Ted's been approved, it's official!

[AceDegenerate]

Can anybody explain to me WHY Michael Jordan gets so much blame around these parts for poor performance as GM of the Wizards?

Apparently, Abe Pollin has been pulling all the strings behind the scenes for all these years. I don't see how Jordan get's so much blame for being a bad GM when Ernie Grunfeld is completely let off the hook? Heck, It was certainly ABE POLLIN who wanted Kwame Brown as the #1 pick. It was most certainly ABE POLLIN who traded Richard Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse. GM's just never had that much power here when Abe was around.

[barelyawake]

Hoops said "scrum" was nothing compared to the fights Dat and I had for years over Kwame. And I'll simply repeat what I said then about Kwame, the NBA finals are a pressure cooker that only the greatest, mentally tough players can perform consistantly during. You need to base a franchise around players with a winning mentality who can battle back from tough losses etc. There is a champion mindset. And it's easy to read stats and put together a paper team. To win it all, you need a few players who can dig within themselves and give it all. I have seen nothing in Blatche that tells me he's one of those players. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything he has done over the years points to him not being that type of player. Thus, basing a team around him (even as a number three) is foolishness. I could care less what the stats say.

Now, if you get an allstar defensive center and pair him with an allstar sf and John wall... Maybe. That relegates Blatche to a roleplayer whom you don't have to rely on to be a 20-10 guy every game of a seven game series. You are counting on defense to win you games that way. And it better be one hell of a defensive center. But, to put your faith in Blatche to be a major cog, you will see, will only disappoint you. Time will tell, and I won't come back and say I told you so, I didn't with Dat, but you'll see it takes more heart than Blatche has to be a key piece of a championship team. And we should know that ahead of time, and plan accordingly.

[montestewart]

Can anybody explain to me WHY Michael Jordan gets so much blame around these parts for poor performance as GM of the Wizards?

Apparently, Abe Pollin has been pulling all the strings behind the scenes for all these years. I don't see how Jordan get's so much blame for being a bad GM when Ernie Grunfeld is completely let off the hook? Heck, It was certainly ABE POLLIN who wanted Kwame Brown as the #1 pick. It was most certainly ABE POLLIN who traded Richard Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse. GM's just never had that much power here when Abe was around.

Jordan is (to many, myself included) the greatest NBA player ever. He is also (to many, myself included) a big a-hole. Some may be partially reacting to that aspect of MJ. I don't know the entire story of how much power he was given, but he's MJ, and I don't see him backing down very easily. What are you going to do, fire him? He's still MJ, rich and powerful, and who's ever told him what to do? His will to win made him amenable to guidance from a good coach, but he didn't seem to have much respect for management or owners.

EG's another story, because all he is is the GM, and if he gets fired, maybe he doesn't get another gig. I haven't had much love for EG in the past year, and I don't think he's getting a pass from a lot of people. I'm not giving a pass to MJ either, but the worst move he made for the team was coming back, which perhaps forced a Hamilton move and a bunch of other moves to cater to a team built around him, and held the team in suspended animation.

Regardless, I don't know to what extent Pollin exercised his veto power over Jordan or EG, or any other Bullets GM. There were some good moves and bad moves under both Jordan and EG. Maybe I'll never really know who to credit and who to blame for those moves, but I'm hoping that things are not so inscrutable in the Leonsis era. If things turn around, I can accept that maybe I was wrong about EG, or even come to like a new version of EG even if I still think the old one sucked.

[Hoopalotta]

Barely,

I'm just not going to expend a lot of energy discussing a "we need to get a superstar big" PLAN. If it happens, it's because we stumbled upon some ridiculous opportunity rather than that we successfully executed an actual plan.

Suffice to say I will not stand in our way should such an opportunity present itself and I would be willing to pool a great deal of lesser players to make it happen in a trade. But as we're not discussing an actual player and are instead more referring to the possibilities that might avail themselves in the 2013 draft, I just don't have much to add other than to say I don't think it's realistic.

