Countdown to Ernie Grunfeld Firing

[hands11]

Ahh. I see where you are drawling the line now.

3 years of Gil under EJ vs almost 2 years of Wall under Randy.

I was comparing Walls first 3 years in the league vs Gils.

Anyway, water under the bridge. Gil is gone. And as bad as that all ended, they seem to have recovered pretty well. It could have been a lot uglier. Wall/Beal are the new face of the franchise and things are looking brighter. I trust this rebuild under Ted/EG more than I did the last one that I felt would fizzle out.

Should be a fun year. Wish BB season started Oct 1 instead.

[payitforward]

don't use a crystal ball Zards. I use what the guy has actually done.... Rivers has been awful...

One year of college ball and a little more than a half season of pro ball is far to small of a sample to make a final call on a young guy's career...

But not too small to say w/ confidence (not even an "I think" involved) that he will (not "may" -- will!) be good.

On the other hand... I wish him well!

[payitforward]

I'm all for bashing EG when warranted, but your reflexive bashing of him on every conceivable decision or non-decision gets tiresome.

Yeah, but that's when it's warranted.

Do you think if we get to a season where we actually win 30 or more games, maybe we can look w/ favor on his decisions. To me it's the decade plus of failure that "gets tiresome."

[Kanyewest]

I'm all for bashing EG when warranted, but your reflexive bashing of him on every conceivable decision or non-decision gets tiresome.

Yeah, but that's when it's warranted.

Do you think if we get to a season where we actually win 30 or more games, maybe we can look w/ favor on his decisions. To me it's the decade plus of failure that "gets tiresome."

The sad thing is that EG's past 10 seasons is an upgrade to what the Wizards went through for the previous 10-15 seasons before EG arrived.

[closg00]

Shout-out to Nate since the last article was so bad, this one is better
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1742 ... unfeld-era

[nate33]

Shout-out to Nate since the last article was so bad, this one is better
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1742 ... unfeld-era

That one was better. For those who don't feel like clicking the link, he ranked EG's 5 worst decisions as follows:

5. Extending Blatche
4. Lewis for Okariza
3. Drafting Jan Vesely
2. Trading #5 pick for Miller and Foye
1. Resigning Gilbert Arenas

While these all turned out to be pretty bad moves, I think some of them are being unfairly evaluated with 20/20 hindsight. Grunfeld didn't really have a choice with Arenas. He was clearly a franchise caliber player and deserved a contract in the ball park of what he was ultimately offered. Golden State was going to offer him a max deal. Imagine how much Grunfeld would have been lambasted if he let Arenas walk and Arenas went on to have another 2 or 3 years at roughly the same level as his last 4 years in Washington. How was EG supposed to predict that he would never recover from the knee injury?

I also think the Blatche extension made sense at the time. Blatche was playing really well and the decision to extend him was a clever way of paying him more now and less in the future to pave the way to add even more talent to a young, developing team. I suppose one can argue that EG should have foreseen Blatche's lazy tendencies and never locked him up to such a long term deal.

I'd rank his 5 worst decisions as follows:

1. #5 for Miller/Foye.
2. Drafting Jan Vesely.
3. Drafting Singleton instead of Faried with the #17.
4. Lewis for Okariza (this one is looking less bad because of Okafor's culture-changing leadership in the locker room)
5. Daniels and future 1st for Crittenton.

[Dat2U]

Ernie's biggest transgressions.

1. #5 for Miller/Foye

2. Re-sigining Gilbert. The reason why I can't cut slack on Ernie for this move... Gil's left leg at this point had atrophied. It was insane that he managed to play two games on it before the year ended. Gil admitted after he signed that the Wizards knew his knee was in bad shape (something us fans didn't know) and offered him a max contract anyways. I don't what Ernie was hoping for... Prayer?

