Official Countdown to Firing"NoLowPostOffense"Grunfeld

[lupin]

This is the Fire EG thread isn't it?

It seems we're getting away from the point of the thread.

The point of this thread is ACCOUNTABILITY. This team has not done much the last 3 seasons except tantalize. After they fail, they come right back with the same system and the same players. And they fail again. Isn't that a definition of insanity or something?

Anyways, even though it may sound like I'm all for showing EG the door right now, I tend to agree with jholmbe1(?) that EG should/will probably get at least the one season with the coach of HIS CHOICE, plus perhaps the chance to see how well he can really play the offseason game with a high draft pick for the first time in a while (of course the bouncing lottery balls could really bounce away from the Wiz and they somehow wind up with the non-impact 8 or 9th pick again). Will he successfully choose the correct player with his Top 5 pick, or will make another bold trade of moving some vets plus the pick for a player that changed the map for the Wiz once again.

I just wish it was June because his choice of interim coach has made this season even more exasperating.

[hands11]

I think the biggest problem is this stupid "Princeton Offense". As far as I can tell, it's an offense that, at best, is able to put good offensive players in one-on-one isolation. That's better than nothing, but it's still not as good as an offense that gets people wide open shots or easy drives. The only way this offense works is if you have 3 or more really good offensive players on the floor at the same time. But it's just not reasonable to expect to be able to field 3 really good offensive players while also having enough good defenders to play sound defense. Since you can generally only "hide" one lousy defensive player, we need 2 of our good offensive players to also be average or better defenders. That's rare in this league.

EJ's offense was a failure in New Jersey. They were well below-average offensively, and would have ranked even worse if it weren't for their running game. EJ's offense was a failure here until Arenas came aboard. And even then it was only good when Arenas, Butler (or Hughes) and Jamison were on the court together. Take one of those guys out and the offense sputtered.

Furthermore, the offense is complicated and takes players forever to learn. That makes in-season trades difficult and it makes management less willing to trade away guys because of all the effort that went into training them. It forces EG to trade for guys like Songaila and James simply because they have had some exposure to the system.

Finally, the offense requires big men with finesse skills (passing, shooting, ball handling) that rarely overlap with toughness and defensive skills. We end up acquiring a guy like Jamison and paying him $13M a year, when, under a different system, we'd be just as good with a guy like Haslem at $6M a year.

It's time to simplify the system. We need to go with more classic pro sets based on pick-and-rolls. We need our players to just be able to play ball without having to think so much about where they should be on the court. We need a defense that denies the three pointer and the lane and just gives up midrange shots. We need to trade Jamison for a guy with equivalent talent, but more defensively oriented. We need to bench Stevenson until he can make 100 jumpers in a row in practice.

Been that way since Kwame was here.

I just hate an offense that takes so long to learn that you can never get new players in or adjust to injuries. That is one of the main reason I wanted EFJ gone. But it was a big one.

[Pradamaster]

I think the biggest problem is this stupid "Princeton Offense". As far as I can tell, it's an offense that, at best, is able to put good offensive players in one-on-one isolation. That's better than nothing, but it's still not as good as an offense that gets people wide open shots or easy drives. The only way this offense works is if you have 3 or more really good offensive players on the floor at the same time. But it's just not reasonable to expect to be able to field 3 really good offensive players while also having enough good defenders to play sound defense. Since you can generally only "hide" one lousy defensive player, we need 2 of our good offensive players to also be average or better defenders. That's rare in this league.

EJ's offense was a failure in New Jersey. They were well below-average offensively, and would have ranked even worse if it weren't for their running game. EJ's offense was a failure here until Arenas came aboard. And even then it was only good when Arenas, Butler (or Hughes) and Jamison were on the court together. Take one of those guys out and the offense sputtered.

Furthermore, the offense is complicated and takes players forever to learn. That makes in-season trades difficult and it makes management less willing to trade away guys because of all the effort that went into training them. It forces EG to trade for guys like Songaila and James simply because they have had some exposure to the system.