And as I mentioned previously, I don't think we're going to even be able to actually bottom out to the extent necessary to have a realistic shot at nabbing said player, so I'm really not seeing a plan that has action steps unless we're going to give John Wall the Nancy Kerigan in 2014.

The bottom line with any of it is we just stay flexible, pool assets and see what opportunities present themselves.

[dangermouse]

I think i missed the boat for this comment with the whole argument about dumping this that and the other and tanking away for the shot at some mysterious big man in the draft who is the second coming of Shaq and Hakeem in Dwight Howard's body.

Keeping Arenas: Arenas and Wall back court. Ive read by some a suggestion that Wall/Arenas/Blatche is enough to make the playoffs, be it 8th seed or otherwise. Im not sure I agree that we will make it that far, since we have NO idea where the big FA's go this offseason. We could be playing in a stronger confrence or a weaker one. Say LeBron goes West, young man. Doubtful. Ok, lets say Boozer stays pat and Bosh goes West in a S&T. It is likely that Wade packs his bags for greener pastures in that scenario as well. I'm kind of going off on a tangent here, but lets say we end up in a weaker confrence due to a siilar scenario to the one above. If we make 7th/8th seed with Wall/Arenas/Blatche and the rest of the scrubs we have, isnt THAT a BIG incentive for whomever doesnt sign an extension out of Melo/Durant to come here? Add in a bruiser big to that mix and we would be good for top 3 the next season, considering the age of the Celtics. We would be a contender for the next 5 seasons.

Cousins: If we get Cousins, we would be a better team than if we didnt get him (obviously), but Wall and Cousins already have chemistry. That alone would probably win us 5-10 more games and impede our 'building through the draft' hopes. I guess that does qualify as building through the draft, though, just this draft rather than upcoming ones. Of course that is just my opinion, and i am in no way anti-cousins. Coming out of this draft with both Wall and Cousins would be some kind of uber wet dream come true, and most probably unreachable.

Taking the OKC model of rebuilding and applying it to the Wiz is the wrong way to go, imo. The situations have similarities but ultimately they are quite different. OKC got amazingly lucky and landed a franchise stud #2, traded away their aging face of the franchise for expirings and a #5 draft pick simply because they could afford to, they were moving. They let their number two guy walk for nothing, for the same reason. They said F-U to their Seattle fanbase at the time because they knew those people wouldnt be moving with them, and they knew the OKC fanbase would be content to tank the next couple of years and develop their rookies because they were just happy to have an NBA team at all. They, lets face it, got lucky with another high pick in Westbrook, and then came away with Harden in the next draft.

We've got astoundingly lucky this draft, but we have another young player already with potential to be the real deal in Blatche, and the old face of the franchise simply isnt any more, and has no trade value for anything like a #5 in this draft. However, we have loads of cap space and will next season, too. I think through a combination of signing young, talented FA's (with some upside, but otherwise definitely known quantities, M.Gasol or Perkins as examples, i have no idea who else is up for free agency in the next few years that we could target but they are talked about most) on deals that are roughly around what they are actually worth, and a bit more luck in upcoming drafts (not something we can count on, and guys in the draft are by no means known quanitites), we can reach the upper echelons of the East. Conf. in less years than it took OKC to simply make 8th in the West.

Im not sure if any of this makes any sense or has a point, but a bottle of captain morgan's and a boring sunday evening will do that i guess.

[dangermouse]

I think one lesson we SHOULD take from OKC is to draft best player available, not drafting for need. (Although, how good OKC would have been with Brook Lopez is up for debate).

Drafting John Wall should be the first step in applying that lesson.

[Ji]

I am disgusted that EG is coming back. Common Ted? WTF man

We were the 2nd worst team in the NBA 2 years ago and we had a top 5 pick which we gave away to 2 players who WONT even be here next year. ERNIE GRUNFELD Destroyed this team and our future with this trade.

How is their not consequences for this?

[sfam]

I am disgusted that EG is coming back. Common Ted? WTF man

We were the 2nd worst team in the NBA 2 years ago and we had a top 5 pick which we gave away to 2 players who WONT even be here next year. ERNIE GRUNFELD Destroyed this team and our future with this trade.

