Wizards 2019 Offseason Thread

[Rafael122]

The Ariza and Jeff Green thing will irritate me to no end. They probably could have gotten a couple of Philadelphia's 2nd round picks for Green, and I think someone would have given up a protected 1st rounder for Ariza.

[Ruzious]

Knicks have renounced their rights to Emanual Mudiay - to clear his free agent cap hold of $12,883,440 off their books. It might make more sense for the Wiz to sign him rather than Sato. Mudiay's 5 years younger than Sato and took a big step up last season after being switched to a combo guard type position, and there's a lot more potential there. I think he'd fit nicely with Beal. His 3 point shooting was 36.4% after the all-star break, so he has the makings of being a decent 3 ball shooter.

I can't see it, Ruz. You're right that he improved -- but given how absolutely horrible he had been it really doesn't amount to making him a useful player.

In fact, it was only as a scorer that he improved at all. But the result, a 53.1% TS% -- though almost 6 percentage points better than the previous year's horrible 47.4 -- was still below average. Plus he shoots the ball a lot, which is the killer in his case. We don't have those shots for him. Aside from shooting, everything else overall got worse last year rather than better.

Sato is actually a great fit with Beal. What scoring he does is extremely efficient, but it leaves a ton of shots for Brad. & he's very effective at the rest of the stuff.

Do you not understand trends with young talented players? This sounds just like our conversation about Zach Lavine last season - when you said he was awful. We're not winning anything next season, so we need to improve our talent level for the future. That means making projections on young players improving.

Also, he changed from a pure 1 to a combo guard - he played mostly with point guards - so obviously his assists would decrease, and he played on a disfunctional Knicks team.

[Dat2U]

Honestly, whatever the market is, I just do not understand why we should have any interest in Jabari Parker. He's certainly not any kind of productivity bargain at $8-10m.

I really don't think I have some kind of blind spot -- e.g. I don't dislike the guy. But, along with whatever he does that's good comes everything else he does. You don't get one without the other. Of course, a person can imagine getting the good from Jabari, while he sheds the bad stuff. But, there's no more reason for it to go down in that way than for him to do more of the bad & less of the good.

Jabari's not new to the league. He's played over 7300 minutes. Milwaukee didn't give him a qualifying offer. Chicago couldn't wait to get rid of him after only a few months. Are we going to be the ones who double down on Jabari Parker? Because we have such a stable franchise?

With Parker, like with most NBA players, you have to be willing to accept the good with the bad. His rebounding and defense are below average, and he turns the ball over way too much. But he can score the ball in a variety of ways and that's a valuable and desirable skill.

The question is how much should the Zards--or any team-- be willing to pay Jabari with the understanding of what he does well and what he doesn't do well. I'm guessing Jabari will get in the $6-$10 mil range.

Jabari is just 24 years old. If he stays healthy, gets in shape, and puts in the work there's no reason why he can't improve as a basketball player. I'd welcome Parker back at the right price.

BTW, the Bucks did give Jabari a qualifying offer, which both sides agreed to rescind so that he could become an unrestricted free agent and sign with the Bulls.

Makes zero sense to spend resources on Parker when:

1. Rui duplicates much of skill set albeit not as good and they play the same position.

2. Parker's long and established injury history.

3. If were keeping Bryant and supposedly looking at signing some Euro sfretch 5, you better have a good defender & rebounder at the 4 to help out in the paint. Even on the games where Parker tries, he's not going to be more than average at those two things.

[payitforward]

Honestly, whatever the market is, I just do not understand why we should have any interest in Jabari Parker. He's certainly not any kind of productivity bargain at $8-10m.

I really don't think I have some kind of blind spot -- e.g. I don't dislike the guy. But, along with whatever he does that's good comes everything else he does. You don't get one without the other. Of course, a person can imagine getting the good from Jabari, while he sheds the bad stuff. But, there's no more reason for it to go down in that way than for him to do more of the bad & less of the good.

Jabari's not new to the league. He's played over 7300 minutes. Milwaukee didn't give him a qualifying offer. Chicago couldn't wait to get rid of him after only a few months. Are we going to be the ones who double down on Jabari Parker? Because we have such a stable franchise?