Finally, the offense requires big men with finesse skills (passing, shooting, ball handling) that rarely overlap with toughness and defensive skills. We end up acquiring a guy like Jamison and paying him $13M a year, when, under a different system, we'd be just as good with a guy like Haslem at $6M a year.

It's time to simplify the system. We need to go with more classic pro sets based on pick-and-rolls. We need our players to just be able to play ball without having to think so much about where they should be on the court. We need a defense that denies the three pointer and the lane and just gives up midrange shots. We need to trade Jamison for a guy with equivalent talent, but more defensively oriented. We need to bench Stevenson until he can make 100 jumpers in a row in practice.

I agree and disagree.

I disagree that the Princeton offense is not an effective offense. Arenas, Jamison and Butler are three outstanding offensive players, but they're also guys that had requisite faults that should have prevented them from being as good offensively as they've been. Arenas didn't have true PG skills, while Butler and Jamison were tweenters. The Princeton system helped make them the offensive players they were. It allowed them to play to their strengths, in all the ways that have constantly been discussed here and everywhere.

We didn't just post good offensive numbers because of the players. That we finished 12th in offense last year with a starting backcourt of AD and DeShawn is nothing short of incredible. Yes, having the players helps make the offense better, but you could say the same about any system. The triangle offense worked in Chicago and LA with guys like Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, Shaq, etc. It didn't work in Dallas in the mid-90s when those players weren't there.

I agree that we have to scrap the Princeton though. Not because it doesn't work, but rather because of the hoops we have to jump through in order to make it work. So much practice time needs to be devoted to offense so that everyone can understand things -- time that should be used for working on our leaky defense. The Princeton requires combo guards and face-up bigs, neither of which are often good defensively. Ernie has done a great job finding good Princeton players, but those players are not good defenders. And as has been mentioned in this thread already, it's harder to make midseason acquisitions, since it takes so long to just learn enough of the offense to play decent minutes.

So basically, you get one of two scenarios if you're a Princeton team. Either you do everything you can to find the right personnel, which means you have trouble building a good defense, or you force the system on a group of players that aren't equipped to run it and your offense suffers. The first scenario is what we've been doing since 2003. The second is what happened to New Jersey from 01-04. Either way, your team can't be properly balanced.

Based on what you've posted, I honestly think you'd agree with scenario number two. It sounds like that's the point you're ultimately making. I just don't think that means the Princeton itself is a problematic offensive system.

[nate33]

We didn't just post good offensive numbers because of the players. That we finished 12th in offense last year with a starting backcourt of AD and DeShawn is nothing short of incredible.

I don't think it's all that incredible. Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler are elite offensive players. If you look at all 28 20+ppg scorers last year, Butler and Jamison ranked 10th and 13th in offensive rating respectively. And don't forget Brendan Haywood who is an elite offensive rebounder and who also happens to have a fabulous offensive rating. He ranked 10th in ORtg among all 100 players averaging at least 18 points per 48 minutes. FWIW, Roger Mason ranks 31st on that list.

So we had 2 of the top 13 most efficient volume scorers plus another very efficient scorer and offensive rebounder and an efficient guard off the bench. Antonio Daniels and Stevenson were serviceable last year too. One might argue that it's the system that made the players, we'll never really know. But looking at the individual numbers, there's no reason to believe that we shouldn't have been an above-average offensive team.

[closg00]

Rosen, FWIW

Washington (4-23): Even the eventual return of Gilbert Arenas won't be enough to rescue the Wizards from the doldrums. For sure, a healthy Agent Zero, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler will score points by the dozen. But Andray Blatche is incredibly inconsistent, while Nick Young and the team's other younguns lack star-quality.

Blame Ernie Grunfeld for assembling a team that lacks any kind of interior presence at both ends of the floor, and also lacks adequate defensive skills.

Only several radical trades can provide any hope for this franchise.

[fishercob]

No idea who Rosen is, but he plainly hasn't heard of either Brendan Haywood or Javale McGee. The Wiz will be fine.

