Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[Wiz99]

Best summary of this trade has to be Hollinger's

Grunfeld said the Wizards are better than they were yesterday, and in a very narrow sense he's correct: This deal does incrementally improve his roster. But there are far more efficient ways to produce the same improvement, and instead Grunfeld has essentially handcuffed the franchise to two more years of mediocrity so he could win a news conference.

It's like Grunfeld is in on the David Stern conspiracy to do whatever it takes to make NO succeed. Think Grunfeld wears women's underwear and Stern has pics?

[DRK]

I'm confused as to why the Wizards do this trade...

I like the fact that you've added veterans, but dislike the fact that you've added them at positions which dont need them, which has created a logjam at center.

The cap room from Shard's contract is basilly destroyed as well, limiting the flexibility of the Wizards.

On the birghyt side however, maybe all this team needs is more vets, and it means that EG certainly expects the Wizards to be in the playoffs next season.

[tugs]

maybe your GM isn't shooting for the future but for "the now".

[BillyGM]

Draft Beal. John Wall should improve his shooting and consistency, then someone smells playoffs?

[Wiz99]

Draft Beal. John Wall should improve his shooting and consistency, then someone smells playoffs?

Or another tear-down, rebuild-from-scratch job starting in 2 years when we finally have some cap flexibility again.

Yay. What I've loved about Les Bullez for now 26 years of fandom is there's always room to grow. Hope, it's an addictive commodity.

[JonathanJoseph]

I'm still working through my thoughts on this trade, so I'm going to open up a can of worms here. The Gilbert Arenas trade was for a year and a half of useless Shard and now Okafor and Ariza. Given that the Wizards need a scoring and shooting veteran guard....

[willbcocks]

...and that Arenas was amnestied by a team that needed the same...

...I conclude that EG has been making poor decisions for a long time, but there are other gms who are just as bad.

[veji1]

Not an easy trade to assess. It is not a good trade, probably just an average one, verging on the mediocre. My read is as follows :
- The FO discussed rebuilding the Thunder way but following the McGee era debacled came to the conclusion that to be able to rebuild the Thunder/ Duncan Spurs way, you need to get a very very special founding stone, and Wall while a very good young player with high potential is not that founding stone. The risk was to fail to get good FAs to come and end up paying up for mediocre players, even after having rendered the team more palatable for FAs with Nene.
- The FO just couldn't accept paying Lewis 14 millions just to go away. It is easy to criticise, but it isn't our money. The FO decided that they wanted to get some contribution out of these 23 millions owed to Lewis.
- The FO called around the league, agents and other FOs and came to the conclusion that they couldn't get : a) FAs to sign to Wash for an acceptable price and b) deal Lewis or Blatche or both for a godd return.

All this led them to this trade. With this trade the hope is to build a team that will compete for the POs, based on a very strong defensive identity, already glimpsed at late last season. with a starting five of Wall-Beal-Ariza-Nene-Okafor, this team can be pretty sick defensively. Add to that an inside-outside BBall game around Nene and Seraphin as 6th man and you get an old school solid team that will compete for the next 2 years for the 6 to 8 spots.

Now it can backfire, but is this a bad scenario ? The hope is that that way Wall and Beal can grow as an efficient combo in a sound and savvy team, with a strong defensive identity. with that team they hope they can build enough of a "winning" culture (ie make the playoffs) that during the 2013-2014 seasons they can eithe trade some of the guy that are expiring for talent, or convince FAs to come... It makes sense. Now they probably could have gotten to that template with better trades, but it is doable. The key will be for this team to be a defensive stopper : It won't score 120 points a game, it better keep the opponents from scoring much.

[Ruzious]

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2357

There's also the question of how Ariza and Okafor fit with the Wizards. Conventional wisdom has quickly imagined Okafor and Nenê playing together in the Washington frontcourt. Consider me skeptical. Neither player has defended power forwards on a regular basis in years, and neither really has the kind of midrange game required of modern fours. If Okafor and Nenê can only play the middle, suddenly the Wizards have sunk $27 million a year into the center position.

Ariza's inefficient scoring doesn't exactly solve Washington's offensive issues, especially because he's a relative non-shooter at small forward.

While I'm not defending the trade at all, once again I disagree with a Hollinger assessment. Nene clearly... has a good mid-range game, and he played plenty of PF this past season.
Edit - That was Kevin Pelton - not Hollinger.

[MOrgil]

I hate Ernie Grunfeld.

[Ruzious]

- The FO just couldn't accept paying Lewis 14 millions just to go away. It is easy to criticise, but it isn't our money.

Why are you assuming that? It makes no sense to me. These guys may not make good basketball decisions, but they aren't stupid people.

[Earth2Ted]

What's the story with Okafor's knee? There's literally nothing out there about what the diagnosis was that made him miss half the season. Is this a Gilbert-level career-wrecking injury or was it just a case of a "tanker sore?"

If the Hornets did sit him for tanking purposes, by golly it worked.

[veji1]

- The FO just couldn't accept paying Lewis 14 millions just to go away. It is easy to criticise, but it isn't our money.

Why are you assuming that? It makes no sense to me. These guys may not make good basketball decisions, but they aren't stupid people.

