EG post Abe era started Nov 24, 2009 - Eval EG from then

[Bickerstaff]

sfam

So true. Actually, I don't even usually look at the name of the person who posted. I just read them straight throw. Then I come across something that sounds off and I might look over to see who it was and I see the name and go ahhhhhh. OK.

This forum is such a joke. YOU were King Clown around here last season.

Now you're part of the clique, how sweet.

I'm done here for now, you can all return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll only be back to gloat on how wrong you all were on Gilbert, and to remind not to cheer for him when you hated him 6 months ago.

I'll be smoking Trees in Belize when they find me.

I love Gilbert, incidentally. But feel free to pick up your ball and go home. Way to dish it out and not take it.

[Bickerstaff]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

I agree with all of this except the idea that Jamison still could have played a major role in Cleveland winning a championship, and that it's too soon to grade recent moves. By that logic, we need to wait until everyone's retired to say for sure how it worked out. But, yeah, the thing that drives me crazy here is that EG is an average GM, but somehow people here (people on the internet, really) have this idea that if you're not the best or close to the best, then you suck. But I think the fact that the Wizards number 2 guy has gotten a bunch of attention as a possible GM hire for quality teams must say something about the quality of the front office. I also think that unless a poster is someone who demands the best from himself, he has ZERO right to expect the same of anyone else (that's not directed at you, by the way).

[montestewart]

sfam

So true. Actually, I don't even usually look at the name of the person who posted. I just read them straight throw. Then I come across something that sounds off and I might look over to see who it was and I see the name and go ahhhhhh. OK.

This forum is such a joke. YOU were King Clown around here last season.

Now you're part of the clique, how sweet.

I'm done here for now, you can all return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll only be back to gloat on how wrong you all were on Gilbert, and to remind not to cheer for him when you hated him 6 months ago.

I'll be smoking Trees in Belize when they find me.

I love Gilbert, incidentally. But feel free to pick up your ball and go home. Way to dish it out and not take it.

Glad you mentioned that. I do too, and a bunch of others on this board do as well and have supported Arenas. And some that don't like Arenas arrived at that view long before last year. If you ask me, it's a pretty wide range of views on this board, rather than a herd mentality. That's what I like about it.

[fishercob]

Someone: "2+2 = 7!!!!"
Everyone else" "No, idiot. 2+2 =4."
Someone: "Group-think!!!!!"

[fishercob]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

I agree with all of this except the idea that Jamison still could have played a major role in Cleveland winning a championship, and that it's too soon to grade recent moves. By that logic, we need to wait until everyone's retired to say for sure how it worked out. But, yeah, the thing that drives me crazy here is that EG is an average GM, but somehow people here (people on the internet, really) have this idea that if you're not the best or close to the best, then you suck. But I think the fact that the Wizards number 2 guy has gotten a bunch of attention as a possible GM hire for quality teams must say something about the quality of the front office. I also think that unless a poster is someone who demands the best from himself, he has ZERO right to expect the same of anyone else (that's not directed at you, by the way).

On Jamison:
1) He was woefully misused by Brown. Never should have started and never should have played big minutes with Shaq. He could have been great for the in 25-30 mpg a night off the bench, backing up Hickson and Lebron. Most of his minutes should have come playing between Lebron and Varajeo or Varajeo and Hickson when it would have been far easier to hide him on D.

2) There was some funny stuff with Lebron and his "elbow injury," and suggestions from many that Lebron mailed it in against Boston. It's really hard to judge how far Cleveland could have gone with that being the case.

On "too soon to grade recent moves":
Not saying we need to wait until Seraphin retires, but we at least need a really good sense of what we've got in him (and Hinrich for that matter) to judge that trade. Same with Booker. We'll know in 9 months whether the Josh Howard deal worked out.

[JonathanJoseph]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

Of course the grade is technically incomplete, but we now know the strategy and tactics and on those Grunfeld seems to have done a pretty good job. A few months after changing the team's course the franchise is in great shape both short and long term. There's significant young talent on the roster and complete cap flexibility going forward. Rebuilding will take 1 season or less. Tommy Shephard is being interviewed for a big promotion. That seems to be the sign of a front office well run.

