Wizards in the Media Thread

[nate33]

bump

I'm really sick of Buck and Phil talking about how great Morris is. I mean he's not awful
but he certainly isn't great either. Buck says he's been 'terrific'. Hyperbole. The trade
to obtain him is terrific in the original, not modern sense of the word terrific, as in
it was a terrific explosion.

Oh and yesterday Buck said Big Balls was a good shooter. OMG. If he was a good shooter,
maybe he'd still be in the league playing somewhere.

I agree that "terrific" is an overstatement. that said, Morris has been rock solid after a 4-game break in period. Since then, per 36, he is posting 17, 8 and 2, with 1.3 steals and a 1 block, with a TS% of .575 and 3P% of .361. And he is playing real good D.

He has been a legit starting caliber player for us. Can't complain about that. The problem over the last 20 games or so hasn't been Morris. It has been Wall and Beal slumping at the same time.

[closg00]

I don't think most here had a problem with the trade, it was the guarantee that PHX would get a 1st round pick now or in the future.

[fishercob]

bump

I'm really sick of Buck and Phil talking about how great Morris is. I mean he's not awful
but he certainly isn't great either. Buck says he's been 'terrific'. Hyperbole. The trade
to obtain him is terrific in the original, not modern sense of the word terrific, as in
it was a terrific explosion.

Oh and yesterday Buck said Big Balls was a good shooter. OMG. If he was a good shooter,
maybe he'd still be in the league playing somewhere.

I agree that "terrific" is an overstatement. that said, Morris has been rock solid after a 4-game break in period. Since then, per 36, he is posting 17, 8 and 2, with 1.3 steals and a 1 block, with a TS% of .575 and 3P% of .361. And he is playing real good D.

He has been a legit starting caliber player for us. Can't complain about that. The problem over the last 20 games or so hasn't been Morris. It has been Wall and Beal slumping at the same time.

Meh.

Ortg of 103 over that span of "rock solid" play. He's doing, or not doing, something that's making him negligibly helpful.

[Illuminaire]

I don't think most here had a problem with the trade, it was the guarantee that PHX would get a 1st round pick now or in the future.

Agreed. It was a dramatic overpay.

Let us not forget that the Suns had been shopping Markief for nearly a calendar year. They wanted a lottery pick and no one was biting - because smarter teams did not value Morris that highly.

Alas. It only takes one idiot.

[nate33]

If the trade involved a lotto protected 1st, I would have grudgingly accepted it. But the fact that we got only top 9 protection, given our position in the standings at the time, was just GM malpractice. He should never have agreed to any deal that could have conceivably resulted in us missing the playoffs AND losing our pick. He should have walked away from the negotiation.

[fishercob]

Welcome to DC Jerry Brewer!!

This should be Ernie Grunfeld’s last chance with the Wizards. Shouldn’t it?

Obviously, Grunfeld's last chance should have been somewhere around eight years ago. But it is only good news that a local columnist with a platform is shining a bright and direct light on Ernie's ineptitude.

[fishercob]

Again, we have an ally at the Post in Jerry Brewer. He goes IN on Grunfeld:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/wizards-plan-b-became-plan-f-whats-left-is-a-two-year-window-with-john-wall/2016/07/06/210b584a-43a6-11e6-bc99-7d269f8719b1_story.html

[nate33]

I'm liking the coverage by new WaPost beat reporter Candace Buckner. She's very informative.

[AFM]

Would you hit it doe?

[closg00]

Would you hit it doe?

Yes, she looks like the female detective in Luke Cage, you chumps watching it?

[Wizardspride]

Would you hit it doe?

Yes, she looks like the female detective in Luke Cage, you chumps watching it?

Misty Knight.

[queridiculo]

My God, it's really shameful that pieces like this (originally posted 06/25/2010) are still relevant today.

http://www.sbnation.com/2010/6/25/1537229/dear-ted-leonsis-ernie-grunfeld-wizards

I'm just a Wizards fan that finally has a reason to care about all this. With John Wall and Ted Leonsis on board, losing doesn't feel inevitable anymore. But as long as Grunfeld's there, the clumsy direction will continue. We'll keep getting fleeced in trades, investing millions in players like Hinrich, and watching teams like Chicago hit the jackpot. Fans have waited and waited for things to change, but even with a blank slate and John Wall, we're headed down the exact same path to perpetual irrelevance. Shooting ourselves in the foot again.

So keep Ernie and the management team if you want, Mr. Leonsis. That's your decision, and giving them a year or two to prove themselves is certainly commendable. Someone like Grunfeld probably deserves it. But just for the record, just because it needs to be said after the Wizards manage to flunk a draft where they got the best prospect available....

If we're making the same mistakes with different players, in different years, in different drafts... Who's fault is that? And more important, if irrelevance is inevitable, why should the fans bother to care?

[keynote]

Perchance to dream.

http://uproxx.com/dimemag/washington-wizards-nba-title-season-preview/3/

HOOP DREAMS: How The Washington Wizards Will Win The 2017 NBA Title

,,,Considered one of the more unlikely championship runs in the history of the NBA, the 2016-2017 Washington Wizards will dwell in the annals of history alongside the 2004 Detroit Pistons and the 2011 Dallas Mavericks as examples of everything coming together in perfect harmony.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[keynote]

On the latest episode of Designated Survivor (the ABC show where Kiefer Sutherland plays the Secretary of HUD who becomes President after terrorists blow up the Capitol during the State of the Union), the new (professionally handsome) White House Chief of Staff is shown watching the Wizards game with the President's new (professionally attractive) Special Advisor.

