Vent your spleen! Bitching, grouching, general complaints.

[fishercob]

I also remember the excitement of thinking we'd be able to nab Blair with our 2nd round pick... which we then sold to Houston.

*facepalm*

Cash Considerations has been huge for us!

[nate33]

Time to again dispel a myth that is turning into legend. Dying Abe dictated or influenced our draft decisions.

Grunfeld explaining HIS decision regrding trading the 5th pick.

I didn't feel like there was anybody at the five spot who could fit into our rotation," Grunfeld said. "I don't think there are any guarantees in the draft and people are saying this is a weaker draft than normal, so for us to be able to turn the No. 5 pick into two players who can help us immediately and help us for years to come, we felt very good about it."

Grunfeld added that it wasn't necessary to wait and see which player fell to the team at No. 5. "We knew who was going to be at the five spot and we felt that these players were going to help us a lot more than anybody we would've gotten in the draft," Grunfeld said. "A lot of times what happens, when you wait on situations, the other team might get better offers along the way. Then the trade might go away. We felt good about this."

For this^ alone he deserves to be fired. Words of infamy.

I don't think that quote refutes the notion that EG made moves based on Abe's timeline. Indeed, he even states that the attraction of the trade was that Miller and Foye would "help us immediately". I'm not defending the trade. It was his worst move as a GM. All I'm saying was that EG clearly was thinking with a short term time horizon. In that context, trading the #5 pick made sense. (The problem was that he got swindled on the trade. You don't trade a #5 pick for a tweener guard plus a player who would be an UFA in a year.)

[fishercob]

This thread is no place for rationalizing. Vent that spleen, baby!

[Severn Hoos]

OK, I'll take on the Herculean task of attempting to (sort of) defend the move, as best as I can. Lyrical, can you lend me your rose-colored glasses, I hope I don't let you down!

First off, he was actually pretty accurate in saying no one at #5 would have cracked the rotation - as it was envisioned in the summer of 2009 - for the first year or two, at least not in a significant way. Would Rubio have even come over, let alone could he play with Gil?

Obviously, we're glad he didn't pick Jonny Flynn or Jordan Hill, that would have only compounded the problem.

Jennings is a nice player, but again - basically a HS kid playing PG, would he have been in the rotation?

So the only guys who might have even had an impact were Curry and DeRozan. (excepting guys like Henderson, Hansborough, etc. who would have been very nice pickups in a trade-down situation)

I actually liked DeRozan, and probably would have advocated for him to be the pick if we had kept it, but I'm not going to cry over losing out on him.

Which leaves us with Curry. He has been a pleasant surprise (OK, not such a "surprise" to some, but I didn't think he'd be this effective) so far. Sadly, it looks like the ankle injuries could be a problem if they continue. But we have to remember the context - new coach, regular playoff team, Gil/Caron/Haywood/Jamison - again, Curry would not have had much time on the floor anyway, at least in the first year or two, if that team was healthy and stayed together.

Obviously, there were a lot of ifs there - and absolutely everything that could go wrong did, especially related to health (Gil & Miller in particular). And it assumes that Ernie KNEW that Evans & Harden would be gone before 5. If either of them had been there, then I'd really be ticked.

So yeah, if we had DeRozan now, we wouldn't be talking about whether to re-up Nick. But can you imagine the uproar if he had actually taken DeRozan with the pick? Yikes...

And of course, getting more in return - a later/future 1st or something - would have made it far better.

In hindsight, it looks awful. And yes - there were many here (including me) who did not like the deal at the time it happened. But ultimately, it wasn't Schilling-Harnisch-Finley bad, it was a risky move based on wishful thinking that didn't work out. At least we didn't take Thabeet....



So Lyrical, how did I do?

[Severn Hoos]

Ha - looks like, as usual, nate said what I was thinking, but in a more succinct manner.

And sorry, fish - that was a huge rationalization on my part. Don't know what I was thinking, doing that in the spleen thread.


Blatche sux! We won't win 5 games this year! Wall can't shoot straight! Vesely's a beanpole! MCGee's a flake! And Flip's an idiot!




Better?

[Ruzious]

For this^ alone he deserves to be fired. Words of infamy.

His biggest lapse of judgement imho was the delusion that the team as constructed was a few pieces away from competing for a championship. 1st in the East... that stretch really screwed this franchise big time.

Hard to argue with this but dont forget that we also dumped a bunch of useless bigs in Etan Thomas, Pecherov and Songaila . Also, no one could have forseen the total collapse of Gil. But yeah, it was obvious Ernie was in "win now" mode. Epic fail in hindsight.

And the thing is - he used that mantra year after year saying we just need to see how good we can be if we stay healthy - when it was obvious to everyone that they weren't going to be a championship contender by any stretch even if everyone stayed perfectly healthy. Basically, EG is a mediocre mom and pop store style GM (which is probably why Pollin hired him), and that's not good enough for this market.

[Joel Embust]

Where the **** is Cartier Martin, he'd award John Wall with a couple more assists per game.

Sign him, he needs money:

In 2011, it was reported that Martin had lost $374,000 in a ponzi scheme.

Wall
Evans (Martin)
Singleton (Evans)
Vesely
McGee

[dangermouse]

Grunfeld explaining HIS decision regrding trading the 5th pick.

I didn't feel like there was anybody at the five spot who could fit into our rotation," Grunfeld said. "I don't think there are any guarantees in the draft and [b]people are saying this is a weaker draft than normal, so for us to be able to turn the No. 5 pick into two players who can help us immediately and help us for years to come, we felt very good about it."

Those people better have been his scouts and whatnot...

[Dat2U]

For this^ alone he deserves to be fired. Words of infamy.

His biggest lapse of judgement imho was the delusion that the team as constructed was a few pieces away from competing for a championship. 1st in the East... that stretch really screwed this franchise big time.

Hard to argue with this but dont forget that we also dumped a bunch of useless bigs in Etan Thomas, Pecherov and Songaila . Also, no one could have forseen the total collapse of Gil. But yeah, it was obvious Ernie was in "win now" mode. Epic fail in hindsight.

Hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was just an epic fail period. Miller was already broken down & in decline. Foye was the exact same player he was in his rookie season, a guy that wasn't even as good as the SG we already had in Nick Young. We traded a top 5 pick for a one year rental of perimeter depth off the bench. There were some here that were screaming how bad a move this was from the jump.

Etan, Songaila & Pech were all expiring contracts so it's not like Minny did us any favors by taking them off our hands.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

Well the whole let's bow and kiss Wall's feet and anoint him team captain and savior and throw John Wall Day after he was drafted was very annoying as a fan and made our team and organization look pathetic and 2nd rate.

[closg00]

"These guys should know how to play by now," ESPN.com analyst John Hollinger wrote Monday. "The fact that they don't has to be seen as a massive player-development failure on the part of Washington."
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/nb ... z1j6FMS2qC?

Who is in-charge of Wizard player development? Ed Tapscott We don't bring-up his name enough, he is a constant that has been there through it all. Tapscott should get a large part of the blame for the "losing culture"