Ernie's Dirty Dozen

[payitforward]

Since we have been reduced to this kind of stuff & are considering the worst teams in our history, let's widen the view: what were the 12 worst moves of Ernie Grunfeld's long & lousy tenure as GM of the Washington Wizards?

Not just moves that didn't turn out well -- after all, every GM has some of those on his resume -- but incredibly & obviously awful decisions on his part. Horrible draft picks, dismal FA signings, jaw-droppingly bad trades, lousy roster decisions. Stuff like that....

(Later, to be fair, we can look at the best of his moves)

[nate33]

Trading the #5 pick (with Curry available) for Miller.

Drafting Vesely (instead of Klay or Kawhi or Butler, or even Kemba or Tobias Harris, or a Morris twin).

Signing Mahinmi, Nicholson and Smith in free agency after striking out with Durant and Horford.

Getting nothing in return for Butler and Haywood.

Resigning Gilbert Arenas to insane money while he was hurt.

Resigning Martell Webster to a big contract while he was hurt and had only had one healthy season in his career.

Trading away Oubre in a desperate attempt to win now, and then still having to trade Porter anyway. (Should have just traded Porter for maximum cap relief so we could keep Oubre for the future)

Trading a high 2nd for Trey Burke.

Not trading Wall for Lonzo Ball and cap relief (assuming it was indeed on the table)

Trading the #5 pick for Jamison instead of just drafting Iguadola.



That's 10. I could probably criticize all of his picks except Beal and Wall, but drafts are a lot easier with 20/20 hindsight.

[closg00]

Trading the #5 pick (with Curry available) for Miller.

Drafting Vesely (instead of Klay or Kawhi or Butler, or even Kemba or Tobias Harris, or a Morris twin).

Signing Mahinmi, Nicholson and Smith in free agency after striking out with Durant and Horford.

Getting nothing in return for Butler and Haywood.

Resigning Gilbert Arenas to insane money while he was hurt.

Resigning Martell Webster to a big contract while he was hurt and had only had one healthy season in his career.

Trading away Oubre in a desperate attempt to win now, and then still having to trade Porter anyway. (Should have just traded Porter for maximum cap relief so we could keep Oubre for the future)

Trading a high 2nd for Trey Burke.

Not trading Wall for Lonzo Ball and cap relief (assuming it was indeed on the table)

Trading the #5 pick for Jamison instead of just drafting Iguadola.



That's 10. I could probably criticize all of his picks except Beal and Wall, but drafts are a lot easier with 20/20 hindsight.

Great recap with one big omission, the Nicholson clean-up which netted the Bogdanovic rental in-exchange for our 1st round pick which could have been Jarret Allen

[gambitx777]

I look back at last year and think man what if we moved Otto earlier than we did and keep KO. If he indeed wanted to stay he would have been great this year as the starter and brown cgloming off the bench with rui man we would be looking so much better right now.

Trading the #5 pick (with Curry available) for Miller.

Drafting Vesely (instead of Klay or Kawhi or Butler, or even Kemba or Tobias Harris, or a Morris twin).

Signing Mahinmi, Nicholson and Smith in free agency after striking out with Durant and Horford.

Getting nothing in return for Butler and Haywood.

Resigning Gilbert Arenas to insane money while he was hurt.

Resigning Martell Webster to a big contract while he was hurt and had only had one healthy season in his career.

Trading away Oubre in a desperate attempt to win now, and then still having to trade Porter anyway. (Should have just traded Porter for maximum cap relief so we could keep Oubre for the future)

Trading a high 2nd for Trey Burke.

Not trading Wall for Lonzo Ball and cap relief (assuming it was indeed on the table)

Trading the #5 pick for Jamison instead of just drafting Iguadola.



That's 10. I could probably criticize all of his picks except Beal and Wall, but drafts are a lot easier with 20/20 hindsight.

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[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Draft and stashes that didn’t pan out.

Bjelica, Sanon, White, Sato (only kind of panned out).

Selling draft picks for nothing: Clarkson.

Trading two picks for Oubre, then having to jettison him just as comes into his own.

Getting NOTHING for Oubre or Porter.

I could go on... but PIF has chronicled this is gory detail in other posts.

[nate33]

Trading the #5 pick (with Curry available) for Miller.

Drafting Vesely (instead of Klay or Kawhi or Butler, or even Kemba or Tobias Harris, or a Morris twin).