How is their not consequences for this?

I think we have to view that move in the context of Abe's health. If EG was given a "Win Now" mandate, that move makes sense. No draft pick at the #5 was seen as an immediate contributor. I'm not saying Grunfeld is perfect or deserves to stay, but I do certainly leave open the possibility that the trade for #5 last year had other factors that drove the decision.

[montestewart]

I am disgusted that EG is coming back. Common Ted? WTF man

We were the 2nd worst team in the NBA 2 years ago and we had a top 5 pick which we gave away to 2 players who WONT even be here next year. ERNIE GRUNFELD Destroyed this team and our future with this trade.

How is their not consequences for this?

I think we have to view that move in the context of Abe's health. If EG was given a "Win Now" mandate, that move makes sense. No draft pick at the #5 was seen as an immediate contributor. I'm not saying Grunfeld is perfect or deserves to stay, but I do certainly leave open the possibility that the trade for #5 last year had other factors that drove the decision.

I'm just tired of talking about it. Don't know how much Pollins tied EG's hands and how much I should let that matter, don't know how much new dynamic with Leonsis and #1 pick might alter the situation, but I do know it looks like EG's not going anywhere, and Leonsis appears to be in charge. I'm ready to think positive thoughts now. Until...

[barelyawake]

Again, whether you like it or not, the PLAN is to follow the OKC model. To execute that plan, we will have to do what they did -- which is tank. The plan is to get a Durrant -- because without said outcome there is no OKC plan. And I have every faith that by dumping Arenas, we would tank. And I don't see why anyone would think otherwise. Do you seriously have that much faith in Blatche that simply adding Wall to him makes us a playoff team? There's your unrealistic thinking for you.

We had one of the worst teams in the league last year. We are a rebuilding franchise. Rebuilding franchises don't have a "core." And btw, I'd love to know what our "core" consists of in your opinion. What rebuilding franchises do is they suck until they get a few great players. Then, they build around them. That's the plan -- as it should be. If we want to execute said plan, we probably need to dump Arenas. We'll have to see how good Arenas is once he comes back for a full season.

As I said, rebuilding franchises build around a few key young players whom they believe will be the face of the franchise. Blatche should not be our best big that we build around. He is not the "real deal." And this notion that another big won't come around in the next few drafts that is better than Blatche (or as Hoops put it, it'll be a longtime coming before we see another big drafted who is better than Blatche) is silly. Blatche can be used in a package to get a better big ultimately or we can draft one better. But, we should not go in with the idea that he will be our hope and faith in the post for the next half decade. Please show me the second round pick who displayed the types of mental weaknesses Blatche has shown every single year we've had him, who suddenly became the top big on a franchise and lead them to a championship (because make no mistake your top big is a leader on the team). Now there is where you enter the realm of fantasy.

[AceDegenerate]

I love how everyone's beloved Ted has given no indication at all of wanting to move Arenas, yet that is everyone's Step A to contention.

[Dat2U]

I am disgusted that EG is coming back. Common Ted? WTF man

We were the 2nd worst team in the NBA 2 years ago and we had a top 5 pick which we gave away to 2 players who WONT even be here next year. ERNIE GRUNFELD Destroyed this team and our future with this trade.

How is their not consequences for this?

I think we have to view that move in the context of Abe's health. If EG was given a "Win Now" mandate, that move makes sense. No draft pick at the #5 was seen as an immediate contributor. I'm not saying Grunfeld is perfect or deserves to stay, but I do certainly leave open the possibility that the trade for #5 last year had other factors that drove the decision.

Ridiculous, I don't know why everyone wants to make excuses for EG and blame a dead man. When does a "win-now" mandate equate to acquiring Mike Miller & Randy Foye? If there was really a mandate then EG should be fired for incompetence on that move alone. "Win now" would have been shaking up a stale core and dealing for Amare. No, EG didn't go for "win now", he went simply panicked last summer and made a horrible deal.

[barelyawake]

I think i missed the boat for this comment with the whole argument about dumping this that and the other and tanking away for the shot at some mysterious big man in the draft who is the second coming of Shaq and Hakeem in Dwight Howard's body.