With Parker, like with most NBA players, you have to be willing to accept the good with the bad. His rebounding and defense are below average, and he turns the ball over way too much. But he can score the ball in a variety of ways and that's a valuable and desirable skill.

The question is how much should the Zards--or any team-- be willing to pay Jabari with the understanding of what he does well and what he doesn't do well. I'm guessing Jabari will get in the $6-$10 mil range.

Jabari is just 24 years old. If he stays healthy, gets in shape, and puts in the work there's no reason why he can't improve as a basketball player. I'd welcome Parker back at the right price.

BTW, the Bucks did give Jabari a qualifying offer, which both sides agreed to rescind so that he could become an unrestricted free agent and sign with the Bulls.

I don't disagree with any of this, Zards (&, right, I whiffed on the last point). As you say, for any player, no matter how great, the picture of his value must take into account the good stuff & the bad. Taking both those into account for Jabari over 5 seasons & 7300+ minutes, the picture is of a bad player. Including the minutes he played for us.

I make the judgment on results -- expressed in numbers. Some of his were good, but others undercut them. Overall, Jabari was below average. Still, despite what I posted previously, just like you "I'd welcome Parker back at the right price." The problem is that he isn't going to be available at "the right price" -- a price based on "what he does well and what he doesn't do well."

Instead, he's going to get paid based on what he does well, on the fact that he's only 24 & (even w/ the two knees) there is, as you say, "no reason why he can't improve," & above all because he was the #2 pick in the draft.

For me, that's where the 7300 minutes of actual experience & all that goes with it return to my mind & close the book on Jabari. If there's no reason to think he can't improve, then, after 5 years & 7300 minutes, there's also no reason to think he will improve.

I'd rather put the money in a different direction. Of course, if you disagree about Jabari as a Wizard -- if you think that, overall, he was a good player for us -- then I'd say it'd be hard to resolve the difference in our judgments. Fortunately, neither of us will be consulted on the issue of signing Jabari!

[payitforward]

Knicks have renounced their rights to Emanual Mudiay - to clear his free agent cap hold of $12,883,440 off their books. It might make more sense for the Wiz to sign him rather than Sato. Mudiay's 5 years younger than Sato and took a big step up last season after being switched to a combo guard type position, and there's a lot more potential there. I think he'd fit nicely with Beal. His 3 point shooting was 36.4% after the all-star break, so he has the makings of being a decent 3 ball shooter.

I can't see it, Ruz. You're right that he improved -- but given how absolutely horrible he had been it really doesn't amount to making him a useful player.

In fact, it was only as a scorer that he improved at all. But the result, a 53.1% TS% -- though almost 6 percentage points better than the previous year's horrible 47.4 -- was still below average. Plus he shoots the ball a lot, which is the killer in his case. We don't have those shots for him. Aside from shooting, everything else overall got worse last year rather than better.

Sato is actually a great fit with Beal. What scoring he does is extremely efficient, but it leaves a ton of shots for Brad. & he's very effective at the rest of the stuff.

Do you not understand trends with young talented players? This sounds just like our conversation about Zach Lavine last season - when you said he was awful. We're not winning anything next season, so we need to improve our talent level for the future. That means making projections on young players improving.

Also, he changed from a pure 1 to a combo guard - he played mostly with point guards - so obviously his assists would decrease, and he played on a disfunctional Knicks team.

Yes, I understand trends with young players. I just don't see a "trend" in this case. Zach Lavine, yes, there is something of a trend. I didn't say he was "awful." I said I didn't want to trade Beal for him (I think that was the context -- correct me if I'm wrong).

Still, I agree with you 100% that "...we need to improve our talent level..." If we had a ton of cap room, & it wasn't a question of Mudiay instead of Sato (i.e. if we kept Sato), I could imagine taking a flyer on him at the right price -- but, that's what it would be: a flyer. & I think there might be some other "young talented players" higher on my list.

[gambitx777]

I think guys like Payton, and muday are going to sit on the market for a while. Like I don't think they are going to get overpaid so maybe we could pick up on with our bi-anual. We have some spots to fill for sure.

