Grade the Wizard's Draft

[JonathanJoseph]

1. The Hinrich trade. $17 million for the 17th pick is just indefensible. Taking on a non-expiring contract is indefensible. Seraphin is not a favorite of mine but I understand the desire to go high risk/high reward.

2. Trading up for Trevor Booker. I like Booker, and think he can be an effective backup PF for us but trading the 30/35 when there was good value to be had made little sense. Booker may have been there at 30 and even if he wasn't there were prospects just as good or better available where we would have picked.

I give you an F for twice misconstruing what happened, just so t could suit your agenda

1. They didn't spend $17 M on the 17th pick. They also got 2 years of Kirk Hinrich. They also got cash back. So not $17M, and not just Seraphin.

2. Booker wasn't available at 30. He was drafted 23rd, the Wizards wanted him, so they traded their later picks for him.

Suit my agenda? Exactly what agenda do I have? I'm not a tool like Rico who plays the EG line like he's his agent & publicist. I'm giving my opinion. That's all I've done and ever will do here. When and if EG ever makes a good move again I'll give him credit for it. I have no problem doing that. I just have had no reason to the last 4 years or so.

Let me reword what I said earlier so you or anyone else won't "misconstrue" where I'm coming from.

1. 2 years of Kirk Hinrich at $17 million for the 17th pick is indefensible. We didn't need Kirk Hinrich. As for a mentor, don't we already have Sam Cassell? What about Shaun Livingston who would have been alot cheaper & productive? (and we wouldn't have had to help Chicago either). He could have been a great mentor to Wall. Did we need to take on a multi-year deal & tie up our flexibility just for a mentor?

2. You have no idea if Booker would be available at 30 and neither do I. But you can't tell me there wasn't better value at #23 or even if we just sat and waited at #30. Even if they just bought the #25 pick for cash and selected Booker I would have been okay with that. But the pick swap feeds into the line of thinking that EG gets consistently gets poor value out of his deals.

Dude we didn't get "2 years of Kirk Hinrich at $17 million for the 17th pick". We got 2 years of Kirk Hinrich AND the 17th pick AND $3M and gave away NOTHING. If you think Livingston was ever going to sign with a team that had Wall and Arenas you are kidding yourself. No decent backup PG was coming here for less than $17M

We do know that Booker was drafted #23 and Grunfeld traded picks to get his man. "Better value"? This isn't the NFL. 2/3 of these picks never make it into the league so if you trade 2 of these picks for 1 solid player than it's a huge win. So the only "value" is whether the guy can play and bring his athleticism and toughness to the roster.

[wake20]

How about this:

In 12-13 months, what are the chances Hinrich and Gilbert are still on the books AND it makes us not be able to land a big free agent?

As everyone has said, no one else was taking up this money, and Hinrich will be great trade bait next off-season when he has 1yr/8M and can be a solid back-up/spot starter while mentoring a young guard.

[wake20]

What two players taken 30-60 would you rather have than Booker who fills exactly what we need (toughness, speed, hands, banger, rebounding, work ethic)?

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Staying put, we could have had Whiteside and Varnado. Or Whiteside and Butler or Ebanks.

Time will tell, but methinks EG was trying to be too smart by 1/2.

If you had told me yesterday that we'd spend an average of 7 million over two years in cap room and ended the day with Wall, Hinrich, Anderson, Whiteside and Varnado, I think I would have been pretty happy.

As it is, I'm not quite as enthused.

[Ruzious]

Staying put, we could have had Whiteside and Varnado. Or Whiteside and Butler or Ebanks.

Time will tell, but methinks EG was trying to be too smart by 1/2.

If you had told me yesterday that we'd spend an average of 7 million over two years in cap room and ended the day with Wall, Hinrich, Anderson, Whiteside and Varnado, I think I would have been pretty happy.

As it is, I'm not quite as enthused.

All they've been talking about is attitude and toughness, so there was no chance they'd take Whiteside. And like I've been saying for 3 years to people who like Varnado - he simply doesn't have an NBA body.

[Wizards2Lottery]

We got John Wall. Honestly, that is the only thing I care about.

[nate33]

1. 2 years of Kirk Hinrich at $17 million for the 17th pick is indefensible. We didn't need Kirk Hinrich. As for a mentor, don't we already have Sam Cassell? What about Shaun Livingston who would have been alot cheaper & productive? (and we wouldn't have had to help Chicago either). He could have been a great mentor to Wall. Did we need to take on a multi-year deal & tie up our flexibility just for a mentor?

