The Amazingly Suck Theodore Leonsis Thread

[pancakes3]

Wall is independent of EG. He was the consensus #1 draft pick in 2010. Nene is 30, already tore one of his ACLs, and has a ton of mileage. He's not a piece moving forward but rather a useful vet placeholder.

What EG has brought to the table as "pieces" are a ton of tweeners who can't score the basketball. There are bright spots like Singleton being a good bench player, Booker being better than expected, and signing Webster. However there are also strikeouts like the Okariza trade, Vesely, and imo missing out on Harden.

The biggest offense is the lack of a plan. It's like EG just went to the flea market and cherry picked some stuff. Yes, some things may be of surprising value that you can hawk at antiques road show but you can't decorate your house like that. You need a theme. A plan. The knick knacks like Singleton and Booker are for after you get some furniture and we ain't no furniture. When someone offers you Harden - a 22 year old that's been to the finals already? You take him. When you have the chance to sign Anderson - a 24 year old prototype of the modern stretch 4, you take it. You don't trade for broken down 30 year old F/C coming off an injury especially since you already have another 30 year old F/C coming off an injury and you don't trade for a 27 year old sf who shot below 40% from the field 2 of the past 3 seasons especially since your team has already proven to be a pretty bad offensive team. Drafting Santoransky. What's the plan?

For a team that's had 2 #1 overall picks within 10 years we have remained crap. Look at the other laughing stock teams from the early 2000's. The bulls, clippers, and nets. Look at them now. Hell, even look at the "small market" teams. Golden State, Vancouver/Memphis, Cleveland. Look at the freakin Bobcats.

EG defenders may hang their hat on the Arenas years but just stop and use hindsight on those "good" years. We topped out as a 45 win team and lost to the Heat in the 2nd round. Traded for Butler. Drafted Blatche. Became a 42 win team. Lost to the cavs in the 1st round. Drafted OPec and Veeremenko. Signed Stevenson. Became a 41 win team. Got swept by the Cavs. Drafted Nick Young and DMac. Became a 43 win team. Lost to the Cavs. Drafted McGee. Then won 19, 26, 23, and 20 games respectively. That's 4 years of .500 ball and sneaking into the playoffs followed by 4 (going on 5) rebuilding years.

Is it a curse? Is it in competency? It's definitely incredibly depressing.

[hands11]

I have no clue why Ted is so loyal to EG. It's not like EG won us any rings or anything in the past(like Dumars in Detroit). At his best he built a decent team that was never gonna get past the 1st or 2nd round with no room to grow.

I thought Ted was gonna be this smart, dynamic, out of the box thinking owner like Cuban in Dallas. Instead he's Abe Pollin 2.0. Fan **** tastic!

Now that's kind of harsh. I don't think Ted is Abe 2.0 but he is at least Abe 1.5

I'll admit. I expected more from Ted then this.

I get why he kept EG. He did it because EG has done what he has asked him to do - tank. He started cleaning up the team for him before he officially bought it. He got ride of Gils contract which was the worst in the league for the second worst contract in the league. That was a win. He turned some dead cap space into assets. And he got something for the Lewis contract.

The bigger problem is what he asked EG to do. This isn't to defend EG but to point out things I didn't agree with regarding what Ted wanted as a direction. Ted wanted a hard reboot. Clean house. EG started on that before Ted even formally became majority owner. Ted wanted to suck and build through high draft picks. Not a bad approach but I think they over did the Tank.

I wouldn't have dumped CB and Haywood. I didn't support them doing either. If they meant they wouldn't have sucked enough to get Wall, so be it, they could have added Monroe, Paul George, or Gordon Haywood. Eric Blodsoe was also in that draft. There were plenty of player that draft not picked #1.

Dumping Gil for Lewis was a good move. That was Magic so to speak.
Making Wall the entire franchise captain I felt was stupid I vented plenty about that when they did it.

I get the McGee and Nick moves. That made sense. Nick was a FA wanted to much and McGee was a UFA and wanted to much. The team needed a solid starting vet like Nene and neither of those two was that kind of player. A decision needed to get made about how he wanted the longer term team to be constructed. They got value for those players. Nene was a nice add. Injured or not.

But Dray was signed for 3 more years. You were going to pay him either way. He had hit rock bottom. There way no place to go but up. And with Nene injured, why not keep him around as insurance. They could have been rehabbing Dray's value this year and got something for him either come the trade deadline or next summer. And even if he couldn't get rehabbed, you could have always used the amnesty next year. Just a stupid move just to say you cleaned house.

Ted so wanted to sell the culture change to the season ticket holders, that he over reacted and paid Dray 24M to leave. Mr I want to get value for assets didn't stick to that plan. The clean house plan over road that.