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[Ruzious]

I can't see it, Ruz. You're right that he improved -- but given how absolutely horrible he had been it really doesn't amount to making him a useful player.

In fact, it was only as a scorer that he improved at all. But the result, a 53.1% TS% -- though almost 6 percentage points better than the previous year's horrible 47.4 -- was still below average. Plus he shoots the ball a lot, which is the killer in his case. We don't have those shots for him. Aside from shooting, everything else overall got worse last year rather than better.

Sato is actually a great fit with Beal. What scoring he does is extremely efficient, but it leaves a ton of shots for Brad. & he's very effective at the rest of the stuff.

Do you not understand trends with young talented players? This sounds just like our conversation about Zach Lavine last season - when you said he was awful. We're not winning anything next season, so we need to improve our talent level for the future. That means making projections on young players improving.

Also, he changed from a pure 1 to a combo guard - he played mostly with point guards - so obviously his assists would decrease, and he played on a disfunctional Knicks team.

Yes, I understand trends with young players. I just don't see a "trend" in this case. Zach Lavine, yes, there is something of a trend. I didn't say he was "awful." I said I didn't want to trade Beal for him (I think that was the context -- correct me if I'm wrong).

Still, I agree with you 100% that "...we need to improve our talent level..." If we had a ton of cap room, & it wasn't a question of Mudiay instead of Sato (i.e. if we kept Sato), I could imagine taking a flyer on him at the right price -- but, that's what it would be: a flyer. & I think there might be some other "young talented players" higher on my list.

Since you requested it, here are 2 of your posts on Lavine:

But, I don't like Zach Lavine much. I'd be much happier to take Parker instead -- & let his option go this off-season. But, that's an unlikely move for Chicago, as they'd have both Lavine & Beal on their roster. Hutchison doesn't do much for me either. I'd probably prefer to have their R2 pick instead (or maybe 2 R2 picks...?).

Zach hasn't had a genuinely good season overall in his career yet. Plus they've been inconsistent -- up & down in various categories. Yet, because he scores a lot of points, he is already making almost $20m/year guaranteed through '21-22.

Yes, he's "high usage," so lets look at everything besides scoring. To make a long story short, overall he's way below average for a wing in that stuff. Pretty far below.

[FAH1223]

Read on Twitter

[NatP4]

What the hell is this thread? Emmanuel Mudiay? LOL

[nate33]

Read on Twitter

Unless White is vastly improved, I don't see them bring him aboard. We have so many young players. We need one or two veteran forwards. So the way it's shaping up now:

PG Sato/Robinson
SG Beal/McRae
SF Brown/???/Schofield
PF Hachimura/???
C Bryant/Wagner/Mahinmi

Injured: Wall/Howard
DLeague: Bonga

That's 13 guys. I'm assuming Howard never plays in a Wizards uniform again.

Those question marks will be filled by using exceptions. We'll have $13.4M in luxtax room, the full MLE, the BAE, and Bird Rights on Parker, Ariza, Dekker and Randle.

[Ruzious]

What the hell is this thread? Emmanuel Mudiay? LOL

He's a helluvalot more interesting than Aaron White? Or Isaac Bonga... Mo Wagner... Jemerawho Jones?

[NatP4]

What the hell is this thread? Emmanuel Mudiay? LOL

He's a helluvalot more interesting than Aaron White? Or Isaac Bonga... Mo Wagner... Jemerawho Jones?

Instead of Sato tho? Satoransky is our 2nd or 3rd best player.

[Ruzious]

What the hell is this thread? Emmanuel Mudiay? LOL

He's a helluvalot more interesting than Aaron White? Or Isaac Bonga... Mo Wagner... Jemerawho Jones?

Instead of Sato tho? Satoransky is our 2nd or 3rd best player.

That tells you how bad the roster is. Tell a fan of another team that Sato is our 2nd or 3rd best player, and the response will be - You have my sympathies. I mean... he's a nice all-around player and a great person to have on a team, but he doesn't have the potential to be a building block player for a team that's not going to challenge for anything worth challenging for at least a few years... that would be the Wizards, btw. We're going to stink - bad.