Dat, to be fair, you have to at least acknowledge the $3M cash we got. So that's effectively $6M for HInrich this year and $8M for Hinrich next year. Also, pretty much every Laker fan on the Trade Board would trade expirings (Vujacic + Brown) for Hinrich without hesitation. Essentially, EG could dump that second year of Hinrich whenever he wants to and such a deal would also shave about $1.5M off the salary we owe Hinrich this year. So in effect, EG has the option to turn that $14M obligation into a $4.5M obligation. He might be able to save even more money if he can convince LA to throw in cash in the deal. (Indy would presumably also be interested in trading Ford for HInrich.)

So EG spent $14M for 2 years of Hinrich plus the #17. Or we spent $4.5M (maybe less) for 1 year of Vujacic and Brown plus the #17. I think the first is a pretty good deal, depending on how much one values Hinrich. The second is an absolute steal. It's even better than what OKC paid for the #18. (You have to factor that they gave up the #32 pick, which is worth at least $2.5M.)

2. You have no idea if Booker would be available at 30 and neither do I. But you can't tell me there wasn't better value at #23 or even if we just sat and waited at #30. Even if they just bought the #25 pick for cash and selected Booker I would have been okay with that. But the pick swap feeds into the line of thinking that EG gets consistently gets poor value out of his deals.

Parsing the words of EG, it appears that Minnesota drafted Booker on their own accord at #23. He was the guy we really wanted so EG then traded the #30 and the #35 for Booker and the #56. It remains to be seen whether the benefits of moving up 7 spots from #30 to #23 outweigh the disadvantages of dropping 21 spots from #35 to #56. I think it's premature to judge EG so harshly for the move.

[LyricalRico]

Staying put, we could have had Whiteside and Varnado. Or Whiteside and Butler or Ebanks.

Time will tell, but methinks EG was trying to be too smart by 1/2.

If you had told me yesterday that we'd spend an average of 7 million over two years in cap room and ended the day with Wall, Hinrich, Anderson, Whiteside and Varnado, I think I would have been pretty happy.

As it is, I'm not quite as enthused.

All they've been talking about is attitude and toughness, so there was no chance they'd take Whiteside. And like I've been saying for 3 years to people who like Varnado - he simply doesn't have an NBA body.

This.

[Hoopalotta]

Staying put, we could have had Whiteside and Varnado. Or Whiteside and Butler or Ebanks.

All they've been talking about is attitude and toughness, so there was no chance they'd take Whiteside. And like I've been saying for 3 years to people who like Varnado - he simply doesn't have an NBA body.

A big fat +1 on Whiteside. It's the exact opposite of what they were trying to get done.

The presser would have been: "We felt like we needed a dumb upside guy with great tools but poor court sense and a tepid motor, who plays soft. We're remaking our imagine here."

How about, a big fat N-O.

[Bickerstaff]

Dude we didn't get "2 years of Kirk Hinrich at $17 million for the 17th pick". We got 2 years of Kirk Hinrich AND the 17th pick AND $3M and gave away NOTHING. If you think Livingston was ever going to sign with a team that had Wall and Arenas you are kidding yourself. No decent backup PG was coming here for less than $17M

We do know that Booker was drafted #23 and Grunfeld traded picks to get his man. "Better value"? This isn't the NFL. 2/3 of these picks never make it into the league so if you trade 2 of these picks for 1 solid player than it's a huge win. So the only "value" is whether the guy can play and bring his athleticism and toughness to the roster.

+1

[wake20]

"The biggest red flag are Whiteside's intangibles. He's not a typical freshman in college -- Whiteside just turned 21 years old, which limits his upside. He also comes in with a reputation of having a bad attitude and a poor work ethic. That is not a good thing for someone with the amount of development that Whiteside still has to do. Late in Marshall's season, Whiteside was benched for a multitude of reasons, which seemed to center around his eye on the NBA. Whatever the reason, that's not exactly a good sign for a prospect."

[Hoopalotta]

Dat, you're who I'd pick to run the franchise here, but I don't think you're take on the Hiney trade is fair for all the reasons listed above. We're just not locked in on two years and $17 million on the guy.

Just for example, I'd expect Mike Dunleavy Jr. (and maybe some cash) would be a done deal if it were offered to Indy. They might keep him, but they don't have to.

There's already rumors of him being moved to Orlando as well (admittedly, rumors that don't make sense for us, but it's early).

