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Okay, your Ted Leonosis and have some big decisions to make this offseason. Coming off a disasterous season, your now left with a very young team with a near complete roster in need of rebuild, a ton of cap space and a high draft pick along with a couple of high 2nd round picks (essentially). What would be your preference in how to deal with the men that will lead one of the most important offseasons in memory that will shape your franchise for years to come.

Do you fire the President of Basketball Operations, Ernie Grunfeld, blaming him for the personnel decisions and the poisonous culture that led to the miserable state the Wizards found themselves in? Or do you keep him knowing he has a long track record (good and bad) and ton of experience in managing an NBA franchise. And if you keep EG, are you accepting the notion that the Wizards' failure was more based on circumstance (injuries, attitudes, etc...) than poor personnel decisions? Or do you feel that the Pollins were tying EG hand and forced him to make an instant contender when the time wasn't right?

And pretending the GM decision doesn't matter, what would you do with Coach Flip Saunders? Do you fire him for not implementing a system and using the players he was given correctly last season? Do you blame him for the problems that were allowed to fester in the locker room? Do you think he would be a poor choice for developing the young roster of players that most likely will comprise a majority of the roster next season and instead give undue deference to veteran players? Or do you keep flip knowing he's an experienced coach that has shown he is capable of producing winning ballclubs. In doing so, are you accepting that Flip was simply put into an impossible situation that he did the best he could with?

I'd definitely keep Flip. I think he's a good coach and I'm pretty happy with the way the youngsters played down the stretch.

I'm more on-the-fence about Ernie. It depends how many of his decisions were influenced by Abe and his "win now" edict. It's arguable that all of his mistakes except the Crittenton trade were attributable to Abe's understandably short-term time frame.

If you put a gun to my head and made me decide now, I'd choose to keep them both. I'd add a analytics guy to the staff though. I'd also hire the braintrust of Dat2U, CCJ, doclinkin and Ruzious to handle the draft.

I'm in the keep Flip and fire Ernie boat.

I'm not really a fan of Flip's but I don't think it's fair to give up on a coach after one year (even one as disastrous as this season was). He may not be the best but he's at least a slightly above average coach based on his track record. I see no sense in paying two coach's when he's only been here a year and the odds of us getting someone better aren't that great. I would however issue him marching orders to develop the younger players even at the expense of wins next year and to change the way he interacts with the media - less bitterness and "honesty" and more coach-speak. I want to see him keep the criticism confined to his interactions with the players and not with the media.

With a new owner who's not in win now mode and the acceptance that he's in a rebuilding situation, hopefully Flip will be in a better frame of mind since he seemed especially beaten down by the second half of the season.

As for Ernie, he's not been a disaster that some would make him out to be but he also hasn't done anything that leads me to believe that he's the guy to really lead the franchise to the upper echelon. I think I'd like to see a fresher perspective in the GM role who doesn't keep trying the same strategies year after year. We'll never really know how many of his actions (or non-actions) were colored by Abe's views but I'd like to get a clean slate in the front office under Leonsis and bring in someone with a different approach.

I would much rather be in Ted's shoes than Blatche's shoes

I have a similar view point to nate33 and jimij. If they are retained Flip and EG, should be on shorter leashes. I would replace EG if there is a better GM candidate(s) available. However with correct direction and an analytics consultant he may be able to turn things around.

Firing Ernie is easy to justify so there's no needs to re-hash all of the arguments here. It's a very close-call on Flip however. If Eddie Jordan could be fired for under-performing with the talent available then Flip should also be a canditate for being canned. The evidence clearly shows that Flip
was not using his roster properly and that he didn't make adjustments until trades and injuries forced his hand - that deeply concerns me.

Ernie HAS to go. I don't see how anyone can honestly say he deserves a chance after the last two seasons. Especially this past season, being one of the most miserable & embarrassing seasons in team history.

Did Abe & company encourage EG to put a team out there that could contend now, I'm sure they did. Did Abe, b/w his naps & being fed intravenously demand EG mortgage the future for Mike Miller & Randy Foye??? Let's be real. That didn't happen. EG came up with that brillant deal and in his mind, it was the best move the team could make. In reality, it was probably the worst...

As for Flip, I'm more willing to sit back and see how that plays out. I hated the bitching/whining about players in his press conference and if I was Ted, I'd tell Flip, the only way I'd bring you back is if you promise to stop throwing players under the bus to the media. However, I did like how Flip adjusted at the end of the year with the implementation of the two-guard offense. And I like the assistant coaches, especailly Cassell. So I wouldn't have a problem brining Flip back with that one caveat.

Dat2U wrote:Did Abe & company encourage EG to put a team out there that could contend now, I'm sure they did. Did Abe, b/w his naps & being fed intravenously demand EG mortgage the future for Mike Miller & Randy Foye??? Let's be real. That didn't happen. EG came up with that brillant deal and in his mind, it was the best move the team could make. In reality, it was probably the worst...

This was the end of the line for me. If not for this deal EG could be retained and try to figure this thing out. This terrible terrible deal cost us the entire season at the EXPENSE of our REWARD for sucking the prior season!! This is simply inexcusable and EG has to go. The trades he made this season were bad as well, but the jury is still out on what they will bring to the franchise in terms of flexibility to improve (similar to the so-called bad trades, signings MJ made here, which ended up in Gilbert as a Wizard).

EG has to GO. Flip should be given another chance with a new roster, and if by mid-season this is a below .500 team that looks as disjointed as we did this past year, he needs to go as well.

Krizko Zero wrote:EG has to GO. Flip should be given another chance with a new roster, and if by mid-season this is a below .500 team that looks as disjointed as we did this past year, he needs to go as well.