Chief of Staff (sighing): "The first games back, [and] the Wizards are already bombing."
Special Advisor shoots him a look.
CoS (embarrassed): "Sorry, poor choice of words."
CoS (exasperated): "NO! Wall can't play 3-on-1. He's gotta get Porter and Beal involved."
Special Advisor: "Porter was late filling the lane."
CoS arches an eyebrow, impressed w/ SA's knowledge.
SA (cheekily): "Men don't own sports."

Even in this TV show's dystopian alternate timeline, one thing remains the same: the Wizards are still a dysfunctional laughingstock.

[queridiculo]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2016/11/22/its-hopeless-wizards-fans-shaken-by-teams-return-to-losing

Pixels I tell ya, pixels.

“I think that there’s a small group of people who exhibit their angst on social media,” owner Ted Leonsis said before the season, when I told him I sensed fan distress. “It’s why I never listen to somebody who says, ‘I think I’m speaking for the fan base here.’ You can’t speak for the fan base. You can speak for yourself, right? So let’s see how we do.”

...

“I love basketball,” said Stephen Eberhardt, a Wizards die-hard whose passion hasn’t waned. “But for some of my friends, they’re more casual fans, and they’re already checked out.”

That’s not supposed to happen before Thanksgiving. But there were dozens of $6 seats to Monday night’s game available on the secondary market. At that price, if you win a free fourth-quarter chicken sandwich, you’ve almost broken even. Yes, that’s a Monday night, before Thanksgiving, against a bad opponent with a negligible following. But the Wizards are now 27th out of 30 NBA teams in the percentage of seats filled and 25th in total attendance.

Anyhow, you don’t really need attendance numbers to sense that fans are asking deep questions. Did this version of the franchise already peak with the “I called game” moment two years ago? Are we gearing up for another season-long quest to reach .500? Will the Wizards — who haven’t won 47 games since the invention of the Internet — win 47 games again before humanity goes extinct, which Stephen Hawking estimates could happen in just 1,000 more years? Could Verizon Center maybe create some safe spaces, free of scoreboards? You know that right track-wrong direction question pollsters always mention during election cycles? How do you reckon Wizards fans would now respond?

[closg00]

Ted has had his own head up his ass for quite some time now, that's not going to change.

[AFM]

Delusional Ted!

[McFilthy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2016/11/22/its-hopeless-wizards-fans-shaken-by-teams-return-to-losing

Pixels I tell ya, pixels.

“I think that there’s a small group of people who exhibit their angst on social media,” owner Ted Leonsis said before the season, when I told him I sensed fan distress. “It’s why I never listen to somebody who says, ‘I think I’m speaking for the fan base here.’ You can’t speak for the fan base. You can speak for yourself, right? So let’s see how we do.”

...

“I love basketball,” said Stephen Eberhardt, a Wizards die-hard whose passion hasn’t waned. “But for some of my friends, they’re more casual fans, and they’re already checked out.”

That’s not supposed to happen before Thanksgiving. But there were dozens of $6 seats to Monday night’s game available on the secondary market. At that price, if you win a free fourth-quarter chicken sandwich, you’ve almost broken even. Yes, that’s a Monday night, before Thanksgiving, against a bad opponent with a negligible following. But the Wizards are now 27th out of 30 NBA teams in the percentage of seats filled and 25th in total attendance.

Anyhow, you don’t really need attendance numbers to sense that fans are asking deep questions. Did this version of the franchise already peak with the “I called game” moment two years ago? Are we gearing up for another season-long quest to reach .500? Will the Wizards — who haven’t won 47 games since the invention of the Internet — win 47 games again before humanity goes extinct, which Stephen Hawking estimates could happen in just 1,000 more years? Could Verizon Center maybe create some safe spaces, free of scoreboards? You know that right track-wrong direction question pollsters always mention during election cycles? How do you reckon Wizards fans would now respond?

Thanks for pasting this. As a Wizards fan, I am past angst and feeling more apathy & resignation at this point.

[dobrojim]

my response to the Dan Steinberg piece recently in WaPo
which I emailed to him at the address listed at the end of the piece.

Mr Steinberg,

Good article today with one glaring oversight.

Your description of the Wizards fanbase was spot on.

Your oversight was in writing the entire piece without once using the words Ernie Grunfeld.

These data may be a little stale, but were accurate within the last year or so and not much has
changed since then.

In Grunfeld’s 14 years here the team has compiled a winning percentage of about .43 which
places the wizards somewhere around 23rd or 24th out of 30 NBA teams. Imagine how much better
and enthusiastic the fans would be if instead of that much below the median over that time span,
they were that much above the median ie a top 8 team in the league with a winning %age of say
.53. This is a basketball town but with lots of basketball loyalties to serve. A mediocre team, or worse,
has a naturally difficult time holding onto those loyalties.

As a fan, and a season ticket holder (most likely not next year), please investigate or at least
write on this soon. One can only wonder if EG has pictures of Ted with animals that are protecting
his job. Was Ted (and Ernie’s) plan really to sign Jason Smith and Trey Burke, 2 pretty awful players?

Sad, just sad.

Happy T’giving