theboomking wrote:The Consiglieri wrote:I disagree completely. What this team needs is elite talent. This team is the worst team in the league, the FO is part of the problem, the only way to fix the problem is to infuse the best talent humanly possible, and to change the FO. The never ending rebuild idea is a red herring. When have we ever even tried a proper rebuild? Honestly? The Jordan Wizards were a quick fix team that he took the floor for, the Grunfeld Wizards were infused with vets via trades so that he could avoid a total rebuild, they short circuited it again in '09 with that moronic trade, and of course the eighties and nineties were built entirely on avoiding anything like a rebuild and desperately trying to maintain 42 win 8 seed, 3 and out playoff runs. When was the rebuild? Now it's a forever rebuild when we've spent exactly 2 offseasons attempting it? Really?
The only way to fix the damn thing is to get elite talent. If you want your Cal Cheaney's or Guggs type mediocrities that get us to 40 wins so be it, but I know Im sick to death of the two iterations of wizards and bullets hoops and the only 2, i've ever seen: 40 win garbage that's always 1 and done in the playoffs, and bad but not bad enough 25-35 win teams that get non-difference making players, exactly the sort you sound like you want, instead of difference makers come draft day.
I'd take 0-66 this year if it meant Davis. If we are ever going to be anything ever we have to actually do it right, and get the best player with the great ceiling, the only caveat I'd add, that I imagine you'd agree with is that i want an elite high ceiling guy with a great motor and a great BBIQ, we definitely don't need anymore athletes with tiny BBIQ's and/or motor questions. If the top guy is like that, yeah, pass, but I've never ever heard Davis mentioned as anything other than a hard worker, and a hyper talented kid who is already great, the best in the draft, and who also has a high ceiling to go with his great work ethic and budding talent. Why on earth should we EVER pass on that? It would be insane. Hell, its my wizards dream that we get precisely that (or failing that, a pick high enough to get one of the top 3 talents like MKG and the like).
I agree with this 100 percent. We need an elite talent this year. Full tank. Problem is, I'm not sure how full this draft is of elite talents. Davis. Maybe Drummond. Lamb, Gilchrist, Barnes, and Thomas Robinson all look good but not elite. We can't count on getting the top pick. Even if we are the worst team in the league, we only have a 25 percent chance.
Secondarily, I feel like at some point, barrign further injury woes, we will put together a run and be better than Charlotte and Detroit. In the beginning of the year we looked like the worst team in the league. In the last 5 games, we have been competitive. We beat the best team in the league, and should have beaten a very good Denver team. Look at the point differential over the last 5 games. It's night and day different from the beginning of the season.
I agree on half your points. I definitely agree that we could be screwed in terms of the lottery, indeed the odds say we're more likely to be screwed then not as does history. I dont think we have much of a clear idea of how things will go in terms of elite talent though. Not really sure, it does appear that Davis is the only guy with elite stud potential right now (Sure Drummond has that too, but he also has a ton of knocks for now, and too many of the sort to garner my interest), of the remaining guys I am intrigued a great deal by what Kidd-Gilchrist could become, at why Thomas Robinson is only getting it now, and at how Perry Jones could become an alpha dog and thereby become a franchise player, or is forever fated to be no better than a beta. I agree that every other guy i can possibly look at does not appear to have franchise player potential. No on Sully, not a high enough ceiling, no on Barnes, too complementary of a player, no on any of the other guys. So it's basically Davis, who appears to be a sure thing, Perry Jones, who is the penultimate boom or bust (and i think the majority of us believe bust), Drummond (why isn't he impacting the games?), Kidd-Gilchrist whose offensive game needs work but whose BBIQ, defense and work ethic appears peerless, and Thomas Robinson whose putting it ALL together now, but to what extent shoudl we credit a junior for dominating kids when he couldn't do the same when he was a kid? As it is, I like Robinson a lot, but am skeptical of the potential epic ceiling some see.
So to me, there's probably 3-5 guys who could be elite to me and an absolute ton of Very very very good prospects (if they all were to declare, I'd imagine that this draft 5-15 looks like a lot of drafts in the 4--8 zone), which is why i crave a trade for a pick in the teens.
I don't think we have that run in us that you suggest. I do see, and am alarmed at the more recent pythagorean type stats with our losses, it does feel like we're starting to get better, but with the schedule as insane and inane as it is, the possibility of a great run strikes me as unlikely, too much of the schedule piles in back to backers, or balances them with days off which will equally work to kill momentum. However, what about another heartbreaking, lottery ball killing win in April? Is there another opportunity for that? Yep. There is, which is infuriating. Down the stretch, in the last 15% of the schedule we have 5 of our last 10 against Charlotte (home and away), Cleveland (home and away) and Milwaukee (home), meanwhile we get Miami twice in the last 4 games including the finale, would they be resting guys? That last day its highly possible. Uggh. So I could see it RIGHT there, and looking at the schedule and the rest days and what not, it really looks like we're gonna be looking at a 14-52, or 15-51 final record, in the end though, I suspect we will be dueling with Charlotte, Detroit, and maybe New Orleans in some Monty Python-esque skit analogous to the killer rabbit scene at the end of the holy grail. It's that bad.
As long as we finish bottom 2, I'm satisfied, in the end as I suspect there will be 4-6 guys that could really, really, really help us-Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, then fall backs with Robinson, Drummond (traded I'd hope) or my ultimate fallbacks Sully, Barnes, and errr Jones III (I know, I know, he's an asset or a pick we could move, and I almost certainly would barring an interview/psyche test to find out what the hell his deal is, turning ridiculous elite, jump out the gym talent into ho hum-3rd or 4th best guy on the night, any night, talent).