3. Blowing the entire 2011 draft. (#6 Vesely, #18 Singleton & #34 Mack)

4. Lewis & 2nd rd'er for Okafor/Ariza. Sorry, but leadership doesn't cost $40 mil, except in Ernie's world. Leadership isn't worth the opportunity cost (cough, Harden, cough) so we can go all in for mediocrity. Winning 29 games after making the deal doesn't make things better either.

6. Extending Blatche when he had two years left @ $3 mil each. I can't cut Ernie slack for this either because he knew the type of character Blatche was, he saw him everyday. Blatche had a rep of being a dog for years prior to getting this extension.

7. Trading Stackhouse/Laettner & 5th for Jamison. Short-circuited a rebuilding effort to become 1st round fodder for the Cavs for the next few seasons while paying Jamison $14 mil a year to half ass on defense. Imagine had we kept the lottery pick, let Stack & Laettner expire the following season and added another decent pick the following year along with having significant cap room.

8. Trading Daniels & protected Memphis 1st rounder for James & Crittenton. This is back when Ernie didn't care about what type of character a player had, lol. Gun gate doesn't happen without this trade.

9. Hiring Flip Saunders. Was a terrible fit from the beginning and a very uninspiring hire.

10. Trading multiple 2nd rd'ers for cash so we can have enough money to sign scrubs that can't play.

Honorable mention

1. McGee for Nene. I understand trading McGee, but not for a guy with bad wheels. We would have been better off letting McGee go in FA.
2. Resigning DeShawn Stevenson
3. Not trading Jordan Crawford until the situation got untenable.


Looking into the future

1. Drafting Porter over Noel. Hopefully this doesn't look bad 2 years from now.

[nate33]

2. Re-sigining Gilbert. The reason why I can't cut slack on Ernie for this move... Gil's left leg at this point had atrophied. It was insane that he managed to play two games on it before the year ended. Gil admitted after he signed that the Wizards knew his knee was in bad shape (something us fans didn't know) and offered him a max contract anyways. I don't what Ernie was hoping for... Prayer?

I guess it all depends on what exactly EG knew at the time. I'm not sure I believe Gil when he talked about his knee because you can never believe what Gil says in an interview. If Gil and the doctors were telling EG that Gil would never return to form, then, yes, this was a huge blunder. I just doubt it went down that way.

4. Lewis & 2nd rd'er for Okafor/Ariza. Sorry, but leadership doesn't cost $40 mil, except in Ernie's world. Leadership isn't worth the opportunity cost (cough, Harden, cough) so we can go all in for mediocrity. Winning 29 games after making the deal doesn't make things better either.

When you put Harden into the equation, then, yes, this is a really awful blunder. When I was thinking about opportunity cost, I was thinking more of Ryan Anderson and the chance to tank another year. With tanking not an issue thanks to lottery luck, I think the leadership of Okafor comes close to compensating for the loss of Ryan Anderson. (I'd still prefer Ryan Anderson, but I no longer view the trade as disastrous. After all, Okafor will still be gone in a year and we will still have cap room, cap room that wouldn't be available if Anderson was under contract.)

7. Trading Stackhouse/Laettner & 5th for Jamison. Short-circuited a rebuilding effort to become 1st round fodder for the Cavs for the next few seasons while paying Jamison $14 mil a year to half ass on defense. Imagine had we kept the lottery pick, let Stack & Laettner expire the following season and added another decent pick the following year along with having significant cap room.

Forgot about this one. Basically, we traded Luol Deng (or Iguadola) for Jamison. While that sounds pretty bad because of the age difference, I'm not sure we'd be all that much better off over those 6 Jamison years with Deng or Iguodala in place of Jamison. And once Deng and Iggy signed their new contracts, their value diminished further. Also bear in mind that we already didn't have our 1st round pick the following year, so tanking with Deng/Iggy as a starter wouldn't have helped us add talent. Overall, I agree it was a bad move, but I'm not convinced that the consequences were all that disastrous.

1. Drafting Porter over Noel. Hopefully this doesn't look bad 2 years from now.

Yeah. I'm really worried about this.

