Tommy Sheppard -- Fearless New Leader!

[Silvie Lysandra]

I think it's too early to say that he's definitely better than EG. If you remember EG's moves when there were no expectations for the team, most of them were actually decent except for the Foye/Miller trade. He turned Kwame Brown, the fifth pick in the draft, and a little bit of capspace into Arenas, Butler, and Jamison. Those three are Wizards greats (yes...WIZARDS greats). He did well to trade Arenas' albatross of a contract and did a solid job of rebuilding with Wall, Beal, and Porter. Grunfeld simply didn't have the organizational talent to make the next leap from playoff pretenders to championship calibre.

The best player on this team currently was drafted by EG. So it's not a slam dunk that TS is better than EG. He just has less to go by. But I'd say EG's first couple of seasons as GM were demonstrably better than TS.

Arenas only came here because of a coinflip and the fact that teams couldn't control 2nd round picks who blow up. Kwame for Butler was inspired. #5 for Jamison was not. Would rather have had Iggy or Deng.

Getting 3 top 5 picks in a row isn't "doing well".

EG has had a ridiculous amount of time and ridiculous amounts of luck and still failed.

[Ruzious]

Kispert followed Tommy's pattern of going after solid players with a high floor but not a high ceiling. Todd was a bit of a reach but has a fairly high ceiling.

[closg00]

Beal is looking at not being part of a Big 2 or 3, a new coach, and no PG, this can’t be attractive to him, Tommy’s got some work to do.

[MVPofDC]

Great job by Tommy to get rid of not one but two supermax deals in a short timeframe while getting a return of potential trade assets. I'm a Westbrook fan but love the financial flexibility this deal gave us.

[9 and 20]

With a day or so to think about this trade - I'm even more impressed. A year and a half ago, we were saddled with the worst contract in the league (and I love John Wall) with almost no promising young guys. It got to the point where Mo Wagner and Bonga were super exciting additions, lol.

We have a ton of options available to us now - try to trade for another all star, re-tool around Beal, or tear it all the way down and trade Beal. Plus, we got to watch an all-time great in Westbrook for a year.

Sheppard has done a great job so far. No idea if Masai is still a thing, but I'm more than satisfied with the turnaround to this point and Tommy has shown that he's far and away better than Grunfeld and has earned more time in the captain's seat.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

As MJ showed when he was here, blowing it up is easy. Building it is hard.

Step one is done. Now Shep needs to be on the clock.

[payitforward]

Tommy hasn't been nearly good enough for me to want him overseeing rebuild 2.0.

It's too late to get someone else right now so he can unfortunately oversee this draft, but I'd want him replaced ASAP. There's tons of moves to still be done prior to next years draft that will be pivotal in setting the tone for the rebuild should it happen.

I mean, if you're left with a turd and couple of slices of wonderbread chances are you're not going to turn it into a gourmet meal.

Somehow Sheppard miraculously managed to turn into a grilled cheese sandwhich, so props for that.

Ok this is disgusting!

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Moderator please feel free to merge the thread I started

[FAH1223]

Watch on YouTube

[doclinkin]

Watch on YouTube

[FAH1223]

Lol

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[queridiculo]

Sheppard has been a marvel with his trades and acquisitions.

I just wish some of the stellar job he's done in that aspect would have translated to the draft.

[nate33]

Sheppard has been a marvel with his trades and acquisitions.

I just wish some of the stellar job he's done in that aspect would have translated to the draft.

Agreed. I'd rank him as an A- with respect to trades and acquisitions. I'd rank him a D on the draft.

[payitforward]

Yes, well, I've been saying this since the 2019 draft, have I not?

2019 was mis-handled horribly. We had an opportunity to come out of that draft with Branden Clarke, Keldon Johnson & Daniel Gafford (i.e. w/o trading Troy Brown for him). Moreover using any assets at all, even a little cash, for the chance to take Admiral Schofield was ridiculous.

2020 -- I liked the pick of Deni. I might turn out to have been wrong. But, it's easy to defend the pick itself. But, failing to make a minor move to pick up a bargain like Xavier Tillman, & passing on Paul Reed to take Cassius Winston...? No.