People are so busy nitpicking how they could have done better on trades months ago (despite the fact that neither life nor business works that way), despite refusing to see how those trades have worked out for the Wiz. The Haywood trade was not a loss. Marcus Camby was traded for cash, so the theory that there was a better offer out there seems far fetched. Grunfeld traded a player who could no longer contribute (DS) and a team cancer (CB) and got back Josh Howard (who was looking like a pretty good pickup when he got hurt) and $15M in cap space this year. The trade was instrumental in changing what had become cancerous team chemistry. The trade helped open up playing time for Javale McGee and contributed to losing enough games to end up with John Wall.

Still in this thread where we're trying to grade the GM since Nov 2009 are people still insisting on bringing up the #5 for MM/RF trade. Yeah, it was a bad trade in retrospect. But that's one move and all GMs make a bad move or two. That doesn't make him incompetent.

Andthe great majority of you harping on passing on Stephen Curry would most certainly have wanted Grunfeld's head on a plate 12 months ago had he taken Curry over Ricky Rubio. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

So all the harping on Grunfeld for not using the "Sam Presti strategy of asset optimization" keep missing the point that those moves worked so far. So focused on the tactics that you are missing the strategy. If you look at things from that perspective you'd be hard pressed to give Grunfeld less than a B.

[Zonkerbl]

May this thread burn in hell forever. Thank god I realized after the first page that it would only get worse and didn't read any of it.

[montestewart]

May this thread burn in hell forever. Thank god I realized after the first page that it would only get worse and didn't read any of it.

How do you know it didn't get better?

[Kanyewest]

I gave EG a grade of C. Why? Because D is not an option.

* OPech was a flat out miss and was redundant to boot as we already had Blatche. (that was not Pollins fault). Passed on Rondo, Milsap, etc. Both are better than OPech.

* Passing on DaJuan Blair when we have needed a physical strong rebounder for years.

* trading the 5th pick for a salary dump of Etan and OPech(see first mistake listed) and two 1 year rentals. Could have drafted Curry or Jennings. People want to say it worked out in that we lucked up and got Wall. Sure Ernie lucked out. But if we had Curry, and the season ended up being lost and we were left with a lower lottery pick, say the 5th pick, we could have drafted Cousins and have Gil, Curry, Blatche, Cousins, McGee.

I wonder who EG would have taken with that pick: Rubio, Curry, or even Flynn. Doubtful it would be Jennings although I felt like he was being undervalued during the draft, mostly because of a lack of national exposure.

[fishercob]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

Of course the grade is technically incomplete, but we now know the strategy and tactics and on those Grunfeld seems to have done a pretty good job. A few months after changing the team's course the franchise is in great shape both short and long term. There's significant young talent on the roster and complete cap flexibility going forward. Rebuilding will take 1 season or less. Tommy Shephard is being interviewed for a big promotion. That seems to be the sign of a front office well run.

People are so busy nitpicking how they could have done better on trades months ago (despite the fact that neither life nor business works that way), despite refusing to see how those trades have worked out for the Wiz. The Haywood trade was not a loss. Marcus Camby was traded for cash, so the theory that there was a better offer out there seems far fetched. Grunfeld traded a player who could no longer contribute (DS) and a team cancer (CB) and got back Josh Howard (who was looking like a pretty good pickup when he got hurt) and $15M in cap space this year. The trade was instrumental in changing what had become cancerous team chemistry. The trade helped open up playing time for Javale McGee and contributed to losing enough games to end up with John Wall.

Still in this thread where we're trying to grade the GM since Nov 2009 are people still insisting on bringing up the #5 for MM/RF trade. Yeah, it was a bad trade in retrospect. But that's one move and all GMs make a bad move or two. That doesn't make him incompetent.

Andthe great majority of you harping on passing on Stephen Curry would most certainly have wanted Grunfeld's head on a plate 12 months ago had he taken Curry over Ricky Rubio. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

So all the harping on Grunfeld for not using the "Sam Presti strategy of asset optimization" keep missing the point that those moves worked so far. So focused on the tactics that you are missing the strategy. If you look at things from that perspective you'd be hard pressed to give Grunfeld less than a B.

