The Amazingly Sucky Wes Unseld Thread

[no D in Hibachi]

Last night I tuned into the halftime show of the SAC-UTAH game. It was at Arco and they were retiring CWebbs Jersey. There are few specific events that I remember 13 years ago as vividly as when CWebb was traded to DC and Howard finally ended his hold out. My dad and I were driving in the car on route 28 listening to Sportstalk 570 on Nov 7th when ken beatrice said over the airwaves that CWebb was coming to town. We immediately went home and bought tickets for the next home game against the Celtics. Although Dee Brown sank two free throws with less than 1 second to allow the C's to prevail I remember the excitement and all out recklessness of the crowd as they chanted Web-ber, Web-ber, Web-ber. Had the bleachers been suspended in the air like the bleachers at RFK I'm certain they would have been shaking. I've never been at a louder game in my life.

I am just old enough to remember the Skins magical season in 1991 when they just dominated the world. That was the most excited I've ever been as a sports fan. Acquiring CWebb and envisioning a great Washington career was the second most exciting time in my life as a sports fan and as I watched his number 4 jersey hoisted to the rafters in Arco, not the Verizon Center, I had one of the most gut wrenching, what might have been feelings come over me that is virtually indescribable. I know he didn't win any championships while in Sac-town, but I have my theories because they should have beaten the Lakers, and if any of you listen to Czabe you know what I'm talking about. However, the excitement he brought to that town with their annoying cow bells and live for nothing but Kings basketball makes me have genuine and sincere disgust for Wes Unseld. People rag on McHale for being a terrible GM, but they are just living in the here and now, because Unseld, time after time made moves that just infuriated people. Austin for Wallace, Price for draft pick, Richmond for Webber, max to Howard, Strickland for Wallace. Unbelievable how he destroyed that team, especially when MJ said they were the team of the future!!

I'm not particularly certain as to the origin of the curse of Le Boulez, I know Kornheiser coined the phrase, but if there was any particular instance where he had inspiration for the phrase it was when the Wizards traded CWebb for Mitch Richmond. Cursed which a GM so stupid as to blindly destroy the franchise and cursed with an owner to emotional to fire a GM. The basketball gods are still cursing us because of the CWebb trade with this terrible rash of injuries and the potential that the Wizards won't even be able to keep the 1st pick because of dead beats like Mike James, Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas, and DoucheShawn Stevenson.

Curse aside, Wes Unseld single-handedly drove me away from basketball for 3 seasons. I couldn't bear to watch the Wizards after they traded CWebb, they were just flat out unwatchable. I didn't come back until MJ and those days were not much better. Watching CWebb jersey raised to the rafters in Arco last night made me realize that Wes Unseld needs a thread dedicated to him and the amazingly sucky job he did as the GM. If any of you have lasting memories of Wes's amazingly sucky job as GM I'd enjoy hearing them.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Wes/Abe had previously traded Tom Gugliotta and three first round picks to acquire Chris Webber.

By the time they traded Webber for way-over-the-hill Thorpe and Richmond, Googs was also an all star player, scoring 20 a game.

May as well have just given away three first round picks.

[hands11]

Im sure you can dig up and an amazingly sucky wes unseld thread if you dig back.

I remember it all clearly. Abe and Wes. Frik and Frak

But unlike some, I actually give MJ more credit for helping turn this around and I think Abe dogged him. I think it was when he showed up, that things started to turn around. We were not even on the map until MJ showed up. And for all that people complain about this and that when he was here, he cleared the plate for EG. He was the one that started to turn the ship around.

He also brought to light for the first time in a long time just what a heartless looser franchise this team was. Some of the problems he pointed out while he was here... I still don't think they have been addressed. AJ and CB help address some of it but we still are a team to dominated by what players want and we don't have anyone that is an MJ type leader. GA, CB or AJ... none of them are a Wade, Nash, Kidd, CP, or Kobe. Is Kobe co-caption with someone on that team ?

It all starts in the front office tough. The Abe choosing EFJ then EG was screwed up and it held this franchise back in ways some see. Abe with Wes as coach then hiring Nash was the same mess. It all comes back to Abe. When a franchise sucks for a long as we did, you have only one place to look and that is to the owner. Sometimes a bad owner can luck into a good GM and get out of the way enough to have some success, but a bad owner will always stick his noise in to mess it up again. That is in large part why they are bad owners.