[closg00]

Link
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8991 ... es-or-both

[LyricalRico]

^ Rosen is a hack who has probably never watched a Wiz game in his life. While what he says is true at the moment, he conveniently forgets about Brendan Haywood (who is already an inside presence) and he also doesn't give Ernie any credit for drafting McGee over the summer (who could be come a very good center in time).

I've said for years to the "Wiz just need a big man" crowd that quality bigs don't grow on trees. How else could Kwame Brown still be getting multi-year deals? Why else would the Bobcats be considering trading for Eddy freaking Curry? Because quality bigs are few and far between. You can't just say you need a big man and then expect to walk out on to the street and pick one up.

Our current rotation does leave something to be desired. But now that Songaila is finally healthy and playing well, all we need is a healthy Haywood to move Blatche back to the bench and suddenly our frontcourt looks much better. Add in guy like McGee brimming with talent plus McGuire emerging as a defender/rebounder at SF and you've got a promising frontcourt situation.

Frankly, I consider our SG position to be a much bigger longterm problem.

[nate33]

^ Agreed.

I get so annoyed with the complaints about the Wizards "needing to go get a big man". There are about 8 legit two way big men in this league. We don't have one. We're doing the next best thing by having a legit defensive big man at center and a versatile scoring forward alongside him.

[fishercob]

Given what's going on with the potentially declining cap/lux tax, I really wish EG had taken Nate's advice and signed Jamison to a declining -- or at worst, flat -- contract.

He made the right move in re-signing him, but they should have structured the money differently. He's an excellent value this year. By year three or 4, he could be an albatross.

[hands11]

Given what's going on with the potentially declining cap/lux tax, I really wish EG had taken Nate's advice and signed Jamison to a declining -- or at worst, flat -- contract.

He made the right move in re-signing him, but they should have structured the money differently. He's an excellent value this year. By year three or 4, he could be an albatross.

Nates? You'll live in a bubble to often.

[closg00]

If Ernie chooses not to get control of the direction of this team for the remainder of games then he needs to go. Ernie must put an end to Tap Jordanplaying Caron & AJ minutes a night while playing McGee 4 minutes.

And what about Pech?, he's an un-injured first-round pick who gets zero PT.

[miller31time]

I really couldn't care less about Pech. He's as much of a bust as you can get from the 18th pick or whatever he is.

Jumpshooting, one-trick pony, and his one trick sucks. There's nothing added minutes can do for Pecherov, in my book. If he has a chance in this league as a potential rotation player, the improvement needs to come from non-stop off-season work. He needs to develop more offensive weapons, he needs to work on his post defense, and he needs to improve his overall basketball IQ.

Now, McGee is a different story. He can actually improve leaps and bounds in-season because he already has an abundance of things he can do, just not consistently. That's why he needs minutes.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Rosen, FWIW

Washington (4-23): Even the eventual return of Gilbert Arenas won't be enough to rescue the Wizards from the doldrums. For sure, a healthy Agent Zero, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler will score points by the dozen. But Andray Blatche is incredibly inconsistent, while Nick Young and the team's other younguns lack star-quality.

Blame Ernie Grunfeld for assembling a team that lacks any kind of interior presence at both ends of the floor, and also lacks adequate defensive skills.

Only several radical trades can provide any hope for this franchise.

Wow, a mere two weeks pass and this quote looks all sorts of stupid.

[closg00]

Rosen, FWIW

Washington (4-23): Even the eventual return of Gilbert Arenas won't be enough to rescue the Wizards from the doldrums. For sure, a healthy Agent Zero, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler will score points by the dozen. But Andray Blatche is incredibly inconsistent, while Nick Young and the team's other younguns lack star-quality.

Blame Ernie Grunfeld for assembling a team that lacks any kind of interior presence at both ends of the floor, and also lacks adequate defensive skills.

Only several radical trades can provide any hope for this franchise.

Wow, a mere two weeks pass and this quote looks all sorts of stupid.

How-so? Are we not lacking in defense? Is our interior presence softer than Charmin?