[Dat2U]

I guess it all depends on what exactly EG knew at the time. I'm not sure I believe Gil when he talked about his knee because you can never believe what Gil says in an interview. If Gil and the doctors were telling EG that Gil would never return to form, then, yes, this was a huge blunder. I just doubt it went down that way.

Very true about Gil saying anything.... but the atrophied leg was very real and it's stunning that he was medically cleared to play 2 games near the end of the season before he signed his new deal. His leg was in really bad shape and he had no business suiting up to play. It may have been Nivek that told this story. (i can't quite remember for certain tho).

When you put Harden into the equation, then, yes, this is a really awful blunder. When I was thinking about opportunity cost, I was thinking more of Ryan Anderson and the chance to tank another year. With tanking not an issue thanks to lottery luck, I think the leadership of Okafor comes close to compensating for the loss of Ryan Anderson. (I'd still prefer Ryan Anderson, but I no longer view the trade as disastrous. After all, Okafor will still be gone in a year and we will still have cap room, cap room that wouldn't be available if Anderson was under contract.)

Anderson makes it excusable, Harden was inexcusable. Thing is we could have had both Harden & Anderson.

But IMO the worst part of the deal was the timing. It was inexcusable to make the deal so early before the draft. There was talk about NO willing to include the 10th pick to move Okafor & Ariza but we never gave NO a chance to get desperate. And the opportunity costs go beyond free agency such as the ability to make lopsided deals talent & salary wise.

But thank goodness we got leadership, because apparently the only way to get it is to overpay out the ass for it like we did with Jamison & now Okafor.

Forgot about this one. Basically, we traded Luol Deng (or Iguadola) for Jamison. While that sounds pretty bad because of the age difference, I'm not sure we'd be all that much better off over those 6 Jamison years with Deng or Iguodala in place of Jamison. And once Deng and Iggy signed their new contracts, their value diminished further. Also bear in mind that we already didn't have our 1st round pick the following year, so tanking with Deng/Iggy as a starter wouldn't have helped us add talent. Overall, I agree it was a bad move, but I'm not convinced that the consequences were all that disastrous.

Difference b/w Deng/Iggy & Jamison is not just age but defense & salary. You would have had a two way player on a rookie deal vs. a one way player making $14mil. That's a pretty significant difference and we would have at least had the cap room to add more talent.

[Upper Decker]

Looking into the future

1. Drafting Porter over Noel. Hopefully this doesn't look bad 2 years from now.

I see no scenario's where Porter over Noel works out better for the Wizards. The rational was that "Porter is the most NBA ready player". If that's the case then he should have dominated summer league. As an NBA ready top 3 pick he looked scared, unathletic, and overmatched physically. Summer league aside I never really cared for Porter to begin with, but W/E. All indications are that he'll need time and won't contribute right away. We'll guess what? That's the same excuse used for passing on Noel.

Noel's floor projects to have an equal impact to Porters ceiling. Worst case scenario with Noel is he's Birdman. Best cast scenario for Porter IMO is Tayshawn Prince. Both of those players have roughly equal impact.

[Nivek]

I agree with nate on the Arenas re-signing. The injury Arenas had was one that MANY athletes had recovered from and returned to very high performance levels. And Golden State was offering Arenas a maximum contract.

My view on that would change, of course, if Grunfeld knew the condition of Arenas' knee was as bad as it turned out to be. That would be cataclysmic incompetence, and I have a tough time believing that -- even of Grunfeld.

That said, the bigger issue is the one Dat alluded to -- the team's supervision of the rehab and clearing Arenas to play when his leg muscles were weak. I don't remember who reported the story either, but it was a damning indictment of the team's medical/training staff, and of the front office's lack of supervision and oversight.

