What Should the Wizards Should Do with the 5th Pick?

[pancakes3]

Quick question from an outsider... why are you looking for SG? I though Nick Young was going to be sweet with all those vets, no?

He needs a more well-rounded game if he wants to start.

In many respects yes, but remember defensively he did quite well
(relative to his teammates).
It's probably my optimistic nature combined with oncoming senility
but it seemed like N1's all around game got better in the last month
or 2 of the season. Coming into his 3rd year, he could become a starter.
It will be interesting to see what kind of chemistry he has with Gil.
In those games when N1 is on, the 2 of them together would be
nightmarish for defenses.

Nick Young elicits two very different responses from me.

The optimist in me thinks that if given a starting opportunity playing with solid talent, Nick can definitely make the leap to becoming our own JR Smith - knocking down jumpers, playing adequate defense, and throwing down the occasional highlight dunk. He'll never become a complete player, but he can play himself in being an above average started at shooting guard and talented enough to be a part of a deep playoff push.

The pessimist in me just knows that DS is coming back from his back injury and outhustling Young in training camp, earning the starter's spot in training camp, and reclaiming his starting position. This would relegate Young to the 2nd unit where he has a green light to shoot contested fadeaway jumpers and play matador defense with little on-court reprimanding. Also we have to endure another season of clanking wide open shots, ill-advised double teams, and botched fast breaks.

[closg00]

Wiz work-out Demar DeRozan today, he appears to be the only player we are working out today according to DX. Considering the trade-down possibilities, I hope we are sending people to the group work-outs.

Knicks like Lawson or Holiday. I knew the stock-drop crap about Lawson was BS. Lawson is solid 1st round pick.

[LyricalRico]

This would relegate Young to the 2nd unit where he has a green light to shoot contested fadeaway jumpers and play matador defense with little on-court reprimanding. Also we have to endure another season of clanking wide open shots, ill-advised double teams, and botched fast breaks.

Ah but remember - we have a real NBA coach now. I don't doubt that Young will blow his chance to beat out Stevenson, but Flip will either help Young get better or bench/move him if he doesn't respond to coaching. I don't think we'll have to "endure" for very long.

[Mel Proctor]

From today's Wash Times -

The Mavericks are said to be interested in the fifth pick and the prospect of drafting Jordan Hill.
The teams have made nice in the past, most recently in the swap that secured Antawn Jamison in 2004. The Mavericks also were kind enough to relieve the Wizards of Juwan Howard in 2001.

The Mavericks apparently are willing to part with either Jason Terry or Josh Howard to sweeten a potential deal. The Mavericks would be obligated to accept an expiring contract of the Wizards, the one belonging to either the Etan Thomas or Mike James



I'd do the #5 and Etan or James for Josh Howard as fast as I could hit the "accept" button the way you do it in fantasy trades...

[jholmbe1]

I think that would be a pretty good trade but I am not really sure where Howard fits on our team. I think we all pretty much agree that Butler is much better at the 3 spot and Jamison has the 4. So where do we put Howard?

[BigA]

I think that would be a pretty good trade but I am not really sure where Howard fits on our team. I think we all pretty much agree that Butler is much better at the 3 spot and Jamison has the 4. So where do we put Howard?

Then maybe you do a deal centered around Butler for Bosh or Amare.

[fishercob]

From today's Wash Times -

The Mavericks are said to be interested in the fifth pick and the prospect of drafting Jordan Hill.
The teams have made nice in the past, most recently in the swap that secured Antawn Jamison in 2004. The Mavericks also were kind enough to relieve the Wizards of Juwan Howard in 2001.

The Mavericks apparently are willing to part with either Jason Terry or Josh Howard to sweeten a potential deal. The Mavericks would be obligated to accept an expiring contract of the Wizards, the one belonging to either the Etan Thomas or Mike James



I'd do the #5 and Etan or James for Josh Howard as fast as I could hit the "accept" button the way you do it in fantasy trades...

SIGH.

Tom Knott should be fired! He's not even repeating a rumor, but rather twisting speculation that was on I believe nbadraft.net last week. Now Hoopshype picks it up and runs with it in their rumors section.

He likley hasn't spoken to anyone. He doesn't even cite "unnamed sources," he's just spewing drivel.

Now sure, if I could turn the #5 into Howard, I probably would too and figure out fitting the pieces together later, but this is complete bunk.

[BigA]

^It's that time of year. Rumors and speculation just get picked up and recycled. Similar stuff happens at the trade deadline.

[closg00]

From today's Wash Times -

The Mavericks are said to be interested in the fifth pick and the prospect of drafting Jordan Hill.
The teams have made nice in the past, most recently in the swap that secured Antawn Jamison in 2004. The Mavericks also were kind enough to relieve the Wizards of Juwan Howard in 2001.

The Mavericks apparently are willing to part with either Jason Terry or Josh Howard to sweeten a potential deal. The Mavericks would be obligated to accept an expiring contract of the Wizards, the one belonging to either the Etan Thomas or Mike James



I'd do the #5 and Etan or James for Josh Howard as fast as I could hit the "accept" button the way you do it in fantasy trades...

SIGH.

Tom Knott should be fired! He's not even repeating a rumor, but rather twisting speculation that was on I believe nbadraft.net last week. Now Hoopshype picks it up and runs with it in their rumors section.

He likley hasn't spoken to anyone. He doesn't even cite "unnamed sources," he's just spewing drivel.

Now sure, if I could turn the #5 into Howard, I probably would too and figure out fitting the pieces together later, but this is complete bunk.

I just posted a link for the Times Wiz beat-reporter in the media thread.

WTF is Knott doing trying to fill deadline space with this old crap?!