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Nick Young is looking like a legit starting two, Andre Blatche has been pretty consistent. So that's pretty dumb. And as usual everyone forgets about BH...

[Ced67]

I've got to agree with closg00 on this one. I know I might me in the minority but Ive been feeling this way for a while. I think some people are a bit delusional about the talent on this team. Yes we have 3 legit 7 footers if you count Haywood, but please tell me how many of these guys have an ounce of toughness. They are all soft and shy away from contact. In my opinion a big part of "inside presence has to do with toughness and not just height, if that where the case Shawn Bradley would have been a great inside presence. I like Haywod to a degree but lets face it, up until last year he was very inconsisent, he'd have spurts where he'd have 3 or 4 reb in an entire game and I believe he was on the court in the playoffs when Cleveland routinely drove into the lane with no consequence, Im just saying, lets not treat this guy like he's Dwight Howard. He is an above average center who is a pretty good off. rebounder but not a great def. rebounder, but I wouldn't really give him the tag as great inside presence.

Andray Blatche has been more consistent this year but with that said he is still pretty inconsistent. He also is a guy who shy's away from contact at times and doesn't fight for the ball. In a 7 game series, he would get detroyed by either KG or Kendrick Perkins. He's like Pau Gasol without the offense. However I will agree that he is a pretty good passer, but if I had my choice on whether to have a strong inside presence or a good passer Id take the strong inside presnece.

Javal McGee obviously is still a work in progress so I wont say anything about him, but i do like his energy and his willingness to go after the ball, the only problem is that when you're that light its easy to get out muscled for position but thats something that will come with building muscle.

Lastly Nick Young. He looked great over the past few games, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that he was just hot and we really didn't play anything great defenses, also I think Nick Young at some point in his career could start but not now, the reason being is when his shots off he really brings nothing else. Look at the box score for the previous 4-5 games, he doesn;t rebound and he has almost no assists. Again, I think he eventually will be able to be a starter, but not here, not next to Arenas, unless he can develop a catch and shoot game, because we all no that Gil has a tendency to dominate the ball, and Nick Young is at his best when he does the same, to think that that will work and add in Butler for long stretches of time is ridiculous. What this basically comes down to is parts. The parts on this team are not built for a superstar who tends to dominate the ball like Gil. Look at Kobe and Lebron. They are surrounded buy multiple guys who can catch the ball and shoot from the perimter extremely well, whether it be on the move or stationary, allowing your star to penetrate and kick. Delonte West, Derek Fisher, Mo Williams, Daniel Gibson, Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Radmanovic, Lamar Odom(at times), Wally Szczerbiak and Pavlovic. Thats just two teams, name me one players on the Wizards who is built like this. Those teams are built around their star player, and allows that star player to control the ball for long stretches of time and still not kill the flow of the offense. Thats EG.

Also EG is the lack of toughness at the 4-5 positions. Like I said above. We've got a lot of height on the team especially when Haywood gets back but we have no toughness and strength. I'd rather have a 69-6'10 guy who can take and deliver hits and fight for position under the basket than a collection of finesse 7-footers, at least give me one.

[hands11]

I've got to agree with closg00 on this one. I know I might me in the minority but Ive been feeling this way for a while. I think some people are a bit delusional about the talent on this team. Yes we have 3 legit 7 footers if you count Haywood, but please tell me how many of these guys have an ounce of toughness. They are all soft and shy away from contact. In my opinion a big part of "inside presence has to do with toughness and not just height, if that where the case Shawn Bradley would have been a great inside presence. I like Haywod to a degree but lets face it, up until last year he was very inconsisent, he'd have spurts where he'd have 3 or 4 reb in an entire game and I believe he was on the court in the playoffs when Cleveland routinely drove into the lane with no consequence, Im just saying, lets not treat this guy like he's Dwight Howard. He is an above average center who is a pretty good off. rebounder but not a great def. rebounder, but I wouldn't really give him the tag as great inside presence.