Ted's plan last the year before was pure TANK and they showed it by drafting a project player and a defender when the team clearly needed shooters and rebounders.

The plan the year before that was tank as they cleared out all the talented vets they had.

And it is becoming more and more clear that his plan for this year is to TANK. Its the only thing that makes all the combined moves this year add up.

Sell the new culture team by adding two vet for Lewis .. Trevor A and Okafor and pay to make Dray go away.
Sell the hope of Wall and Beal but sit Wall out as long as possible to get a good tank cushion.
Start your 19 3rd pick so he get experience even if the team loses while he is doing it.
Start Trevor A and Okafor in hopes of raising their value so you can turn them into something later.

Hey, Price, Beal, Trevor A, Booker, Okafor is a balln line up to start. Zero #1 or #2 scorers.

I mean Randy can't really be as bad a head coach as his starting line up have been.

I'm just not sold they really wanted to win this year. I think they want more free gifts from the draft. Problem is, very few drafts are worth tanking for and pretty much ever draft there is a player available 10-20 who is better value then 8 of the top 10 picks.

This team started with some assets when Ted was taking over. There was another way to rebuild the team without doing to total reboot. They could have still dumped Gil and gotten Nene for McGee and let Nick go and add talented picks along the way without getting the number 1 and number 3 picks.

[WizarDynasty]

You guys do realize that we basically have finally have a powerful connection to one of the greatest basketball dynasty of the last two decades. Newman... and the person who got him here is the great Savior TED. This move alone, leap frogs any move that abe pollin has ever done basketball wise for the great city of DC. As long as Newman is here, the fans need to appreciate the "whiff" of high iq in front office decisions. Okariza trade brought two established defenders that were better defensively than anything we ever had in the last 10 years. I have feeling newman was behind that. Harden has not lead his team to the playoffs and for that, he doesn't deserve a max contract.

All of the big splash moves that have been made since Newman have arrived have been spectacular. My only complaints have been small squabbles about contracts but the moves have been spectacular. Let Newman/Popovich connection bring joy to this long suffering abe pollin owned team. Wall would be out on the court continuing to injure his knee in the old regime because the doctor evaluating him was a child hood buddy of abe pollin.

[montestewart]

You guys do realize that we basically have finally have a powerful connection to one of the greatest basketball dynasty of the last two decades. Newman... and the person who got him here is the great Savior TED. This move alone, leap frogs any move that abe pollin has ever done basketball wise for the great city of DC. As long as Newman is here, the fans need to appreciate the "whiff" of high iq in front office decisions. Okariza trade brought two established defenders that were better defensively than anything we ever had in the last 10 years. I have feeling newman was behind that. Harden has not lead his team to the playoffs and for that, he doesn't deserve a max contract.

All of the big splash moves that have been made since Newman have arrived have been spectacular. My only complaints have been small squabbles about contracts but the moves have been spectacular. Let Newman/Popovich connection bring joy to this long suffering abe pollin owned team. Wall would be out on the court continuing to injure his knee in the old regime because the doctor evaluating him was a child hood buddy of abe pollin.

I'm not sweating. Newman's here!

[hands11]

Don Newman

So is there something positive with the franchise that can be connected to Newman ?



Was Don a Randy move or a Ted move ?

Is he insurance as HC if Randy doesn't work out ?

Why would Don comes here. He was an assistant in SA. Was it just a money thing or is he now next in place to replace Randy?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[closg00]

Jabba the Ted feeling the heat and forced to issue a statement. Fork you and Ernie Ted.

[Jay81]

by the way...the injuries are mostly Ernies fault too.

Okafor and Nene are very injury prone. He let Nene play in the summer. He trades for guys with injury history. Furthermore as the president of the team, he is responsible for the medical staff i would imagine.

[TheBigThree]

by the way...the injuries are mostly Ernies fault too.

Okafor and Nene are very injury prone. He let Nene play in the summer. He trades for guys with injury history. Furthermore as the president of the team, he is responsible for the medical staff i would imagine.

Thank you.

This fool has been milking injuries as a reason for futility since 2008 when Caron injured his hip. It's his M.O.

[Jay81]

by the way...the injuries are mostly Ernies fault too.

Okafor and Nene are very injury prone. He let Nene play in the summer. He trades for guys with injury history. Furthermore as the president of the team, he is responsible for the medical staff i would imagine.

Thank you.

