Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[truwizfan4evr]

omg Ernie no! I want Thomas Robinson we get to guys who did nothing last season. That means Robinson out the picture It's down to Beal and Mkg.

[miller31time]

I'm going to laugh so hard when we draft MKG. We will have the worst shooting starting lineup in NBA history with Wall, Ariza and MKG on the perimeter.

Another thing that's wrong with the trade -- it makes draft day even MORE stressful.

Before this trade, we could have taken Beal, Robinson or MKG and I would have been moderately happy and really looking forward to watching them in action. Now? It's Beal or bust.

Charlotte takes Beal and we're screwed.
We take MKG and our offense crumbles.
We take Robinson and the frontcourt log-jam becomes even worse.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

Wow! This is a complete surprise, it's hard to believe it's actually true.

I have actually been pushing for this for MONTHS! Except my entire motivation for the trade was acquiring the #10 pick!! I'm finding it hard to believe a swap of the 32 & 46 for the #10 was not a part of this.


That said... I like Okafor and Ariza for this team. The 1st half of last season this team was shockingly bad. I mean they truly looked like the bad news bears of the NBA. To exit Lewis and add a couple proven high quality vets that are hard workers and team players will go along way to helping this team win sooner than later, and will help these young guys learn how to play in this league and change the culture and overall perception of this team IMO.

We now have depth and versatility abound in the front court. We can start Okafor at C, Nene at PF and Ariza at SF, with Seraphin, Vesely, Booker, C.Singleton off the bench. This is how teams were built back in the day. You'd have a veteran starting group, and the young draft picks would play behind them a year or 2 until they were ready to take over.

We are now loaded at Center with Okafor, backed up there by Nene and Seraphin. How many teams have that much talent and depth at center? At PF we can go Nene, backed by Booker and Vesely. Ariza and C.Singleton is a solid SF rotation.

Next we draft Beal at SG to form our backcourt for the next 10 yrs with Wall. That backcourt is what this team will be built around. Having a deep and versatile and veteran frontcourt to go with that young backcourt foundation could be a good situation. And we can still get another good player at #32.

Okafor, Seraphin, (Nene)
Nene, Booker, Vesely, J.Singleton
Ariza, C.Singleton, Evans
Beal, Crawford, Almond/Mason
Wall, Mack

[tontoz]

I would have been more disgusted with Rudy Gay given he just signed
a HUGE deal. Same (almost) with Joe Johnson.

I would take Gay over this garbage easily. Gay only has one more year on his deal than Okafor.

Okafor isn't that good and will just take minutes from Seraphin. Ariza sucks.

Horrible trade

[Ruzious]

This will give Wall a lot more confidence playing with smarter players with experience, by the time 2014 rolls around, he'll be more motivated to resign with us. Plus we'll have the money to get him other toys or resign or extend what we already have if some player progress nicely like Ves and Seraphin.

Cap room is like hoarding to some fans. It's a dream to have it and it's amazing when you get it. You fall deeply in love with it. Someone suggests you get rid of it to better yourself and you freak the **** out. People can't stand losing it but I think it's overrated unless you think we were really going to sign Gordon, Batum, Illyasova, Jeff Green, etc.

It's already been pointed out several times for the folks who don't get it that salary cap room isn't just for signing free agents. It's also for making trades - trades that can be used to acquire lottery picks. To save the Hornets 30 million over 2 years, the Wiz should have been able to acquire more than 2 middle of the highway veterans.

[TGW]

This will give Wall a lot more confidence playing with smarter players with experience, by the time 2014 rolls around, he'll be more motivated to resign with us. Plus we'll have the money to get him other toys or resign or extend what we already have if some player progress nicely like Ves and Seraphin.

Cap room is like hoarding to some fans. It's a dream to have it and it's amazing when you get it. You fall deeply in love with it. Someone suggests you get rid of it to better yourself and you freak the **** out. People can't stand losing it but I think it's overrated unless you think we were really going to sign Gordon, Batum, Illyasova, Jeff Green, etc.

AGAIN, capspace is more than just being able to sign free agents--it's the ability to absorb money in trades.