2021 -- it's obviously way too early to judge Corey Kispert as a player, but given the talent in this draft it sure looks like a trade down was in order rather than nabbing a graduating senior with one specialist talent. & even if we hadn't traded down, I find it hard to justify taking Kispert over Sengun (who was the Euro MVP at 18 years old!), Murphy or Jalen Johnson.

But the worst, by far, was being satisfied to take Isaiah Todd at #31. That was unbelievably lame. The Knicks trade of #32 for #s 34 & 36 makes that utterly obvious. It doesn't even matter what you think of Todd! He was extremely likely to be on the board 3 picks later! & if not, there was a ton of talent taken from #34 down.

One scenario: suppose we'd made that trade -- & also traded our #15 to Atlanta for their #20 & #48 (a sensible trade for them). We might easily have come out of the draft with... let's say Jalen Johnson, Jared Butler, Joe Wieskamp. & Sharife Cooper.

[NatP4]

They should’ve picked Haliburton over Deni.

A minor move to pick up Tillman and even just staying out and drafting Jared Butler with our 2nd pick in the 2021 draft would’ve made a massive difference in the outlook of this roster.

We could’ve dumped Westbrook and never had to sign Dinwiddie. Haliburton/Beal/Butler would be a terrific guard trio. Tillman/Gafford/Clarke in the frontcourt would be really good.

On the wing you now have Kispert which I’m fine with. I think he’ll be solid, but I would’ve brought back Mathews and Bonga. I think both of them can be really solid cheap options.

Haliburton Butler
Beal Mathews
KCP Kispert Bonga
Bertans Tillman
Gafford Clarke Harrell

Pretty simple stuff. Most of the board was in favor of those picks. Would be nice if we could hire someone to focus on the draft in a sort of assistant GM role. It’s not Tommy’s thing.

[nate33]

They should’ve picked Haliburton over Deni.

A minor move to pick up Tillman and even just staying out and drafting Jared Butler with our 2nd pick in the 2021 draft would’ve made a massive difference in the outlook of this roster.

We could’ve dumped Westbrook and never had to sign Dinwiddie. Haliburton/Beal/Butler would be a terrific guard trio. Tillman/Gafford/Clarke in the frontcourt would be really good.

On the wing you now have Kispert which I’m fine with. I think he’ll be solid, but I would’ve brought back Mathews and Bonga. I think both of them can be really solid cheap options.

Haliburton Butler
Beal Mathews
KCP Kispert Bonga
Bertans Tillman
Gafford Clarke Harrell

Pretty simple stuff. Most of the board was in favor of those picks. Would be nice if we could hire someone to focus on the draft in a sort of assistant GM role. It’s not Tommy’s thing.

I'm even okay with Hachimura over Clarke. But, yeah, Halliburton over Deni, and Butler in the 2nd round were two fairly obvious picks that most on this board favored, and would not have required unlikely trade-downs and omniscience on how long players would have stayed on the draft board.

If we can redo the Hachimura draft with perfect hindsight, I'd have traded down for picks to get both Clarke and Keldon Johnson. But now we're getting into fantasy redo's.

The other big mistake was resigning Bertans at $16M. I definitely would have traded him to Boston for a late 1st

[payitforward]

I'm even okay with Hachimura over Clarke.... If we can redo the Hachimura draft with perfect hindsight, I'd have traded down for picks to get both Clarke and Keldon Johnson. But now we're getting into fantasy redo's....

Sorry, but no. Not a fantasy; not even a redo. I suggested exactly this move -- AT THE TIME -- trade down for the 2 picks that would have gotten us those 2 guys.

Except that, as it turned out, it would have gotten us more than those 2 guys.

But, the main point is that it's not "Hachimura over Clarke." It's not the availability of Clarke that made Rui a bad pick at #9. It's the fact that, given all the information that was available about him as a player, Rui Hachimura taken way way too high. Hell, if Clarke had gone undrafted for some reason, & we'd picked him up, Rui would still have been a bad pick at #9.