[payitforward]

Do you not understand trends with young talented players? This sounds just like our conversation about Zach Lavine last season - when you said he was awful. We're not winning anything next season, so we need to improve our talent level for the future. That means making projections on young players improving.

Also, he changed from a pure 1 to a combo guard - he played mostly with point guards - so obviously his assists would decrease, and he played on a disfunctional Knicks team.

Yes, I understand trends with young players. I just don't see a "trend" in this case. Zach Lavine, yes, there is something of a trend. I didn't say he was "awful." I said I didn't want to trade Beal for him (I think that was the context -- correct me if I'm wrong).

Still, I agree with you 100% that "...we need to improve our talent level..." If we had a ton of cap room, & it wasn't a question of Mudiay instead of Sato (i.e. if we kept Sato), I could imagine taking a flyer on him at the right price -- but, that's what it would be: a flyer. & I think there might be some other "young talented players" higher on my list.

Since you requested it, here are 2 of your posts on Lavine:

But, I don't like Zach Lavine much. I'd be much happier to take Parker instead -- & let his option go this off-season. But, that's an unlikely move for Chicago, as they'd have both Lavine & Beal on their roster. Hutchison doesn't do much for me either. I'd probably prefer to have their R2 pick instead (or maybe 2 R2 picks...?).

Zach hasn't had a genuinely good season overall in his career yet. Plus they've been inconsistent -- up & down in various categories. Yet, because he scores a lot of points, he is already making almost $20m/year guaranteed through '21-22.

Yes, he's "high usage," so lets look at everything besides scoring. To make a long story short, overall he's way below average for a wing in that stuff. Pretty far below.

Ruz.... Lets give it a rest, ok? Obviously, I didn't say he was awful. I said I didn't like him much. I questioned whether he was really good. That's totally different. Plus, as I pointed out, this was in the context of trading Beal for him (him +, obviously), & I didn't like the trade. I doubt you'd still want to make that trade.

Plus, what does this have to do with Emmanuel Mudiay. I may not like Lavine much, but Emmanuel Mudiay definitely has been awful. You could say that he escaped "awful" this year -- but not that he was good!

[payitforward]

What the hell is this thread? Emmanuel Mudiay? LOL

He's a helluvalot more interesting than Aaron White? Or Isaac Bonga... Mo Wagner... Jemerawho Jones?

That's spelled "Jemerrio the Great." Plus, again! -- Garrison the Pale goes without mention!

[nate33]

Tommy has even more up his sleeve .. check this out :

Read on Twitter

?s=21



Instead of waiving Simmons, the Wizards will try to trade him .. could they possibly finesse another 2nd round pick?

This is really encouraging.

There's really only 1 reason to do this. It's to trade Simmons to a team in exchange for an equivalent $5.7M dollar contract. The other team will take Simmons and then waive him and save $4.7M because only $1M of his contract is guaranteed. Basically, we save them $4.7. They incentivize us by giving us a pick. Or at the very least, they incentivize us by giving back a player more useful than Simmons.

What's interesting to me is that we don't really need to use Simmons in this manner because we have the Markieff TPE lying around that can accomplish the same thing. The fact that they altered Simmons contract to make this type of move must be because they are already planning to use that TPE to make even MORE moves to buy bad contracts in exchange for picks.

It really looks like the team is going all in on sucking this year. They're not going to bother even trying to win games by adding vets, they're just going to develop talent for the future while accumulating assets.

[payitforward]

He's a helluvalot more interesting than Aaron White? Or Isaac Bonga... Mo Wagner... Jemerawho Jones?

Instead of Sato tho? Satoransky is our 2nd or 3rd best player.

That tells you how bad the roster is. Tell a fan of another team that Sato is our 2nd or 3rd best player, and the response will be - You have my sympathies. I mean... he's a nice all-around player and a great person to have on a team, but he doesn't have the potential to be a building block player for a team that's not going to challenge for anything worth challenging for at least a few years... that would be the Wizards, btw. We're going to stink - bad.

Pre-Jones I would have agreed with you.

Post-Jones... I still do!

Sato will turn 28 in October.

