Countdown to Ernie Grunfeld Firing (Part 2)

[leswizards]

Yes he has had more high picks. You think that is by accident.

It happened because the team EG built imploded. I don't care whether you call it an accident or not. It was EG's team, and it imploded. You have failed to mention one thing that Abe did that led to the team collapsing. You just want to blame him, so you do. The closest you have come is saying he signed Gil to a max contract. Once again, do you have some evidence that EG was opposed to that signing? If not, EG was just as culpable. He is the one who brought in Gil, and built the team around him, and thought the team was on the cusp of a championship with him, and signed him to a max contract. You are just using semantics to blame Abe rather than EG whose job it is to find the right personnel.

[leswizards]

Who said Abe was responsible for Gils injury ?

And for the 1000th time, NO player gets signed to a mega max by a GM. Not unless that GM has some special powers or an ownership stake. Owners decide that. They ink the checks. Its their money. Its their franchise. It was Abe who committed to signing Gil publicly. It was Abe who called Gil in China. It was Abe who did that after 2 years of Gil being injured. Just like Abe decided to sign EFJ on a gut feeling before he hired his GM. And Gil being signed to the mega max is at the heart of why the team blow up. Abe passing ..yes.. that was the nail in the coffin. That finally set the line so they could rebuild. Something I fully expected to happen once Abe passed.

And just like it was Abe that signed Gil to that contract, its also true that Ted signed Wall to a max early. Not EG.

So via your logic, EG builds a team that goes to the playoffs for 4 straight seasons. In the final season, Gil is injured, and misses most of it. After the season, Gil is up for a max contract which Abe (not EG) gives to Gil. And giving Gil the max contract is the thing that causes the team to implode the next season, and something that EG wouldn't have done? If that is your logic, it is complete BS.

[hands11]

Yes he has had more high picks. You think that is by accident.

It happened because the team EG built imploded. I don't care whether you call it an accident or not. It was EG's team, and it imploded. You have failed to mention one thing that Abe did that led to the team collapsing. You just want to blame him, so you do. The closest you have come is saying he signed Gil to a max contract. Once again, do you have some evidence that EG was opposed to that signing? If not, EG was just as culpable. He is the one who brought in Gil, and built the team around him, and thought the team was on the cusp of a championship with him, and signed him to a max contract. You are just using semantics to blame Abe rather than EG whose job it is to find the right personnel.

You are truly hopeless.

You know what. It doesn't matter. Ignore come sense logic. Be pissed if it makes you happy. Fine. GM is in 100% control of the entire team and is free to spend whatever he wants on whoever he wants. I sure he could trade Wall tomorrow for a ham sandwich if he wanted. Ted doesn't have any say in anything. Neither did Abe. Go over the cap. Sign who you want to mega max contracts. Its all EG. He is the supreme commander dark lord controller of all things Wizards. Because that's how all teams are run.

I mean no owner of a team works closely with the star players on contract. J Cook would never do that.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizard ... ill_t.html
Gilbert Arenas will soon board a flight to Toronto and then China for a promotional trip he's doing for Adidas. When he lands later today, Arenas is scheduled to have a phone conversation with Wizards' owner Abe Pollin. The subject will be Washington's offer of a lucrative longterm contract

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizardsi ... out_c.html
Well, Gilbert Arenas spoke with Wizards owner Abe Pollin this morning and said he was assured by Mr. Pollin that he's "his guy and he won't let me leave no matter what."

Owner Abe Pollin thought so much of Arenas and what he brings to the Wizards organization, the he personally placed a call to the star guard before he left the country.

“When I picked you up five years ago,” Pollin told Arenas, “You’re my guy and I meant that. You’re the face of the Wizards. When you’re out of the country walking down the street, I know that I have a fine young man representing me, this organization and the city of Washington to the fullest.”

