Poll: Grade Ernie Grunfeld

[JonathanJoseph]

Called Denver about Melo

Grade A

Yawn.

Carmelo Anthony has had good-to-extremely good teams and has 1 more playoff series win than Gilbert Arenas.

Anthony = Overrated

I don't necessarily agree with your reasoning (West being tougher than East), but your point still stands... Anthony (atleast when compared to Gil) is overrated...

Gil has a slightly higher TS%, even including the past 3 season where he shot way below his average... Carmelo is a more versatile scorer and a better defender, but I think Gil's defensive shortcomings are a bit overstated; his position is arguably (the most) more difficult one to defend and he's consistently been part of one the worst defensive teams in the league... He still has ways to go before he considered average though...

I agree with this post. I agree that Arenas' defensive problems are overstated and much of it can be explained by Eddie Jordan's defensive philosophy (none) and Eddie Jordan's leadership style (offense wins so dont' worry about effort on defense or shot selection, Gil/Tawn/Caron will get 40 minutes no matter what happens).

I'd bet Arenas is at least a mediocre defender this year and probably average, and as you noted, if Arenas is an average defensive player than he's closer to Carmelo Anthony in value than anyone thinks.

[JonathanJoseph]

Address what points? You've already drawn conclusions about the impact of 2 guys who haven't played yet and wonder why #17 & #23 draft picks can't be considered core when those draft positions would suggest probably a 50% of becoming a starting caliber player.

I don't even know what to refute because they are silly premises.

The points? They were already written above.

1. Any thoughts on our overall draft strategy now that it appears that Hamady Ndiaye will not be signed?
Anyone out there have an opinion on how the pick was used?

2. We appear to be 0 for 3 when it comes to prospects that could realistically be part of a rotation with young Wall....at-least for this year.
Hamady won't be signed, KS probably won't see much PT, Booker is the X-factor, perhaps he might be tried at SF. Disagree?

3.Would you have made the same picks given the get-tough mandate?
A legit question that I throw out there, given Ted's mandate to rebuild with youth, would you have made the same picks?

I invite anyone who cares to have a discussion w/o throwing an online tantrum to join-in.

1) Ernie Grunfeld is likely the best 2nd round drafting GM in the recent history of the NBA (Michael Redd, Andray Blatche) so if he misses on Hamady I don't care.

2) I have no idea how KS or Booker will play this season and neither do you, but I'm far more concerned with how they play in 2011-2013 when they will be counted on.

3) Yes, but it's impossible to know now, so it's silly to talk about.

[Dat2U]

1) Ernie Grunfeld is likely the best 2nd round drafting GM in the recent history of the NBA (Michael Redd, Andray Blatche) so if he misses on Hamady I don't care.

Personally, I'd rather have a GM that was confident enough in his own abilities to NOT trade away top 5 picks for veterans.

Being able to pick 2nd rounders is nice (two excellent picks in 10 years btw). But being able to successfully draft in the 1st round is far more important. And EG has far more misses when it comes to 1st round picks.

[Dat2U]

1. Any thoughts on our overall draft strategy now that it appears that Hamady Ndiaye will not be signed?
Anyone out there have an opinion on how the pick was used?

Hamady was the 56th pick the draft, I had no expectation of ever contributing to the team. I personally wouldn't have traded up for Booker in the first place. I had Dominique Jones, Damion James, Quincy Pondexter, Jordan Crawford, Hassan Whiteside & Solomon Alabi all higher on my draft board than Booker OR Seraphin for that matter.

2. We appear to be 0 for 3 when it comes to prospects that could realistically be part of a rotation with young Wall....at-least for this year.

Outside of landing John Wall, Ernie Grunfeld had $20 mil++ in cap room and two more draft picks entering this summer. We ended up with Kirk Hinrich, a couple of former busts in Yi & Armstrong, a guy recovering from a torn ACL in Howard and two projects/tweeners in Booker & Seraphin.

So $20 mil++ in cap room brought us exactly one healthy rotation player in Hinrich who happens to play the same position as our two best players. Great job there.

3.Would you have made the same picks given the get-tough mandate?
A legit question that I throw out there, given Ted's mandate to rebuild with youth, would you have made the same picks?

No. I said before the draft that best value in the draft would be in late 1st round. That you could get the same quality of player at 25 that you could at 15. The 25th pick was for sale for pure cash. Good players were also available at 30/35.

[JonathanJoseph]

1. Any thoughts on our overall draft strategy now that it appears that Hamady Ndiaye will not be signed?
Anyone out there have an opinion on how the pick was used?

