Countdown to Ernie Grunfeld Firing (Part 2)

[FAH1223]

Conversation continues from here:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1212954&start=1470

To recap

Enough is enough.

11th season as GM.

No playoffs since 2008.

Squandered lotto picks (2011 DRAFT, 2009 DRAFT)

Wasted 2nd round picks (2009 DRAFT, 2012 DRAFT)

Knee jerk trades (GORTAT THE MOST RECENT)

Mediocrity even when the Wizards were a playoff team in a WEAK Eastern conference.

Why can't we have a real GM?

[Upper Decker]

I'm at my wits end with this franchise. I haven't watched any games since the Dallas/Toronto debacles at the turn of the new year. The team is lousy, with no hope for the future. If EG is retained after this season I'm throwing in the towel. I did it with the O's, I've done it with the Terps, and could just as easily do it with the Wiz. It's essentially impossible to extract a single ounce of joy out of rooting for this **** storm. I don't even think Ted actually cares about winning. He's the new Herb Kohl, 8th seed is a great year! I actually wouldn't be surprised if Ted raises a banner if this team makes the playoffs.

[dckingsfan]

Back to 100% - guess EG is something negative to reflect upon.

[Zonkerbl]

If we could at least change the dopey name to something, I don't know, not toddlerific.

"Do you need to go Wizards, baby?"

[closg00]

If I am Ted Leonsis, i'm not concerned with the feelings and suggestions of the fans from a management perspective, most if not all who will never own a multimillion dollar organzation or placed in the capacity to make business decisions of a General Manager. Most if not all who ever had such qualifications to run a large franchise and never will. I am concerned about profit and the end product. I am concerned of the blueprint of success i've had before (Capitals) and furthering the interests of the Washington Wizards and making them compete. The product is currently producing. Production leads to increased season ticket holder accounts and enthusiam from most fans who enjoy the game of basketball and a competitive home team fighting for the playoffs. The small minority of forum "Owners" and "GM's", well their opinions don't matter much.

Mr. Leonsis,

Thank You for stopping by this forum to give us your thoughts on the direction of your NBA franchise. By your posts, it is clear that you will be offering Ernie Grunfeld a contract extension. You have made it quite clear that your goal is fielding a team that is competitive enough to make the playoffs, thus generating interest from the casual fan who will purchase tickets to the games. You have expressed ZERO interest in building a team capable of competing for an NBA title.

You haven't mentioned ( I may have missed) what will become of Coach Wittman, what will be his fate? Thanks

[Nivek]

I'll just leave this here.

[Kanyewest]

I'll just leave this here.

You really think that Wes Unseld is a better GM than Ernie?

EG's worst moves
#5 for Foye/Miller
Jan Vesely
Blatche's extension
Arenas's extension

Unseld's worst moves
Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe
Juwan Howard's extension
Jarvis Hayes
Ben Wallace, Jeff McInnis,Tim Legler, and Terry Davis for Ike Austin
Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland

[MikeTheKid]

If I am Ted Leonsis, i'm not concerned with the feelings and suggestions of the fans from a management perspective, most if not all who will never own a multimillion dollar organzation or placed in the capacity to make business decisions of a General Manager. Most if not all who ever had such qualifications to run a large franchise and never will. I am concerned about profit and the end product. I am concerned of the blueprint of success i've had before (Capitals) and furthering the interests of the Washington Wizards and making them compete. The product is currently producing. Production leads to increased season ticket holder accounts and enthusiam from most fans who enjoy the game of basketball and a competitive home team fighting for the playoffs. The small minority of forum "Owners" and "GM's", well their opinions don't matter much.

Mr. Leonsis,

Thank You for stopping by this forum to give us your thoughts on the direction of your NBA franchise. By your posts, it is clear that you will be offering Ernie Grunfeld a contract extension. You have made it quite clear that your goal is fielding a team that is competitive enough to make the playoffs, thus generating interest from the casual fan who will purchase tickets to the games. You have expressed ZERO interest in building a team capable of competing for an NBA title.

You haven't mentioned ( I may have missed) what will become of Coach Wittman, what will be his fate? Thanks

Just when I thought milellie111 was just a 12 year old fanboy hes really Ted Leonsis whose afraid to blog about the Wiz because we constantly rip him and he just deletes it so he comes to the forums to find out what real hardcore fans are saying only to point out that our opinions dont matter and he doesn't care about winning and all he wants is ticket sales.

