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Let's have some fun with this. Put your predictions here for final score. Let's see who gets closest, and who should have gone to Vegas.

Bulls 134 wizards 118

I bet they'll win this one, say 116-110. I just wish they keep playing bad enough to land a top-3 pick (+ don't make stupid trades + I'd love to see youngsters get more minutes but that'll not happen with Brooks ) and somehow Ujiri decides to come here with new front office & coaching staff.

I hate to be so cynical... but, who cares?

I think the Wizards are broken. I'm not sure if they win again until Brooks is fired. These last 2 games were a total embarrassment. And it wasn't just effort or energy. It just looked like they didn't know what they were doing.

The dynamic of the team is all wrong. Brooks is part of it, but there's also the real problem of having two "win-now" stars with an entire team of developing prospects around them. Brooks is unwilling to even try anything different other than running the offense through Beal and Westbrook. And I'm not really blaming Beal and Westbrook. I get that they're in their prime (or post prime) and don't have the patience to sacrifice their touches to help develop other players when, in Beal's case anyhow, it's almost always more efficient to go ahead and take the shot himself.

There's also the conflicting strategies of the coach versus management. Brooks has always run a star/role player system where he puts the ball in the hands of his best 1 or 2 star players and everyone else just plays defense or scores due to defensive rotations initiated by the stars. If you are going to run such a system, you need players who thrive in a low-usage 3&D role. You prioritize length, athleticism, defense and rebounding over offensive skills and playmaking. Meanwhile, Sheppard has a fetish for well-rounded, high-IQ offensive guys whom he figures will eventually learn how to defend. Well, their high-IQ offense is wasted in Brooks' system and we're stuck with 5 unathletic guys who lack the innate athleticism and length to be good defenders.

It's just an untenable situation.

Brooks and the ghosts of Grunfeld, outcome not surprising.

Trash coach, trash roster, trash results.

Expecting another romp, Bulls in a laugher.

queridiculo wrote:Brooks and the ghosts of Grunfeld, outcome not surprising.

Trash coach, trash roster, trash results.

Expecting another romp, Bulls in a laugher.

What's frustrating is that the roster isn't trash. There is plenty of talent here. It's just being used by a coach that doesn't know how to leverage its strengths, and it's being further hampered by a front office that overinvests in one type of player while ignoring the need for athletic defenders.

A team that already has offensively skilled big men with shooting range and bad defense (like Bryant, Wagner and Hachimura) does not need to spend $16M a year on a one-dimensional sharpshooting big with bad defense.

In a league that is getting away from diminutive PG's and instead focusing on bigger, switchable combo guards, why do we have three PG's under 6-2 (Neto, Ish and Winston)?

long suffrin' boulez fan wrote:I hate to be so cynical... but, who cares?

We love to be tortured

nate33 wrote:

queridiculo wrote:Brooks and the ghosts of Grunfeld, outcome not surprising.

Trash coach, trash roster, trash results.

Expecting another romp, Bulls in a laugher.

What's frustrating is that the roster isn't trash. There is plenty of talent here. It's just being used by a coach that doesn't know how to leverage its strengths, and it's being further hampered by a front office that overinvests in one type of player while ignoring the need for athletic defenders.

A team that already has offensively skilled big men with shooting range and bad defense (like Bryant, Wagner and Hachimura) does not need to spend $16M a year on a one-dimensional sharpshooting big with bad defense.

In a league that is getting away from diminutive PG's and instead focusing on bigger, switchable combo guards, why do we have three PG's under 6-2 (Neto, Ish and Winston)?

This! Brooks is awful but the front office is also very mediocre. Your point on Bertans is very valid and let’s not talk about their likeness for midget PGs. This team is so unathletic, probably the worst in the NBA right now in that department. This was obvious in the Charlotte game when our players got so overpowered...

nate33 wrote:

queridiculo wrote:Brooks and the ghosts of Grunfeld, outcome not surprising.

Trash coach, trash roster, trash results.

Expecting another romp, Bulls in a laugher.

What's frustrating is that the roster isn't trash. There is plenty of talent here. It's just being used by a coach that doesn't know how to leverage its strengths, and it's being further hampered by a front office that overinvests in one type of player while ignoring the need for athletic defenders.

A team that already has offensively skilled big men with shooting range and bad defense (like Bryant, Wagner and Hachimura) does not need to spend $16M a year on a one-dimensional sharpshooting big with bad defense.

In a league that is getting away from diminutive PG's and instead focusing on bigger, switchable combo guards, why do we have three PG's under 6-2 (Neto, Ish and Winston)?

Having a handful of guys with upside doesn't mean that the roster isn't trash.

The roster composition is a joke. It's like a puzzle composed entirely off little squares that's supposed to make up a circle.

Washington's best rebounder is a small forward that doesn't get any playing time and who duplicates the core skillset of 5 to 6 other guys on the roster.

Washington has one plus defender, by reputation anyway, that doesn't see the floor.

The other startling thing to me is that the Wizards roster is almost entirely devoid of above average athletes.

It's basically Beal, perhaps Bonga and then a whole bunch of nothing.

There's no identity, no cohesion, no plan or direction of any kind with this roster that makes even a modicum of sense.