Hamady was the 56th pick the draft, I had no expectation of ever contributing to the team. I personally wouldn't have traded up for Booker in the first place. I had Dominique Jones, Damion James, Quincy Pondexter, Jordan Crawford, Hassan Whiteside & Solomon Alabi all higher on my draft board than Booker OR Seraphin for that matter.

2. We appear to be 0 for 3 when it comes to prospects that could realistically be part of a rotation with young Wall....at-least for this year.

Outside of landing John Wall, Ernie Grunfeld had $20 mil++ in cap room and two more draft picks entering this summer. We ended up with Kirk Hinrich, a couple of former busts in Yi & Armstrong, a guy recovering from a torn ACL in Howard and two projects/tweeners in Booker & Seraphin.

So $20 mil++ in cap room brought us exactly one healthy rotation player in Hinrich who happens to play the same position as our two best players. Great job there.

3.Would you have made the same picks given the get-tough mandate?
A legit question that I throw out there, given Ted's mandate to rebuild with youth, would you have made the same picks?

No. I said before the draft that best value in the draft would be in late 1st round. That you could get the same quality of player at 25 that you could at 15. The 25th pick was for sale for pure cash. Good players were also available at 30/35.

This is entirely wrong.

You mention cap space, and then neglect total years/dollars. Because making long term commitments to Hinrich/Yi/Armstrong would be stupid, but that's not at all what happened. That same ~$20M in cap space will be available next summer (assuming Hinrich's contract can still be moved) after Flip has gotten 1 year tryouts out of Yi/Howard/Young/Thornton and we see what we have in Seraphin/Booker.

So if you don't have a good grasp of how cap space works in a larger context, perhaps you should stop opining on how Grunfeld is it. Trying to suggest Grunfeld squandered cap space is to completely misunderstand the entire strategy.

Meanwhile, just as you are calling Yi a bust, the dude is blowing up the FIBA championships and Universal Sports said the following:

Yi's on fire. China dropped to 1-2 with a loss to Puerto Rico, but don't blame Yi Jianlian. The 22-year-old scored 24 points with seven rebounds on Tuesday, which was actually below his tournament averages in both categories (now sitting at an imposing 25.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game). Yi has been maddeningly inconsistent as a pro, but is coming off career-highs of 12.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season and could be on the cusp of a significant breakthrough with the Wizards in 2010-11. And even if you're not ready to believe in Yi, the photo above establishes one thing we can all agree on: his fully-groomed armpits are too much for Renaldo Balkman (lower left) to handle.

http://www.universalsports.com/blogs/blog=mr.universe/postid=491075.html

So go ahead and be specific about what you would have done (even with the benefit of retrospect) and we'll see what happens. Because if Yi has anything that could remotely described as a breakthrough year than Grunfeld will be in line for Executive of the Year.

[hands11]

1. Any thoughts on our overall draft strategy now that it appears that Hamady Ndiaye will not be signed?
Ndiaye is merely a draft-and-stash. That's neither good nor bad at this point. We'll have to look at it in a year or two. If he never comes over to the NBA, then it's a bad pick. But even so, it's not really a reason to bash EG. It's pretty freakin rare for the #56 pick to pan out.

2. We appear to be 0 for 3 when it comes to prospects that could realistically be part of a rotation with young Wall....at-least for this year.
Again, I don't understand why you consider being "realistically part of the rotation" this year as your criteria for success. Big men drafted outside of the lottery are almost never successful in their rookie seasons. If Seraphin pans out to be a starting-caliber player in 2013, then I would consider this draft a success even if he plays just 200 minutes this year. And as you pointed out, Booker may well be part of the rotation this year.

3.Would you have made the same picks given the get-tough mandate?
I don't know. How can anybody know at this point? I'll let you know next summer.

But if SA did this, it would be brilliant.

[Dat2U]

This is entirely wrong.

You mention cap space, and then neglect total years/dollars. Because making long term commitments to Hinrich/Yi/Armstrong would be stupid, but that's not at all what happened. That same ~$20M in cap space will be available next summer (assuming Hinrich's contract can still be moved) after Flip has gotten 1 year tryouts out of Yi/Howard/Young/Thornton and we see what we have in Seraphin/Booker.

So if you don't have a good grasp of how cap space works in a larger context, perhaps you should stop opining on how Grunfeld is it. Trying to suggest Grunfeld squandered cap space is to completely misunderstand the entire strategy.

You know what assuming does right? EG loves Hinrich. Has coveted him for awhile & there's no evidence whatsoever that they would consider moving him. I'd count on Hinrich remaining in Washington for the foreseeable future. With $8 mil due for the '11-12 season Hinrich is taking a nice chunk of potential cap room next offseason .