[montestewart]

You know what. It doesn't matter.
Ignore come sense logic. Be pissed
if it makes you happy. Fine.
GM is in 100% control
of the entire team and is free to spend
whatever he wants on whoever he wants.
I sure he could trade Wall tomorrow
for a ham sandwich if he wanted.
Ted doesn't have any say in anything.
Neither did Abe. Go over the cap.
Sign who you want to mega max contracts.
Its all EG. He is the supreme commander
dark lord controller of all things Wizards.
Because that's how all teams are run.

Took some line break liberties, but that meter isn't an accident.

[leswizards]

You are truly hopeless.

You know what. It doesn't matter. Ignore come sense logic. Be pissed if it makes you happy. Fine. GM is in 100% control of the entire team and is free to spend whatever he wants on whoever he wants. I sure he could trade Wall tomorrow for a ham sandwich if he wanted. Ted doesn't have any say in anything. Neither did Abe. Go over the cap. Sign who you want to mega max contracts. Its all EG. He is the supreme commander dark lord controller of all things Wizards. Because that's how all teams are run.

I mean no owner of a team works closely with the star players on contract. J Cook would never do that.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizard ... ill_t.html
Gilbert Arenas will soon board a flight to Toronto and then China for a promotional trip he's doing for Adidas. When he lands later today, Arenas is scheduled to have a phone conversation with Wizards' owner Abe Pollin. The subject will be Washington's offer of a lucrative longterm contract

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizardsi ... out_c.html
Well, Gilbert Arenas spoke with Wizards owner Abe Pollin this morning and said he was assured by Mr. Pollin that he's "his guy and he won't let me leave no matter what."

Owner Abe Pollin thought so much of Arenas and what he brings to the Wizards organization, the he personally placed a call to the star guard before he left the country.

“When I picked you up five years ago,” Pollin told Arenas, “You’re my guy and I meant that. You’re the face of the Wizards. When you’re out of the country walking down the street, I know that I have a fine young man representing me, this organization and the city of Washington to the fullest.”

Again with the fallacy of the Strawman. Of course the owner pays the bills and sets the limits to what the GM does. The point you seem to be incapable of understanding is that GMs are hired to do a job. EG's job was to put the team together. I have asked you several times, and you have not answered once. I will ask again. Did EG want the Wizards to resign Arenas? The answer is obvious, and you ignore it, because you would rather place all of the blame on Abe.

[payitforward]

I keep asking who Ernie should have drafted instead of Nick, JaVale, or any of the other misses that would have made a hugely dramatic difference?

You're kidding, right?

'07 was a terrible draft -- put it aside.

In '08... first off, do you have any hold on the trade moves in the 2d half of R1 and the top of R2? I didn't think so. It would have been child's play to acquire Batum, DeAndre Jordan and Mario Chalmers for the picks we held -- and, yes, I was screaming for it at the time. Go back and look at the trade action that night. Instead we took a guy who was obviously overrated, and we gave away our R2 pick.

In '09, we gave away one of the best guard prospects of the decade for... nothing. We also didn't even arrange to get Kahn to give us his #18 pick in the deal -- instead he traded it to Denver for just about nothing, and they picked Ty Lawson, who quickly became one of the top-level point guards in the league. And yes I was screaming for that too. Then in R2, instead of taking DeJuan Blair at essentially no cost whatever, we traded the pick for $500K in cash. Brilliant.

How about '11 -- you really don't think Kawhi Leonard, Kenneth Faried and Chandler Parsons would have been "a dramatic difference" in place of Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton and Shelvin Mack (whom we waived for heaven's sake! He was the best player of the 3!!).

Of course, we might have gotten better that season -- we might have been forced to take Drummond in the '12 draft!

As it is, we wasted our 2012 top R2 pick -- where you get a late R1 talent, but you don't have to guarantee the guy! Those are among the best value picks in the draft! And, for no reason whatever, we'd thrown in our #46 pick that year in the Okariza trade; that pick should have brought us Kyle O'Quinn -- and watch that kid next year, please; you'll see one of the top developing young bigs in the league.

