nate33 wrote:jivelikenice wrote:hands11 wrote:
LOL
Those people you are tweeting with are not GMs.
Its not what they want. It what we think is possible and what we would guess two or more GMs would do.
It fine if people want to voice what they would do. But at the end of the day, I'm more interested in reading people who are objective about what is most likely to happen.
I get that, but it just amazes me how Wiz fans have been conditioned accept the status quo. Since Wall was drafted we were told the first few years we would be bad so patience was required. That was followed by get to the playoffs so last regular season when the team was up and down they still met their goal. Now it's about Durant so it's just accepting the status quo for two years. That will be 6 years of Wall's career before the franchise and fans have raised the bar.
You can complain all you want, but doing so doesn't change reality. You can't just wish for the team to be better. You have to actually put a plan in place. We have a plan that actually has the potential to put us into real contention for a good long window of time starting in 2016. The alternative is to be impatient and recklessly spend our few assets in an attempt to get marginally better. We could exchange future cap space and picks for another half-decent player and add perhaps 3 or 4 wins to our total, but that's not enough to win a championship and it significantly reduces any opportunity to add a true impact player.
Exactly.
Impatience and lack of a longer term plan under Abe is why they sucked for 25 years.
Now they are actually trying to do something different and people are complaining ?
As for calling them wasted years for Wall. For one, they aren't wasted. He has been improving. Last years playoff was huge for him. You should listen to the AS interview where he credits last years playoff for this years dedication to defense.
And this year, he is the best defensive PG by a wide margin per DRPM
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_ ... position/1
Oh and its not just DRPM. Its RPM.. He is now 7th
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM
Dude is becoming a WallStar.
Not sure how quickly people would have expected a ECF when we had pretty much the worst franchise in the league and even after blowing it up we still had the worst contract in the league to dump when we drafted Wall to be the cornerstone of a rebuild.
This was not TD landing on a very good SAS team that was also a great franchise. Nor Magic doing the same.
4 years into Walls career, he got out to the first round of the playoffs. That's as far as MJ had made it in his 4th year.
MJ had one year of S. Albeck. One year of K. Loughery and three years of Collins. In Collins third year he got them to Lost E. Conf. Finals.
Then they got Phil Jackson and went on to win 3 straight finals in MJs year 6, 7, 8
And that was MJ. Maybe the best ever to play the game and Phil, one of the best ever to coach it. And MJ wasn't a PG.
I say all that to add some perspective. Wall making it to the 2nd round in just his 4th year is getting him and the team back on track. It was VERY important to get him there last year which is why they focused on that so much. MJ had been there 3 times by then gaining experience but never got out of the first round. From the day they drafted Wall they said he was the corner stone and as of today, he is the franchise. Just like MJ or TD where for their teams. If KD comes, it going to be because the franchise got their acts together and mainly because WALL IS HERE. Investing in a team he could win with was the right move. So was extending him to max early.
But Wall is not MJ and he is not a wing. Which is why they are so heavy targeting KD. A PG can only do so much. You need an elite wing player in todays game. Or you have to have a well oiled machine vet heavy 3 HOF players lead by POPs one of the best every coaches. i.e. SAS
Or a best in the game future HOF PG/SG/SF/PF Lebron James on your team with HOF SG Wade.
As of this year, ATL is going to try to show us you can still do it by just balancing out a solid team across the board like DET had done many years ago. Lets call them SAS light. They don't have a TD but they have 4 All Stars. None of which are likely to make the HOF except maybe Kyle K for being an amazing 3 pt shooter. We will see how that works in the playoffs.
So the all in for KD is a legit plan. Wall is on track and if they don't land KD, he will keep them in the running to land another really good player. They might never win a title, but they will be good.
The next major step they can make as a franchise is...
Attract a HOF or potential HOF coach. And for that, their chances are the best they have been in 25 years so not much to complain about there either.
People can complain if they want and be impatient, but this franchise is headed in the right direction and Walls time here has not been wasted. In just 4.6 years, they have come a long long way from what they were. They have a plan to get better. Now we have to wait and see if it works out. Nothing is carved in stone. Winning a title is really really hard. And it takes a good bit of luck. That said, at least the franchise has repaired its reputation to a large extent. And they do have WallStar to attract players. If you doubt that, you forgot Paul picked Washington. I expect that is just the beginning. More will come.
Players will want to come play with WallStar. Every GM needs some luck. And you also can make your own luck. Well both those things happened. We cleaned house. Got a lottery pick. Got lucky and landed #1. Got lucky Wall was in that draft. And EG picked him. Then we got lucky that he didn't develop into something other then what he could have developing into. There where some rough years in the beginning. Becoming a mature franchise star is not an easy path. Many fail along the way letting ego, money, fame take them off course. Many don't become complete players and gain the maturity to lead a franchise or the ability to play well with other starts. And as we saw with Wall, there were questions along the way but the Wizards and John got him there. Give the franchise their credit for ensuring that happened. Wall could have ended up like Gil and never matured properly to match his talent.
Things are different now. I trust Wall with the franchise. And Wall is a two way player dedicated to not just offense but defense. This rebuild has legit legs in very large part because Wall developed properly in all aspects of becoming a franchise player.
Now we move forward.
