The Amazingly Suck Theodore Leonsis Thread

[Silvie Lysandra]

Marketing and hype are easy.
Organization-building and personnel building are hard. It takes pretty much zero effort for Ted to keep Ernie and tread water.

[mohammed10]

Leonsis may be afflicted by the same delusion that many business leaders are.

The idea that management structures, vision and leadership have more to do with an organizations success than the talent and desire of the people that actually carry out the work.

Winning basketball games starts with talent and when the decision makers continually demonstrate that they fail to evaluate, attract and develop capable players you get the Washington Wizards.

Leonsis idea of success isn't to win a championship, it's to create the air of competitiveness so that the casual fans/suckers continue to line his pockets.

Leonsis would rather be mediocre, than taking the risk that a shot of greatness may net him yet another Jagr/Bondra sized disaster.

It's the lesson he's learned as a Capitals owner, and he'll continue to carry on that tradition of almost winning for as long as he control his monumentally average sports conglomerate.

**** me, I'd rather have the owner that dares to be great while falling flat on his face than see this farce carried on for yet another decade.

Excellent analysis, QR.

HOF post nominee...

[hands11]

While some of that may be true and EG has blown assets, I can understand the desire of Ted to get back to neutral after what happen with Gil and then the Wall, Beal, etc. injuries last year.

Not saying its what I would have done in total, specially drafting but I can understand generally what Ted is trying to do by wanting to mix vets like Nene, Trevor A, Webster and now Gortat to Wall and Beal and get ride of any stink that was here.. paying a ton to make Dray go away.

Hell, look at Cleveland. They had even more draft picks and that franchise actually had a title contender not long ago so they weren't starting from beyond rock bottom like the Wizards. And most years people liked their draft picks and they still are a bad team looking to get its leadership and locker room right. Its not like they don't have young talent. But young talent isn't enough. That's why they added Deng and over paid for Jarrett Jack.

So Ted was a new owner of another sports team and now he had the Wizards. Dump players and tank for picks. Clean out old roster and start new. Get Wall franchise player. Get Beal as his Robin ... clean character young man. Put enough vets around them to help them develop and get to the playoffs to develop and learn what it really takes so they can stand on their own as the vet leaders one day. Fix franchise image from crap to ok or good. Lock in Wall long term and attract better FAs. Let EG who he knows is at least an average GM do it for 2 years while he evaluates him as things get better so he has better GM options as EGs contract expires.

I could see why Ted would take that approach. Things haven't gone perfectly and we all wanted different draft picks and trades but being at .500 going into the AS break isn't a terrible thing nor does it have to be where they stop. It can get better from here even with what they have. It can also get worse. They have been pretty healthy this year. An injury to the wrong player and things could go South. Or, pick up the right player and have Wall and Beal continue to develop and things could get better this year.

I say the Lion's share of this story is still a head of them with big decisions to make. If they land a good GM this offseason I think people will feel better about the future. If they don't, they won't. Really kind of comes down to that. EG would be smart to walk away/retire on a high note with the spin, I got them from Gungate to playoffs once Ted took over. Then Ted doesn't have to fire him. Its a win win and it puts EG in a better light for whatever he does moving forward.

Its all about who is the GM next year. Ted sucking or not short term has everything to do with that.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Hands. You are right about how sending EG packing this summer would be a good thing.

The problem is, Ted has owned two sports franchises for roughly a collective 18 years and has yet to change GMs.

There is literally nothing in his history which suggests he is prepared to make a move.

I get it. Firing people is hard. I've had to do it on multiple occasions and it is about the crummiest thing you ever have to do.

In each case, however, I've looked back in time at the decision and realized the extent to which a grossly underperforming employee had been hurting morale and productivity.

Ted's inaction is turning off would be fans, killing us long time Bullets supporters and, no doubt, causing him to lose good people inside the organization.

I really hope you are right. But I'm skeptical.

[Zonkerbl]

Based on where I sit, Ted is doing the right things.

The most important leadership quality is integrity. If he says he's not going to fire you until he has a chance to evaluate you, that's what he does. He doesn't change his mind and say, you know what EG, screw you, you're fired. Next time he might not paint himself in a corner by not promising anything, but he's sticking to his guns.

He gives his employees a roadmap of where he wants to go and gives them some time to prove they are following it. EG is, allegedly, doing what Ted wants.

The real test of Ted as an owner comes after this season is over. From my perspective, there are a number of things EG has done wrong that are fireable offenses.

