Poll: Grade Ernie Grunfeld

[colts18]

Rubio is looking nice. So is DeJuan Blair who is averaging 27 points per 36 minutes on 58% shooting. So in just 2 short years Ernie turned a draft with a top 5 pick into cash. He could have had Rubio and Blair and chose Foye, Miller, and Cash with the cash being the only thing to show for it. I hope he became rich with that cash because it's embarrassing to turn a lottery pick into nothing.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I'm too clueless to figure out how to quote someone. So demerits for that.

Nate, your post was basically correct. The trouble is you are looking at each move individually. EG is supposed to be building a team and his biggest mistake has been assembling talent that doesn't fit or work well together. We have no post players, terrible rebounding and can't shoot. That's a lethally bad combination. We've been obliterated on the boards every game so far this year. We have no low post scoring.

To CCJ, I don't think I explained my view on Flip being inspired very well. When you look at these line-ups and minutes you could conclude that he is a moron and really bad coach but I don't think its that's straight forward. Its like Ben Bernanke saying there is no bubble or subprime is contained. You could conclude that he's totally incompetent and an idiot, or perhaps there is something else going on. Maybe he is just supremely incompetent, but if not, then, well, we all have to work out our own views on such incompetence. In Flip's case, yes, he's not a very good coach. But this year he has been dreadful. I suspect his motivation is two-fold. The first is that if he gets fired he gets to keep the $$$ and move on with his life. The other motivation is that NBA coaching is his career. So he needs to play Lewis and Blatche all those minutes so the league sees that he is playing the top talents as supplied by his GM and folks can say that, yes EG gave him a terribly constructed team and that is why he is losing. The zone defense against Atlanta to start the game, playing Wall and JC together etc. are inspired moves in my view, because they really help us to lose, and on many levels I believe that is Flip's goal. If he is mediocre with this team, the nightmare just drags on. Eventually Ted will have to fire him, and all we Wiz fans can hope for is that he fires EG also, so that we can bring in a better GM who can make the decision on the next coach, the next lottery pick, and how to take this miss-mash of talent and trade quantity for quality and get us some post presence.

Otherwise, we will continue to be horrendously bad.

You obviously put a lot more thought into Flip's possible motivations, and IMO are a very bright guy, w dumsfeld. I have a lot more respect for what you have to say because you make a ton of sense.

Maybe Flip's doing this for all the reasons you state. This season he really has outdone himself. He's not tanking for the lotto pick but is doing it to get canned, perhaps? He's falling on his own shield by allowing a bad roster to be his intentional undoing? He knows this will not put him in a bad light and will serve him well for his next gig? Flip also won't waste time doing roster substitutions and trying to win every game he can, because that is not his objective each game?

For once, I'm going to leave some questions open ended without speculating....

I really do not know what Flip Saunder's motivations are, but I believe his coaching is awful and getting worse. I do not have any idea about behinds the scenes, ulterior motives, that would transcend a coach trying to put the best team on the floor and win games. I am naive enough to think the object is to win and that that is what Flip, Ernie, and all the players get paid to do.

Anybody can lose.

[w dumseld]

A book suggestion from me is Poor Charlie's Almanac. Its by Charlie Munger and full of great wisdom and one piece is to pay very close attention to people's incentive systems because these drive behavior. So they are key for understanding why people do what they do, but in creating them, they are also the key for managing one's self, relationships, teams, companies and even countries. Anyway, I've found the book very helpful and feel the ideas inside can get you a long way.

Since we are handing out complements, I would say CCJ that your strong point is that you focus not only on what is correct but also what is critical, which is where one finds real value add. You notice things that most others don't and you engage in that uncanny human activity of thinking. Remember that Voltaire said that common sense is not so common. You have common sense. You are also an independent thinker, which is good but also tough because you probably feel like you can't understand why others don't understand you. FWIW, my dream would be that Ted clean's house and then hires you on to manage the draft and help with trades and hires Nate for all the left brain stuff. I 100% believe you guys would build a better team than we've got.

[closg00]

I'm an opinionated Milwaukee fan from a few of the other threads.

I enjoy weighing in on these Grunfeld threads every six-months or so because the guy was toxic for our franchise when he was with us.

Both Milwaukee and Washington have (had) one thing in common. A beloved yet completely incompetent and meddling owner. In our case it is Herb Kohl. In your case Abe. Both guys like the idea of "winning now" rather than spending years in the high lotto. Both guys are(were) up in age. Kohl is 76 and I think Abe died at 87 (?)

While it would be easy to blame all of Ernie Grunfeld's bad moves on meddling owners, I think that allows him off the hook. The bottom line is that the guy has been a GM from August 1999 (Bucks) through the current day (Wizards). In those 12.5 years, the guy has really made zero signature moves where you go "Wow, that was a great GM....that move(s) turned our franchise around"

IIn the draft world, he absolutely sucks. He doesn't find you Westbrooks, Serge Ibaka's or Wesley Matthews. Instead he finds you Marcus Haislips and Nick Young's at best.

In the contract world, he overpays everyone for fear of "losing an asset". Whether it was giving Tim Thomas $68 million to stay in Milwaukee, $20 million along with Scott Williams and a future #1 (Josh Smith) for Anthony Mason or your situations with the Arenas, etc bad contracts or trading the #5 pick away twice.

What Grunfeld excels at are two things:

a) He knows how to suck up to his owner.You guys can read into the Kohl/Polin/Grunfeld situation on a number of levels. The bottom line is that he's obviously a good insider politician, otherwise he doesn't last nearly as long as he has.

b) Grunfeld is more than adept at working the phones and getting deals done involving overpaid veterans.He engages in a bunch of "activity" involving veterans that you assume he might know what he's doing. Sometimes he blows enough future assets to put together a 43-win team. But in the end, you mistake that "activity" for being a good GM.

Just my two cents. You guys won't get significantly better until you clean house and get a new front office.

Thanks for stopping-by last-night Paul, what you wrote last year has proven to be true over and over again.