The "I Was Dead Wrong About"... Thread.

[montestewart]

I'm pretty risk averse, rarely make bold predictions, and rarely am dead wrong about anything. I was mildly in favor of Arenas-Jamison resignings, but wished it had been for $30-40 million less, was mildly in favor of Howard's resigning, but wished it had been for $30-40 million less, was mildly in favor of Wallace-Strickland trade because of crowded front court and need for PG, was mildly in favor of the Blatche extension. I was only mildly against trading #5 for veterans. Hard to be dead wrong with such wussy positions.

I thought the Bullets/ Wizards would surely get beyond the 2nd round sometime between 1980 and now. There, I was dead wrong.

[Jay81]

Speaking of fennis dembo

Sad life after ball. He killed somebody

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennis_Dembo

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Speaking of fennis dembo

Sad life after ball. He killed somebody

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennis_Dembo

Nice to add this, Ji.

I am enough of a basketball geek to remember Fennis Dembo at U. of Wyoming. He physically was built like Darvin Ham. I remember his game was a power game but he was around 6'5".

At least the homicide was justifiable, no charges were filed, and it sounds like dude is on the verge of coming back in life at 45-46 years old. (Or, maybe he is not.) Overall, he sounds like a very emotional, sensitive guy from the wiki info provided. Reading between the lines, his life struggles and unmet expectations took him to the edge, almost over. Dude sounds like a real kindred spirit.

I loved reading this:

Dembo's unusual first name came from a suggestion by an older sister, Zona. He and his twin sister Fenise were the 11th and 12th children in their family. Zona preferred that they be the last children in the family, and suggested they be named after finis, French for "finish".[2]

His mom named her twins finished and finished! That is excellent, funny, and also provides some insight. I hope that guy has a happier latter life.

[montestewart]

I am enough of a basketball geek to remember Fennis Dembo at U. of Wyoming.

Or maybe you're just old. I used to follow college ball a lot, and I remember him pretty well.

Just to be clear, he shot an intruder in his own house. That's a very specific kind of "killed somebody"

[The Consiglieri]

Guggs. I think it was '92. I was totally outraged by the pick. So tired at the time of a never ending supply of non-difference makers, and then we take a guy I'd never heard of. He actually ended up being a pretty darn good pro. Not an all star, but not below average or a bust either, basically a bit better than league average. I wanted Todd Day or Walt Williams.

It's hard to remember all that much since then as I was pretty much right about the trades (ive hated essentially every trade we've ever made except ofr the sell off deals we did in '10 and '11).

2 others:

Blatche: i did think he was finally getting it in '10 and was worth the extension because with getting shot and arrested for propping a hooker, I couldn't imagine he'd continue to be clueless. I was wrong. He could plumb plenty of new depths.

Booker: I didnt like the trade up, I wanted to keep our picks and take flyers on guys like Whiteside, Tiny, and Lawal.

Ves: I didnt expect his shooting to be this bad. I can't see how its even possible lol. How can you devote your entire life to hoops and not be able to shoot? This is completely confounding to me. Totally baffling.

I'm sure there are others here and there, like I thought LaRon Profit would be decent, but at the end of the day, while I get my share of things wrong, the boulez are not a team I get a lot wrong about. It's much easier to make mistakes w/football or baseball, with hoops its easier to spot a mistake.

There's another one which keeps slipping my mind, I'm sure I'll remember it later and post it.

Ahha! just remembered. When I realized we were in the top 3 of the draft back in May of '10, I was jumping for joy and praying and pleading we made the top 2, in which case I didnt care if we were #1 or #2 because I absolutely loved Turner and Wall as prospects, and felt Turner would probably help chemistry a bit more, but that Wall was a better fit for need. Now I realize how thoroughly and completely wrong I was and how much of a disaster it would have been if we had landed at #2. I had that drafts big 4 well sussed out, ans sniffed out the one major bust, but I missed on Turner who i thought was at worst a future damn good player. At the time my thoughts on the top 5 were:

1. Wall-Stud PG, elite difference maker, needs to improve his shot.

2. Turner-Has come back from horrific injuries that would have waylaid many a player, so good at so many things, a star with a great attitude.

WHOOPS!

3. Derrick Favors-Reminded me a ton of '05 pick McDyess. Might not ever be a star, but should have 10 years of elite defense and rebounding from him with adequate scoring (10-14 a game). Kind of in that McDyess/Mutombo mode of being absolutely elite at everything save scoring. I thought he might end up being the best player in the draft in time.