Andray Blatche has been more consistent this year but with that said he is still pretty inconsistent. He also is a guy who shy's away from contact at times and doesn't fight for the ball. In a 7 game series, he would get detroyed by either KG or Kendrick Perkins. He's like Pau Gasol without the offense. However I will agree that he is a pretty good passer, but if I had my choice on whether to have a strong inside presence or a good passer Id take the strong inside presnece.

Javal McGee obviously is still a work in progress so I wont say anything about him, but i do like his energy and his willingness to go after the ball, the only problem is that when you're that light its easy to get out muscled for position but thats something that will come with building muscle.

Lastly Nick Young. He looked great over the past few games, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that he was just hot and we really didn't play anything great defenses, also I think Nick Young at some point in his career could start but not now, the reason being is when his shots off he really brings nothing else. Look at the box score for the previous 4-5 games, he doesn;t rebound and he has almost no assists. Again, I think he eventually will be able to be a starter, but not here, not next to Arenas, unless he can develop a catch and shoot game, because we all no that Gil has a tendency to dominate the ball, and Nick Young is at his best when he does the same, to think that that will work and add in Butler for long stretches of time is ridiculous. What this basically comes down to is parts. The parts on this team are not built for a superstar who tends to dominate the ball like Gil. Look at Kobe and Lebron. They are surrounded buy multiple guys who can catch the ball and shoot from the perimter extremely well, whether it be on the move or stationary, allowing your star to penetrate and kick. Delonte West, Derek Fisher, Mo Williams, Daniel Gibson, Sasha Vujacic, Vlad Radmanovic, Lamar Odom(at times), Wally Szczerbiak and Pavlovic. Thats just two teams, name me one players on the Wizards who is built like this. Those teams are built around their star player, and allows that star player to control the ball for long stretches of time and still not kill the flow of the offense. Thats EG.

Also EG is the lack of toughness at the 4-5 positions. Like I said above. We've got a lot of height on the team especially when Haywood gets back but we have no toughness and strength. I'd rather have a 69-6'10 guy who can take and deliver hits and fight for position under the basket than a collection of finesse 7-footers, at least give me one.

RM could catch and shoot

We do need more post toughness. This predates AJ coming here. But it's not just post toughness, it needs to be someone who is athletic also. Etan was one of toughness guys. DSong is the other. Neither are very athletic.

I disagree about Blatche. While he is more of a finesse player, I see him getting tougher this year. I think he will learn from his mistakes. Even tonight against GSW, I saw him take it to the hoop sometimes with finesse and then other times more strong. I still like Blatche and his upside. I wouldn't get ride of him. Actually, I would build this team around

Haywood and Blatche at the 5 and 4 and probably move GA to the 2. From there, we may need to trade what we need to fill in the rest. I think one or both of CB and AJ may need to go.

[WizarDynasty]

why is jamison even being allowed to shoot 3pters. He is shooting a horrible 32% from three point range and Tapscott is letting him take approximately 4 three pointers a game. A powerforward shooting 3's that poorly should really be in the post earning his points but this was Grunfeld's long site blunder.