The most egregious is that EG apparently is pooh-poohing Ted's mandate to look at advanced statistics. A lot of the mistakes EG has made -- Maynor signing, failure to draft Jae Crowder, Kenneth Faried, Dejuan Blair, whatsisname -- Wolton? Worton? Wolters? EG has made a lot of PREDICTABLE mistakes. He has failed to maximize value from the draft in a COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE WAY. If only he had done what Ted asked and used advanced statistics. He also mismanaged the Blatche situation (arguably) and definitely mismanaged the Jordan Crawford situation. These avoidable mistakes are why we are not currently a 50 win team, whose roster goes 12 deep, with dreams of competing for the championship.

If Ted is true to his word that his ultimate goal is to win a championship, then he cannot continue to employ EG after this season. EG makes too many avoidable mistakes. Either he ignores relevant evidence (draft record) or when he does make a good choice (acquires Jordan Crawford, drafts Andray Blatche, hires Thibodeau), he doesn't have the management skills to manage those assets effectively. EG is a smart guy but an arrogant one who thinks he's too smart to listen to his advanced statistics guy and can't manage personalities like EJ and Blatche and Crawford. He just doesn't have the people skills necessary to succeed at his job.

[tontoz]

Hands. You are right about how sending EG packing this summer would be a good thing.

The problem is, Ted has owned two sports franchises for roughly a collective 18 years and has yet to change GMs.

There is literally nothing in his history which suggests he is prepared to make a move.

I get it. Firing people is hard. I've had to do it on multiple occasions and it is about the crummiest thing you ever have to do.

In each case, however, I've looked back in time at the decision and realized the extent to which a grossly underperforming employee had been hurting morale and productivity.

Ted's inaction is turning off would be fans, killing us long time Bullets supporters and, no doubt, causing him to lose good people inside the organization.

I really hope you are right. But I'm skeptical.

Teds situation is easier than yours though. He doesn't have to fire EG. All he has to do is not give him another contract.

Point taken though

[Nivek]

Agree completely, long suffrin'. I had to fire someone once, and it was agonizing. It bothered me for weeks. Honestly, it STILL bothers me, and I know for rock-solid certain that it was the right thing to do.

But, let's look at this notion of letting Grunfeld finish out his contract, and THEN replacing him with Someone Else. To me, that would be a pretty damning indictment of Leonsis as the owner/CEO of the Wizards. Because that would mean that Leonsis left in place (and permitted to make decisions and roster moves) a guy he ultimately deemed not the right person to lead the team into the future.

I guess, what I'm wondering is this: What exactly will Leonsis learn about the kind of executive Grunfeld is based on the next 32-39 games? What will he know about Grunfeld by June that he hasn't learned watching Grunfeld run the team for the past decade?

[Upper Decker]

Nivek, I think part of what makes firing someone so agonizing in the "real world" is that you know their livelihood depends on the job you just canned them from. I'd say a majority of working folks don't have the financial wherewithal to be without work for an extended period of time. Making the decision to put someone in that position is especially gut-wrenching.

I'd say there are other factors too, but I've found this to be most troubling when I've been placed in these situations. That said, EG is set for life financially and has a fortune that would take most people several lifetimes to earn. The biggest real world element of Ted firing EG is eliminated. Ted can fire EG and know for certain sustaining life will never be questioned.

Therefore, Ted is an even bigger coward than most people because firing EG is strictly an issue of being too scared to confront someone and say, "you're doing a **** job, you're fired." What this tells me if Ted just doesn't care about results. He cares about cheap manageable employees who are "yes, sir / no, sir" people. Plain and simple. I see no possible way this franchise become a true contender unless they somehow luck into landing a generational type player, ala Hakeem, Jordan, Duncan, or Lebron.

[Dat2U]

Leonsis may be afflicted by the same delusion that many business leaders are.

The idea that management structures, vision and leadership have more to do with an organizations success than the talent and desire of the people that actually carry out the work.

Winning basketball games starts with talent and when the decision makers continually demonstrate that they fail to evaluate, attract and develop capable players you get the Washington Wizards.

Leonsis idea of success isn't to win a championship, it's to create the air of competitiveness so that the casual fans/suckers continue to line his pockets.

Leonsis would rather be mediocre, than taking the risk that a shot of greatness may net him yet another Jagr/Bondra sized disaster.

It's the lesson he's learned as a Capitals owner, and he'll continue to carry on that tradition of almost winning for as long as he control his monumentally average sports conglomerate.