4. D. Cousins: Headcase, could end up being that Derrick Coleman type that had elite talent but never put it all together, and played for 8-10 teams like Rasheed Wallace too. Still elite talent.

So when the TWolves took Wesley, I was just absolutely stunned, it was an incomprehensibly stupid pick in my view, as he was the one guy projected in the top 8 or so in my view that absolutely screamed "BUST!!!".

[penbeast0]

Yeah, I remember being at the Cap Center when they made the Gugliotta pick and the GM actually came out and promised the crowd they wouldn't regret the pick. The crowd wanted Walt Williams and I think I wanted Laphonso Ellis or someone . . . I am pretty sure I was wrong. I also remember being there and loving the John "Hot Plate" Williams pick . . .

On the other hand, I also remember when we picked Kenny Green over Karl Malone which virtually every casual fan in the building was screaming "NOOOOOO" and we were right. "Never to forget, never to forgive"

As for the Vesely pick, I had never seen him but didn't like the fact that at his height and with all his supposed athleticism, he couldn't rebound or score to any extent in the Euro League and the strong majority who posted in the predraft thread said, "I just hope we don't end up picking Vesely."

[dangermouse]

I think im definitely going to have to chow down on a crow dinner resulting from my opinion of Jeremy Lin.

I still think Wall is/will be better.

[W. Unseld]

My Wiz mistakes are too numerous to make & I would bet about 1/2 of the hindsight wisdom being applied would somehow not have worked either bc it's the Wiz. Also I swear we have done this before but here goes:
"Tim Duncan is way too slow & mechanical to make it in the pros"
"Kenny Anderson will dominate the league"

I'm hoping to be wrong on "the Skins gave up way too much for RG3"

[nate33]

Taking a look back at EG's significant moves in reverse order:

Resigning Young to QO: I agreed with the move. I would have paid him MLE money but Nick wasn't taking it.

Turiaf Trade: I liked it.

Drafting Vesely: Didn't like it. I liked Leonard and Markieff Morris better.

Drafting Singleton: liked it. Jury still out on whether I'm "dead wrong" or not

Drafting Mack: I had no opinion

Hinrich trade for Crawford/Evans: I liked it

Arenas trade: I liked it

Yi acquisition: I hated it

Howard resigning: I liked it. I guess I was dead wrong here.

Booker pick: Ambivalent. I didn't hate it like many did.

Seraphin pick: Ambivalent. There wasn't anyone else I particularly wanted more.

Wall pick: I liked it.

Hinrich BOYD trade: I liked it

Butler + Haywood dump: I liked the Butler + Stevenson for Howard part. I hated the Haywood for Gooden part.

Jamison dump: I LOVED it. I still say people don't give EG enough credit for this. He basically turned Jamison and his $40M contract into Trevor Booker.

#5 for Miller+Foye trade: I HATED it.

Jamison resigning: I thought it was too much but I understand that EG had to do it give the Abe Pollin win now directive. Ultimately, it didn't turn out to be that costly because we recouped that value when we dumped him.

Arenas resigning: I assumed he would be coming back healthy so I thought it was the right move. Dead wrong here.

Crittenton trade: I hated it.

McGee draft: I liked it.

That's about as far back as I feel like going for now. I was pretty right about just about everything except for the Howard resigning and the Arenas resigning. And the Arenas one deserves an asterisk because I didn't have the same medical information as EG did.

[penbeast0]

Agree with you on most of these . . .

liked drafting McGee; for that matter liked drafting Andre Blatche -- roll the dice rather than go with proven mediocrity.

Liked the Crit trade, thought he was a tough strong defensive PG with some skills and that Gil might be better at the 2 -- was wrong of course but it wasn't giving up much

Arenas and Jamison resigning -- disliked both, liked the Jamison signing more -- although I didn't really have strong alternatives to either

HATED the Miller/Foye deal -- collossally stupid before it was made, still collosally stupid. With that high a pick you need to get a star, neither had the ceiling of more than a role player and unlike Wiz mgmt, didn't think we were a role player or two away from a championship.

Liked dumping Jamison, Butler, and Haywood -- we weren't going anywhere, it was time to rebuild and even Haywood puts us closer to mediocrity, not to contending. If you are going to tank, tank strong.