Here is the problem...Jamison and Butler both look less athletic than they did last year. The problem is that neither player looks like they have gotten better since last season which means they are only going to go downhill. Caron has not improved his defense this year and physically he looks even less athletic. Michael Jordan had a ton of years where he didn't make the playoffs but you saw that he constantly got better and physically didn't deteriorate. CAron Butler is already breaking down physically. He hasn't done anything in the playoffs for this team when he had a chance to carry us. EAch night him and jamison are the two worst man to man defenders on the court as both have knee problems affecting their agility for the rest of their careers.
Caron has lost all his upside and if EG had any concept of building a team, he would have recognized that a combination of chronic knees injuries since college and poor agility for two of your starting players creates a mismatch against you every night not matter how hot the player is offensively. CAron lack of agility on defense due to his poor knees is problem that wizards will have to deal with every night for the next 10 years whenever he is matched up defensively against an above average offensive s/g=s/f. I would rather lose and develop a young player who i know can one day be above average on both sides that play a player who isn't getting any better and is loses the defensive battle every night against the player he is guarding. For the next 7 years or 7*82=560 games..we will see caron butler lose 560 defensive battles before we see a new starter replacing him and giving us a chance to win both the defensive and offensive matchup. that' is pretty depressing. Same with Jamison. there is absolutely no hope Jamison is going to magically get more agile and his knees allow him move sideways fluidly..he has bad knees. This is the same problem with Arenas. Crappy Grunfeld brings in 3 starters who all had a history of poor agility on others teams before Grunfeld brought them here. This defensive nightmare we see each night is all a result of Grunfeld's short term decision making.
Now if Grunfeld gets us a Aminu...finally a legit 6'9 perimater player with 7-4 plus wingspan build in the Dwight Howard Body type and leaping ability with legit small forward handles and ability to create his shots of the dribble...then Grunfeld will have a chance to wipe away his poor decisions with Jamison and Butler and arenas..all players with history of poor agility b4 coming to wiz. Blake Griffin is a non shot blocking carlos boozer without the consistent Jumpshot. Getting the next Ak47 in Aminu will surely fill the longterm weaknesses we have. Its going to be really nice having d.Howard of s/f' stopping easy perimeter shots and swatting shots s/f shots...a skill that dmac wingspan keeps him from doing.

[hands11]

why is jamison even being allowed to shoot 3pters. He is shooting a horrible 32% from three point range and Tapscott is letting him take approximately 4 three pointers a game. A powerforward shooting 3's that poorly should really be in the post earning his points but this was Grunfeld's long site blunder.

Here is the problem...Jamison and Butler both look less athletic than they did last year. The problem is that neither player looks like they have gotten better since last season which means they are only going to go downhill. Caron has not improved his defense this year and physically he looks even less athletic. Michael Jordan had a ton of years where he didn't make the playoffs but you saw that he constantly got better and physically didn't deteriorate. CAron Butler is already breaking down physically. He hasn't done anything in the playoffs for this team when he had a chance to carry us. EAch night him and jamison are the two worst man to man defenders on the court as both have knee problems affecting their agility for the rest of their careers.


Caron has lost all his upside and if EG had any concept of building a team, he would have recognized that a combination of chronic knees injuries since college and poor agility for two of your starting players creates a mismatch against you every night not matter how hot the player is offensively. CAron lack of agility on defense due to his poor knees is problem that wizards will have to deal with every night for the next 10 years whenever he is matched up defensively against an above average offensive s/g=s/f. I would rather lose and develop a young player who i know can one day be above average on both sides that play a player who isn't getting any better and is loses the defensive battle every night against the player he is guarding. For the next 7 years or 7*82=560 games..we will see caron butler lose 560 defensive battles before we see a new starter replacing him and giving us a chance to win both the defensive and offensive matchup. that' is pretty depressing. Same with Jamison. there is absolutely no hope Jamison is going to magically get more agile and his knees allow him move sideways fluidly..he has bad knees. This is the same problem with Arenas. Crappy Grunfeld brings in 3 starters who all had a history of poor agility on others teams before Grunfeld brought them here. This defensive nightmare we see each night is all a result of Grunfeld's short term decision making.


Now if Grunfeld gets us a Aminu...finally a legit 6'9 perimater player with 7-4 plus wingspan build in the Dwight Howard Body type and leaping ability with legit small forward handles and ability to create his shots of the dribble...then Grunfeld will have a chance to wipe away his poor decisions with Jamison and Butler and arenas..all players with history of poor agility b4 coming to wiz. Blake Griffin is a non shot blocking carlos boozer without the consistent Jumpshot. Getting the next Ak47 in Aminu will surely fill the longterm weaknesses we have. Its going to be really nice having d.Howard of s/f' stopping easy perimeter shots and swatting shots s/f shots...a skill that dmac wingspan keeps him from doing.

Dude. Really now. I'm not even one of the people who has been calling you nuts but please....add some line breaks. I assume you are writing so that people will read. Well.... I try...but you just make it to hard I have to stop.

It's ok to write a stream of thought...just go back and edit it.