Right, see because to be "better than Blatche" and an allstar, you have to be Shaq combined with Hakeem. The homerism over Blatche displayed in this thread is ridiculous.

I'll say once more, we need more assets. You get those through the draft. You don't have to draft a big dirrectly, but you certainly need the trading chips to get one. It's the normal rebuilding process. We should not attempt to finish rebuilding until we are ready. Ready means you have enough assets to take a shot at a championship. Until then, players are assets. Our sin of the last decade was holding onto players for too long, when we should have viewed them as trading chips to climb up the ladder. We can't even begin thinking about building a championship "core" without a star small and a star big to build around. Until then, we are simply acquring assets. Of course, we may along the way pick up pieces we wish to keep. But, until we get a star big, we will have no idea what other pieces we need or how the puzzle fits together. And Blatche is not that star big.

[Hoopalotta]

Again, whether you like it or not, the PLAN is to follow the OKC model. To execute that plan, we will have to do what they did -- which is tank. The plan is to get a Durrant -- because without said outcome there is no OKC plan.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought the plan was first and foremost to get a franchise big:

3) The need to build the team around an allstar big and small. The drafting of Wall is only the first step. There needs to be a logical plan in place that will get us a superstar big -- and I mean neither Blatche nor Boozer. We need foresight to be able to predict the league and draft out five years.

The goal should be to get an allstar big to put with Wall.....Going into our rebuilding process without a clear plan is what the Wizards have being doing for decades. This pie-in-the-sky idea that we will "see what happens" without taking steps to guide our future is insanity....Blindly going in with this "we can't predict the future" mentality, will stunt our growth as a team, and it's terrible Gming.

We need someone better than Gasol to win a title with Wall (especially since he's a point guard).....That's why you read three drafts ahead and factor that into your thinking.

The whole point of dispute was in your mentioning of the franchise big “guiding principle” based on “projecting the draft and league out three to five years”. So don't act as if this all got started with me ripping into the OKC plan or that I need some explanation on how that all works.

But if you're now arguing in favor of a more generalist OKC road, that's fine by me. And it remains to be seen what OKC can do as far as acquiring a game changing big.

And I have every faith that by dumping Arenas, we would tank. And I don't see why anyone would think otherwise. Do you seriously have that much faith in Blatche that simply adding Wall to him makes us a playoff team? There's your unrealistic thinking for you.

I mentioned this before, but while I believe moving Gil could see us pretty bad next year, it's not a great draft and I'd put our odds on the 8th pick as being a lot higher than the 2nd pick. It's a thin line obviously; the Pacers had what, six more wins than us, but almost no chance to win the lottery (that's of course never even minding the teams favored to win this year that got hopped). Regardless of anything, I just doubt that we get a game changer next year; certainly nothing I'm planning on. Vesley's third on the DX board at this point and a lot of the Freshmen probably won't even bother coming out with the lockout.

The year after that, our tank prospects are even worse. And 2013? Probably not unless we sabotage our talent base. Sure, all things being equal, I'd like to tank too, but I don't think it's going to score us anything close to franchise players. More likely a pair of guys in the Paul George-Pattrick Patterson range. Now by all means, that doesn't mean we shouldn't tank, but I'm just saying squeezing them grapes ain't likely making no French champagne, so the end result is we'll likely need to find another way to jimmy the bottle.

We had one of the worst teams in the league last year. We are a rebuilding franchise. Rebuilding franchises don't have a "core." And btw, I'd love to know what our "core" consists of in your opinion. What rebuilding franchises do is they suck until they get a few great players. Then, they build around them. That's the plan -- as it should be. If we want to execute said plan, we probably need to dump Arenas. We'll have to see how good Arenas is once he comes back for a full season.

I'd say McGee and Blatche are core players in that they can be game changers, even if McGee is more of a sixth man burst player. That's my view. Are they untouchable? No, they could be moved for the right piece, but they could also be paired with a guy like Noah, receive some seasoning and form a dominant rotation that was the envy of most any team in the league. I've made it very clear that I believe we need an elite or realistically, at least a high quality defensive big.