[LyricalRico]

Yeah, that's at least a week old. And even if it weren't, I'm not really interested in Josh Howard. Now if this were some sort of 3-way where Dallas got the #5+expiring, the Wiz got Amare, and the Suns got Jamison+Howard - then I'm interested.

[Mel Proctor]

Lyrical - why would you not be interested in Josh Howard? He's a proven vet, capable of carrying a team for weeks on end. He would reduce the minutes imposed on AJ and C-Butt, and, although I don't have the stats to prove it, seems to be a fairly capable defender.

If the choice were either picking Hill (or Harden or Evans or....) at #5, or making this deal, wouldn't making this deal make sense?

Also, I love Amare as much as the next guy, and he is explosive when healthy. But he has this weird eye thing going on, plus he too has a history of knee problems. Is that what we need to take on?

[LyricalRico]

Lyrical - why would you not be interested in Josh Howard? He's a proven vet, capable of carrying a team for weeks on end. He would reduce the minutes imposed on AJ and C-Butt, and, although I don't have the stats to prove it, seems to be a fairly capable defender.

Josh Howard is a good player. But he doesn't fill a need for this team. He's not a SG and neither is Caron, so either one of them will have to play out of position or one of them will have to play limited minutes off the bench. Instead of blowing the #5 on a guy who's redundant, I'd prefer to trade for somebody who actually plays a position of need for this team.

As for Amare's injury, I'm not familiar with the status of his eye injury. If he's not 100% then we obvously shouldn't trade for him. I'm sure EG has more information about that than we do but my point is that the Wiz would be better off flipping Howard to a third team for a guy who's a better fit rather than keeping him for themselves for the reasons I described above.

[Mel Proctor]

But if the choice is staying put at #5 and drafting Hill, or sending the #5 + Etan to Dallas for Josh Howard, you make that deal, right? Sometimes it's nice to just have basketball players first, and worry about positions later. In this day and age, positions are irrelevant, imo. Lebron and Kobe act as de facto PGs a lot of the time, even though they aren't naturals at the 1. Heck, even Hedo was playing PG at the end of Game 2 (with um, "mixed" results, but still...)

I just don't want to get hung up on the idea that we don't trade for Josh Howard because he plays the same "position" as either Butler or Jamison. He has demonstrated that he is an all-star in this league, which is more than we can say for the guy we'd be drafting at #5.

[LyricalRico]

But if the choice is staying put at #5 and drafting Hill, or sending the #5 + Etan to Dallas for Josh Howard, you make that deal, right?

I wouldn't, no. In a vacuum I agree that it's fair value. But in the practical application I think it's a recipe for failure. Maybe Howard has been an All-Star as a starting SF, but as a backup or as an SG he's probably not going to be as effective. In other words, we won't be getting "All Star Josh Howard" we'll be getting "Playing limited minutes in a position that's not his natural position Josh Howard" and I doubt that the latter is worth the #5 overall pick. It might even cost us some games because of rotation and chemistry problems.

The inevitable end result is we would eventually have to trade either Howard or Butler, either at the deadline or next summer. The problem is that in the brief time they were playing together, their numbers would probably suffer because they duplicate each other and one would likely be coming off the bench or playing out of position. So now we not only have a failed experiment in the upcoming season, but we also get diminished value when we trade one of them.

Even with all that being said, we're not actually being asked to choose between the using the #5 or trading for Josh Howard. We've got plenty more options than that and I think the one that EG settles on will turn out better than if we'd traded for a redundant player.

[Mel Proctor]

That's a good point, LR. Hopefully the offer we take is not one currently being discussed. I was not part of RealGM nation when we did the AJ for #5 pick deal, but I recall that it sort of came out of nowhere. Am I right?

[AgentOvechkin08]

IF we shop the 5th pick and James/Etan for Howard and 22nd pick, I think we have to add Deshawn to free up the guard log jam we would have. Howard can play the 2, he played it in the playoffs with JT coming off the bench.

Arenas/Critt
Howard/Young
Butler/McGuire
Jamison/Blatche/Songaila
Haywood/McGee

Maybe we could follow up with Jamison + Blatche + 22nd pick + 2010 1st for Amare????

or is that too unrealistic

Arenas/Critt
Howar/Young
Butler/McGuire
Stoudemire/Songaila
Haywood/McGee

drool...

[Mel Proctor]

Where is the #22 pick coming from?

[mhd]

From Chad Ford:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2009 ... aft-090610

"As we've been reporting since draft lottery night, the Wizards continue to shop the pick. A source in Washington told me that they've had a number of interesting offers. Their goal is to get back a veteran who can play right now and to shed a few million dollars off their cap if possible.

A number of teams including the Knicks, Mavericks, Rockets and Pacers are all possibilities here. If they keep the pick, they'll have a tough choice between Harden and Hill. From the intel I've received, it sounds as though Harden may be slightly ahead.
"

[closg00]

^^^^^
It's just a matter of time before our pick is traded to shave salary. I just hope at the end of the day the team is improved rather than just having cap-savings for Abe.

[LyricalRico]

I was not part of RealGM nation when we did the AJ for #5 pick deal, but I recall that it sort of came out of nowhere. Am I right?

I'd say that's accurate. I don't recall talking about Jamison at all on the boards back then. We were mostly debating whether or not Kwame would develop into anything worth having. I also think many of us saw Jamison as a SF at the time because that's what he played in Dallas (from what I remember Grunfeld also planned to use him at SF but Kwame's foot injury that offseason necesitated playing Jamison at PF and EJ loved it so much he stayed with it).

But with the number of well read board members that we have now who are scouring the "internets" for rumors and posting trade ideas of their own, I doubt Ernie will do something that hasn't been brought up at least once here.