But also what I'm saying is EG didn't do a very good job of getting bang for his buck. $9 mil this year for a backup PG/mentor. $4 million for guy who might miss a significant chunk of the season. And another $4 million for a guy whose done nothing in the NBA thus far. Color me not impressed.

Couldn't we even get ONE decent starter or high level prospect out the off-season other than Wall??? To me EG had a golden opportunity and basically mucked it away. Everything kinda depends on what Seraphin does and honestly its going to take a couple of years to figure that out b/c it sounds like he's pretty damn raw.

Meanwhile, just as you are calling Yi a bust, the dude is blowing up the FIBA championships and Universal Sports said the following:

Yi's on fire. China dropped to 1-2 with a loss to Puerto Rico, but don't blame Yi Jianlian. The 22-year-old scored 24 points with seven rebounds on Tuesday, which was actually below his tournament averages in both categories (now sitting at an imposing 25.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game). Yi has been maddeningly inconsistent as a pro, but is coming off career-highs of 12.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season and could be on the cusp of a significant breakthrough with the Wizards in 2010-11. And even if you're not ready to believe in Yi, the photo above establishes one thing we can all agree on: his fully-groomed armpits are too much for Renaldo Balkman (lower left) to handle.

http://www.universalsports.com/blogs/blog=mr.universe/postid=491075.html

So go ahead and be specific about what you would have done (even with the benefit of retrospect) and we'll see what happens. Because if Yi has anything that could remotely described as a breakthrough year than Grunfeld will be in line for Executive of the Year.

Yi has started 152 games and played more than 4,700 minutes thus far in his NBA career. What he's doing in FIBA is nice but honestly dominating the Ivory Coast or Puerto Rico doesn't excite me that much when I look at what he's done in the NBA.

This isn't somebody that languished behind a star on a playoff team & couldn't get minutes. This was a guy that had every opportunity in the world and got dumped by two teams. A career PER of 11.5 (12.3 last year). A career eFG of .424 (.417 last year). Doesn't defend. Doesn't rebound. Yeah he averaged 12 & 7 last year, in over 31 minutes a night on one of the worst teams in basketball history. There's more than enough evidence to draw conclusions. I think it would be an astounding statistical feat if he managed to improve on those numbers greatly. I don't think there are many cases where someone has that type of turnaround in their career after a totally inept first 3 seasons.

[Dat2U]

So go ahead and be specific about what you would have done (even with the benefit of retrospect) and we'll see what happens.

What I would have done.

Draft:
#1 - PG John Wall
#30 - CE Hassan Whiteside
#35 - CE Solomon Alabi

Trade1:
#25 - SG Dominique Jones for $3 mil cash & future 2nd.

Trade2:
CE Samuel Dalembert / SF Thaddeus Young for SG Nick Young

Other potential targets: PF Anthony Randolph / SF Xavier Henry

Free agency:

Resign Shaun Livingston 3 yrs - $11 million
Resign James Singleton for VET minimum
Resign Cartier Martin for VET minimum
Sign Richard Hendrix for VET minimum

New roster:

PF Andray Blatche / James Singleton / Richard Hendrix
SF Thaddeus Young / Al Thornton / Cartier Martin
CE Samuel Dalembert / Javale McGee / Solomon Alabi / Hassan Whiteside
SG Gilbert Arenas / Dominique Jones / Quinton Ross
PG John Wall / Shaun Livingston

[hands11]

This is entirely wrong.

You mention cap space, and then neglect total years/dollars. Because making long term commitments to Hinrich/Yi/Armstrong would be stupid, but that's not at all what happened. That same ~$20M in cap space will be available next summer (assuming Hinrich's contract can still be moved) after Flip has gotten 1 year tryouts out of Yi/Howard/Young/Thornton and we see what we have in Seraphin/Booker.

So if you don't have a good grasp of how cap space works in a larger context, perhaps you should stop opining on how Grunfeld is it. Trying to suggest Grunfeld squandered cap space is to completely misunderstand the entire strategy.

You know what assuming does right? EG loves Hinrich. Has coveted him for awhile & there's no evidence whatsoever that they would consider moving him. I'd count on Hinrich remaining in Washington for the foreseeable future. With $8 mil due for the '11-12 season Hinrich is taking a nice chunk of potential cap room next offseason .

But also what I'm saying is EG didn't do a very good job of getting bang for his buck. $9 mil this year for a backup PG/mentor. $4 million for guy who might miss a significant chunk of the season. And another $4 million for a guy whose done nothing in the NBA thus far. Color me not impressed.