Hinrich deals -- had no issue with them, liked it better when we dealt him away again although I'm on record as not thinking Crawford is going to be a good NBA role player but at that time, I hadn't seen him enough to be depressed yet.

Wall pick -- what was not to like? The idea of picking a fathead like Cousins didn't appeal to me and he was the main alternative

Seraphin and Booker picks -- swapping picks to move up and pick guys who the draft sites said were probably second round picks bothered me but I was willing to keep an open mind since I hadn't seen either to speak of. Again, didn't have a strong alternative opinion

Yi --- Ni, maybe hell ni

Arenas for Lewis -- it was time to move Arenas and another toxic contract was the only option. With the buyout looking reasonable it seems as good a move now as it did then

Mack -- not a fan; didn't think his game would translate to the NBA that well. Jury still out

Singleton -- liked it at the time, watch a bit of ACC basketball and he looked like a player. Still like it for a late 1st in a really weak draft, he seems to have enough of an upside

Vesely -- all I had to go on was scouting reports (underwhelming) and Euroleague numbers (also poor). Using that high a draft pick on someone who couldn't score or rebound in rotation play in the Euroleague seemed stupid at the time. Wanted one of the PGs, Knight or Walker. Still would rather have one of them as a sparkplug off the bench and if means less minutes for Crawford, good.

QO for Nick Young -- sure, why not. He's as good a placeholder as any.

[fugop]

I thought Foye would fit well next to Arenas in the backcourt.

[verbal8]

I thought this would be a boring trade deadline.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I was dead wrong to be very angry/disappointed about the McGee/Nene deal.

I told everyone a bunch of times why I didn't like the deal. Still, I was too negative to appreciate where the Wizards are trying to go even if I disagree with the first major step along the way.

In criticizing the deal vociferously and calling Grunfeld an incompetent, I did't think about the perceptions of others or viewpoints different from mine. I read WizTom's post in the Nene Trade thread and read today that Wittman shut Blatche down and I had an epiphany: "The Wizards are really making the team over. They are doing some good things."

I was dead wrong to not consider how much the culture of the team could improve in short run. I didn't foresee how happy Wall would be to be rid of McGee. More fans are happy McGee is gone. Who cares if he blows up--it wasn't happening here.

I am not changing my view that the deal wasn't good in the long run. I also still think Nene might not be as good as Seraphin right now. All that and the $52M more on his deal after this season haven't changed.

I am merely admitting my absolute, strong disapproval was too much.

I like the Ubiles move, even if he doesn't stick. I like shutting Blatche down as soon as Nene arrived. I like Seraphin with Booker (but I knew they play well together). What I failed to consider on the night of the deal is Nene can play PF and Seraphin C.

I even had a thought that Batum could suddenly be a lot easier to sign now.

[Dat2U]

I may have a to eat some crow on Seraphin after saying a few weeks ago that comparing him to Jahidi White was disprespecting Jahidi.

[montestewart]

I may have a to eat some crow on Seraphin after saying a few weeks ago that comparing him to Jahidi White was disprespecting Jahidi.

You were harsh. Maybe it motivated him.

[Illuminaire]

Dat's always harsh.

[closg00]

I thought the Washington sports coverage of the Wizards would return to normal, shifting attention to Nene and the re-build. Then Jason Reid dropped an A-Bomb in the middle of the trade afterglow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wi ... story.html

[montestewart]

I was wishy washy about a Blatche/Vesely/2013 1st (I think) for Aldridge trade proposal. If it was the 2013 1st rather than a 2012 1st, there's no way wishy washy was a good position. Hindsight says that easily, but I think everyone but me called it at the time (not that the Blazers would have done it, but still).

[nate33]

I was wishy washy about a Blatche/Vesely/2013 1st (I think) for Aldridge trade proposal. If it was the 2013 1st rather than a 2012 1st, there's no way wishy washy was a good position. Hindsight says that easily, but I think everyone but me called it at the time (not that the Blazers would have done it, but still).

Wait. What?

That offer was discussed?

[montestewart]

I was wishy washy about a Blatche/Vesely/2013 1st (I think) for Aldridge trade proposal. If it was the 2013 1st rather than a 2012 1st, there's no way wishy washy was a good position. Hindsight says that easily, but I think everyone but me called it at the time (not that the Blazers would have done it, but still).

Wait. What?

That offer was discussed?

Discussed on this board. I doubt it was discussed anywhere else. I think you were among the ones that said "montestewart, you're crazy if you don't go for that deal."