TGW wrote:If that is true, it is obvious that this front office is as terrible as its predecessor.
And yes PIF, "effing moron" applies here.
Look...
I'd find it kind of hard to argue for the
competency of this franchise. & since I've already argued, many times, that it is the opposite -- incompetent (at least at the single most important responsibility of a FO: managing the draft effectively). IOW, I would be an unlikely candidate to defend Ted & his troops.
"...as terrible as its predecessor..."?
Well, I suppose if you manage to make no progress whatever in 4 full seasons, then you deserve any criticism you get. Certainly, I can't think of a FO that has performed worse than the Wizards in that stretch of time. We're still heading for 35 wins -- not significantly better than we were when Tommy took the reins.
OTOH, we did face some one of a kind problems. That's why the expression "effing moron" applied to one guy, Tommy Sheppard, rubbed me the wrong way & caused me to over-react.
For two reasons: the first is that I think the source of our problems is, almost exclusively, Ted Leonsis not Tommy.
The second is that Tommy managed to unload the worst contract in the league (John Wall's contract) without it hurting us too much -- & then managed to move Russ in a very creative & complicated deal.
To put it another way, he turned John Wall's awful contract & a heavily protected R1 pick into KCP, Kuzma, Harrell, & an unprotected R1 pick. That was utterly brilliant; there's no other word for it.
He also traded a guy we absolutely had to get rid of & managed to snag KP & a R2 pick for the guy -- while getting rid of another awful contract (Bertans' -- a problem wch admittedly he had created himself). Also brilliant.
Not to mention that he signed Wright, acquired Gafford at low cost, & found Jordan Goodwin.
IOW, almost exclusively, Tommy's failure has been in managing the draft -- & for better or worse I put a lot of that failure on Ted -- though Tommy has to share the blame too.