& it's also Tommy saying that we were "all in on Rui" & then quoting what his college coach said about him in support of being all in.

It's also not simply "Rui vs. someone else." It's failing to see where the value was in the draft & showing a lack of imagination.

i. Had we moved #9 to Boston for #20 & 22, picked Clarke #20 & Thybulle #22 we'd have had a better draft than we had.

ii. Had we made that move, but Clarke was gone when our #20 came up, & so we picked Thybulle #20 & Keldon Johnson #22, we'd have had a better draft than we had.

iii. Had both those Clarke & Thybulle been gone, & we'd picked Keldon Johnson #20 & given away our #22 -- pick because we are that generous -- we'd still have had a better draft than we had.

iv. But, had we made that trade, picked Clarke #20, found Thybulle there at #22 & picked him, & proceeded to make the same move Danny Ainge made (that sent Thybulle to the Sixers), we'd have come away with Clarke, Johnson, & Gafford. & we'd still have Troy Brown Jr. or we'd have been able to trade him for someone else.

This is not hindsight. It was obvious at the time. To me at least. This is also not, as Zards put it the other day, pulling the card to an inside straight. No luck was required.

[DCZards]

…might not be fantasy or hindsight but it is another tiresome rehashing of “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

[payitforward]

...yeah, Halliburton over Deni, and Butler in the 2nd round were two fairly obvious picks that most on this board favored...

I don't think most favored Haliburton over Deni, but certainly some did. In truth, I don't think anyone thought much about Deni in the run up to the '20 draft -- we assumed he'd be long gone when our #9 rolled around.

When it turned out he was still available, I loved the pick! & so, in the exact same way that I was right in 2019 (whether by luck or insight is a different question!), if Deni busts I'll have been wrong in 2020.

...The other big mistake was resigning Bertans at $16M. I definitely would have traded him to Boston for a late 1st

Huh! Am I misremembering? I thought you had approved of resigning Bertans to his current deal at the time we did it. I was against it, that's for sure, but I seem to recall being pretty much the only one who was.

But, for sure, I might well be misremembering -- in which case I'm also doing the same about the question of trading him to Boston for a late R1 pick. I definitely wanted to do that, but I don't specifically recall anyone else at all being for it at the time.

[nate33]

They should’ve picked Haliburton over Deni.

A minor move to pick up Tillman and even just staying out and drafting Jared Butler with our 2nd pick in the 2021 draft would’ve made a massive difference in the outlook of this roster.

We could’ve dumped Westbrook and never had to sign Dinwiddie. Haliburton/Beal/Butler would be a terrific guard trio. Tillman/Gafford/Clarke in the frontcourt would be really good.

On the wing you now have Kispert which I’m fine with. I think he’ll be solid, but I would’ve brought back Mathews and Bonga. I think both of them can be really solid cheap options.

Haliburton Butler
Beal Mathews
KCP Kispert Bonga
Bertans Tillman
Gafford Clarke Harrell

Pretty simple stuff. Most of the board was in favor of those picks. Would be nice if we could hire someone to focus on the draft in a sort of assistant GM role. It’s not Tommy’s thing.

I'm even okay with Hachimura over Clarke. But, yeah, Halliburton over Deni, and Butler in the 2nd round were two fairly obvious picks that most on this board favored, and would not have required unlikely trade-downs and omniscience on how long players would have stayed on the draft board.

BTW, drafting Butler in the 2nd round was still possible even after the trade down to get Aaron Holiday.

So the lineup would have been:
PG Holiday, Butler, Neto
SG Beal, Haliburton, Mathew
SF KCP, Kispert, Hutchison
PF Hachimura, Kuzma
C Gafford, Bryant, Harrell

That's a team only marginally worse than the current team, but with $35M less salary obligations and lots of young players with upside. I might even contemplate a Beal for Simmons-and-picks trade after this and complete the rebuild around youth. After acquiring Simmons, we could trade, say, Kuzma, Holiday and one of those Sixers picks for Kyrie.