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I'm just tired of the piece meal effort. The duct tape and glue jobs. We need a foundation and structure in which to build upon. I thought when Teddy bought the team we would see this, but for some godforsaken reason he thought he could change the culture while keeping the old guard in place. Yes, the players are all gone from the previous era, but the entire front office remains.

At this stage, I honestly want this team to fail. And to fail miserably. At no point in my Wizard fandom have I wanted this organization to fall flat on its face harder than right now. I want something that wakes Leonsis up. That forces him to reevaluate the direction he's taken and makes him take a hard look at the basketball guys he's surrounded himself with. I want it to be so bad that Leonsis is no choice but to fire Ernie. I'm afraid that anything less than utter failure, Ernie is going to find someway to spin things so he can keep his job.

Maybe I'm being **** crazy but I'm scared to death as a Wizards fan that a 35 win season is going to be viewed as a huge success and were going waste years going forward chasing the 8th seed and while we continue to blow cap room & draft picks under Grunfeld

Dat,

I've had thoughts about this the past few weeks. On one hand, I want to see the team turn around and compete. On the other, if they do compete this year they won't get far in the postseason and will just be back to where we were 4 seasons ago. Always in the 1st round and always losing.

I really thought that last season when the team started horribly that a changing of the guard in management was going to take place. When it was only Flip changed with no possibly of Ernie, it just dashed my hopes for the next two seasons.

I'm teetering on rooting for the team to lose but I think the team is too good to be losing say, 16 in a row as they did in 2010 when everyone got traded.

However, John Wall and Nene are out and with our medical staff, they should be out for a long awhile. But that will buy Ernie more time because he'll use the injury card AGAIN.

I think there's no way out unless something happened to Ernie... but I don't wish ill on anyone, of course.

I get the logic, but I doubt I could root for losses and remain a fan of the team.

Wizards have been failing for virtually my entire life. All it has led to is more failure. Not sure why the next failure should lead to something different.

Ace, is that you?

I can't bring myself to root against the team. If they do fail the fact that it will reflect poorly on EG will be a silver lining.

Dats central point is sound. Absolutely no organizational changes will occur barring a pitiful return to the lottery. If Ted has any basis whatsoever to sell hope and hope for next year, that is what he is going to do.
I am still going to cheer the team-on, but I will be cutting off my nose to spite my face. We could very-well make a feel-good run with John and Nene.

Spence wrote:Wizards have been failing for virtually my entire life. All it has led to is more failure. Not sure why the next failure should lead to something different.

This is true. I am torn though. I want individual players to do well. I root like crazy for guys like Wall, Beal & Seraphin to raise their level of play and become legit starters or even stars. In the heat of a close game, I find myself rooting for a win but just taking a macro view at the direction the franchise is going, I think were spinning our wheels. We've taken a major step back this offseason. Who cares if the knuckleheads are gone if there's no legitimate talent to replace it? Instead of being young, immature and bad now were just bad. Congrats Ernie. You deserve a cookie for getting rid of the players you drafted and believed to be the core of our future and replacing them with incredibly overpriced vets who shouldn't be starting for anyone.

Maybe I'm being blinded by my hate for Ernie. Not Ernie the person, I'm sure he's a nice guy, but Ernie the disingenuous basketball professional who could give a rats ass about anything other than staying employed.

I'm mixed on this.

I think the rational part of me agrees with you, Dat. We're just where Ernie takes his teams -- mediocrity. Only now, we're injured which means our mediocre product is spiraling downward toward embarrassment. When healthy, we'd win our fair share of games but with an obvious ceiling that happens to be nowhere near championship level. Even if the improbable happened and Wall became this amazing superstar, we'd STILL be a few players short of contending -- and that's best-case scenario (something that we, as Wizards fans, should never, ever, ever, ever count on being a realistic possibility).

The emotional side of me sees the rational side and says "f**k it, I wanna win and I wanna win now!". Being so starved for wins being a fan of this godforsaken team, a potential playoff birth would be something I've been sorely missing. There's also no guarantee if and when Ted fires EG that a replacement is chosen who actually guides us where we need to go. Sure, the replacement would be better than EG (that's not exactly difficult to find) but I don't trust Ted anymore. Other than lucking into Wall and our urinal blocks being the freshest in decades, what has he done that's been at all positive for this franchise?

I'm in a very peculiar position right now. It's always seemed like, even when we were just awful, there was a glimmer of hope -- a great draft that could make us attractive to free agents; a free agent class that we could potentially get a game-changing player from; young players who could really take us to the next level. But right now, I'm more apathetic than I've ever been. We're a terrible team currently, a mediocre team when healthy, a team with a low bar for improvement and no capspace to work with. There's not really anything to latch on to.