Well Mr Leonsis your losing ticket sales because me and my dad both canceled our season tix as well as 10 friends of ours because of your incompetence and we won't renew until you clean house or sell the team

Sorry guys at some point I'll stop feeding the troll

[Nivek]

I'll just leave this here.

You really think that Wes Unseld is a better GM than Ernie?

EG's worst moves
#5 for Foye/Miller
Jan Vesely
Blatche's extension
Arenas's extension

Unseld's worst moves
Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe
Juwan Howard's extension
Jarvis Hayes
Ben Wallace, Jeff McInnis,Tim Legler, and Terry Davis for Ike Austin
Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland

So your contention is that Grunfeld is the 2nd best Wizards/Bullets GM of the past three decades? I won't argue the point -- it actually strengthens the ironclad case I made at the blog.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Jordan the GM traded Howard when Juwan was making $20M a year, just as much as KG and Shaq IIRC. MJ also indirectly enabled Ernie to benefit. Bryon Russell opted out under MJ. Gilbert could not have been signed without the cap money and roster flexibility under MJ. Take away the Gilbert years and EG is horrible in wins. Add to that the way he publicly crucified Gil at the end, and I feel there were some disgraceful actions by Ernie and ownership at the time.

Michael Jordan was doing very well as GM until he gave in to being a player. He traded Rip for Stackhouse. MJ did the same, bad, win-now-with-older-veterans (and ruin or trade away youth) that EG and Randy are doing now.

I do not consider EG better as a GM than Jordan.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[Kanyewest]

I'll just leave this here.

You really think that Wes Unseld is a better GM than Ernie?

EG's worst moves
#5 for Foye/Miller
Jan Vesely
Blatche's extension
Arenas's extension

Unseld's worst moves
Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe
Juwan Howard's extension
Jarvis Hayes
Ben Wallace, Jeff McInnis,Tim Legler, and Terry Davis for Ike Austin
Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland

So your contention is that Grunfeld is the 2nd best Wizards/Bullets GM of the past three decades? I won't argue the point -- it actually strengthens the ironclad case I made at the blog.

Hey you said top 3 We are witnessing true greatness!

[LyricalRico]

Another one of these threads? Sheesh...

Can't wait for the team to go over .500 so we can put this discussion to bed.

[leswizards]

Unseld's worst moves
...
Juwan Howard's extension
...

Actually, the Juwan Howard contract extension was the one thing Wes Unseld did right. He saw Juwan's true value, and offered him a low contract. Howard didn't like the contract offer, and took a much better offer from the Heat. But, then all hell broke loose. The Wizards fans went nuts. David Stern found some reason to say that the Heat contract was not valid. Supposedly, the Heat made a verbal contract with someone (Mourning, I believe) before signing Howard. David Stern then allowed the Wizards to sign Howard, but they had to sign him at the contract the Heat gave him, which was much higher than Unseld's offer. I was part of the chorus hating on Unseld and Polin for letting Howard get away, but in hindsight they were right with their initial contract offer.

[MJG]

It's bewildering that EG has lasted long enough for us to need a second thread. I'm afraid my dwindling fandom won't last long enough to get to a third. So, please, Mr. Ted Leonsis, let's make this our final countdown thread.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw[/youtube]

[Nivek]

Unseld's worst moves
...
Juwan Howard's extension
...

Actually, the Juwan Howard contract extension was the one thing Wes Unseld did right. He saw Juwan's true value, and offered him a low contract. Howard didn't like the contract offer, and took a much better offer from the Heat. But, then all hell broke loose. The Wizards fans went nuts. David Stern found some reason to say that the Heat contract was not valid. Supposedly, the Heat made a verbal contract with someone (Mourning, I believe) before signing Howard. David Stern then allowed the Wizards to sign Howard, but they had to sign him at the contract the Heat gave him, which was much higher than Unseld's offer. I was part of the chorus hating on Unseld and Polin for letting Howard get away, but in hindsight they were right with their initial contract offer.

I don't agree that the Howard contract was something Unseld did right. The initial offer -- 7 years, $77 million -- was way too much for an average producer. Howard was massively overrated.

The Heat offer was frigging nuts -- 7 years, $105 million. Just preposterous. I mean, imagine the reaction to a max-salary offer to someone like Jason Thompson or Matt Barnes. Because that's about the level Howard was performing at.