For example, Cleveland got a lottery pick from the Clippers for absorbing Baron Davis' contract. A LOTTERY PICK! Meanwhile, the Wizards just gave up a second rounder for doing the exact same thing. For all the people defending this inept trade...do you not see a problem with this?

[boogie-reke]

I'm going to laugh so hard when we draft MKG. We will have the worst shooting starting lineup in NBA history with Wall, Ariza and MKG on the perimeter.

Another thing that's wrong with the trade -- it makes draft day even MORE stressful.

Before this trade, we could have taken Beal, Robinson or MKG and I would have been moderately happy and really looking forward to watching them in action. Now? It's Beal or bust.

Charlotte takes Beal and we're screwed.
We take MKG and our offense crumbles.
We take Robinson and the frontcourt log-jam becomes even worse.

If the Cats are smart they can easily squeeze say Booker out of you guys for a pick exchange.

[Floater]

This will give Wall a lot more confidence playing with smarter players with experience, by the time 2014 rolls around, he'll be more motivated to resign with us. Plus we'll have the money to get him other toys or resign or extend what we already have if some player progress nicely like Ves and Seraphin.

Cap room is like hoarding to some fans. It's a dream to have it and it's amazing when you get it. You fall deeply in love with it. Someone suggests you get rid of it to better yourself and you freak the **** out. People can't stand losing it but I think it's overrated unless you think we were really going to sign Gordon, Batum, Illyasova, Jeff Green, etc.

It's already been pointed out several times for the folks who don't get it that salary cap room isn't just for signing free agents. It's also for making trades - trades that can be used to acquire lottery picks. To save the Hornets 30 million over 2 years, the Wiz should have been able to acquire more than 2 middle of the highway veterans.

Won't they be expiring deals next year? They can help us this year and we wouldn't have used the cap space this year anyways.

[Severn Hoos]

This will give Wall a lot more confidence playing with smarter players with experience, by the time 2014 rolls around, he'll be more motivated to resign with us. Plus we'll have the money to get him other toys or resign or extend what we already have if some player progress nicely like Ves and Seraphin.

Cap room is like hoarding to some fans. It's a dream to have it and it's amazing when you get it. You fall deeply in love with it. Someone suggests you get rid of it to better yourself and you freak the **** out. People can't stand losing it but I think it's overrated unless you think we were really going to sign Gordon, Batum, Illyasova, Jeff Green, etc.

AGAIN, capspace is more than just being able to sign free agents--it's the ability to absorb money in trades.

For example, Cleveland got a lottery pick from the Clippers for absorbing Baron Davis' contract. A LOTTERY PICK! Meanwhile, the Wizards just gave up a second rounder for doing the exact same thing. For all the people defending this inept trade...do you not see a problem with this?

Umm, that lottery pick was actually the #1 overall after the ping pong balls came through....

[IMAN5]

you guys didn't even have to give up your #32 pick. decent trade, bad contracts but good players.

Okafor is a former #2 pick and Ariza was a big part of the Lakers championship not too long ago.

[TGW]

AGAIN, capspace is more than just being able to sign free agents--it's the ability to absorb money in trades.

For example, Cleveland got a lottery pick from the Clippers for absorbing Baron Davis' contract. A LOTTERY PICK! Meanwhile, the Wizards just gave up a second rounder for doing the exact same thing. For all the people defending this inept trade...do you not see a problem with this?

Umm, that lottery pick was actually the #1 overall after the ping pong balls came through....[/quote]



I thought it was the pick they used on Thompson.

Thanks for making me feel even better about this trade, SH.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

Ummm, this...

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/22 ... erall_Pick

[nate33]

Wasn't there a rumor about 2 weeks ago that New Orleans was willing to use their pick to dump either Okafor OR Ariza?

And then it comes out that they are leaning towards keeping the pick. This isn't NBA 2K12. Yeah, we did them a favor getting back two of their bad contracts, but the 10th pick was probably never in play to begin with.

People fall in love with the unknown. The only guy I would have gone after in free agency was James HArden. That's it. So you either get him, awesome. And if you don't, you're stuck with all those cap space and spend it on who exactly? YYou then risk overpaying for middle tier guys.

