given by his boss.

I agree with you. It is easy for me to say Ted should have bought out Lewis when it is not my money. Regardless, as a fan, it would have been nice if Ted were the kind of owner who would buy out Lewis and amnesty Blatch so we could have gotten the best deal possible (in regards to talent, while not necessarily best in terms of the bottom line).

[payitforward]

Ted has made it clear that he was NOT going to buyout Lewis. So as we assess the trade--and evaluate EG as it relates to the trade--I hope we can agree to start with the reality that EG's boss, the guy who pays the bills, instructed EG to trade Lewis.

I'd love to hear trade idea's involving Lewis since that was the only option EG was apparently given by his boss.

Makes no sense, sorry. You can't give your GM only one option -- to trade Lewis. What if there was no trade for Lewis? What if all that was available was obviously less good players than Okaforiza?

Ted can have said "I prefer that we trade Lewis rather than buy him out -- if we can get a deal that makes sense." But he can't have said more than that.

Meaning that he and Ernie discussed it and agreed that this deal made sense. But who is at fault in that decision? Ted Leonsis? How in hell would he know if that was a reasonable deal? He's relying Ernie to tell him whether it is or not.

More likely it was even more general than that. Ted says "Gee I wish there was something I could do other than buy out Rashard for all that dough." Ernie says "Okay let me see what I can come up with." Then he comes back with "I think I have a deal that gets us... (describes the deal), and there's even a chance I can deal Okafor at the trade deadline." Ted says "Wow, that sounds good." Ernie says "Then that's what you want me to do?" Ted says "If you think it'll work out." Ernie says "Well you don't want to pay Lewis all that $$$ for nothing, right?" Ted says "Right." Ernie says "Ok, I'll make the trade."

Classic Ernie -- he pleases the boss. Ted tells the world: "look how smart we are; we traded a sunk cost for value. We got veterans, continuity, maybe even the playoffs." All the while thinking "I'm off the hot seat."

Then NO buys out Lewis, demonstrating that, no, it's not necessarily a dumb idea. Then there are a bunch of better players available to us for a combined cost no worse than what we did, and younger too or if old only to be signed for one year and at low $$.

And right now, if Ted is smart and I believe he is, he's thinking, "hmmm, it's looking like I made this happen, but I'm not sure I did. Oh well, lets make the best of it. At least we'll be better than we were."

[Kanyewest]

Corey Maggette is a better asset than was a Rashard Lewis, hence the reason why the Piston acquired him.

I used to think the same, and posted something similiar, but now that I think about, I think the Wizards actually could have made the better deal. If the Wizards bought out Lewis, and amnestied Blatche, and made it a pure BYOD deal, then the Wizards' offer would have been superior to Charlotte's

Perhaps then, the Wizards should have done that.

[Severn Hoos]

There's one other aspect here, and it's probably one that most Wiz fans don't want to even consider. But let's face it - through 2 seasons, Wall's performance & numbers have been good, but not great - and definitely not #1 overall level. Now, there's a number of reasons for this, from the dysfunctional environment to the lockout and short season, to the unbalanced roster with virtually no outside shooting. As a fan, I'm not knocking Wall, and I hope he stays around for a long time.

But next summer, the Wiz will have to begin the process of deciding whether to extend Wall (duh) and how much he's worth. Put it this way - based on his past two seasons, would you extend him at a max salary? I would, but that's entirely based on potential, not performance to date.

And suppose this offseason played out something like: Buy out Lewis, Amnesty Blatche, try unsuccessfully to sign FAs, do a couple BOYDs, maybe sign a few fringe/rotation guys.

Then what? We'd be looking at a team that would have Wall & Nene and not much else in the way of proven commodities. Even if we bid on Brand - will he hold up? Is Danny Green a difference-maker? We all hope Seraphin and Beal and Vesely will all improve, but where does that team rank in the East? I'd guess 10th-12th at best.