JoJo, you quote my post, but don't respond to what I'm saying. You respond to things that are in the same neighborhood as what I'm saying.

Why is my disapproval of the Haywood trade "nitpicking?" Why is any criticism of Grunfeld somehow unpatriotic? Yes, the trade had some pro's. But given how much Dallas clearly valued Haywood my opinion is that we should have been able to extract more value, ok? I didn't say anything about a better offer being out there. But given that Dallas and Portland both extended the centers they traded for, it's naive to suggest they should have been valued as mere expirings. We should have either kept Haywood, Gooden and Ross our of the deal, or we should have gotten more back.

As to the draft trade from last summer, I was commenting on it because several others brought it up. I acknowledged that it wasn't central to the question at hand. I also didn't suggest the move made Ernie incompetent. I said he's average.

You're wrong with your Curry/hindsight comment. I don't know how closely you were reading the boards before you signed on last July, but there was a significant movement for Curry (doc, Dat, CCJ, among others) before the trade went down. He's a guy that a lot of people here got right.

I didn't say anything about Sam Presti, but to your point, I understand the strategy. Ernie's doing a fine job with that strategy so far. He'd be doing a better job if he hadn't whiffed on the deal with Cuban. But ultimately, his grade will be tied to whether or not we drafted the right guys.

[fishercob]

By the way, Tommy Shepherd has been interviewing for (and not getting) GM jobs for the past few years at least. I think that's a lot more of a reflection on Tommy than it is Ernie

[JonathanJoseph]

JoJo, you quote my post, but don't respond to what I'm saying. You respond to things that are in the same neighborhood as what I'm saying.

Why is my disapproval of the Haywood trade "nitpicking?" Why is any criticism of Grunfeld somehow unpatriotic? Yes, the trade had some pro's. But given how much Dallas clearly valued Haywood my opinion is that we should have been able to extract more value, ok? I didn't say anything about a better offer being out there. But given that Dallas and Portland both extended the centers they traded for, it's naive to suggest they should have been valued as mere expirings. We should have either kept Haywood, Gooden and Ross our of the deal, or we should have gotten more back.

As to the draft trade from last summer, I was commenting on it because several others brought it up. I acknowledged that it wasn't central to the question at hand. I also didn't suggest the move made Ernie incompetent. I said he's average.

You're wrong with your Curry/hindsight comment. I don't know how closely you were reading the boards before you signed on last July, but there was a significant movement for Curry (doc, Dat, CCJ, among others) before the trade went down. He's a guy that a lot of people here got right.

I didn't say anything about Sam Presti, but to your point, I understand the strategy. Ernie's doing a fine job with that strategy so far. He'd be doing a better job if he hadn't whiffed on the deal with Cuban. But ultimately, his grade will be tied to whether or not we drafted the right guys.

Except that's what the market proved to be. Again, you're suggesting that in hindsight you know better than what the market forces clearly suggested at that time. Not to mention that Grunfeld ha zero leverage.

But to the point that seems to be lost in translation, it doesn't matter whether Ernie COULD have gotten more in return. That's not what Grunfeld was looking to accomplish. He wanted to unload salaries, open up the roster and change team chemistry and that was accomplished in spades. The goal was not to win the Dallas trade it was to set up roster and cap flexibility and tank for a higher draft pick.

The Wizards were a trainwreck in Nov 2009. Now plenty of folks are talking about the Wizards being a potential 7/8 seed next season. If Grunfeld's 10 or 11 moves turn a trainwreck into a young, rising playoff contender in 6 months then suggesting that any 1 or 2 of those moves weren't optimal on their own merits misses the bigger point. If the strategy is working well it is nitpicking to complain about some of the tactics. The goal isn't to win every trade on paper.

[closg00]

JoJo, you quote my post, but don't respond to what I'm saying. You respond to things that are in the same neighborhood as what I'm saying.

Why is my disapproval of the Haywood trade "nitpicking?" Why is any criticism of Grunfeld somehow unpatriotic? Yes, the trade had some pro's. But given how much Dallas clearly valued Haywood my opinion is that we should have been able to extract more value, ok? I didn't say anything about a better offer being out there. But given that Dallas and Portland both extended the centers they traded for, it's naive to suggest they should have been valued as mere expirings. We should have either kept Haywood, Gooden and Ross our of the deal, or we should have gotten more back.