Spend it on Batum. Or Ilyasova. Or Danny Green. Or Brandon Rush.

Hell, instead of taking on an extra $30M in salary over the next two years, we could have amnestied Blatche for $22M (minus whatever he is signed for on waivers) and then signed somebody for $8-15M, somebody who actually fits our roster.

[NotMyRealName]

Rocket fan here. Do you guys think the Wizards have any interest in Kevin Martin? Brings shooting and scoring, not much else but it seems you guys need that more than anything and have post defenders to cover his defensive liabilities.

His contract is expiring and could probably be acquired for a starting quality Center. No interest in Blatche...

[Saqs]

Way too many delusional armchair GMs lol.

[LyricalRico]

I'm going to laugh so hard when we draft MKG. We will have the worst shooting starting lineup in NBA history with Wall, Ariza and MKG on the perimeter.

Another thing that's wrong with the trade -- it makes draft day even MORE stressful.

Before this trade, we could have taken Beal, Robinson or MKG and I would have been moderately happy and really looking forward to watching them in action. Now? It's Beal or bust.

Charlotte takes Beal and we're screwed.
We take MKG and our offense crumbles.
We take Robinson and the frontcourt log-jam becomes even worse.

Hey, nobody's saying that the roster as of this second will be the roster when the season tips off. I don't see how anything that happened today means that any of those concerns are 100% set in stone. We could still take MKG and follow it up with other moves to balance out the roster. Let's see how the rest of this offseason plays out.

[dobrojim]

I would have been more disgusted with Rudy Gay given he just signed
a HUGE deal. Same (almost) with Joe Johnson.

I would take Gay over this garbage easily. Gay only has one more year on his deal than Okafor.

Okafor isn't that good and will just take minutes from Seraphin. Ariza sucks.

Horrible trade

I thought Gay just signed last offseason for like 80-90 Million.

Someone show me why they think Okafor should start over Seraphin.

[nate33]

Rocket fan here. Do you guys think the Wizards have any interest in Kevin Martin? Brings shooting and scoring, not much else but it seems you guys need that more than anything and have post defenders to cover his defensive liabilities.

His contract is expiring and could probably be acquired for a starting quality Center. No interest in Blatche...

We'll give you Okafor for Kevin Martin. If that were to happen, I would take back all of my criticisms. That would actually make a lot of sense.

[Rafael122]

Wasn't there a rumor about 2 weeks ago that New Orleans was willing to use their pick to dump either Okafor OR Ariza?

And then it comes out that they are leaning towards keeping the pick. This isn't NBA 2K12. Yeah, we did them a favor getting back two of their bad contracts, but the 10th pick was probably never in play to begin with.

People fall in love with the unknown. The only guy I would have gone after in free agency was James HArden. That's it. So you either get him, awesome. And if you don't, you're stuck with all those cap space and spend it on who exactly? YYou then risk overpaying for middle tier guys.

Spend it on Batum. Or Ilyasova. Or Danny Green. Or Brandon Rush.

Hell, instead of taking on an extra $30M in salary over the next two years, we could have amnestied Blatche for $22M (minus whatever he is signed for on waivers) and then signed somebody for $8-15M, somebody who actually fits our roster.

Portland would have probably matched, you're paying 'Sova for one good year with no guarantee that you're gonna get that same productivity. And who's to say we won't get the same production from Beal, rather than go out and sign Green or Rush?

Rudy Gay? Pass.

Joe Johnson? I would have quit being a fan of this team if they did something like this.

Face it, there's MAYBE 2-3 options. Credit Ted for basically saying he'd rather spend the money on these two guys rather than accepting $20 million in sunk costs.

[nuposse04]

Rocket fan here. Do you guys think the Wizards have any interest in Kevin Martin? Brings shooting and scoring, not much else but it seems you guys need that more than anything and have post defenders to cover his defensive liabilities.

His contract is expiring and could probably be acquired for a starting quality Center. No interest in Blatche...

with the likelihood of drafting Beal, I don't see Martin as a good fit for us. I would gladly trade Okafor for stretch 4s and 3s.