Countdown to Ernie Grunfeld Firing

[dandridge 10]

Ernie Grunfeld is still an above-average talent evaluator.

I think you are exceedingly generous. Do remember that his decision to trade the 5th pick a few years back was based on his evaluation of the talent available in the draft.

Grunfeld made atrocious trades the past year, and for that he should be fired. Not because he was necessarily convinced they were good trades, but he did it for his job instead of the benefit of the Wizards franchise long-term.

On this we can agree. Le sigh.

McGee is doing well this year. Who would love a 24 year old center right now with freakish athleticism and a 24.38 PER? Even Blatche is a solid contributor.

McGee is getting paid like a starting quality center, but can't stay on the court - and PER hides his massive defensive lapses. Meanwhile, Blatche needed to be fired (amnestied) to get motivated to play at an average level, as a backup. He was never going to be worth his contract here.

I hope everyone is happy with these "high IQ" old players who are not even as talented. You play with the cards you are dealt. And we made the worst out of a bad but redeemable situation. And it has jeopardized the future of this franchise.

If you're talking about the OkaRiza trade, you will find very few posters who supported that move... so I'm not sure what that 'hope you're happy' line is all about. If you mean the Nene/McGee swap, let's be real. The Wiz have played much better when Nene is in the lineup, Denver isn't exactly tearing up the league, and we were still in line to have max cap space before EG fricked it up.

Agreed on our future being in jeopardy now, of course. Yay for mediocrity and bad management.

I would also take issue with giving EG too much credit for the Arenas, Butler, and Jamison years. That team was fools gold and I said it then. Yes, that team made it to the playoffs, but at its best it was a one and done playoff team because it could not/would not play defense and was soft. That team was never going to contend for a championship with that core. Despite that fact, EG gave that core huge contracts and then double downed on the team by trading away our draft pick for two players, who even if they played their best, would have still not made us a contender. The Arenas, Butler and Jamison years only demonstrate that EG is content to be mediocre.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

MJ traded Juwan Howard's massive contract. Later, MJ's free agent signee Byron Russell left money on the table to opt out, just when Gilbert happened to become an unrestricted free agent. Without Russell opting out, the Wizards would not have had cap room for Arenas.

ShareBullets: REMEMBER: Bryon Russell Is Responsible For Gilbert Arenas

EG cannot get credit for those moves which also played a part in acquiring Arenas.

Ernie traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler. He got a couple picks for Hinrich. He shaved a year off of Gilbert's deal, before mucking that up disastrously. I think he's a decent judge of talent, but I almost always disagree with who he drafts. He's done a lot more bad than good, ever since the day he fired Eddie Jordan. Had Tom Thibodeau replaced or coached with EJ, this all might have been avoided.

Grunfeld's best move has been holding on to his job.

[Nivek]

If you're talking about the OkaRiza trade, you will find very few posters who supported that move...

This is the only thing in your post I don't agree with. Many posters here liked the Okariza trade.

[Hawaii]

MJ traded Juwan Howard's massive contract. Later, MJ's free agent signee Byron Russell left money on the table to opt out, just when Gilbert happened to become an unrestricted free agent. Without Russell opting out, the Wizards would not have had cap room for Arenas.

ShareBullets: REMEMBER: Bryon Russell Is Responsible For Gilbert Arenas

EG cannot get credit for those moves which also played a part in acquiring Arenas.

Ernie traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler. He got a couple picks for Hinrich. He shaved a year off of Gilbert's deal, before mucking that up disastrously. I think he's a decent judge of talent, but I almost always disagree with who he drafts. He's done a lot more bad than good, ever since the day he fired Eddie Jordan. Had Tom Thibodeau replaced or coached with EJ, this all might have been avoided.

Grunfeld's best move has been holding on to his job.

Like most of what you post, I agree completely. Nothing's going to change for the Wizards until EG's outta here...hate to see someone lose a job, but love to see my team do good. One can't say that Ernie didn't try, and that's ok. But the moves just weren't the right ones. It boggles my mind to think that Leonsis doesn't see this.

And, on that note, I don't think the problems came from Eddie Jordan, I thought he was great as a coach here.

[Nivek]

Chris Ballard at SI has a piece online about Daryl Morey. Must read. Morey's approach might not get them a title, but at least that's his goal. I wish the Wizards were being run by someone with his balls.

[nate33]

I like what I see of Nene when he is on the court. He really does have a "high basketball IQ" especially on the offensive end. He is a great passer and shooter.

I want to see more of him and Wall together. But that is if he can even stay on the court. McGee would have helped us more this year than Nene overall, simply because Nene has been out of games due to injury. For the record I would much rather have opted to let someone else outbid us for McGee this offseason than any other scenario. But overall McGee is far more valuable to his team this year than Nene.