As I said, rebuilding franchises build around a few key young players whom they believe will be the face of the franchise. Blatche should not be our best big that we build around. He is not the "real deal." And this notion that another big won't come around in the next few drafts that is better than Blatche (or as Hoops put it, it'll be a longtime coming before we see another big drafted who is better than Blatche) is silly. Blatche can be used in a package to get a better big ultimately or we can draft one better.

Yeah, I believe my exact quote was from page 7:

Hoopalotta:Yes, I think Dray can get it done for us and there will be very, very few bigs drafted in the next three years as talented as him.

I'm not exactly feeling any excess of egg oozing down my face there. As to “better than Blatche”, my point has consistently been that Dray is an excellent scoring big with elite offensive skills who can very conservatively make an excellent third option while helping to run the offense as a facilitator. If Dray doesn't work out, we get someone else, but by no means am I expecting that replacement guy to be a superstar as we're more likely taking a big step back with a mediocre player.

But, we should not go in with the idea that he will be our hope and faith in the post for the next half decade. Please show me the second round pick who displayed the types of mental weaknesses Blatche has shown every single year we've had him, who suddenly became the top big on a franchise and lead them to a championship (because make no mistake your top big is a leader on the team). Now there is where you enter the realm of fantasy.

Bottom line: I consider that taking a position that we can actually move forward based on anything even close to that “first and foremost, we need a superstar bigman” plan would do a lot more damage than good. If a superstar big presents himself to us with the assets at our disposal, great, but I do not believe that teams get young bigmen that are better than Gasol based on executing a plan that projects future events. Hinging our personnel decisions on something like that is just too rigid and could cost us assets as we try to extend tanking past our window or ignore other opportunities (Melo type opportunities). My take is that following those original quotes listed above is going to have us chasing our tails as there's a hell of a lot of luck involved when it comes to getting franchise players. That's how this whole discussion got started, not the OKC model.

Past champions are great and all, but there are almost no back to the basket “get me a bucket!” scoring bigs in the entire league right now. We aren't even likely to have to go through a team like that; we'll probably see pick and roll or face up scorers. In crunch time, you're scoring is probably going to come from the wing anyway and many times you want a clear out the lane with bigs who can shoot. Look at Dirk, he's more or less a wing scorer who's no better at utility “Power” operations than many middling power forwards (superstar offensive finesse player, above average or below in many other areas). Webber was a few bad calls away from a championship and he was no more mature at 23 than Dray is, hardly being a clutch scorer either. Yeah, OK, I'd rather have Shaq too.

But if we have our clutch scoring elsewhere, why try and make decisions around attaining the unattainable? I don't get it. How is chasing the chimera of a superstar big better than actually getting a high quality defensive big for a lot cheaper and being open to spending the money at other positions? You just react to opportunities that present themselves and skip the position based crystal ball approach. What's the the worst case scenario? We're more dependent on wing scoring than the '99 Spurs? So are the Thunder.

Hopefully someone else will pick up the baton if this needs to be discussed any further.

[barelyawake]

No, the discussion began with you both misquoting me and deriding the idea of "tanking" -- which is building through the draft. And Durrant is a 6'9 superstar who can play power forward. If we had a player like that, I wouldn't be saying we need an allstar big. He is an allstar big. And if he were on our team, we wouldn't have to rely on Blatche being a 20-10 scorer. But, to get him we would have to tank. And OKC has the assets, via tanking, to get other players in trade. To become a championship team, they will have to make a few moves yet. But, they have the assets to do so. We are several years away from that point. And we want to have the best assets available to trade once we reach that point.

[Hoopalotta]

No, the discussion began with you both misquoting me and deriding the idea of "tanking" -- which is building through the draft.

Nah - I'm pretty tanky for these parts actually. I just don't think it will work to the point that we nab a franchise player. Especially after grabbing a consensus #1 point guard, I just don't think we can expect to accomplish anything epic there (it would be different if next year were a historic draft).