Couldn't we even get ONE decent starter or high level prospect out the off-season other than Wall??? To me EG had a golden opportunity and basically mucked it away. Everything kinda depends on what Seraphin does and honestly its going to take a couple of years to figure that out b/c it sounds like he's pretty damn raw.

Meanwhile, just as you are calling Yi a bust, the dude is blowing up the FIBA championships and Universal Sports said the following:

Yi's on fire. China dropped to 1-2 with a loss to Puerto Rico, but don't blame Yi Jianlian. The 22-year-old scored 24 points with seven rebounds on Tuesday, which was actually below his tournament averages in both categories (now sitting at an imposing 25.3 points and 10.0 rebounds per game). Yi has been maddeningly inconsistent as a pro, but is coming off career-highs of 12.0 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season and could be on the cusp of a significant breakthrough with the Wizards in 2010-11. And even if you're not ready to believe in Yi, the photo above establishes one thing we can all agree on: his fully-groomed armpits are too much for Renaldo Balkman (lower left) to handle.

http://www.universalsports.com/blogs/blog=mr.universe/postid=491075.html

So go ahead and be specific about what you would have done (even with the benefit of retrospect) and we'll see what happens. Because if Yi has anything that could remotely described as a breakthrough year than Grunfeld will be in line for Executive of the Year.

Yi has started 152 games and played more than 4,700 minutes thus far in his NBA career. What he's doing in FIBA is nice but honestly dominating the Ivory Coast or Puerto Rico doesn't excite me that much when I look at what he's done in the NBA.

This isn't somebody that languished behind a star on a playoff team & couldn't get minutes. This was a guy that had every opportunity in the world and got dumped by two teams. A career PER of 11.5 (12.3 last year). A career eFG of .424 (.417 last year). Doesn't defend. Doesn't rebound. Yeah he averaged 12 & 7 last year, in over 31 minutes a night on one of the worst teams in basketball history. There's more than enough evidence to draw conclusions. I think it would be an astounding statistical feat if he managed to improve on those numbers greatly. I don't think there are many cases where someone has that type of turnaround in their career after a totally inept first 3 seasons.

Dude. Your depressing.

Look, no one is drinking any aid. Its the off season. We are rebuilding. It a time of hope. We don't have any Ruffins, or Hayes, or Mike James players on the team. No DS. No AJ at PF problem. No EFJ as coach, etc. Every player on this team has the talent to get better while none are a lock as a proven star and we don't have a bunch of long large contracts.

Its a season of hope and opportunity. Try not to piss on it the whole way.

[closg00]

^^^^^^

Change-nothing Dat, I am sick of people trying to institute their own version of political correctness on this board, one can't even engage in a little fantasy GM'ing anymore.

[closg00]

Ernie's decision was to let Singleton walk and invite Sean Marks to camp. Marks has a very good chance at making the team given the orgs desire for N'Diaye to get some playing-time overseas.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sport ... 07223.html

So, our Front Court is shaping-up to look like this.

PF: Blatche, Yi, Seraphin, Booker (Not sure what the plans are for KS, small C or PF)
C: Mcgee, Armstrong, Marks

I tell you one thing, give me Singleton as an end-of bench guy any time over Marks. Singleton would have been a great guy to have on the team should we make the playoffs, even with Booker on the team.

Grade C- for these moves

[nate33]

EG didn't "let Singleton walk". Singleton wasn't willing to play for the vet minimum on a team where he felt he'd rarely get playing time. One can argue that the Wizards should have offered more than the vet minimum to keep him here, but there's still no way to know if Singleton would have signed given the log jam at PF (and we don't know if EG didn't offer more than the vet minimum).

I'm sad to Singleton go but I can understand why it happened. Booker projects to be the same kind of player as Singleton, and Yi will also be taking a lot of PF minutes. It looks to me that Singleton's fate was sealed the day we traded for Yi. I wasn't in favor of the Yi trade then, but I'm willing to wait and see how things play out. If either Yi or Booker pan out to be as good as Singleton within the next two years or so, then the loss of Singleton is justifiable.

[closg00]

EG didn't "let Singleton walk". Singleton wasn't willing to play for the vet minimum on a team where he felt he'd rarely get playing time. One can argue that the Wizards should have offered more than the vet minimum to keep him here, but there's still no way to know if Singleton would have signed given the log jam at PF (and we don't know if EG didn't offer more than the vet minimum).

I'm sad to Singleton go but I can understand why it happened. Booker projects to be the same kind of player as Singleton, and Yi will also be taking a lot of PF minutes. It looks to me that Singleton's fate was sealed the day we traded for Yi. I wasn't in favor of the Yi trade then, but I'm willing to wait and see how things play out. If either Yi or Booker pan out to be as good as Singleton within the next two years or so, then the loss of Singleton is justifiable.