**** me, I'd rather have the owner that dares to be great while falling flat on his face than see this farce carried on for yet another decade.

Exactly, after the bar has been set so low for so many years, being mediocre is something that's new and exciting. An actual NBA playoff game? That's rare event in DC lately. Outside of us die-hard, most will welcome competitiveness with open arms. The fan base isn't seasoned with success enough to really be upset with status quo. Grunfeld doesn't have many fans, but most appear willing to live with him as long as were competitive. There's probably only 5%-10% of the fan base that truly despise Grunfeld to the point the many on this board despise him.

So for now it appears Ted gets his cake and eats it too... and Ernie & Witt will probably both get 2 year extensions.

[hands11]

Hands. You are right about how sending EG packing this summer would be a good thing.

The problem is, Ted has owned two sports franchises for roughly a collective 18 years and has yet to change GMs.

There is literally nothing in his history which suggests he is prepared to make a move.

I get it. Firing people is hard. I've had to do it on multiple occasions and it is about the crummiest thing you ever have to do.

In each case, however, I've looked back in time at the decision and realized the extent to which a grossly underperforming employee had been hurting morale and productivity.

Ted's inaction is turning off would be fans, killing us long time Bullets supporters and, no doubt, causing him to lose good people inside the organization.

I really hope you are right. But I'm skeptical.

Then odds are he is due, right ? Besides. If he was all in for EG, why not sign him longer ?

I'm just evaluating what he did here since I don't know the first thing about the contracts he has done with GM for the caps. Are you saying the Caps have had the same GM for 18 years ?

Ted could have signed EG for anything from 2-5 years. 1 year wasn't really a viable option. 2 years was the min and that is what he did. Hard to call that a great vote on supreme confidence. 3 or more years would have been a sign that he was more committed. Two years isn't. Wiz were two years into a blow up rebuild with a top 3 pick in their pock and Beal on the board. Change boats mid stream or do a short two year deal with EG ? The two year deal was a reasonable option.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A walk down memory lane.. Hitting the high points.

Oct 29, 2009
The Washington Wizards exercised their Team Option JaVale McGee and Nick Young.

Nov 24, 2009 Abe passed

January 7, 2010
Gilbert suspended indefinitely by NBA for guns in the locker-room.

February 14, 2010
The Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks have completed a seven-player trade that launches Washington's long-anticipated rebuilding project in earnest and sends Wizards mainstays Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood to the Mavericks. Butler, Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson to Dallas for Josh Howard and Drew Gooden. Mavericks reserves Quinton Ross and James Singleton

Feb 18, 2010
Cleveland sends Zydrunas Ilgauskas and his expiring $11.5 million contract to Washington. Washington also gets a 2010 first-round draft pick from Cleveland along with the rights to Emir Preldzic, who was selected in the second round of last year's draft. The Wizards receive Al Thornton from the Clippers, with L.A. getting forward Drew Gooden, whom Washington acquired in last week's trade with Dallas. Besides Jamison, Cleveland also will acquire Clippers guard Sebastian Telfair.

June/July 2010 - Ted takes over

June/July 2010 - Wiz draft Wall, Booker, Kevin
Dec 18, 2010 - Trade Gilberts toxic 1 billion dollar contract for Lewis's 1 yr shorter contract

July 2011 - the draft that shell not be mentioned.
Nov, 2011 - NBA lock out from November 1 to December 25 - no summer camps or preseason

Jan 24, 2012 - Saunders fired
Mar 15, 2012 - Trade McGee/Young expiring for Nene
Jun 20, 2012 - Lewis expiring for OkaRiza. Add talent and breaks up 1 big contract for 2 smaller ones.

Apr 24 2012 - Extending EG for two years.
Jun 28, 2012 - Wizards draft Bradley Beal

[Zonkerbl]

Agree completely, long suffrin'. I had to fire someone once, and it was agonizing. It bothered me for weeks. Honestly, it STILL bothers me, and I know for rock-solid certain that it was the right thing to do.

But, let's look at this notion of letting Grunfeld finish out his contract, and THEN replacing him with Someone Else. To me, that would be a pretty damning indictment of Leonsis as the owner/CEO of the Wizards. Because that would mean that Leonsis left in place (and permitted to make decisions and roster moves) a guy he ultimately deemed not the right person to lead the team into the future.