I thought the Blatche extension was a bad one at the time it was signed because it was so premature. Blatche hadn't played well for more than a few weeks, and he still had 2 years left on his previous contract. Blatche wasn't getting paid more immediately -- he had to wait until the contract he'd already signed had expired. To me at the time, I didn't think Blatche had played well enough for long enough to warrant giving him a NEW contract extension when there were still two years left on his existing deal.

As it turned out, the team actually amnestied him before the extension even began.

[Kanyewest]

7. Trading Stackhouse/Laettner & 5th for Jamison. Short-circuited a rebuilding effort to become 1st round fodder for the Cavs for the next few seasons while paying Jamison $14 mil a year to half ass on defense. Imagine had we kept the lottery pick, let Stack & Laettner expire the following season and added another decent pick the following year along with having significant cap room.

IIRC- the Wizards were going to lose lottery protection on that pick the following season because they traded a future first for Brendan Haywood in 2001 NBA Draft. I thought they should have taken Iggy back then though.

[doclinkin]

7. Trading Stackhouse/Laettner & 5th for Jamison. Short-circuited a rebuilding effort to become 1st round fodder for the Cavs for the next few seasons while paying Jamison $14 mil a year to half ass on defense. Imagine had we kept the lottery pick, let Stack & Laettner expire the following season and added another decent pick the following year along with having significant cap room.

Forgot about this one. Basically, we traded Luol Deng (or Iguadola) for Jamison. While that sounds pretty bad because of the age difference, I'm not sure we'd be all that much better off over those 6 Jamison years with Deng or Iguodala in place of Jamison. And once Deng and Iggy signed their new contracts, their value diminished further. Also bear in mind that we already didn't have our 1st round pick the following year, so tanking with Deng/Iggy as a starter wouldn't have helped us add talent. Overall, I agree it was a bad move, but I'm not convinced that the consequences were all that disastrous.

I really liked Iggy as a prospective tandem with Arenas. Solid ast/to ratio, strong defender, alley-oop threat, his 3pt% was no great shakes but an upgrade to Larry Hughes in a similar role. Yes Jamison's range on this team showed the league the utility of having a stretch 4 in the no-handcheck era. Stat geeks noted how much more efficient our team was when he was on the floor even when his shot was not falling.

But Iggy would have made defense a trademark of this team, adding the steals that Hughes displayed along with improved rebounding and actually good defense at 2/3 positions. He would have patched over some of Arenas' flaws in this regard. Meanwhile Hughes was entering the final year of his contract and the writing was on the wall that he might take a bigger deal and go.

Iggy was my pick that year.

[payitforward]

Shout-out to Nate since the last article was so bad, this one is better
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1742 ... unfeld-era

I was critical of the Okariza trade, and I remain critical of it, but this:

The Wizards on the other hand, added a $46 million-dollar tandem that has still a few more years before expiring. Ariza has been miserable in his short time with the Wizards, as Martell Webster and Chris Singleton have taken his minutes.

Okafor was a decent player for the Wizards last year but not good enough to warrant this trade.

is incorrect. Ariza was not "miserable". He was very vey good -- and he certainly didn't lose minutes to Singleton! Okafor had his best season in years. He was outstanding.

And this:

Instead, they are trying to be a championship contender with a very young team.

is obviously incorrect.

[payitforward]

The Bleacher Report followed up with:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1743 ... t-10-years

They're not right about everything in either of these articles. But they're right about a lot -- and certainly enough that we shouldn't even be talking about Ernie Grunfield as the Wizards' GM.