In the last week, we've added 9 very young players. I can barely believe it's happened! I mean... it's kind of hard to imagine that all of Hachimura, Schofield, Robinson, Wagner, Bonga, Jones, Garrison the Pale, & the 2 other undrafted kids we signed will all turn out. Along with Thomas Bryant.

But assuming all goes really well, & we add more young kids next year, by the time the generation of the Washington Wizards is in place that has (as we all hope) Rui Hachimura as a key to its success, Sato will be a veteran entering the declining part of his career. Brad will likely be the oldest player on the team who is still critical to success (Wall too, we hope -- but he is 3 years older than Brad).

I can get excited & engaged by these young kids. I'd really like to! I'd rather that than be a .500 team trying to sneak into the bottom of the playoffs to be eliminated in R1.

[nate33]

Tommy has even more up his sleeve .. check this out :

Read on Twitter

?s=21



Instead of waiving Simmons, the Wizards will try to trade him .. could they possibly finesse another 2nd round pick?

This is really encouraging.

There's really only 1 reason to do this. It's to trade Simmons to a team in exchange for an equivalent $5.7M dollar contract. The other team will take Simmons and then waive him and save $4.7M because only $1M of his contract is guaranteed. Basically, we save them $4.7. They incentivize us by giving us a pick. Or at the very least, they incentivize us by giving back a player more useful than Simmons.

What's interesting to me is that we don't really need to use Simmons in this manner because we have the Markieff TPE lying around that can accomplish the same thing. The fact that they altered Simmons contract to make this type of move must be because they are already planning to use that TPE to make even MORE moves to buy bad contracts in exchange for picks.

It really looks like the team is going all in on sucking this year. They're not going to bother even trying to win games by adding vets, they're just going to develop talent for the future while accumulating assets.

Simmons straight up for Ilyasova makes sense. Milwaukee saves critical luxtax room to resign their primary free agents. We get a very capable PF - a position of need. And because Milwaukee is over a barrel, we may also get them to include a pick - at least a 2nd rounder. That's not a bad use of Simmons as an asset. Turn him into Ilyasova and a pick!

Simmons to OKC for Patrick Patterson and a pick could also make sense.

[Illmatic12]

Tommy has even more up his sleeve .. check this out :

Read on Twitter

?s=21



Instead of waiving Simmons, the Wizards will try to trade him .. could they possibly finesse another 2nd round pick?

This is really encouraging.

There's really only 1 reason to do this. It's to trade Simmons to a team in exchange for an equivalent $5.7M dollar contract. The other team will take Simmons and then waive him and save $4.7M because only $1M of his contract is guaranteed. Basically, we save them $4.7. They incentivize us by giving us a pick. Or at the very least, they incentivize us by giving back a player more useful than Simmons.

What's interesting to me is that we don't really need to use Simmons in this manner because we have the Markieff TPE lying around that can accomplish the same thing. The fact that they altered Simmons contract to make this type of move must be because they are already planning to use that TPE to make even MORE moves to buy bad contracts in exchange for picks.

It really looks like the team is going all in on sucking this year. They're not going to bother even trying to win games by adding vets, they're just going to develop talent for the future while accumulating assets.

Simmons straight up for Ilyasova makes sense. Milwaukee saves critical luxtax room to resign their primary free agents. We get a very capable PF - a position of need. And because Milwaukee is over a barrel, we may also get them to include a pick - at least a 2nd rounder. That's not a bad use of Simmons as an asset. Turn him into Ilyasova and a pick!

Simmons to OKC for Patrick Patterson and a pick could also make sense.

Good call on Ilyasova trade, that's definitely a great option and a player who can help. Although our frontcourt is getting kind of crowded

OKC is a team I had in mind as well. The Simmons-Patterson trade would save them nearly $20mil (!) in luxury tax after waiving Simmons

[nate33]

Good call on Ilyasova trade, that's definitely a great option and a player who can help. Although our frontcourt is getting kind of crowded

I don't think it's crowded at all, specifically referring to the PF and C positions.

Who is in our front court? I count 3 players: Hachimura, Bryant and Wagner. Dwight and Mahinmi are on the team, but probably won't play. I'm assuming Dwight isn't playing another minute in a Wizards uniform, either due to injury or trade. And Mahinmi won't play more than 200 minutes.