So now it's summer 2013. You have another Lottery pick, and a lot of questions. How does Wall handle pressure, especially late-season or playoff pressure? Don't know. Can he lead a team of competent, veteran professionals? Don't know. Do those drive & kick or P&R plays free up shooters to create easy looks? Don't know. Can Wall be an elite perimeter defender if he has a solid, well-coached defense behind him? Don't know. Still lots of questions, and I guarantee posters on here would be listing every last reason/excuse why Wall hasn't had a Rose-like leap, and they will all start with the team around him.

And then his agent walks into the Front Office and says - we want a Max extension (he'll be eligible to sign an early extension next summer). And for the most part we have a lot of hope and excuses as the basis for our evaluation.

So again - I'm not and was not in favor of the specific trade that was made. But I absolutely understand and support the idea to put the most competent, professional team on the floor possible, for the sole purpose of accelerating Wall's growth AND having the ability to properly evaluate what they have in their designated superstar. If they compete, make the playoffs, Wall improves and shows he can lead a real team of non-knuckleheads, and on top of that they get the confirmation of what they have hoped for, then I would say that more than makes up for the lost opportunity of maybe signing a FA (probably wouldn't be a true star anyway - those are very rare to move in FA) or executing unbalanced trades/BOYDs.

[nate33]

SevernHoos, your concerns about Wall are certainly well-founded and I agree. But I fail to see how that rationalizes the Lewis for Okafor trade.

I understand that EG felt he really needed some vets around Wall to properly evaluate Wall's long term potential, but Brand plus Green (or Haywood, Rush, Anderson, etc.) would have sufficed in place of Okafor and Ariza.

[Upper Decker]

Two games in and the trades looking worse than we thought.

Okafor - I've always considered Okafor overrated and decided years ago he was just a bad NBA player. Well he looks incredibly unathletic, slow, and unskilled. In my estimation he's going to need to make substantial improvements to even be in the rotation when Nene returns. At this point he's the 6th best big on the roster behind Seraphin, Nene, Booker, Vesely, and Barron. He should not be starting, period.

Ariza - Kyle Weidie of TAI.net had a good tweet. 'Including the preseason, Trevor Ariza has made 18 of 67 shot attempts (26.8%) for the Wizards'. Not only that, his defense on Pierce was the worst of the 3 SF's.

I held out hope that this trade would at least return 50 cents on the dollar. After two games it appears my discounted expectations won't even be met.

[miller31time]

Just a few posts from the first couple pages of the original thread....

How is Okafor significantly helping this team? He adds clutter to an already cluttered frontcourt. Ariza is decent but we could have easily signed someone in free agency who could have been just as impactful (and cheaper).

I can understand adding expensive role players if they are unquestionably upgrades but I'm not seeing that in this instance.

But most of all, we helped NOH big time and didn't get compensated for it. That's the main crux of the issue -- we just cleared all of their salary woes away in one fell swoop. Oh, and for our trouble, we also gave them a pick. Sure, it's not a high pick but it's the principle of it all -- we help them more than they help us and we still are the ones adding extra incentives. It just reeks of Grunfeldian philosophy.

This is a HORRIBLE trade unless we're getting the #10 pick.

Okafor is redundant with Nene and Seraphin. We simply don't need him. Ariza is a decent wing but not any better than what we can find in free agency. Only with this trade, we obliterate any potential cap room in 2013. I just don't understand it.

Did we get #10?

Without it, this is just EG getting fleeced as usual.

Welp, it wouldn't be draft time of year without EG getting fleeced. Good times.

Hey, that extension that EG got wasn't bad, right? I mean, sure, he kinda sorta built a terrible, capped-out team that was (and still is) an NBA bottom-feeder but hey, he kinda sorta cleaned up his mess and built a bottom-feeding team with a dash of potential.

So giving him that extension was a good move, right? Because, hey, a guy with a track record of poor moves probably won't make another one. Right? RIGHT?

Kill me.

I refuse to believe we'd make this deal without getting the 10th back, otherwise there's no logic in it.

Terrible trade. The Wizards have now taken enough cap space for two maximum contracts and transmogrified it into Nene, Okafor and Ariza.

I'm disgusted.