This fool has been milking injuries as a reason for futility since 2008 when Caron injured his hip. It's his M.O.

at some point...the injures are not bad luck or coincidence anymore right? This is a chronic issue with this franchise with our key players

it even goes back to Chris Webber wow

[Mickstix]

at some point...the injures are not bad luck or coincidence anymore right? This is a chronic issue with this franchise with our key players

I think both of Ted's GM's have conspired, and use injuries every year to justify their under-performance.. McPhee does the same exact thing with the Caps.. It's always the injuries, (though he also has the benefit of the "hot goalie" card to play as well) but then once the excuses wear thin, it's the coach that gets the axe while the incompetent GM lives on.. Ted is either the most gullible owner alive or just too weak to fire anyone.. It's much easier to drink the koolaid and let your GM do the dirty work (hiring/firing) than to see the writing on the wall and do the deed yourself.. (especially when the tickets and merchandise keeps on selling)

[WizardsWorld]

[Silvie Lysandra]

If only Danny could buy the Wizards.

Never mind the fact that money wins in the NBA in a way it doesn't do in football, the main difference between **** owners and good owners in the NBA is that the **** owners don't care about winning. Danny, for all his faults, WANTS TO WIN. And that makes all the difference.

[Jay81]

I posted this on Teds Take. Lets see if it gets approved:

you have gone from one of the most respected owners in sports to a disaster and i think Ernie is leading you down this shameful path. Please make a front office change. That alone would renew hope in DC for the future.

[GhostsOfGil]

^ Ji theres no way that sticks.

[LyricalRico]

Just discovered a parody of Ted's blog. Introducing "Fred's Take":

http://fredstakedc.blogspot.com/

He says the best way to view it is to read his blog and Ted's original posts side by side. Enjoy!

[Higga]

If only Danny could buy the Wizards.

Never mind the fact that money wins in the NBA in a way it doesn't do in football, the main difference between **** owners and good owners in the NBA is that the **** owners don't care about winning. Danny, for all his faults, WANTS TO WIN. And that makes all the difference.

Funny how things change. Three years ago Danny was public enemy #1 and Ted could do no wrong. Fast forward and now the Skins are back to being exciting and relevant. Meanwhile Ted's basketball team is the joke of the league and his hockey team, which is actually decent, isn't playing because of a lockout(and Ted from what I've heard/read is one of the biggest pro lockout owners).

[Silvie Lysandra]

I knew, or at least had hope, Danny would eventually turn the corner. Generally, wanting to spend and wanting to win are a good combo for a pro sports owner. It's just that he was wedded to Vinny for so long because they were buds and didn't understand the draft. I don't think he'll ever be that born and bred football guy like say, the Rooneys, but he'll step back and give Bruce what he needs.

Again, he wants to win. He only kept Vinny around for so long because of their personal relationship, and if Joe Gibbs hadn't papered over the cracks in the front office for so long, the breaking point would have come sooner. It's actually a blessing that Zorn was as bad as he was, and we could see the full effect of Vinny's incompetent GMing (Gibbs literally bought the Skins about an additional 5 wins per season imo just by being that good of a coach and motivator)

There is no hope with Ted, just like there wasn't with Abe. And we should have seen this coming - he owned a good chunk of the team since 1999! And we thought he would fix things because he lucked into Ovechkin and Backstrom and others? He was part of the problem all along. He's a cheap, lazy **** who just wants to collect checks. He doesn't, I suspect, give a **** about basketball but he probably thinks acting like he does makes it easier to sell the turd to fans.

[nate33]

Just discovered a parody of Ted's blog. Introducing "Fred's Take":

http://fredstakedc.blogspot.com/

He says the best way to view it is to read his blog and Ted's original posts side by side. Enjoy!

Good stuff here:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following is a statement from Dr. David Baltchek on the stress injury to John Wall.

“John’s examination today showed improvement in his stress injury that will allow him to begin ramping up his activity level. Where as before, we only cleared him to go out to clubs and do basic dances like the Dougie or the robot, we are now allowing him to step up to dances like moonwalking and the cabbage patch. There is still some irritation in the knee, so the running man, the Chinese typewriter, and most importantly the African Anteater, are currently out of the question. Sadly, the young man may never be able to do the worm again. We have treated the knee over his last several visits with a series of Patron injections, the last of which was given today. He will continue to be evaluated on an ongoing basis, both on the court and in the club.”

[hands11]

So what does it all mean.

Wall gives and interview and now Ted posts a tongue in cheek comedyish post on his blog.

One take would be they feel the worst is behind them so now they want to deflect criticism by posting something more light.

Looking forward to hearing more in the next week which we should get once the swelling does down from this last shot and he gets out there and start doing more. Sounds like the bone part is healed. Now they are just trying to lube the knee so it glides more easily so there isn't any future irritation and swelling. Looks like they want to see how healthy they can get the knee without surgery of any kind. The Plasma injection are the new way of treating things.

Hey, tanking is tough business. Even with all the injury the Wiz have had this year and the crappiest of starting line ups, they are only a few games worst then the next 6 worst teams.

[pancakes3]

I'll... i'll leave the retort of this to monte.