[Dat2U]

Dude we didn't get "2 years of Kirk Hinrich at $17 million for the 17th pick". We got 2 years of Kirk Hinrich AND the 17th pick AND $3M and gave away NOTHING. If you think Livingston was ever going to sign with a team that had Wall and Arenas you are kidding yourself. No decent backup PG was coming here for less than $17M

We do know that Booker was drafted #23 and Grunfeld traded picks to get his man. "Better value"? This isn't the NFL. 2/3 of these picks never make it into the league so if you trade 2 of these picks for 1 solid player than it's a huge win. So the only "value" is whether the guy can play and bring his athleticism and toughness to the roster.

Your touting the acquisition of Hinrich. I'm not. You see him as an asset & potential mentor. I see Hinrich as a brand new shiny $17 million dollar nuse around our neck.

We didn't acquire Hinrich & the 17th for nothing. WE PAID FOR THEM WITH OUR CAP FLEXIBILITY FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS! You have no diea whether Livingston would re-sign in a backup PG role and neither do I. I'm saying he was a possible alternative, a superior alternative AND far cheaper.

When I said better value, I meant better players. Booker is fine. I had him as the 24th rated prospect on my board. But there where 4 or 5 prospects that I thought were better values and could have been had at 24 or 30. My argument isn't against Booker, its EG and his continued willingness to overpay for everything.

[Dat2U]

Dat, to be fair, you have to at least acknowledge the $3M cash we got. So that's effectively $6M for HInrich this year and $8M for Hinrich next year. Also, pretty much every Laker fan on the Trade Board would trade expirings (Vujacic + Brown) for Hinrich without hesitation. Essentially, EG could dump that second year of Hinrich whenever he wants to and such a deal would also shave about $1.5M off the salary we owe Hinrich this year. So in effect, EG has the option to turn that $14M obligation into a $4.5M obligation. He might be able to save even more money if he can convince LA to throw in cash in the deal. (Indy would presumably also be interested in trading Ford for HInrich.)

So EG spent $14M for 2 years of Hinrich plus the #17. Or we spent $4.5M (maybe less) for 1 year of Vujacic and Brown plus the #17. I think the first is a pretty good deal, depending on how much one values Hinrich. The second is an absolute steal. It's even better than what OKC paid for the #18. (You have to factor that they gave up the #32 pick, which is worth at least $2.5M.

It's $17 mil in cap space. That's the bottom line. It's costing us $9 mil in cap room, not $6 mil.

And I have no idea why your talking about a 2nd deal or spending only $4.5 mil. What's the point of the Lakers wanting Hinrich if EG has 'coveted' Hinrich for years and wants him to be a mentor to Wall? Doesn't sound like Hinrich is going to be flipped to another team anytime soon. Sounds like Hinrich is apart of our core going forward and I suspect Hinrich will be here longer than Gil will.

The Laker stuff is just innuendo by desperate Wizards fans trying to put a positive spin on this. It's nothing new. I've poo-pooed EG's trades for years now and have been met with the same amount of resistance every time and nearly every time the deal turns out to be a bad one. I'd love to be proven wrong but when it comes to criticizing an EG move the past few years, its hard to be on the wrong side of history.

[nate33]

I pointed out the potential Lakers trade to illustrate that Hinrich does have value to GM's leaguewide. You make it sound like HInrich is a $17M dead weight contract. He isn't. There is value in Hinrich the player, so we didn't just give away $17M in cap space. If we need that cap space next year and we can't (or won't) trade Arenas, Hinrich can be moved.

Think of Hinrich as a bank account where we are storing our cap space and earning interest (production and mentoring of Wall). We can withdraw from that account if we need to.

There really isn't any reason to sit around with $21M in cap space. We still have $12M. That's enough for a Trade Deadline deal.

[Dat2U]

"The biggest red flag are Whiteside's intangibles. He's not a typical freshman in college -- Whiteside just turned 21 years old, which limits his upside. He also comes in with a reputation of having a bad attitude and a poor work ethic. That is not a good thing for someone with the amount of development that Whiteside still has to do. Late in Marshall's season, Whiteside was benched for a multitude of reasons, which seemed to center around his eye on the NBA. Whatever the reason, that's not exactly a good sign for a prospect."

On twitter, there where rumors that the reason Whiteside dropped was b/c he's got severe ADD. That makes alot sense when looking into his demeanor & overall behavior.

I can understand why teams passed on him in the first round. He's going to be a very high maintenance player. But if your patient, surround him with the right medical care & treatment, you potentially have a top 5 or 6 talent on your hands.

At #30 he would have been a risk worth taking and investing in, but only if your willing to give him the total support he needs to suceed. By ALL accounts, people around him say he's not a bad kid. But the ADD thing needs to be dealt with.