I'll continue supporting the team because they're my team and I'm way too emotionally invested in them for whatever reason. But I've never been so unhappy doing so. And honestly, I hate the fact that I'm like this.

miller31time wrote:We're just where Ernie takes his teams -- mediocrity.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the team is there yet, but I can definitely see the potential.

1 Team, 1 Goal, 8 Seed

I strongly suspect the team needs to make a major change in the front office and needs another good player in the starting lineup. Health for Wall and Nene would be nice, too. Let's recall that Kevin Seraphin, whom I regard as a key part of the future of this team, was obtained with a draft pick in the second half of the first round so we do not necessarily need to win the lottery again. We just need to make good personnel decisions. [This leads back to the change in the front office issue.]

I don't think Grunfeld has made nothing but bad decisions. It was his call to trade for Kevin Seraphin, after all. But the bad decisions outweigh the good ones by a decent margin by now and he's had plenty of time to build a respectable team in Washington.

I'm just not sure another bad season -- which is probably coming no matter what -- will convince ownership to make a change in the front office. Ted Leonsis tends to blame coaches for failures. If Grunfeld has survived so far, why would another bad season send him packing? At this point, we might be better off just hoping Grunfeld somehow lurches uncontrollably -- and probably without knowing it -- into some good decisions. Things have been so bad for so long that I'm almost more ready to believe in dumb luck than common sense. The former seems to visit the Wizards very rarely. The latter, even more rarely.

Ernie already has built-in excuses for the team sucking: injuries to Wall and Nene. Eventually, they'll get those guys back, and they'll string together some wins and Ernie will be able to make the "If only..." argument.

I just want to save the day like Underdog. Ted is a billionaire. Dude should be able to hook a brother up. I think I'm going to have to be making a whole lot of money before he will do the same kind of things proposed in this forum for free.

If I got the GM gig, if one of you guys had a good idea before I did, I'd give you a commission as part of my staff.

Yep, I got some sort of delusional, Pygmalion (if Eliza Doolittle was a man that dreamed of being a GM) thing going on. Did anyone ever see the movie "Trading Places"? I could be Eddie Murphy to Ernie Grunfeld as the Dan Aykroyd character. I can do the scouting and common sense, grown a man stuff that the Wizards need. By the time Ted fires me, he'd be so much better off and Wizard fans everywhere would be thankful.

Dat, as far as wanting them to fail I don't think it is a bad thing at all. The first thing that popped into my mind was something I saw in Columbus, GA. I had never seen a controlled burn before. That is where a fire is started and allowed to burn just so something else valuable doesn't get burned. With the Wizards, I do think 35-37 wins is around the number of wins that will allow Ernie to stay right where he is. Ted will be so content NOTHING will change.

I think it would be better for the Wizards to win 29 games. Sack the GM and everybody else on staff….

Dat, I don't even root for them to fail as much as I wish Ted Leonsis would sell the franchise to somebody like a DC version of Mark Cuban.

It's sad really. I get where the OP is coming from.

With a rigged Draft system it's impossible for the Wizards to get a number 1 pick unless something bad happens in DC again.

Seriously, all the Wizards need to do is think out-of-the-box. (monte, that's your cue)

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:Dat, I don't even root for them to fail as much as I wish Ted Leonsis would sell the franchise to somebody like a DC version of Mark Cuban.

Sadly when he bought the team, I thought Leonsis was the DC Mark Cuban definitely less flashy, but also less annoying

I hold out some hope looking at his success with the Caps, but there definitely need to be changes made with the Wizards front office

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:Seriously, all the Wizards need to do is think out-of-the-box. (monte, that's your cue)

OK then. Here's our new GM
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNjhXSd-LP8[/youtube]
Comes complete with a Dat2U tie in.

Don't hate on Buseyisms. The Wizards could learn a lot from the man...

N.O.W = no other way

T.E.A.M = together, everybody achieves more

T.I.M.E.O.U.T = to ensure measured energy on using time

There is no "I" in team, but also, there is no "U" in team, so I guess we aren't on the team.

I should really be giving the pre-game motivational pep talks.

montestewart wrote:There is no "I" in team, but also, there is no "U" in team, so I guess we aren't on the team.

I should really be giving the pre-game motivational pep talks.

There's no "I" in team, but there is an "M" and an "E", so I think you know what that means.
- Jordan Crawford

montestewart wrote:There is no "I" in team, but also, there is no "U" in team, so I guess we aren't on the team.

I should really be giving the pre-game motivational pep talks.

We should hang this in JC's locker.