Stern voided the contract because Alonzo Mourning couldn't keep his yap shut. He did an interview and said his contract was all worked out, but that they were waiting to sign it so they could get other free agents signed first. Oops.

With a do-over, Unseld came in with an offer that matched the Heat deal that had been voided, and the Wizards were saddled with one of the worst contracts in the game.

And all of this is before we discuss why Howard had a clause in his contract that allowed him to opt out after his 2nd season. That'd be because Unseld and Abe Pollin didn't like the way rookie contracts worked back then, and thought they'd try to change the system on their own. Howard wanted the going rate for a rookie picked in his spot: 6 years, $24 million. Unseld and Pollin signed him for significantly less in the first two years, but gave him an opt out after the second. Howard made the All-Star team (mainly by shooting a lot -- the rest of his numbers are pedestrian), and got PAID.

[leswizards]

Asinine topic supported by asinine ideas.

-Putting together possbily the best back court duo in the NBA
- 1 game out of 3rd place in the East
-Wins against quality teams on the road
-A rising superstar right in front of our eyes who very well could be the best pg in the game soon.

Yep, let's fire the guy who's responsible for this

It is comments like this that get you called a troll, and have people responding rudely to you. You post facts that while true are completely devoid of context. Once you consider the context, the argumentative value of the facts completely change.

For example, it is true that the Wizards are 1 game out of 3rd in the East this season. However, the East is awful this season. If the Wizards were in the West this season, they would be 10 games out of 3rd place. Ignoring the context shows you are either ignorant of the facts or you don't care, and you will carelessly throw around facts to support your argument even if the context shows your "facts" to be unsupportive of the argument you are making.

Furthermore, yes it is true that Wall is a rising superstar, and the Beal Wall back court could be something special. However, again the context is that the Wizards lucked into both players, and any GM in the league could have gotten us those players. Why are you claiming EG is a great GM just because the Wizards lucked into Wall and Beal?

[leswizards]

And all of this is before we discuss why Howard had a clause in his contract that allowed him to opt out after his 2nd season. That'd be because Unseld and Abe Pollin didn't like the way rookie contracts worked back then, and thought they'd try to change the system on their own. Howard wanted the going rate for a rookie picked in his spot: 6 years, $24 million. Unseld and Pollin signed him for significantly less in the first two years, but gave him an opt out after the second. Howard made the All-Star team (mainly by shooting a lot -- the rest of his numbers are pedestrian), and got PAID.

John Nash, not Wes Unseld was the GM when Howard was drafted and signed.

[Nivek]

No one wants to fire the guy responsible for the Wizards being a game out of third, that has a few quality wins on the road, and that has a potential star at PG. They want to fire the guy whose team has compiled the third worst winning percentage since he took over. The guy who picked Vesely over Kawhi Leonard and Kenneth Faried. Who picked Chris Singleton over Faried. Who traded the 5th pick in the draft for Randy Foye and Mike Miller. Who sold the 2009 2nd round pick for cash instead of selecting DeJuan Blair. Who picked Shelvin Mack instead of Chandler Parsons or Isaiah Thomas. Who turned max-level cap space AND a first round pick into Okafor/Gortat and Trevor Ariza. Who thought Eric Maynor could play despite there being bountiful evidence to the contrary. Who picked Tomas Satoransky instead of Bernard James, Jae Crowder, Draymond Green or Kyle O'Quinn. Who traded two picks for Glen Rice when he could have sat tight ended up with Nate Wolters.

[Nivek]

And all of this is before we discuss why Howard had a clause in his contract that allowed him to opt out after his 2nd season. That'd be because Unseld and Abe Pollin didn't like the way rookie contracts worked back then, and thought they'd try to change the system on their own. Howard wanted the going rate for a rookie picked in his spot: 6 years, $24 million. Unseld and Pollin signed him for significantly less in the first two years, but gave him an opt out after the second. Howard made the All-Star team (mainly by shooting a lot -- the rest of his numbers are pedestrian), and got PAID.

John Nash, not Wes Unseld was the GM when Howard was drafted and signed.

Yep, you're correct. I think I got the rest right.

[queridiculo]

Stop feeding the troll already. He tipped his hand with the very first post he's made, not sure why anybody still bothers to respond.