I guess, what I'm wondering is this: What exactly will Leonsis learn about the kind of executive Grunfeld is based on the next 32-39 games? What will he know about Grunfeld by June that he hasn't learned watching Grunfeld run the team for the past decade?

I love how we are having a heated argument about whether we should fire Grunfeld now or wait until the end of the season.

Too late too fire him now, right before the trade deadline. After the deadline you might as well wait until after the playoffs.

Will be really interesting if EG gets an extension.

[Nivek]

And, after the playoffs, well Grunfeld will have achieved The Mandate since it's borderline impossible for this team to miss the playoffs in this conference. So, really he'll DESERVE an extension because he accomplished The Goal his boss laid out for him.

GM for life.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Ted and Ernie are IMO friends who have much in common. They are both from New York, both from immigrant parents. I do not see any way that Leonsis parts on bad terms with Grunfeld.

I predict that Ernie Grunfeld will be extended. Perhaps Ted will create a new position, and EG is "promoted" to oversee the Wizards next GM. All I think will happen is EG stays and Randy gets a new deal, but is fired next season.

As long as Ted Leonsis owns the Wizards, they will not be a good team capable of contending for a championship.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[hands11]

Based on where I sit, Ted is doing the right things.

The most important leadership quality is integrity. If he says he's not going to fire you until he has a chance to evaluate you, that's what he does. He doesn't change his mind and say, you know what EG, screw you, you're fired. Next time he might not paint himself in a corner by not promising anything, but he's sticking to his guns.

He gives his employees a roadmap of where he wants to go and gives them some time to prove they are following it. EG is, allegedly, doing what Ted wants.

The real test of Ted as an owner comes after this season is over. From my perspective, there are a number of things EG has done wrong that are fireable offenses.

The most egregious is that EG apparently is pooh-poohing Ted's mandate to look at advanced statistics. A lot of the mistakes EG has made -- Maynor signing, failure to draft Jae Crowder, Kenneth Faried, Dejuan Blair, whatsisname -- Wolton? Worton? Wolters? EG has made a lot of PREDICTABLE mistakes. He has failed to maximize value from the draft in a COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE WAY. If only he had done what Ted asked and used advanced statistics. He also mismanaged the Blatche situation (arguably) and definitely mismanaged the Jordan Crawford situation. These avoidable mistakes are why we are not currently a 50 win team, whose roster goes 12 deep, with dreams of competing for the championship.

If Ted is true to his word that his ultimate goal is to win a championship, then he cannot continue to employ EG after this season. EG makes too many avoidable mistakes. Either he ignores relevant evidence (draft record) or when he does make a good choice (acquires Jordan Crawford, drafts Andray Blatche, hires Thibodeau), he doesn't have the management skills to manage those assets effectively. EG is a smart guy but an arrogant one who thinks he's too smart to listen to his advanced statistics guy and can't manage personalities like EJ and Blatche and Crawford. He just doesn't have the people skills necessary to succeed at his job.

This is pretty close to my take on things. Just a few tweaks.

Thib wasn't hired. EG tried to bring him here but the Abe/EFJ thing was to toxic
Not sure what to say about managing EFJ. Hard to do when the owner hired him and had his back
As for managing players. That partly a GMs job but isn't that mostly on the coach ? See EFJ

But yeah, even making the playoffs this year shouldn't gloss over the numerous bad moves. Specially this PG debacle. This has been going on since the 2011 season. Just blowing it one move after another. Never playing Crawford at PG. Spending all 2012 summer wasting time on Price, Pargo and Mack only to dump all of them, get nothing for Crawford who played PG fine for Boston, to signing Maynor.. missing on Beno, letting Kendall leave while paying him 2M, so you can now be looking to get Beno and hoping you can dump Maynors two year deal ?

Oh, and you had Wolters in your hands. The player many mock had you taking but you traded him for GRJr ?

That is a massive pile of steamy right there.

[fishercob]

As dissatisfied as I am in a number of ways, I do not buy the cynicism that Ted's sole goal is to make money nor do I buy that he believes faux -competitiveness and run-of-the-mill mediocrity is the way to do it. I think JoJo is right -- Ted knows that the best way to make money is to win; the more you win and sustain that competitiveness, the more you make.

Monumental Network's programming will be a hell of a lot more valuable if the Wizards broadcasts actually generated ratings -- I thin our local TV ratings are something like 5th worst in the league, which is astonishing given market size.