I think next year needs to be judged as much on progress as record. Especially if the roster has been changed to endure a season of suck(BOYD and developing prospects). However if the team is losing and not getting better, then a coaching change may be needed also.

Watching the Caps under-perform in the play-offs makes me wonder if I even want Ted to be the next Wiz owner. How about Dan Snyder instead? With him holding the purse strings, we'd probably have this line-up next season:

PG - Arenas
SG - Wade
SF - Lebron
PF - Bosh
C - Yao

bench - Dray/Wall/Joe Johnson/Amare/JCritt/J-How/Veermenko

If I'm in Teds shoes right now my #1 concern is the fact that my hockey team is a bunch of chokers and my GM on that team is a total noob.

He should be firing not one, but two GM's this offseason: McPhee and Grunfeld.

daSwami wrote:Watching the Caps under-perform in the play-offs makes me wonder if I even want Ted to be the next Wiz owner. How about Dan Snyder instead? With him holding the purse strings, we'd probably have this line-up next season:

PG - Arenas
SG - Wade
SF - Lebron
PF - Bosh
C - Yao

bench - Dray/Wall/Joe Johnson/Amare/JCritt/J-How/Veermenko

Here is the Snyder Line-up

PG Arenas/Livingston
SG Hamilton/Young
SF Corey Maggette/Grant Hill
PF Rashard Lewis/ Rasheed Wallace
C Yao/Brad Miller

Basically something that looks like the 76ers at a higher price.

And if Snyder is the owner, don't forget that the coach would probably be Pitino or Calipari.

verbal's right. snyder does pay but he pays for OLD and WASHED UP talent. some of that is the nature of FA in the NFL but most of it is his biological clock being set 3-5 years later than everyone else's.

if i'm leonis, i'd keep EG around. he's got the eye for talent. EG has failed because he was catering to Abe. now he's catering to me, and I know what i'm doing, damnit. I'll tell him to trade Nick Young while he still has some semblance of value, draft swingmen who can score without the ball, and sign us a C who can rebound. We've got too much money tied up in Arenas to build the team around Blatche, so build around Arenas. Blatche is our #2 option. we've got the framework of the early Twolves team with Starbury and KG here, and it has potential. We just need a Wally Z, and an Olowokandi (theoretically) and we'll have a competitive squad on our hands.

Wow, A lot of hate aimed at the Caps rite now. Just hold on and lets see what happens in game 7. They have not been illiminated yet. They could still win on Wednesday and go on to have a great playoff run and hopefully win it all. at least making the finals would be pretty good. Can't remember the last time the Wiz/Bullets were in the finals.......was it like 1980, 30 years ago. Lets have some positive thinking here. The Caps will win on Wednesday and go on to the finals and the wiz will get a top three pick in the draft.

Yeah, in hockey sometimes you just run into a hot goalie and there's nothing you can really do. Historically, lots of Presidents Cup winners get bounced in the first round.

pancakes3 wrote:verbal's right. snyder does pay but he pays for OLD and WASHED UP talent. some of that is the nature of FA in the NFL but most of it is his biological clock being set 3-5 years later than everyone else's.

if i'm leonis, i'd keep EG around. he's got the eye for talent. EG has failed because he was catering to Abe. now he's catering to me, and I know what i'm doing, damnit. >snip<

Have you forgotten THIS?

"We knew who was going to be at the five spot and we felt that these players were going to help us a lot more than anybody we would've gotten in the draft," Grunfeld said.

Curry will likely be the runner-up for ROY. Jennings & Blair are playing in the playoffs. The list would be too-long of other players in the last years draft we could be building with.

Can we please stop killing EG over Blair? Everybody recognized that Blair had skills; the only question was how long would his knees would hold up. Every GM in the league passed on Blair once and most passed on him again because of those knees. San Antonio finally took a gamble on him very late in the 2nd round. The gamble has paid off so far, but there's no guarantee that he'll last very long in the NBA.

Every GM can be killed for that one 2nd round steal they missed out on. It happens all the time. It's just not fair to evaluate a GM that way.

Go ahead and kill EG for the Foye/Miller debacle. And kill him for Crittenton. And Pecherov. Those are all justified. But let the Blair thing go. And give him proper credit for Blatche and McGee.

Keep Flip, keep Ernie. I want to see what he does this year under new ownership. I want to keep the GM around during one of the biggest free agent summers in league history. Bringing someone new, who doesn't know the team, the area, etc, how are we going to sell everything to that free agent?

I lean towards replacing the front office and support keeping Flip.

As noted, the media outcry has to stop with Saunders, but once he turned the switch, he did alright with the situation and had a number of our young guys playing at levels they never have before. I was p0retty down there for a while, but he rallied nicely. I'm also pretty enthused with the twin-guard sets as that shows some enthusiasm for flexibility, which avoids overly rigid personnel decisions (well, plus Shaun and Gil starting together sounds great).

With the front office, the trade out of last years lottery is the worst offense by far, likely followed by not seeing the writing on the wall with Butler after 2009 (and especially with the Post reporting that there were already reasons to believe that the chemistry with Butler and Arenas was poor). There are other mistakes to be sure.

One thing I'd really want to make certain of is that anyone we brought in was excited about 'Dray and Javale as core guys. If they weren't, I think we'd probably lose ground regardless of what all other bits of savvy they bring.

All told, I'd prefer a new general manager, but I'm still concerned that we could be in a substantially worse situation if we make the wrong choice there. Just telling me "we got a numbers guy from the brain trust of Houston" does not have me sleeping easy.

I will say that imposing Ted's philosophies and mandates on Ernie would avoid the most egregious of our past problems, so I'm not going expire in despair if the axe doesn't fall.

Both EG and Flip are at least slightly above average at their position. I do NOT want to downgrade, and it is not like we're going to to get Larry Brown or Jerry West any time soon.

So I vote continuity.