As to the draft trade from last summer, I was commenting on it because several others brought it up. I acknowledged that it wasn't central to the question at hand. I also didn't suggest the move made Ernie incompetent. I said he's average.

You're wrong with your Curry/hindsight comment. I don't know how closely you were reading the boards before you signed on last July, but there was a significant movement for Curry (doc, Dat, CCJ, among others) before the trade went down. He's a guy that a lot of people here got right.

I didn't say anything about Sam Presti, but to your point, I understand the strategy. Ernie's doing a fine job with that strategy so far. He'd be doing a better job if he hadn't whiffed on the deal with Cuban. But ultimately, his grade will be tied to whether or not we drafted the right guys.

Except that's what the market proved to be. Again, you're suggesting that in hindsight you know better than what the market forces clearly suggested at that time. Not to mention that Grunfeld ha zero leverage.

But to the point that seems to be lost in translation, it doesn't matter whether Ernie COULD have gotten more in return. That's not what Grunfeld was looking to accomplish. He wanted to unload salaries, open up the roster and change team chemistry and that was accomplished in spades. The goal was not to win the Dallas trade it was to set up roster and cap flexibility and tank for a higher draft pick.

The Wizards were a trainwreck in Nov 2009. Now plenty of folks are talking about the Wizards being a potential 7/8 seed next season. If Grunfeld's 10 or 11 moves turn a trainwreck into a young, rising playoff contender in 6 months then suggesting that any 1 or 2 of those moves weren't optimal on their own merits misses the bigger point. If the strategy is working well it is nitpicking to complain about some of the tactics. The goal isn't to win every trade on paper.

Wrong-again JoJo, the exact opposite of what you wrote is true. Market forces gave Grunfeld the upper-hand as the playoffs approached last year. The Wizards held a very valuable asset in Brendan Haywood and several teams desperately needed Wood a lot more than we needed to trade him.

The goal of every trade is to indeed to get the better of your trading partner and Mark Cuban laughed publicly after he bested Grunfeld in that trade. We should have gotten 2nd round pick out of the Mavs at a minimum.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

sfam

So true. Actually, I don't even usually look at the name of the person who posted. I just read them straight throw. Then I come across something that sounds off and I might look over to see who it was and I see the name and go ahhhhhh. OK.

This forum is such a joke. YOU were King Clown around here last season.

Now you're part of the clique, how sweet.

I'm done here for now, you can all return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll only be back to gloat on how wrong you all were on Gilbert, and to remind not to cheer for him when you hated him 6 months ago.

I'll be smoking Trees in Belize when they find me.

I love Gilbert, incidentally. But feel free to pick up your ball and go home. Way to dish it out and not take it.

KZ, be sure to chronicle this in the book you should be writing about now.

I am mystified that you find the time to post here, but for what it is worth I wish you nothing but the best of success.

[Kanyewest]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I agree with everything here.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

I wonder if the Dallas trade had not gone though or if the Wizards did the trade without Haywood- would the Wizards have still been below the luxury tax/a good position to win the lottery. BTW, on another note, when did the Pollin era really end? I mean you have Pollin 2.0 which handled the Arenas' crime. These moves all seemed to be moves in an effort to cut costs. I'm just wondering where these above average GMs out there. IMO, guys like Ainge and Kupcheck are average GMs whose team reached the finals this past season- common denominators seems like they ripped off horrible GMs and their owners had bigger pockets than Abe Pollin; not because Abe was cheap but moreso because their teams had the fortune of winning championships, can sell tickets at higher prices, and accumulated more wealth. Sam Presti seems like the guy to have although he lucked into Durant, didn't do all that great in taking James Harden over Tyreke Evans or Steph Curry.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

One way to look at it would have been Curry and D-Song versus Foye/Miller (being that Pech and Etan were non-factors)- although trading DSong should have created more opportunities for Blatche and McGee to get playing time. I think EG made a mistake for trading for damaged goods in Foye who never looked as good as he was for the Timberwolves and playing the point guard position- probably should have played more alongside Gilbert Arenas IMO. Miller lived up to shooting high percentage numbers but didn't shoot the ball enough. But Washington's big 3 failed miserably at carrying load when given their first opportunity since 2007. Wizards were in a lot of games but often choked away leads in the 4th quarter.