Signing Mahinmi, Nicholson and Smith in free agency after striking out with Durant and Horford.

Getting nothing in return for Butler and Haywood.

Resigning Gilbert Arenas to insane money while he was hurt.

Resigning Martell Webster to a big contract while he was hurt and had only had one healthy season in his career.

Trading away Oubre in a desperate attempt to win now, and then still having to trade Porter anyway. (Should have just traded Porter for maximum cap relief so we could keep Oubre for the future)

Trading a high 2nd for Trey Burke.

Not trading Wall for Lonzo Ball and cap relief (assuming it was indeed on the table)

Trading the #5 pick for Jamison instead of just drafting Iguadola.



That's 10. I could probably criticize all of his picks except Beal and Wall, but drafts are a lot easier with 20/20 hindsight.

Great recap with one big omission, the Nicholson clean-up which netted the Bogdanovic rental in-exchange for our 1st round pick which could have been Jarret Allen

I didn't really have a problem with that trade. Sacrificing one mid 1st round pick to dump $20M in absolute dead weight salary (and associated luxtax costs IIRC) plus getting a rental of a pretty good player for 3 months is a good deal comparatively speaking. Teams typically have to give up more than that to get that much savings.

That trade wasn't bad. It was the Nicholson acquisition in the first place that was unbelievably awful.

[nate33]

Draft and stashes that didn’t pan out.

Bjelica, Sanon, White, Sato (only kind of panned out).

I'd say Sato absolutely panned out. We got 2.5 really good years out of him at a dirt cheap price, and then turned him into two high 2nd round picks before we were forced to pay him a fair market rate.

[payitforward]

I'm guessing that we will all agree that #1 on the dirty dozen, the worst move of all the horrible moves, was trading away the '09 pick that would/could have netted Steph Curry. It's a perfect symbol of his incompetency. Yet... we have to admit that no one, really no one at all, projected Curry to become the player he has turned out to be. In that sense, the decision was horrible as strategy & horrible as a symbol. Yet, we can't be sure we'd have picked Curry. Minny picked the non-entity Jonny Flynn w/ that pick!

I think signing a guy (Porter) to a max contract & then having to trade him for absolutely nothing 1 season later may stand out as the worst of Ernie's disasters.

Similar was signing Nicholson & then having to give a R1 pick to dump him only a few months later (in fairness, I should point out that many of you thought it was just fine to sign Nicholson -- I sure didn't).

Giving 2 R2 picks to move up for Oubre, & then trading him for (essentially) nothing a couple of years later. Horrible.

Turning the 6th, 18th & 34th pick in the '11 draft into... nothing at all. One could describe that as passing on Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler & IT to pick 3 guys who couldn't play. Wow....

Signing Mahinmi. Signing Maynor. Re-signing Arenas. The Okariza trade.

Trading Gortat for Rivers -- a nightmare!

Trading a lottery pick for Markieff Morris! Good God -- Phoenix had been trying to dump him all season & found no takers. But we gave a lottery pick!

[payitforward]

Draft and stashes that didn’t pan out.

Bjelica, Sanon, White, Sato (only kind of panned out).

I'd say Sato absolutely panned out. We got 2.5 really good years out of him at a dirt cheap price, and then turned him into two high 2nd round picks before we were forced to pay him a fair market rate.

Agree 100%. Obviously, it would have been better to pick Draymond or Middleton or Barton, but, yes, we did reasonably well with him. But -- one big but! -- it was Tommy who got the 2 R2 picks for him, not Ernie. Ernie gave R2 picks no value. Heaven only knows what Ernie would have done about Sato last Summer. He might have given him a max!!

[gambitx777]

Sato panned out imo I don't think anyone would have felt back about keeping him at that price to be honest. It's only a few more mill than we paid the guy we have. But we got a good deal out of him. And Sannon worked out two don't forget we got Anderson out of him and there before the **** down he was showing real signs of improvement . I would have liked to see what Sannon became but oh well .

Draft and stashes that didn’t pan out.

Bjelica, Sanon, White, Sato (only kind of panned out).

I'd say Sato absolutely panned out. We got 2.5 really good years out of him at a dirt cheap price, and then turned him into two high 2nd round picks before we were forced to pay him a fair market rate.