So all we wasted was the ability to have all or most of: Batum, Jordan, Chalmers, Curry, Lawson, Blair, Leonard, Faried, Parsons, Crowder and O'Quinn. We wouldn't have acquired them all, obviously -- make the right moves and things are different in subsequent drafts -- but it's an extraordinary indictment of Grunfeld's incompetence all the same.

[dckingsfan]

Yep, it isn't that he misses on some of them - HE MISSED ON ALL OF THEM - whiff...

[montestewart]

I keep asking who Ernie should have drafted instead of Nick, JaVale, or any of the other misses that would have made a hugely dramatic difference?

You're kidding, right?

'07 was a terrible draft -- put it aside.

In '08... first off, do you have any hold on the trade moves in the 2d half of R1 and the top of R2? I didn't think so. It would have been child's play to acquire Batum, DeAndre Jordan and Mario Chalmers for the picks we held -- and, yes, I was screaming for it at the time. Go back and look at the trade action that night. Instead we took a guy who was obviously overrated, and we gave away our R2 pick.

In '09, we gave away one of the best guard prospects of the decade for... nothing. We also didn't even arrange to get Kahn to give us his #18 pick in the deal -- instead he traded it to Denver for just about nothing, and they picked Ty Lawson, who quickly became one of the top-level point guards in the league. And yes I was screaming for that too. Then in R2, instead of taking DeJuan Blair at essentially no cost whatever, we traded the pick for $500K in cash. Brilliant.

How about '11 -- you really don't think Kawhi Leonard, Kenneth Faried and Chandler Parsons would have been "a dramatic difference" in place of Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton and Shelvin Mack (whom we waived for heaven's sake! He was the best player of the 3!!).

Of course, we might have gotten better that season -- we might have been forced to take Drummond in the '12 draft!

As it is, we wasted our 2012 top R2 pick -- where you get a late R1 talent, but you don't have to guarantee the guy! Those are among the best value picks in the draft! And, for no reason whatever, we'd thrown in our #46 pick that year in the Okariza trade; that pick should have brought us Kyle O'Quinn -- and watch that kid next year, please; you'll see one of the top developing young bigs in the league.

So all we wasted was the ability to have all or most of: Batum, Jordan, Chalmers, Curry, Lawson, Blair, Leonard, Faried, Parsons, Crowder and O'Quinn. We wouldn't have acquired them all, obviously -- make the right moves and things are different in subsequent drafts -- but it's an extraordinary indictment of Grunfeld's incompetence all the same.

Sense a pattern here? What would you do with the cap space? Who could EG have signed? Who was available in the draft? Etc. That was a pretty good answer PIF, but the question will be asked again in 6 months as if it was never answered, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO ANSWER!

I've seen a lot of people patiently answer these questions over and over again, frequently adding substantial detail, statistics, analysis, links to sites and articles, etc.; in other words, strongly supporting their positions rather than merely talking out of their asses. Six months later, the same damn question, the same damn answer.

These questions are all just a big rhetorical, "What on Earth could the Wizards possibly have done better? Nothing, I'm sure!"

Anyway, I appreciate the detail in these answers. It's good to review all the misses, and while you have called more of these than most, it's worth mentioning that some of these misses (like Blair, Faried, the 2009 #5) had quite a few people up in arms. These weren't hindsight buyer's remorse type calls.

[Brenice]

Still didn't answer my original question about McGee and Nick.

As for these domino effect re-drafts and trades, where does that get you? Is the team better? Is there better chemistry?
End up with Drummond, lose Beal. Do the Wizards make the playoffs with Drummond and Faried but no Beal or Gortat? How does that impact Walls growth? Everybody wants these kids y'all whining about Ernie not drafting but where are the vets? Cleveland has a bunch of youth. Philly too. Detroit. Where were last year in the weak east, tanking. How long will it take for those teams to develop, if they ever do? Where will they be next year? Sure the Wizards can play the lottery game year after year like the clippers did for so long, but too many kids sacrifice the playoffs unless one of those kids is named Duncan, Shaq, LeBron. Ernie did what he did. He messed up. He messed up bad. Then he tore it down.