I am not criticising, I am just saying that from a fan's perspective, we are prone to say "just buy out that bum and move on" or "just amnesty that guy, he isn't worth squat." On the Bulls board there is that whole "amnesty Boozer" bandwagon. But it is not our money, it is the owner's money, and I can perfectly understand that from his point of view, writing a 14 millions $ check to Lewis to play somewhere else is a bad decision. I am not criticising, but stating what I think might have just been a fact for the FO : paying Lewis 14 Millions to leave was a no go. once you have that in mind, the Trade makes a lot more sense.

[verbal8]

I was raged earlier and now I'm pretty calm. The only thing I'm upset about is that we didn't demand the #10, which would have made this an okay deal.

Agreed. I probably even could have rationalized giving up Booker to get the pick. At the very least the WIzards should have gotten Jarret Jack instead of Arizona, I mean Ariza.

At the end of the day the free agency class sucks this year, we still have assets to get another lottery pick if we want, and there will be flexibility in moving both Ariza and Okafor next off-season in what should be a better free agency class or at least a better market.

If taking on $27 million dollars in salary doesn't get a lotto pick, what does?

[verbal8]

Ugh. Danny Green is getting way overrated, I really don't understand the love for him. First of all, he played in a beautifully run offensive system with 3 great players, and a great coach. Secondly, he would cost multiple years at near MLE levels at least for a fringe starting SF.

I agree in general the pick itself is not a big deal. Ironically Danny Green was drafted with the 46th pick.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... nda02.html

[verbal8]

But, dont you think the front office went around the league to find out what they could do with that cap room? EG weighed the pros and cons and this is the best he could do right now: 2 defensive players for our trash. We got rid of trash and got 2 defensive players. I repeat, we got rid of wastage on our bench and got 2 defensive players who can play and teach!

A lot of EG's deals seem like he must not have gotten the best deal he could. If this was the best deal available, why isn't just buying Rashard Lewis out and having $7 million in cap space a better option. If Ariza is the key missing piece to this team, I am sure he would have been available in a trade for cap space.

I wouldnt be surprised if we're not done with the trades. Perhaps Blatche is going to get us a pick or a good offensive player.

If EG has a deal lined up to move Okafor or Ariza, then maybe it isn't as bad as it seems right now.

[AFM]

We are like a **** version of Chicago

[tontoz]

im on the "i like this trade" bandwagon, we can terminate okafors contract after next year so hes here for a 1 year prove it season pretty much....i

Ignorance is bliss.

[Nivek]

I'm now convinced this was a GREAT trade. The Wizards got SOMEONE who will be able to put on the uniform and play games for them next season. And maybe the season after that too! Hey, TWO SOMEONES, actually, which makes this trade double extra special awesome! And it's only going to consume what was left of the team's cap space for the next two offseasons?! Triple extra special awesomeness!

I'm psyched. I'm stoked. I'm hyped. The Wiz now have SOMEONE(S).

No other deal was possible now or in the future. No other deal would have emerged. No team would have paid the Wizards for the use of their cap space. Not possible.

Can't wait until Blatche comes back next year playing to his full potential. That will be quadruple extra special awesome!

Sucks that Ernie was extended for only two more years. Ted should give him a lifetime deal immediately. Then the Wiz would be quintuple extra special awesome forever! Just like they've been throughout Ernie's tenure at GM.

[Spence]

Good Lord, I love this place.

So, who has committed suicide so far? What's the over/under on that 'cause I want in on the over.

Remember, guys -- sports teams don't love you back so it's not a bad idea to control yourselves. Just a thought.

As far as this trade goes, I'm on the fence. [And yes, I understand what happened and what the possible alternatives are/were. The more I read on this thread the more I want to like this trade just because the people who don't like it are so insufferably arrogant and rude. "You don't hate this trade as much as I do? Well, that's because you don't understand it as well as I do." Please consider driving a hot needle through at least one of your eyeballs. Seriously, just think about it. Chew it over for a few minutes before you dismiss the idea as meaningless self-mutilation. It's not meaningless.]

I am absolutely convinced the Wiz would not be able to use that cap space to attract a difference-making free agent. Of course, they could also use it to make one-sided trades, such as this one. [Yes, this trade was one-sided, just not as one-sided as many people would like. And no, it wasn't one-sided in favor of the Hornets. It's a good deal for the Hornets but only because they have the first pick in the draft, which they got through no good works of their own. Try to remember that.] The question is whether or not the Wiz would have been able to get a better deal for that cap space than this one. I don't know the answer to that. Neither do you. Seems very possible they could have gotten a better deal, but we will never know now.

Otherwise, I'm content to see how this team plays together. I think a healthy Okafor is a nice piece to have in the front court and I love Ariza's defense. I think he rebounds his position well and runs the floor nicely and can finish at the cup. The issue as far as Ariza goes is whether or not the Wizards can keep him from playing hero-ball because he absolutely sucks at it. I don't know how many players have worse shot selection than Trevor Ariza, but the list isn't long. The Wiz have to make Ariza understand that he can be a valuable role player only if his offense is limited to finishing on fast breaks and taking open, spot-up threes.

I can't grade this trade until I see how this team plays.