[The Consiglieri]

What mattered the most to me happened. I am a big time believer in utilizing all picks after the blue chip area on potential guys. The bulk of the players drafted after the blue chip zone tend to fall into one of three labels: Role player w/limited talent, Bust, Raw player w/potential who could become a stud but probably won't. I hate drafting the first two kinds of players because they tend to come under the same umbrella, w/very little in the way of upside. Id much rather take the slightly longer odds guy w/raw potential potential, but less chance of necessairly easily becoming a role player, than trying to fit a role player into the system from the draft when the talent/upside is less. You get a lower ceiling of talent, and only a slightly higher floor in terms of actual ability to contribute. It's not worth it, to me, to lower the risk for so little payoff.

So for me, taking Seraphim was genius. He is EXACTLY the kind of guy i like to take in that zone. you're swinging for the fences, and if you miss, well, he's got such athleticism, and such a body, that he probably could actually fit a role maybe, but the upside is just huge. That kind of pick i like much much more than the booker reach, which was infuriating to me.

I will say one thing about the Booker reach though, he's got energy, desire and motivation from what i've heard, and if a play is hungry enough, it can camouflage a lot of flaws. If a player doesn't have that hunger, well, you know what you get, a lot of our old school players that have been such frustrating figures in our basketball fandom. He's got that hunger and desire so he probably has a good chance of being a serviceable role player. Lastly, to get a guy who plays some really good defense that late in the draft? Not bad. It's not what I like, but what percentage of guys ever accomplish anything taken in the 50something area? Not many. So we pulled the trigger on a player that could very easily be a valuable defensive sub as needed, and a genuine role player who contributes. As was joked at one sight, we basically drafted Thabeet part II, just w/far less upside.

So overall, i really thought it was a nice blueprint of what is wanted by Leonsis and the staff. They want a hungrier tougher team and they made it happen. They wanted to rebuild from scratch and they are. They wanted to build from youth and thats whats happening. They appear to want to make Wall the leader of a young and hungry team, and they are doing that. They also appear to be on a 2-3 year rebuild plan, and they've built in such a way that we probably should be adding a young and talented prospect next year too. I imagine we'll probably have a top 5-10 pick next year.

I didnt like the Booker trade up either. I feel like we not only drafted the wrong guy, we got rid of the opportunity of getting two young guys w/upside, and got one young role player w/very little upside instead. I didn't like that at all. However, we landed Wall, a prospect w/huge long term upside in Seraphim, are adhering to a pretty smart plan, and got two hungry role players who probably have the mentality to stick in this league. There's a lot to like, and its probably nitpicking to bitch, particularly about a pick in a region of the draft where traditionally 70-85% of the players are either flat out busts, or virtual non-entity, 12th man off the bench types, and should we really complain about that?

[miller31time]

John Wall = A+ (no-brainer pick - he's about as sure of a "sure thing" as you get in the draft)

Kevin Seraphin = C+ (An average grade for a guy who has the potential to be really good or really bad - if he was drafted at 20-25, it would be a better grade but I don't think anyone was targeting him near 17)

Trevor Booker = C- (I just don't think he's worth a low 20's draft pick)

Considering John Wall's impact weighs more than the other team by a significant margin, it would be hard to give this draft any lower than a A but that doesn't mean I'm happy with our selections past Wall.

[nate33]

I think EG's strategic decisions on draft night were excellent.

John Wall is an A. It was hard to screw up, but at least he didn't screw it up.

I like the Hinrich trade. I like it much more now that it's apparent that OKC really wanted Seraphin at #18 and San Antonio was rumored to want him at #20. There's no way to know if Seraphin is worth it, but we at least know that many of the best talent evaluators in the game like him. I grade that move an A because EG appears to have outfoxed some pretty savvy GMs.

I'm agnostic on the Booker pick. I acknowledge that Booker was apparently in demand in that range, so EG at least had some company. I'm just not so sure it was wise to grab Booker when we could have had Pondexter instead. I don't get the sense that he stole Booker out from under the noses of great talent evaluators, so there's no reason to give EG particularly high marks for gamesmanship. There's no reason to give him a low mark either. For now, I give it an entirely arbitrary grade of C.

I have no opinion whatsoever on Ndaye.

Overall, EG gets an A-. Bravo!

[Hoopalotta]

Kevin Seraphin = C+ (An average grade for a guy who has the potential to be really good or really bad - if he was drafted at 20-25, it would be a better grade but I don't think anyone was targeting him near 17)

I don't think that's a safe assumption. As I broke down in the Seraphin thread, I think OKC was going to take him 18th.

Here's my reasoning:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1023277&start=45#p23909870

Edit --> Oh yeah, plus Fisher has a link in the draft thread suggesting OKC and San Antonio wanted him too