It all goes back to the original teardown and getting rid of the knuckleheads. The Wizards have to retain Gortat and Ariza, and they bring back a team on level with at least Indy. There 2 best young pieces are Paul George and Hibbert. Oh yeah, Ernie missed on Paul George too but nobody is whining about that.

[montestewart]

Still didn't answer my original question about McGee and Nick.

As for these domino effect re-drafts and trades, where does that get you? Is the team better? Is there better chemistry?
End up with Drummond, lose Beal. Do the Wizards make the playoffs with Drummond and Faried but no Beal or Gortat? How does that impact Walls growth? Everybody wants these kids y'all whining about Ernie not drafting but where are the vets? Cleveland has a bunch of youth. Philly too. Detroit. Where were last year in the weak east, tanking. How long will it take for those teams to develop, if they ever do? Where will they be next year? Sure the Wizards can play the lottery game year after year like the clippers did for so long, but too many kids sacrifice the playoffs unless one of those kids is named Duncan, Shaq, LeBron. Ernie did what he did. He messed up. He messed up bad. Then he tore it down.

It all goes back to the original teardown and getting rid of the knuckleheads. The Wizards have to retain Gortat and Ariza, and they bring back a team on level with at least Indy. There 2 best young pieces are Paul George and Hibbert. Oh yeah, Ernie missed on Paul George too but nobody is whining about that.

See what I mean? Didn't even wait 6 months. Didn't wait 1 day.

Still parroting that "tore it down" as if EG is some sort of brilliant architect rather than the garbage man he was when the owners (them being the Pollin estate) told him to move big contracts so they could sell the team. Now hands will chime in about EG's "brilliant tank" that same year. All utter nonsense. EG's big contribution in 2009 was trading the #5 pick for two expiring contracts after the owner said, with his dying breath, "Help me win a championship." Good thing Terd doesn't care about championships. There's no telling what EG would have done.

[dckingsfan]

Still didn't answer my original question about McGee and Nick.

The point isn't one specific move - it is all the moves as a whole. An overarching pattern of bad decisions as a whole.

But as long as you are asking the question (and I am taking the bait), if you know these guys are knuckleheads in year one - don't have the work ethic and don't have the bball IQ - you trade them while their trade value is high.

[hands11]

You are truly hopeless.

You know what. It doesn't matter. Ignore come sense logic. Be pissed if it makes you happy. Fine. GM is in 100% control of the entire team and is free to spend whatever he wants on whoever he wants. I sure he could trade Wall tomorrow for a ham sandwich if he wanted. Ted doesn't have any say in anything. Neither did Abe. Go over the cap. Sign who you want to mega max contracts. Its all EG. He is the supreme commander dark lord controller of all things Wizards. Because that's how all teams are run.

I mean no owner of a team works closely with the star players on contract. J Cook would never do that.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizard ... ill_t.html
Gilbert Arenas will soon board a flight to Toronto and then China for a promotional trip he's doing for Adidas. When he lands later today, Arenas is scheduled to have a phone conversation with Wizards' owner Abe Pollin. The subject will be Washington's offer of a lucrative longterm contract

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizardsi ... out_c.html
Well, Gilbert Arenas spoke with Wizards owner Abe Pollin this morning and said he was assured by Mr. Pollin that he's "his guy and he won't let me leave no matter what."

Owner Abe Pollin thought so much of Arenas and what he brings to the Wizards organization, the he personally placed a call to the star guard before he left the country.

“When I picked you up five years ago,” Pollin told Arenas, “You’re my guy and I meant that. You’re the face of the Wizards. When you’re out of the country walking down the street, I know that I have a fine young man representing me, this organization and the city of Washington to the fullest.”

Again with the fallacy of the Strawman. Of course the owner pays the bills and sets the limits to what the GM does. The point you seem to be incapable of understanding is that GMs are hired to do a job. EG's job was to put the team together. I have asked you several times, and you have not answered once. I will ask again. Did EG want the Wizards to resign Arenas? The answer is obvious, and you ignore it, because you would rather place all of the blame on Abe.