Then again with these trades, EG created more cap space that wouldn't have been there if the Wizards re-signed Haywood, had D-Song under contract for another year. I'm also uncertain if the Wizards would have picked Rubio or Curry although I guess if they were in a win now mode, they would have picked Curry.

I just feel like getting a championship in a team in Washington's position last season was going to be hard to do. Pollin wanted the team to get to the playoffs every year yet it didn't seem like he was willing to spend/had the resources to take a real gamble to put this team over the top. Even the #5 pick trade for Foye/Miller may have had short term financial gains; (although the wealth of the franchise could have gone up long term with another marketable star).

Bottomline, I just hope that EG avoids going after mediocre free agents like DSong and Antonio Daniels until the Wizards actually reach some sort of contending status. I remember everyone saying how the Wizards really overpaid to get DSong when no one else seemed to be targeting him. Antonio Daniels only came to the Wizards because the Wizards gave him that extra year.

[montestewart]

The Wizards were a trainwreck in Nov 2009. Now plenty of folks are talking about the Wizards being a potential 7/8 seed next season. If Grunfeld's 10 or 11 moves turn a trainwreck into a young, rising playoff contender in 6 months then suggesting that any 1 or 2 of those moves weren't optimal on their own merits misses the bigger point. If the strategy is working well it is nitpicking to complain about some of the tactics. The goal isn't to win every trade on paper.

For some, it's more than 1 or 2 moves. In addition, Wall is the huge centerpiece of the projected renaissance of a team that has yet to even play a regular season game, and choosing him with the #1 was pretty obvious.

Your point isn't lost on me though. Clearing the roster of high priced veterans, giving Blatche and McGee more PT, putting the team in a position to win the lottery, getting additional picks, etc. (along with moves yet to come) may just make this team a serious player very soon, and then those moves I questioned won't much matter.

I just want a winner. I would be perfectly happy turning to Lyrical Rico during the Wizards championship parade and saying, "Damn, you were right."

[hands11]

I gave EG a grade of C. Why? Because D is not an option.

* OPech was a flat out miss and was redundant to boot as we already had Blatche. (that was not Pollins fault). Passed on Rondo, Milsap, etc. Both are better than OPech.

* Passing on DaJuan Blair when we have needed a physical strong rebounder for years.

* trading the 5th pick for a salary dump of Etan and OPech(see first mistake listed) and two 1 year rentals. Could have drafted Curry or Jennings. People want to say it worked out in that we lucked up and got Wall. Sure Ernie lucked out. But if we had Curry, and the season ended up being lost and we were left with a lower lottery pick, say the 5th pick, we could have drafted Cousins and have Gil, Curry, Blatche, Cousins, McGee.

Guess you missed the title of the thread. That's usually a good place to start.

[hands11]

sfam

So true. Actually, I don't even usually look at the name of the person who posted. I just read them straight throw. Then I come across something that sounds off and I might look over to see who it was and I see the name and go ahhhhhh. OK.

This forum is such a joke. YOU were King Clown around here last season.

Now you're part of the clique, how sweet.

I'm done here for now, you can all return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll only be back to gloat on how wrong you all were on Gilbert, and to remind not to cheer for him when you hated him 6 months ago.

I'll be smoking Trees in Belize when they find me.

I'm posted the same why I have since I showed up and I read the posts as I described. I'm just hear to cheer on my team and try to add my take on what I see, what I think happens and see the glass half full as often as I can to help lift my Wizard fans up after they have been beaten down so long.

[hands11]

Ugh. This thread is the anti-"should we trade Gil for cap space thread." I have to sift through so much garbage to get to any well-argued discussion.

To the question at "hands," the simple answer is "incomplete." How can we possibly evaluate Ernie's moves until this new team plays a season or two? The rush to grade everything is is counterproductive. There's a lot of nuance and shades of gray -- everything isn't simply good or bad.