I have no problem with using cap room in trades. But, acquiring middling players with BIG contracts isn't how you build a franchise. It would have been far better to not make moves instead of just running out and spending cap room because "cap room doesn't win games." Guess what -- they're not going to be title contenders because they have Nene, Okafor and Ariza.

The Wizards wanted to get "something" for Lewis. Well, they did -- two more years of being up against the cap and mediocre or worse production during that time.

These are bad moves. It would have been far smarter to conserve cap room and draft well than to go out and burn it all on these guys.

[closg00]

Thanks for the bump Miller, perhaps hands can read this thread again before abusing logic while trying to absolve Ernie.

[TGW]

Are we at a point where this is officially a terrible trade? Or is Lyricalrico and DCZards going to claim that they only have two years left on their terrible contracts?

[AFM]

This is one of the worst trades of all time
Ariza is TURRIBLE

[tontoz]

I hated the trade but even i didn't think they would be this bad.

[miller31time]

I hated the trade but even i didn't think they would be this bad.

Same here. I hated the trade when I thought we were getting two serviceable players. Turns out we didn't even get rotation players. Sad.

The fact we're competitive in these games with Okariza playing like they are is astounding to me.

[TGW]

Earlier in this thread, I said I that Ariza and Okafor would take minutes away from our younger, better players, and I was wrong. I'm glad our coaching staff isn't playing them just because they make a ridiculous amount of money. Bench them and let our young core get minutes.

[miller31time]

Another great game for Okariza. The two combined for 4pts, 4rebs and 2asts shooting 2/8fg, 0/1 3pt and 0/0ft.

[Nivek]

I hated the trade but even i didn't think they would be this bad.

Same here. I hated the trade when I thought we were getting two serviceable players. Turns out we didn't even get rotation players. Sad.

The fact we're competitive in these games with Okariza playing like they are is astounding to me.

Both guys are too established -- Okafor as average to above-average; Ariza as below-average to average -- for me to believe they're going to perform badly for much longer. That said, this is the Wizards so a sudden change of form to utter suckitude is entirely possible.

Like you, I hated the trade when I thought these guys would be okay. If they stay this bad...wow.

[miller31time]

I hated the trade but even i didn't think they would be this bad.

Same here. I hated the trade when I thought we were getting two serviceable players. Turns out we didn't even get rotation players. Sad.

The fact we're competitive in these games with Okariza playing like they are is astounding to me.

Both guys are too established -- Okafor as average to above-average; Ariza as below-average to average -- for me to believe they're going to perform badly for much longer. That said, this is the Wizards so a sudden change of form to utter suckitude is entirely possible.

Like you, I hated the trade when I thought these guys would be okay. If they stay this bad...wow.

I don't know, Nivek. If the Wizards continue to struggle, Ariza will care even less about putting forth effort than he currently does. Okafor I agree will play better.

[dandridge 10]

I hated the trade but even i didn't think they would be this bad.

Same here. I hated the trade when I thought we were getting two serviceable players. Turns out we didn't even get rotation players. Sad.

The fact we're competitive in these games with Okariza playing like they are is astounding to me.

+1. Here the young guys were supposed to learn from Okariza and I feel as though Okariza need to learn somethings from the young guys.

[MJG]

Count me in with everyone else here. I thought the trade was horrible, but in a shot-term-only wins-and-losses bottom-line type of view, we were at least getting two solid role players who might be worth an extra win or two over the course of the season. Ha, if only! Even with Nene out, Okafor doesn't look like he should be starting, and I'm just about ready to write off Ariza completely as someone who will do anything useful for the team.

[mhd]

I appreciate Randy Whitmann at least playing players who deserve to play. NO SPECIAL TREATMENT is very welcomed. EMeka has sucked and deserved to only play 12 minutes. Vessley sucked and deserved to be benched.

[dangermouse]

Man, I kind of knew Ariza would be dissapointing, but I thought Okafor would play good defense, get boards and score garbage buckets. What the hell!

Now it looks like we will be stuck with them all year. Maybe the two of them could fetch us something in the offseason as expiring contracts? Sigh...

I really hope Ariza just opts out. Maybe he won't like the minutes-by-merit system Whittman uses and will choose to go elsewhere? We can only bloody hope.