No no no. Its not a strawman. Saying its a strawman is a strawman. What you seem to be incapable of understanding is .. its not black and white. GMs don't have 100% control over everything. Regarding Gil, it didn't even matter what EG wanted and there would be no way for us to really know.

“When I picked you up five years ago,” Pollin told Arenas, “You’re my guy and I meant that. You’re the face of the Wizards. When you’re out of the country walking down the street, I know that I have a fine young man representing me, this organization and the city of Washington to the fullest.”

Think of it like this, would it matter two cents if EG wanted to trade Wall. NO. Wall is Teds guy just like Gil was Abes guy. Ted decides what happens with Wall. Ted decided that Wall would get max a year early. If EG went to him and said, we should trade Wall do you things Ted would allow that ? Hell no. If anything he would say.. mental note.. fire this guy when you get a chance. Just like I personally believe there is no way Ted would let EG deal Beal for Love. And if Ted went public or let leak that he wanted to trade Wall or Beal, what do you think Ted would do?

For all I know ( and I don't) EG wanted to trade Gil a year, two, or three before the max contract came up ( which is what I wanted). But we would never know because he would be a idiot to let that get out publicly knowing his owner hooked his boat to him. Just like he would be an idiot to say anything about trading Wall.

Now what I do know it this. Given the chance, EG did fired EFJ. Some said and still think EG did that unfairly and to soon. Well that just further proves he was just waiting for a chance to do it. I say "EG" here because, Abe was still owner at the time this happened. Abe hand picked EFJ. Clearly Abe and EG were not on the same page regarding EFJ and EG eventually got his way. EG brought Thibbs in. You think it was EG that wanted to extend EFJ a year before his contract expired ? If you do, you are foolish.

Regarding Gil, given the chance, they traded Gil. Some even blamed them for letting the gun things get out of control just so they could trade him or even to try to void his contracts. But they did trade him given the chance. They could have held onto him. But they didn't. Why. Because Ted wanted a reboot and that didn't involved Gil. I say they here because now Ted was owner and I expect Ted and EG were on the same page with moving Gil and doing a reboot the right way. This was to be Wall team. Gil had to go. He was a flawed best player of a team before the injury, before gungate, before the mega max contract. After those three things, he was a boat anchor.

So get your brain around that. Owners own the team. They dictate what happens, specially with these star players, top picks and team development plans/time frames and max contracts. They hire and fire the GMs. The GMs report to them. They do their bidding. They work together. They don't always see eye to eye and its the owner that holds the trump cards for big decision. I laid out example using other others. See NY and their owner. There are 1000 examples across multiple leagues.

GMs are empowered or not by their owners. Every situation is a little different and it even chances year to year. But generally speaking, the things i listed above that owners control, they control, unless they mandate do turn over that control. I see no evidence that Abe turned over that level of control to EG regarding Gil or rebooting the team. Actually, it was the opposite. Abe was hooked to Gil and he mandated a win now approach.

So that it. If you still don't get it, you just don't get it. You can either open you mind to understanding how it really works or stay stuck where you are.

[hands11]

Yep, it isn't that he misses on some of them - HE MISSED ON ALL OF THEM - whiff...

His non top draft picks are what I like least about him. I think most people agree with that.

Its not that the picks aren't defensible. Its not that other GMs didn't miss on the same better picks. But it hasn't been his strong suit. But comparing picks GM by GM is a totally different topic. Lots of GM don't have a very good track record in that. If you go GM by GM, you can make just about any of them look foolish.

And the better ones probably are picking mid or lower picks where those players come to a winning vet team where those developed well. See K Lenard. Its a harder things to gauge but it would be fun to look at and evaluate.

I mean even as great a #1 as Duncan was, he went to a vet SAS team with D Robinson and Pops as HC. He got a perfect introduction into the league. D Robinson welcomed him in and stepped aside for him and mentored him. He would likely have been very very good anyway, but landing where he did and when very likely affected how great he became. Actually, I'm sure it did.