And Durrant is a 6'9 superstar who can play power forward. If we had a player like that, I wouldn't be saying we need an allstar big. He is an allstar big.

I don't know, he used to play two-guard.

And if he were on our team, we wouldn't have to rely on Blatche being a 20-10 scorer. But, to get him we would have to tank. And OKC has the assets, via tanking, to get other players in trade. To become a championship team, they will have to make a few moves yet. But, they have the assets to do so. We are several years away from that point. And we want to have the best assets available to trade once we reach that point.

I don't disagree with that. But if I were a betting man, and considering everything I just laid out as far as drafts, I'd wager that we're more likely to score our next "ooh-la-la" type player in either free agency or a trade. If we do it in the draft, I'd expect something more in the line of a "Paul Pierce at 10" than an obvious gemstone flung in our laps. I don't really like that or think it's ideal, I just see it laid out that way. Too many teams, not enough blue chips and our tanking window is tight. It would require another dose of ridiculous luck more than anything.

[fishercob]

No, the discussion began with you both misquoting me and deriding the idea of "tanking" -- which is building through the draft. And Durrant is a 6'9 superstar who can play power forward. If we had a player like that, I wouldn't be saying we need an allstar big. He is an allstar big. And if he were on our team, we wouldn't have to rely on Blatche being a 20-10 scorer. But, to get him we would have to tank. And OKC has the assets, via tanking, to get other players in trade. To become a championship team, they will have to make a few moves yet. But, they have the assets to do so. We are several years away from that point. And we want to have the best assets available to trade once we reach that point.

barely, Durant is no power forward. He played SG his rookie year. He's a pure three at this point. He's a great great player, but there's nothing power about him.

I don't think anyone is arguing that we need to accumulate assets. I also don't think there's any danger of the front office making short term fixes this summer that are going to artificially prop up our record and hurt our draft position. That said, all we have to do is look at this year -- when we won the top pick with a 10% chance -- to see that planning based on future draft position is a risky proposition at best.

Plus, if Blatche is as bad or limited as you believe he is, we won't have to worry about being too good and screwing our draft position anyway, right?

I really think that most of us are on the same page with respect to accumulating assets and growing from within -- and then making that big move or two when the time is right. So what are you guys arguing about again?

[barelyawake]

I understand Durrant isn't ideal at power forward. He has played power forward though. He is big enough to dominate a game on both ends of the floor. Especially since our franchise player is a point guard, our ideal situation would be to tank for an actual big. But, as I said earlier, if we got an allstar SF and a defensive C, and Blatche was limited to roleplayer status, then we would be fine. I just don't want us to bank on Blatche being more than a roleplayer.

We are arguing because Hoops got all twisted for some unknown reason and then said I wanted to trade for an unprotected first somehow. First, I don't think we have the assets to do that. Second, I never came close to saying that. And the discussion veered from there.

[Hoopalotta]

I took objection to the confident assertion that there was some logical and solid means by which we were going to project future drafts and then enact steps to exploit that knowledge (still unamed steps, I might add,with any projections at deciphering what this would entail being called out as "misrepresentations"). Barely, if you were misquoted, there might just be a reason for that.

That is just an absolute bulls eye on how to drive me completely insane. My Dad's an engineer and I have been brought up squarely under the guidance of the scientific method, what can I say? If someone suggested we make decisions based on the wiggling of the magic beans within the shaman's wigwam I would be no more put off.

[verbal8]

I took objection to the confident assertion that there was some logical and solid means by which we were going to project future drafts and then enact steps to exploit that knowledge (still unamed steps, I might add,with any projections at deciphering what this would entail being called out as "misrepresentations"). Barely, if you were misquoted, there might just be a reason for that.

That is just an absolute bulls eye on how to drive me completely insane. My Dad's an engineer and I have been brought up squarely under the guidance of the scientific method, what can I say? If someone suggested we make decisions based on the wiggling of the magic beans within the shaman's wigwam I would be no more put off.

We don't have to worry about future drafts because LeBron is going to sign with the Wizards. Just ask Ms. Cleo j/k