Bulls at Wiz Game Thread?

[AceDegenerate]

Whoa. SO losing last year tought us there is nothing to gain from the draft? Why is that? Cause the genius @ the helm traded away the pick? I'm pretty sure there were PLENTY of available players to help this team @ the 5 spot. Nothing was proved about tanking last year other than this franchise does NOT know how to USE a Top 5 pick.

[Dat2U]

This is the one time I'm with Ji & WizarDynasty. All this winning is scaring me.

Were gonna end up picking 10th.

[Saqs]

No sense in putting our hopes in the ping pong balls. If it happens it happens. And with our luck, we could have the Nets record and still end up with the 5th pick.

[Spence]

What happened last year? 2nd worst record and the 5th pick. The one time we actually got lucky in the lottery, we wound up with a poor draft class and took Kwame Brown.

Lottery ain't ever been good to us. Teams that rely on the lottery tend to keep relying on the lottery...year after year. The lottery is like a Las Vegas casino. They allow just enough big winners to keep all the suckers coming back for more, certain that this time will be their big score.

[Dat2U]

Usually the teams in the lottery have lousy GMs, which is the reason they are picking there in the first place. Free Agency is much more like a casino in my opinion, with the odds seriously favoring the house (or in this case the players) with such things like guaranteed money, max raises & poision pill clauses.

Drafting at the top of the lottery is the most proven method of adding elite talent. And yes, it involves incredible luck and some good timing. We had luck in 2001, just bad timing. LOL. In other years, we didn't have luck but we also compounded it by having idiot GMs making the picks or trading them away.

[Kanyewest]

Ultimately in the long run, tanking for ping pong balls is a could strategy in the long run to build a winning franchise. But it sacrifices winning in the short run, and you could end up losing for 2-3 years. Losing takes its toll on franchises in terms of revenue; fans will stop showing up to games, and TV ratings will go down that decrease revenues. Yes, the Wizards haven't won the lottery in the past, but the odds are if they stink for a few years, they'll be in a better position to pick up a top 5-10 player than they otherwise would be.

People look back at how bad that 2001 draft turned out with Kwame Brown. People also forget how Michael Jordan's comeback brought us to mediocrity for those 2 years. Picking at #11 in 2002 hurt our chances to get a solid player like Yao, Amare, and Butler. Remember the great 2003 draft with LeBron, Anthony, Wade, and Bosh? The Wizards ended up with the 10th pick and ended up with Jarvis Hayes.

It's nearly impossible to acquire blue chip players in free agency. Gilbert Arenas was a good pick up by Washington in 2003 but only due to a technicality that Golden State didn't have bird rights. Cleveland was just plain stupid in attempting to lock down Boozer for a cheap contract long term.

And yes, beofre the Wizards can get a solid player, the Wizards would have to go through some bad picks. Before the Cavs got LeBron James, they had awful picks like DeSagana Diop and DeJuan Wagner. The Nuggets had Nikoloz Tskitishvili before they got Carmelo Anthony.

And yes the Wizards picked at #5 last year even though they had a worse record. But the Wizards were still in position to get an impact player despite the fact that experts called the draft a weak one.

[dobrojim]

What happened last year? 2nd worst record and the 5th pick. The one time we actually got lucky in the lottery, we wound up with a poor draft class and took Kwame Brown.

Lottery ain't ever been good to us. Teams that rely on the lottery tend to keep relying on the lottery...year after year. The lottery is like a Las Vegas casino. They allow just enough big winners to keep all the suckers coming back for more, certain that this time will be their big score.

+ 100

losing almost always begets more losing