[dckingsfan]

Its like having your PG having a .400 FT% - you can win sometimes but not often.

And the reason we don't have an Elite coach - shall we put that on Abe?

[montestewart]

It's true, it's not all black and white. If EG has a crappy team and the owner says "win now" EG can get them to them to the middle of the pack, but if he has a middle of the pack team and the owner says win now, (so far) he can't do it.

Were any of Terd's trades as good as Pollin's Kwame for Butler trade?

[leswizards]

No no no. Its not a strawman. Saying its a strawman is a strawman. What you seem to be incapable of understanding is .. its not black and white. GMs don't have 100% control over everything. Regarding Gil, it didn't even matter what EG wanted and there would be no way for us to really know.

“When I picked you up five years ago,” Pollin told Arenas, “You’re my guy and I meant that. You’re the face of the Wizards. When you’re out of the country walking down the street, I know that I have a fine young man representing me, this organization and the city of Washington to the fullest.”

First, you don't know what a straw man is. A straw man is building up an argument that you attribute to others, and then tear it down. I am aware that GM's are bound by what the owners want. I have already said that. Get past your straw man. It is an invention of you own mind that you need to tear down because you can't deal with the fact you are wrong.

http://www.thespread.com/nba-articles/071408-gilbert-arenas-makes-it-official-signs-deal-with-washington-wizards#.U34Ae89OVhE

Today is a great day for the Wizards organization,'' team president Ernie Grunfeld said. ``Gilbert is a phenomenal player and his value to the franchise goes beyond what he brings to the court. We're proud and excited that we were able to take care of our own free agents and open the 2008-09 season with a healthy core intact.

[payitforward]

They traded what, the 14th pick this year for Gortat. Was that a hit or miss if Gortat re-signs?

The #14 lottery selection is actually the Suns' own pick (they missed the playoffs this year). The pick conveyed to them from Washington is the #18. Assuming Gortat re-signs, I consider that to be a big hit.

Correct, but that misstates the trade. You can't leave Okafor out of the trade just because he was injured! We gave a lot to get Okafor, he was an important target for the FO, so that when we had to trade him we also had to accept that we'd given away all of that.

We gave Okafor and the pick for Gortat's expiring salary -- and a raft of guys we then had to waive. So that Gortat is actually costing us @$14m this year.

Note that, as I said, Okafor was our target in the trade w/ NO. He was the guy with the $14m contract. Ariza, whom NO wanted to get rid of, was the secondary piece -- he made up the difference to enable the trade.

Hence, more accurately, we gave up all our cap flexibility plus a mid-round 1 pick and a R2 pick for 1 year of Okafor, 1 year of Gortat, and 2 years of Ariza -- and a leg up in re-signing Gortat and Ariza long-term.

You can like the move or dislike it, but that is what actually happened.

[payitforward]

Ugh I'm sorry, I can't continue to argue with these Ernie supporters over the same damn thing we've been arguing back and forth forever. Makes me want to slap the taste out someone's mouth lol. No one's position has changed nor is it going to... except hands11 but that's a daily occurrence.

Like what ? That's a crock.

Really? Do you still think as follows:

Vesely is our franchise player?

Singleton has what it takes to be a productive NBA starter as a rookie?

Jordan Crawford would have been terrific if handled correctly? (is he even still in the league...?)

Wittman is a terrible coach? (recently you wrote that he "may be better than we thought." The usual weaseling out a first-person admission, but you are part of that "we.")

Ernie Grunfeld should be let go as GM? -- you've written that a dozen or more times.

Jannero Pargo is a good NBA player?

Kevin Seraphin is (i.e. was) going to have a breakout season in '13-14? (and in the previous year, btw)

Maynor signing doesn't make me think less of our off-season moves?

And those are just some, not all, of the things that jump into one's mind. I'd hate to think what one could find by taking the time to scour your 22K+ posts.

I'll assume you will ignore the above list -- of course you will; you have every previous time such things have been pointed out to you.