Well, yes. Nene has missed 11 of 15 games so his value has been limited. Though it's worth noting that we are 0-10 with an horrific point differential when Nene has been absent, and we are 2-3 (two losses in overtime) when Nene plays.

I continue to support that Nene trade and think it was the right move at the time. It gave the team a leader and an anchor in the middle while still leaving $12M in cap room that summer and up to max cap room in 2013. And all it cost us was McGee, whom I wouldn't have wanted to resign at $11M a year anyhow.

The problem was the Okariza trade, not the Nene trade. All that did was add two redundant players while eating up $28M in cap room. It was a disastrous trade.

[GhostsOfGil]

If you're talking about the OkaRiza trade, you will find very few posters who supported that move...

This is the only thing in your post I don't agree with. Many posters here liked the Okariza trade.

Many were optimistic after it happened but no one would have made the trade to begin with.

[leswizards]

The problem was the Okariza trade, not the Nene trade. All that did was add two redundant players while eating up $28M in cap room. It was a disastrous trade.

Just a small disagreement, it only added one redundant player. Emeka Okafor, the better player in the trade, was extremely redundant. Trevor Ariza, the less talented player in the deal, was not redundant, but was going to be needed to start (had the Wizards not lucked into Martell Webster, and had Chris Singleton not shown the major improvement that he has), when he has only shown the ability to be valueable as a reserve.

[closg00]

Chris Ballard at SI has a piece online about Daryl Morey. Must read. Morey's approach might not get them a title, but at least that's his goal. I wish the Wizards were being run by someone with his balls.

Ballard's article was no-doubt inspired by our running debate on Morey

[miller31time]

The problem was the Okariza trade, not the Nene trade. All that did was add two redundant players while eating up $28M in cap room. It was a disastrous trade.

Just a small disagreement, it only added one redundant player. Emeka Okafor, the better player in the trade, was extremely redundant. Trevor Ariza, the less talented player in the deal, was not redundant, but was going to be needed to start (had the Wizards not lucked into Martell Webster, and had Chris Singleton not shown the major improvement that he has), when he has only shown the ability to be valueable as a reserve.

True - Ariza was less redundant than Okafor but still unnecessary. We could have gotten a player in free agency who is comparable to Trevor for pennies on the dollar.

The trade was so amazingly bad.

If there's one thing I'm impressed with with Ernie Grunfeld, it's his ability to make the absolute worst decision possible. So many GMs, no matter how bad they are, still have a modicum of awareness.

[TGW]

The only people I remember supporting that terrible trade was Hands, LyricalRico, and DCZards....pretty much everyone else said is was terrible, and were wondering where the #10 pick was....

[Mickstix]

(edited for length) I don't know if the above scenario played out or not. However, there could be a bunch of inside stuff that we don't know about which can explain Ted's decision to stand by EG, at least for now.

Your probably right, but even Ted has to realize they're approaching another decade of suck, even if he's the one who called the latest shot.. He can't just continue on the same path of firing/hiring coaches and see the team spin it wheels.. I dont know what his rep is around the league, but it has to be approaching laughing stock status with his contiuned blunders.. Shame alone should be enough to finally get him motivated enough to fire his first GM "ever"..

[pancakes3]

I have to believe, for my sanity, that anything positive Ted writes is just politically correct damage control. He's no dummy. No amount of GM spin can see that this team is woefully undertalented. Chicago is missing Rose and isn't doing this badly. OKC lost Harden and hardly skipped a beat. The Wolves were playing without Rubio and Love and won more games than we did. The Bobcats.

[closg00]

The only people I remember supporting that terrible trade was Hands, LyricalRico, and DCZards....pretty much everyone else said is was terrible, and were wondering where the #10 pick was....

Re-live the memories. Go-through the 5 stages of grief all over again.

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1188356

[WizarDynasty]

I love ariza. We have never had a lockdown perimeter defender ever. Ariza our stopper in the playoffs, if we ever get there. He gets the toughest perimeter defender each night and he already has a track record, passion and physical tools to get it done. Lockdown 3 and D player.
What we need for Ariza, as well as all of our young players, is to dramatically....and exponentially improve their off hand ball control ability.
HOurs and Hours each day need to be devoted to this critical skill and is the main reason why our talented players aren't progressing as fast as they could be.
Ariza is definitely a longterm keeper. Okafor I don't think deserves as much as he is getting paid but he is an above average reserve and if we can get him to sign for his market value longterm, he is good.
Just for comparison sake, we had Haywood starting for us less than two seasons ago which shows just how bad a state we were in. Okafor is head and shoulders above haywood and okafor is a high quality reserve. Just shows just how truly bad we were in our front court and didn't even know it. Ariza is a keeper, especially if he improves his ball handling skills. He is defintely a critical piece to our longterm future if we can sign him to a decent deal.
Wall, Beal, Ariza, Seraphin, and Nene is a formidable front line, with livingston, crawford, singleton,-----, and Okafor coming off the bench.
Biggest issue now for all the young players including ariza is to dramatically imrove their handspeed and dribbling skills against defensive pressure and draw fouls in addition to having a highly develop understanding of plays deep into the shotclock and clearing out space for your team mates.