[payitforward]

Why don't we list Ernie's 10 best moves as Wizards GM. Some of them were draft picks you could label "default" -- i.e. any GM would likely have made the same pick. In no particular order:

A. Traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler.
B. Picked John Wall (one of those "default" moves -- he was everybody's #1 pick that year. Moreover, only a lucky lottery draw made it possible)
C. Picked Bradley Beal #3 (ditto: a "default" pick)
D. Picked Andray Blatche @ #49 in 2005 (I rank this a good decision based on talent that far down the draft. At the same time, note that both Amir Johnson and Marcin Gortat, much better players, were still on the board.)
E. Picked Dominic McGuire @ #4 in 2007 (as above -- tho in this case it was Marc Gasol and Ramon Sessions who were still on the board)
F. Signed Gilbert Arenas as a free agent (his best move obviously)
G. Acquired Larry Hughes? (I'm not remembering how this happened: FA signing?)
H. Got rid of Larry Hughes? (Larry never had another good season. However, I don't remember the deal whereby he went to the Cavs)
I. Traded the rights to Veeremenko for (in effect) a #17 pick in 2010, a #18 pick in 2011, and Jordan Crawford (this was great work, but unfortunately Seraphin hasn't worked out, Singleton is awful and we waited to trade Crawford until he had no value. So, the overall effect of the 2-part move by Ernie is nil)

Not much. And the results demonstrate the fact.

Someone have a better list? And a list in order of how good?

[montestewart]

EG inherited Hughes, and I think the just let him walk rather than matching, don't recall any traded pieces.

I thought the original signing of DS was OK. The resigning was pretty bad. I'm hoping the Webster saga works out better and merits inclusion on this list.

[Kanyewest]

Why don't we list Ernie's 10 best moves as Wizards GM. Some of them were draft picks you could label "default" -- i.e. any GM would likely have made the same pick. In no particular order:

A. Traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler.
B. Picked John Wall (one of those "default" moves -- he was everybody's #1 pick that year. Moreover, only a lucky lottery draw made it possible)
C. Picked Bradley Beal #3 (ditto: a "default" pick)
D. Picked Andray Blatche @ #49 in 2005 (I rank this a good decision based on talent that far down the draft. At the same time, note that both Amir Johnson and Marcin Gortat, much better players, were still on the board.)
E. Picked Dominic McGuire @ #4 in 2007 (as above -- tho in this case it was Marc Gasol and Ramon Sessions who were still on the board)
F. Signed Gilbert Arenas as a free agent (his best move obviously)
G. Acquired Larry Hughes? (I'm not remembering how this happened: FA signing?)
H. Got rid of Larry Hughes? (Larry never had another good season. However, I don't remember the deal whereby he went to the Cavs)
I. Traded the rights to Veeremenko for (in effect) a #17 pick in 2010, a #18 pick in 2011, and Jordan Crawford (this was great work, but unfortunately Seraphin hasn't worked out, Singleton is awful and we waited to trade Crawford until he had no value. So, the overall effect of the 2-part move by Ernie is nil)

Not much. And the results demonstrate the fact.

Someone have a better list? And a list in order of how good?

I would put the Hinrich trades on both ends although the results of the draft haven't been anything special (Seraphin/Singleton/Crawford).

[closg00]

Why don't we list Ernie's 10 best moves as Wizards GM. Some of them were draft picks you could label "default" -- i.e. any GM would likely have made the same pick.

Good Idea PIF, the pickin's are truly slim when you toss-out the Wall & Beal picks, I only could come-up with a top-7 (In no particular order)

1. Trading Kwame Brown for Caron Butler
2. Andray Blatche @ #49
3. Signed Gilbert Arenas as a free agent
4. Naming Tom Thibodeau assistant coach.
5. Brendan Haywood contract extension (good value).
6. Traded center Jahidi White to the Phoenix Suns for guard Brevin Knight.
7. Letting Larry Hughes walk.

[colts18]

Good Idea PIF, the pickin's are truly slim when you toss-out the Wall & Beal picks, I only could come-up with a top-7 (In no particular order)

1. Trading Kwame Brown for Caron Butler
2. Andray Blatche @ #49
3. Signed Gilbert Arenas as a free agent
4. Naming Tom Thibodeau assistant coach.
5. Brendan Haywood contract extension (good value).
6. Traded center Jahidi White to the Phoenix Suns for guard Brevin Knight.
7. Letting Larry Hughes walk.

Why wasn't Thibodeau ever considered for the coaching job here?