[payitforward]

I keep asking who Ernie should have drafted instead of Nick, JaVale, or any of the other misses that would have made a hugely dramatic difference?

You're kidding, right?

'07 was a terrible draft -- put it aside.

In '08... first off, do you have any hold on the trade moves in the 2d half of R1 and the top of R2? I didn't think so. It would have been child's play to acquire Batum, DeAndre Jordan and Mario Chalmers for the picks we held -- and, yes, I was screaming for it at the time. Go back and look at the trade action that night. Instead we took a guy who was obviously overrated, and we gave away our R2 pick.

In '09, we gave away one of the best guard prospects of the decade for... nothing. We also didn't even arrange to get Kahn to give us his #18 pick in the deal -- instead he traded it to Denver for just about nothing, and they picked Ty Lawson, who quickly became one of the top-level point guards in the league. And yes I was screaming for that too. Then in R2, instead of taking DeJuan Blair at essentially no cost whatever, we traded the pick for $500K in cash. Brilliant.

How about '11 -- you really don't think Kawhi Leonard, Kenneth Faried and Chandler Parsons would have been "a dramatic difference" in place of Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton and Shelvin Mack (whom we waived for heaven's sake! He was the best player of the 3!!).

Of course, we might have gotten better that season -- we might have been forced to take Drummond in the '12 draft!

As it is, we wasted our 2012 top R2 pick -- where you get a late R1 talent, but you don't have to guarantee the guy! Those are among the best value picks in the draft! And, for no reason whatever, we'd thrown in our #46 pick that year in the Okariza trade; that pick should have brought us Kyle O'Quinn -- and watch that kid next year, please; you'll see one of the top developing young bigs in the league.

So all we wasted was the ability to have all or most of: Batum, Jordan, Chalmers, Curry, Lawson, Blair, Leonard, Faried, Parsons, Crowder and O'Quinn. We wouldn't have acquired them all, obviously -- make the right moves and things are different in subsequent drafts -- but it's an extraordinary indictment of Grunfeld's incompetence all the same.

Sense a pattern here? What would you do with the cap space? Who could EG have signed? Who was available in the draft? Etc. That was a pretty good answer PIF, but the question will be asked again in 6 months as if it was never answered, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO ANSWER!

I've seen a lot of people patiently answer these questions over and over again, frequently adding substantial detail, statistics, analysis, links to sites and articles, etc.; in other words, strongly supporting their positions rather than merely talking out of their asses. Six months later, the same damn question, the same damn answer.

These questions are all just a big rhetorical, "What on Earth could the Wizards possibly have done better? Nothing, I'm sure!"

Anyway, I appreciate the detail in these answers. It's good to review all the misses, and while you have called more of these than most, it's worth mentioning that some of these misses (like Blair, Faried, the 2009 #5) had quite a few people up in arms. These weren't hindsight buyer's remorse type calls.

Agreed -- and I didn't mean to blow my own horn when I mentioned that I'd called for certain guys, but only to make it clear that my list wasn't driven by hindsight. Many of us thought mistakes were being made -- thought it in real time, as Ernie was making them.

[payitforward]

Still didn't answer my original question about McGee and Nick.

Did you even read what I wrote, Brenice?

I put aside '07. There were plenty of better players than Young, as it turns out, but I'm not dealing in hindsight. (Marc Gasol also would have been a "dramatically" better pick in R2 than Dominic McGuire -- but I wasn't calling for Gasol, so I didn't bring him up).

I explained exactly what I would have done in '08. In case you haven't noticed, btw, DeAndre Jordan is widely regarded as one of the top 5 Centers in the league -- and for good reason. Batum is one of the best 3s in the league. And Mario Chalmers is flat out a winner.

Oh, and it's ok w/ me that we don't go back to '06. After all, no way Rajon Rondo is "dramatically" better than Oleksiy Pecherov, right?

Or, that you don't want to mention '09 either -- no way Stephen Curry is "dramatically" better than a rental year of Miller and Foye, right?