[Illuminaire]

Just for fun, I went through the first 25 pages of the OkaRiza trade thread and noted down the first impressions of everyone who posted (Unless I knew they were from another board, or had less than 100 posts). Here is where we all stood on that fateful day...

FOR OkaRiza

• LyricalRico
• Rafael122
• dandrews
• Halcyon
• GUYANNAGRIZZLI
• Ironpanthr
• AWIZZINGBULLET
• DCZards
• Floater
• SUPERBALLMAN
• VictorPage44
• BruceO
• queridiculo**
• dlts20
• zardsfan

AGAINST OkaRiza

Montestewart
KevinFCheng
nate33
WallTown02
TGW
Severn Hoos
Ruzious
colts18
sashae
Jay81
keynote
nuposse04
miller31time
closg00
TheKingOfVa360
Dat2U
Captain_Obvious
Nivek
mohammed10
JonathanJoseph
barelyawake
Wizards2Lottery
Benjammin
MJG
dobrojim
tontoz
WizarDynasty
truwizfan4evr
fishercob
Upper Decker
jimij
MikeTheKid
Wizardspride
Illuminaire
FAH1223
MF23
Chocolate City Jordanaire
7-Day Dray
Benjammin
hands11***
The Consiglieri
willbcocks
go'stags

ON THE FENCE

Higga
Wizstorm
W. Unseld
MDStar
dandridge 10
kirubel94
penbeast0
Jimmy Recard
WashWiz54

Who The Heck Knows???

80sballboy
Saqs
jivelikenice
GhostsOfGil
McGully Culkin
AFM
verbal8

**Flipped back and forth a few times, but argued for the trade more often than against.
***Hands was actually against the trade as of page24. Not sure when he started in on the Koolaid flavored jello-shots.

In summary, 58.66% of posters were clearly against the trade, 20.00% were [s]bat-crazy[/s] for the trade, and 21.33% were in denial.

[TGW]

^^^LOL at the footnotes for Hands...that's hilarious.

[payitforward]

ESPN Article - Fix the Wiz: Grunfeld's got to go

More and more people are taking notice of the issue, Ted cannot ignore forever ...

I was thinking of the possible reasons why Ted may be reluctant to fire EG. What if this summer EG laid out for Ted various options they had on the table. For example, what if he laid out the Okafor and Ariza trade as one option and also laid out the possibility of waiving Lewis, and then using the cap space to get cheaper vets that might be available. What if EG went over the potential pros and cons of each option, and it was Ted that decided to choose the Okafor/Ariza path instead of waiting.

Oh, I'm sure that's what happened. I believe I laid out this scenario here mid-Summer, pointing out that the one skill Ernie clearly has is managing his owner, and that he has covered his ass by making Ted feel (as he likes to feel) that *he* has decided every move -- even though in fact these are the moves Ernie believes (wrongly) are best. All win no lose for Ernie. Hence... yep, we are stuck with him.

[GhostsOfGil]

@ Illuminaire.. funny stuff. I never supported the trade but I think I was optimistic about it. Honestly it was blind hope for a playoffs reappearance.

ESPN Article - Fix the Wiz: Grunfeld's got to go

MJG can you quote the rest of the article? Stupid insidr cuts off at...
"Let's put ourselves in Grunfeld's empty chair and lay out some steps that could clean up this mess."

[dandridge 10]

Just for fun, I went through the first 25 pages of the OkaRiza trade thread and noted down the first impressions of everyone who posted (Unless I knew they were from another board, or had less than 100 posts). Here is where we all stood on that fateful day...



ON THE FENCE

Higga
Wizstorm
W. Unseld
MDStar
dandridge 10
kirubel94
penbeast0
Jimmy Recard
WashWiz54

Who The Heck Knows???

80sballboy
Saqs
jivelikenice
GhostsOfGil
McGully Culkin
AFM
verbal8

**Flipped back and forth a few times, but argued for the trade more often than against.
***Hands was actually against the trade as of page24. Not sure when he started in on the Koolaid flavored jello-shots.

In summary, 58.66% of posters were clearly against the trade, 20.00% were [s]bat-crazy[/s] for the trade, and 21.33% were in denial.

My first post on this topic actually said my first reaction to the trade was "WTF". So, if you are going off of first impressions, you can include me on the list that didn't like it. However, I did list some possible ways it might work out depending on what other moves EG made over the summer, such as further trades and bringing more shooters on board, so I can see why you listed me as on the fence. I said I would wait until I saw whether EG made any more moves before I concluded it was a disaster. Later in the summer, however, I posted clearly that I did not like the trade.