Ted clearly believes that the Wizards' systemic crappiness was such that the team's improvement needed to be incremental; that is to say, they had to walk before they could run. It's very easy for any of us to sit here and quibble with that point not knowing what he does/did. So I can be persuaded to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But that's where it ends. The decision to keep Ernie at all -- let alone until today -- is basically indefensible based on his body of work. Then on top of that, he loudly articlulates core principles like not trading draft picks, and goes so far as to say that he'd never have done the Miller/Foye trade -- only to completely contradict himself to land Marcin Gortat in a walk year in the name of mediocrity?

As to the draft and analytics, what kills me isn't that "advanced stats" said to take Wolters or Crowder or whomever. AT this point, "advanced stats" are a bit of a misnomer. To me, that term applies to the in-house proprietary stuff that they develop in Houston, Dallas, etc., or the stuff that Nivek has built on his own using regression analyses. If it's listed on DraftExpress or Basketball Reference it's pretty low hanging fruit. And THAT's the frustration for me; any nerd with an internet connection could look at Maynor, Singleton, etc and know they were bad moves, and that we'd regret passing on the likes of Faried.

I hold out a shred of hope that Ted can look at the body of personnel moves the Wiz have made (and have not) and say "whoa, we're batting way below average here" and have the balls to make a change. That said, based on everything we've seen including the insulting PR spin in Ted's Take, I'm not optimistic.

[Nivek]

Incorrect -- Thibodeau WAS hired. He signed his contract and was on the job four days before having a "change of heart." The Wizards let him out of his contract. He apparently was uncomfortable with the way he was hired -- Grunfeld interviewed him and hired him. And, he got a 2-year contract while the other assistant coaches were all on one-year deals.

[Ruzious]

As dissatisfied as I am in a number of ways, I do not buy the cynicism that Ted's sole goal is to make money nor do I buy that he believes faux -competitiveness and run-of-the-mill mediocrity is the way to do it. I think JoJo is right -- Ted knows that the best way to make money is to win; the more you win and sustain that competitiveness, the more you make.

Monumental Network's programming will be a hell of a lot more valuable if the Wizards broadcasts actually generated ratings -- I thin our local TV ratings are something like 5th worst in the league, which is astonishing given market size.

Ted clearly believes that the Wizards' systemic crappiness was such that the team's improvement needed to be incremental; that is to say, they had to walk before they could run. It's very easy for any of us to sit here and quibble with that point not knowing what he does/did. So I can be persuaded to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But that's where it ends. The decision to keep Ernie at all -- let alone until today -- is basically indefensible based on his body of work. Then on top of that, he loudly articlulates core principles like not trading draft picks, and goes so far as to say that he'd never have done the Miller/Foye trade -- only to completely contradict himself to land Marcin Gortat in a walk year in the name of mediocrity?

As to the draft and analytics, what kills me isn't that "advanced stats" said to take Wolters or Crowder or whomever. AT this point, "advanced stats" are a bit of a misnomer. To me, that term applies to the in-house proprietary stuff that they develop in Houston, Dallas, etc., or the stuff that Nivek has built on his own using regression analyses. If it's listed on DraftExpress or Basketball Reference it's pretty low hanging fruit. And THAT's the frustration for me; any nerd with an internet connection could look at Maynor, Singleton, etc and know they were bad moves, and that we'd regret passing on the likes of Faried.

I hold out a shred of hope that Ted can look at the body of personnel moves the Wiz have made (and have not) and say "whoa, we're batting way below average here" and have the balls to make a change. That said, based on everything we've seen including the insulting PR spin in Ted's Take, I'm not optimistic.

Maybe he just lost focus. He became so enthralled with his network that his teams became a secondary interest to him. There's no doubt he's spent money on the Wiz - he just hasn't spent it wisely. Abe Pollin had that same problem with spending unwisely - rather than not spending. Ted's amnestying of Blatche was a clear indication that he's willing to spend. I think what he really needs is a circle of wise heads to advise him on what to do on the basketball side - to help him hire the right people.

[AFM]

Ted and Ernie are IMO friends who have much in common. They are both from New York, both from immigrant parents.

Both inexplicably wealthy

[fishercob]

Ted and Ernie are IMO friends who have much in common. They are both from New York, both from immigrant parents.

Both inexplicably wealthy

What is inexplicable about Ted's wealth?

[AFM]

Ted and Ernie are IMO friends who have much in common. They are both from New York, both from immigrant parents.

Both inexplicably wealthy

What is inexplicable about Ted's wealth?

That a big dummy poo poo head has so much money.