Since Westbrook played yesterday, I assume he’s out today. That’s a reason to be a little optimistic. There should be better ball movement and less turnovers. Players like Avdija that only get the ball as a last resort should have more to chances to shine.

If they don’t give up lots of open 3 pointers in the first quarter and get behind, I think they’ll be competitive. Competitive is about all we can hope for.

This is the same Wiz team I've seen for 40 years. Ish is depressing. It's like we aren't anywhere closer to a title after all of this time. How is that even possible.

queridiculo wrote:

nate33 wrote:

queridiculo wrote:Brooks and the ghosts of Grunfeld, outcome not surprising.

Trash coach, trash roster, trash results.

Expecting another romp, Bulls in a laugher.

What's frustrating is that the roster isn't trash. There is plenty of talent here. It's just being used by a coach that doesn't know how to leverage its strengths, and it's being further hampered by a front office that overinvests in one type of player while ignoring the need for athletic defenders.

A team that already has offensively skilled big men with shooting range and bad defense (like Bryant, Wagner and Hachimura) does not need to spend $16M a year on a one-dimensional sharpshooting big with bad defense.

In a league that is getting away from diminutive PG's and instead focusing on bigger, switchable combo guards, why do we have three PG's under 6-2 (Neto, Ish and Winston)?

Having a handful of guys with upside doesn't mean that the roster isn't trash.

The roster composition is a joke. It's like a puzzle composed entirely off little squares that's supposed to make up a circle.

Washington's best rebounder is a small forward that doesn't get any playing time and who duplicates the core skillset of 5 to 6 other guys on the roster.

Washington has one plus defender, by reputation anyway, that doesn't see the floor.

The other startling thing to me is that the Wizards roster is almost entirely devoid of above average athletes.

It's basically Beal, perhaps Bonga and then a whole bunch of nothing.

There's no identity, no cohesion, no plan or direction of any kind with this roster that makes even a modicum of sense.

Eh, I wouldn’t go that far. The lack of identity is because of Brooks. Mathews&Avdija are good, Bertans is normally good. Jury is still out on Brown Jr&Winston. Of course, no one is to blame for the Bryant injury, and he was a pretty good player.

It’s still a roster built around a couple high usage guards, one of them is just terrible.

An average coach could have this team playing .500 basketball easily. All he would have to do is not play multiple PGs together, play Mathews, Bonga, and Brown, and not overplay the revolving door of mediocre centers so much. He could also have a gameplan defensively. Doesn’t matter what the gameplan is, just having one at all is an improvement from Brooks. The players don’t even know what to do in pick and roll coverages. We switch sometimes, sometimes we sit back, sometimes we trap them and leave a shooter wide open, but it’s always something different. No two defensive possessions are the same.

An average coach+ a top 5 pick= playoff team. The roster isn’t all that bad. Look at pistons&twolves rosters.

Sheppard has been a mixed bag as GM. 60% good 40% bad, but using the full MLE on Lopez was close to a fireable offense. The Bryant injury should not have been this big of a deal after dedicating 7.5 million to the C position in the off-season.

He really has been a mixed bag. The Lopez signing was bad. I think a good number of us on the board knew it was bad. I wonder why the GM didn't. I understand taking a chance on a player, or maybe valuing the intangibles. Using the (almost) full MLE on Lopez was not money well spent.

NatP4 wrote:Sheppard has been a mixed bag as GM. 60% good 40% bad, but using the full MLE on Lopez was close to a fireable offense. The Bryant injury should not have been this big of a deal after dedicating 7.5 million to the C position in the off-season.

The Wizards are 2-7 against the Bulls since the Otto Porter/Portis/Parker trade. The Wizards are 1-5 since Satoransky signed with the Bulls. The Wizards are 0-2 against the Bulls since the John Wall/Russell Westbrook trade. The Wizards are 0-1 with Russell Westbrook against the Bulls.

I still can't believe we moved Kelly Oubre and Otto Porter for no first round picks. I'm still completely goddamned shocked by that to this day.

HI,

I see you write mostly on the D which is really bad, but Beal and Westbrook that should lead the team, don't show a real D effort. You blame Brooks which is a clear thing, but I can't take Beal and Westbrook of the hook. They affect the entire team, if they don't share the ball even when the are doubled, they will keep getting doubled, especially at the forth. If Beal will share the ball only when he is really closed as a last resource, they player getting the ball after a long time not touching it, will be "cold". Another issue that arise from ball hogging is that other players that get the ball tend to shoot right away, as they won't have to many chances during the game, which leads to bad shot selections.

The team don't utilize mismatches, don't go to the FT line very often, lacks offensive rebound which is clear because many offence are done in less than 5 seconds where our own team is not there yet, at times on difficult shots which is crazy move when there so much time to find a better shot.

So yes brooks fails to control his stars, the D sucks but Beal and Westbrook just play stupid ball offensively and the team can't win this way.

I do hope we win today, so my bet is:
Wiz 121 : Bulls 118

Dark Faze wrote:I still can't believe we moved Kelly Oubre and Otto Porter for no first round picks. I'm still completely goddamned shocked by that to this day.

IIRC, we only got 20 something games from 33 year old Trevor Ariza on a non playoff team in exchange for Oubre.