I agree with nate that the Jamison trade was great. However, it looks better because Lebron is in Miami. If he was still in Cleveland and they had a better coach than Mike Brown they could be NBA champions right now working on #2.

I'm still annoyed about the Dallas trade. Yes, it's great that Stevenson and Butler are no longer our problems. But we either should have gotten a real asset for Haywood or we should have kept him here (and we'd have ended up with a large TPE for him by S&T'ing him this summer)

I agree with what Dat has been saying for some time -- Ernie Grunfeld is an average NBA GM. He's good enough to win a title with the right about of support, resources, and luck. And as we've seen, he's bad enough to steer the Titanic into a big old iceberg.

Case in point is the Miller/Foye trade. I do believe he had a "win now" mandate. But I also believe he didn't realize that drafting Curry was a better "win now" strategy than making the deal. And even if he had a "trade the pick" mandate, he did a terrible job getting value back for it.

In Ernie's defense, I think a lot of that comes down to resources. Ted is going to give him a lot more tools at his disposal than Abe did -- a well-funded stats department, scouts (domestic and international), D-league, etc. Ernie's kind of like a kid who gets crappy grades. Yeah, it's his fault, but his parents are the ones who need to keep it from happening nonetheless.

Of course the grade is technically incomplete, but we now know the strategy and tactics and on those Grunfeld seems to have done a pretty good job. A few months after changing the team's course the franchise is in great shape both short and long term. There's significant young talent on the roster and complete cap flexibility going forward. Rebuilding will take 1 season or less. Tommy Shephard is being interviewed for a big promotion. That seems to be the sign of a front office well run.

People are so busy nitpicking how they could have done better on trades months ago (despite the fact that neither life nor business works that way), despite refusing to see how those trades have worked out for the Wiz. The Haywood trade was not a loss. Marcus Camby was traded for cash, so the theory that there was a better offer out there seems far fetched. Grunfeld traded a player who could no longer contribute (DS) and a team cancer (CB) and got back Josh Howard (who was looking like a pretty good pickup when he got hurt) and $15M in cap space this year. The trade was instrumental in changing what had become cancerous team chemistry. The trade helped open up playing time for Javale McGee and contributed to losing enough games to end up with John Wall.

Still in this thread where we're trying to grade the GM since Nov 2009 are people still insisting on bringing up the #5 for MM/RF trade. Yeah, it was a bad trade in retrospect. But that's one move and all GMs make a bad move or two. That doesn't make him incompetent.

Andthe great majority of you harping on passing on Stephen Curry would most certainly have wanted Grunfeld's head on a plate 12 months ago had he taken Curry over Ricky Rubio. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

So all the harping on Grunfeld for not using the "Sam Presti strategy of asset optimization" keep missing the point that those moves worked so far. So focused on the tactics that you are missing the strategy. If you look at things from that perspective you'd be hard pressed to give Grunfeld less than a B.

Yeah, I'm not getting the incomplete grade. The grade will continue to get updated but since Nov 24th, EG and Ted and EG have made plenty of moves. I think there is more then enough to grade. The moves can be graded in the context of when they happened individually, and they can be graded in the context of a strategy for rebuilding which started shortly after Abe had passed.

Clear the roster of the pieces and contracts that don't fit.
Clear cap space. Get picks and develop your younger players to finish the season.
Set up to team for your new owner.
Work on the new owners plan.

Again, I hated to see Haywood go. I always saw him as a core piece and unmovable and he was a core Wizard. He developed his game here threw the bad times and I liked him as a player and person. But, I don't know what the deals were out there. We needed to move CB and Sleez and Haywood was coming due to get signed again. Now the biggest hole we have is defensive center. I just hope Seraphin helps. We only went part of last season without one. I hope given a chance to fix that issue, we selected well.

Seraphin isn't a complete unknown. Others evaluated him. I have seen video. I saw him interviewed. I see no red flags with him. I expect he will make mistakes but learn quickly. I can already see the footwork is there. And we can see the NBA body is there. And we know other good teams where looking at him.

[Benjammin]

^^^^

Way to lead the witness. Now you're telling us how to grade Grunfeld. No incompletes allowed apparently. Nothing like grading a draft pick that no one on this board has probably seen a whole game of his or even anything more than a few highlights.