Agree 100%. Obviously, it would have been better to pick Draymond or Middleton or Barton, but, yes, we did reasonably well with him. But -- one big but! -- it was Tommy who got the 2 R2 picks for him, not Ernie. Ernie gave R2 picks no value. Heaven only knows what Ernie would have done about Sato last Summer. He might have given him a max!!

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[WallToWall]

the #5 pick + Pecherov + Etan Thomas + Songaila FOR Randy Foye + Mike Miller
Oh gawd! I literally did a facepalm.

[gambitx777]

I remember this draft

the #5 pick + Pecherov + Etan Thomas + Songaila FOR Randy Foye + Mike Miller
Oh gawd! I literally did a facepalm.

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[montestewart]

I don't know where these fit in on the list, but in addition to the comments above, I didn't really like these moves at the time:
1) Resigning Deshawn to a much larger, longer term contract, when apparently no one else in the league showed any interest in him. Having to unload that contract the following year might have something to do with why the Wizards got so little in return for supplying three rotations players to a team that won the title the next year.
2) Signing Dwight Howard, and it didn't really work out so well.

[Shoe]

Ernie is a charmer and great at office politics. Candice Buckner's expose on the lack of accountability in the front office was damning and it's great Ted finally installed a system for operations.

[payitforward]

I think of the Nicholson signing/trade as one phenomenon

Very much like the Okariza trade; when you look at the whole thing -- what the franchise gave & what the actual benefit was -- it was an awful decision.

How about signing Jodie Meeks for 2 years & then having to give assets to get rid of the contract? One stupid deal after another of this kind.

[closg00]

Mike Lee did a look back on the infamous Foye/Miller trade, with Gilbert on the team, we would have picked Curry had it not been for Ernie.

"I liked him last year when he was here, I loved him," Coach Flip Saunders said on Tuesday. "I'm sure if we wouldn't have traded our pick, he was probably a guy that we probably would've strongly considered at that spot. He's got great poise and a great feel for the game and he never seems to be in a rush situation. He's going to be a very good player in this league for a long time."

The Timberwolves, of course, used the pick on Ricky Rubio, who stayed in Spain, but you have to wonder how much different this season would've been with Curry around; especially with Foye done for the season with a wrist injury and Miller missing 28 games with various injuries.

The Wizards' draft board consisted of Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans, Rubio and James Harden. Had the Wizards kept the pick, three of those players would've already been gone, and left the Wizards to decide between Rubio and possibly Curry, who went seventh overall to Golden State.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider/2010/04/one-that-got-away.html

[gambitx777]

So we took curry in 2009 he more or less red shirts and we start shopping Gil. We still end up with one in 2010 who do we take? Looking at who's there and where they were you trade back right. Curry could never play with wall. You go after hayward , PG or Monroe or Davis ? Still pretty bad. then you get a good pick in 2011 and maybe still get a shot at brad in 2012?

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[doclinkin]

I'm guessing that we will all agree that #1 on the dirty dozen, the worst move of all the horrible moves, was trading away the '09 pick that would/could have netted Steph Curry. It's a perfect symbol of his incompetency. Yet... we have to admit that no one, really no one at all, projected Curry to become the player he has turned out to be.

Coach Bob Knight did. And so I did. Bob Knight who said of Jordan when Portland said they needed a center “well then draft Jordan and play him at center”. He said of Curry he was as good a point guard as he’d ever seen. Not just in scoring, in setting up his team to succeed. In making the passes and seeing the court to set his team up to score.

I wanted Curry after his freshman year when he dismantled Georgetown singlehandedly. And as a sophomore, I forget the school but they quintuple teamed him all game. Pressing with 5 guys.

We had seen that this squad struggled without an alternate ranged scorer in the back court. Without Gil we bogged down. But even if there weren’t, the signs were there. Go back and look at his footage from Davison. He just had that it factor.

Watch on YouTube

[payitforward]

Oh, everyone knew he was an incredible player, & I definitely wanted him. & that Bobby Knight commentary is really great!! Guy seems to know something about the game....

But, Steph Curry turned out to be one of the top 5 players in the league over a dozen year span, not to mention someone who actually had a big hand in changing the game radically. If you are telling me that is what you projected, you'll have to point to the place where you said it. I don't think it exists -- & that is certainly no criticism, doc.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

You mentioned Curry first. Imagine 12 years later we are saying what might have been.

That very same draft I thought DeJuan Blair would be really good for at least three seasons. The Wizards would have been able to draft Steph in round one and Blair in round two.

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