Nate,

From what I've read, we never actually offered Singleton a contract, it was just talk. I agree though, I would not have offered a penny over the vet minimum.

Bottom-line, given a choice of paying either Sean Marks or Singleton the vet minimum, I would take Singleton even with Booker on the team. Good luck to him.

[closg00]

Each NBA team was graded on how effective it uses the D-League (via call-ups, assignments, affiliate ownership, etc.) by a pane; consisting of that team’s corresponding TrueHoop Network team blogger, Matt Moore or Hardwood Paroxysm and AOL Fanhouse, Ridiculous Upside’s Jon L and Scott Schroeder, and D-League Digest’s Matt Hubert (also known as me.)

How we fared

Should Consider a Tutor
Washington Wizards: 1.46 GPA
Minnesota Timberwolves: 1.44 GPA
Detroit Pistons: 1.37 GPA
Sacramento Kings: 1.33 GPA
Milwaukee Bucks 1.17 GPA

http://dleaguedigest.com/2010/09/03/mak ... ge-grades/

[Ruzious]

EG didn't "let Singleton walk". Singleton wasn't willing to play for the vet minimum on a team where he felt he'd rarely get playing time. One can argue that the Wizards should have offered more than the vet minimum to keep him here, but there's still no way to know if Singleton would have signed given the log jam at PF (and we don't know if EG didn't offer more than the vet minimum).

I'm sad to Singleton go but I can understand why it happened. Booker projects to be the same kind of player as Singleton, and Yi will also be taking a lot of PF minutes. It looks to me that Singleton's fate was sealed the day we traded for Yi. I wasn't in favor of the Yi trade then, but I'm willing to wait and see how things play out. If either Yi or Booker pan out to be as good as Singleton within the next two years or so, then the loss of Singleton is justifiable.

Nate,

From what I've read, we never actually offered Singleton a contract, it was just talk. I agree though, I would not have offered a penny over the vet minimum.

Bottom-line, given a choice of paying either Sean Marks or Singleton the vet minimum, I would take Singleton even with Booker on the team. Good luck to him.

Yeah, good luck to Singleton. I loved his attitude and rebounding. I remember the first game I saw him on the Zards, Blatche was getting out of control pissed off at a bad ref's call against him. Singleton put an arm around, gave him some encouraging words and a smile, and Dray was able to get his head back in the game. That's a great teammate.

[hands11]

A shrine should be started.

I think most of us appreciated what he brought to the team.

[montestewart]

Singleton was quoted referring to Thornton as "country strong," and I wondered what kind of strong that made Singleton. I'm glad he's going somewhere that will give more court time, because he has the effort and desire, and he's like "continent strong." Still, I can easily envision scenarios down the line that would make me wish he were on the roster.

[Hoopalotta]

I believe that reference would be "country boy" strong. It sounds like a shoulda' been Johnny Cash song.

[montestewart]

I believe that reference would be "country boy" strong. It sounds like a shoulda' been Johnny Cash song.

He was six foot eight and an eighth of a ton
And he busted up big men just for fun
He’d dive in the air and crash on the floor
And say “Son, that’s just what they pay me for.”
He was country strong.

Take it away Doc.

[badinage]

Each NBA team was graded on how effective it uses the D-League (via call-ups, assignments, affiliate ownership, etc.) by a pane; consisting of that team’s corresponding TrueHoop Network team blogger, Matt Moore or Hardwood Paroxysm and AOL Fanhouse, Ridiculous Upside’s Jon L and Scott Schroeder, and D-League Digest’s Matt Hubert (also known as me.)

How we fared

Should Consider a Tutor
Washington Wizards: 1.46 GPA
Minnesota Timberwolves: 1.44 GPA
Detroit Pistons: 1.37 GPA
Sacramento Kings: 1.33 GPA
Milwaukee Bucks 1.17 GPA

http://dleaguedigest.com/2010/09/03/mak ... ge-grades/

You didn't show all the rankings. This list -- and the urging of a tutor -- suggests that we're among the bottom 5. Not true.

We rank 17th.

In other words -- and one way of looking at it -- we are better in our D-league usage/dealings than we are in the NBA standings.

...

I like the D-league as an idea, and I like that under T-Leon we're likely going to be using it more. But let's be realistic. It's one of those things whose importance bloggers and fan-geeks tend to overstate, and not by a little. Most of the time you're looking to add a 10th or 11th man to your roster. What you hope, is to find a rotation guy. It happens. But let's not confuse that rotation guy for a difference-maker.