Post#902 » by Severn Hoos » Mon Jan 9, 2012 10:22 pm
"such high draft picks"?
I'll give Boz a pass in that it was a chat, but what, exactly, did he mean by "such high draft picks"?
We've had 3 high draft picks in the past 8 or so years (from the beginning of the Gil era). We get that the Minny trade was a failure. The second was John Wall. And the third is still a rookie, who has played all of 6 minutes, and was the result of an unfortunate Lotto ball drop in one of the weakest drafts in recent history.
There was a discussion at the beginning of the season about how the Wiz have possibly the fewest Lottery picks in the league (2) on their roster. I guarantee they lead the league in this entirely made-up stat:
Total years of experience by former Lottery picks on the roster.
Because the Wiz have a total of 1.
Talent + Experience wins championships. And the 1 year of experience that John Wall brought into this season represents the sum total of that intersection of elite talent plus seasoning that makes for a good basketball team.
Want a counter-example? How about the Celtics? They have the following former Lotto picks, with the spot taken and years of experience:
Ray Allen (#5, 15 years)
Kevin Garnett (#5, 16 years)
Paul Pierce (#10, 13 years)
Mickael Pietrus (#11, 8 years)
Chris Wilcox (#8, 9 years)
Keyon Dooling (#11, 10 years)
Even their scrubs were at one time considered talented enough to be Lottery picks, and have proven - if nothing else - their worth in longevity, even if some of them never lived up to the expectations of their respective Draft days. Then, most of their other players (Rondo, Bradley, Pavlovic, O'Neal) were taken in the next 5-10 slots after the Lottery, roughly the range where the heart of the current Wiz lineup was taken - McGee, Young, Singleton, Seraphin, Crawford, Booker. (And outside of Seraphin and maybe Crawford, the rest actually represent very good value for the slot they were drafted, IMO.)
So back to the made-up stat: The Celtics lead the Wiz in experience among former Lotto players by a total of 74 to 1. Who do you think is going to win the matchup? More to the point, which team will play smarter, more team-oriented ball?
The Wiz lineup is a collection of mid-1st guys, castoffs, and one potentially electric but still raw dynamo. Even the high-paid guys (Lewis & Blatche) were 2nd rounders who should have been 1st rounders but had "questions" that caused them to fall on Draft Day. So again, are we surprised when the guys are either physically limited, or - shall we say - cognitively limited? If they weren't one or the other, they'd have been Lottery picks themselves, and wouldn't have been available to the Wiz.
Look, EG has put together a roster that could challenge for the worst single-season collection in history. No argument here, and he probably should be shown the door, if only to send the message that losing - and a losing attitude - won't be tolerated.
But we should keep the facts straight in doing so. The Wiz have not squandered a bunch of high draft picks to get where they are today. There are other reasons & explanations for why they are where they are today, but that isn't one of them.
"A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom" Milton Friedman, Free to Choose