Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[DCZards]

Just like most of the doubters (and those consumed by visions of salary cap nirvana) came around on the Nene trade once they saw how it helped the Zards on the court, I expect a similar thing here.

Of course, that will only happen if Ariza and Trevor contribute. The verdict will remain out on that until the season starts.

[mhd]

If Emeka plays well, he may opt out after this year, something worth noting.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Who did you think the Wizards could get in the next two years that would be real difference makers? Okafor at least provides a need on the rebounding side. People are acting like he is old and sucks. He is only 29. Before he was injured last year, he was averaging a double double.

He's had back trouble and knee trouble. His explosiveness and athleticism is basically gone. He's still a good rebounder and a respectable defender but right now I'd say he's the 3rd best center on the roster.

And it really doesn't matter what I think we could have done with the cap space. You can't validate a bad move by saying what else could we have done? We could have done nothing and it would have been better. Okafor & Ariza aren't stepping in and winning us 20 more games next season. They'll just eat up cap space and make it tougher for Vesely & Seraphin to develop.

Unbelievable. I want to see this team in about six months.

[queridiculo]

Damn, talk about faint praise!

And we didn't need a backup C. We already had Nene & Seraphin.

Unless of course the brass has already planned with Seraphin starting alongside Nene.

[mhd]

I actually see Seraphin starting and Emeka as the 3rd big coming in and going after backups. We'll limit his minutes. Vessley takes all the PT after that. Sadly, I see Booker traded for a young wing. See my Booker for Roddy B trade idea.

[Dat2U]

Just like most of the doubters (and those consumed by visions of salary cap nirvana) came around on the Nene trade once they waw how it helped the Zards on the court. I expect a similar thing here.

Yeah, because that magical six game winning streak at the end of the year really showed everybody

BTW without Okafor our big rotation was Nene, Seraphin, Booker & Vesely.

Exactly how did we improve by adding a C that's probably our 3rd best C on the roster? And which of our young bigs will end up rotting on the bench?

[tontoz]

Ariza's TS% the last 3 years:

49.6%
48.7
48.8

All 3 years are worse than what Wall and Crawford had this past season.

Okafor's PER and TS% were both worse than Seraphin's this year.

Wait till CCJ finds out about this.

Does Seraphin also play perimeter d like Ariza and rebound like Okafor?

Uhh... Seraphin is a center so comparing his perimeter D to Ariza is bizarre. But yes Seraphin does defense perimeter players well on switches. His rebounding is his big weakness but he is already easily a better scorer than Okafor, as good a defender and will make $24 million less over the next two years.

Singleton was the ACC defensive player of the year and he was our starting 3. I doubt Ariza's defense will be much better than Singleton's.

This was an epically dumb trade, so much so that i actually sent an angry email to Ted for the first time. He did respond.... with "Wow--ok; thanks-- time will tell. Ted" lol.

[7-Day Dray]

Ernie's goal is to become Atanta Hawks/Philadelphia 76ers. The cycle of mediocrity, yet we’re still nowhere near on the level of both of those teams yet.

Why did we retain EG?

[MF23]

Just like most of the doubters (and those consumed by visions of salary cap nirvana) came around on the Nene trade once they waw how it helped the Zards on the court. I expect a similar thing here.

Yeah, because that magical six game winning streak at the end of the year really showed everybody

BTW without Okafor our big rotation was Nene, Seraphin, Booker & Vesely.

Exactly how did we improve by adding a C that's probably our 3rd best C on the roster? And which of our young bigs will end up rotting on the bench?

Yeah that 6 game streak was worth that 13mil in 3 years. WTF? Edit: oh my bad 4 yrs, bigger WTF?

[SwaggWagg]

Did we get #10?

Without it, this is just EG getting fleeced as usual.

#10 for Lewis?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Just like most of the doubters (and those consumed by visions of salary cap nirvana) came around on the Nene trade once they waw how it helped the Zards on the court. I expect a similar thing here.

DCZ, I've already considered the possibility of this working out. It could.

--Okafor once won an NCAA championship. He has always been good rebounder and a good defender. Okafor has been among league leaders in FG% in the past.

--Ariza won an NBA championship and was a big part of the Lakers in doing so. His playoff 3PT shooting (48-109) is 44%. Ariza's career FG shooting is still .508, despite the last three seasons.

The bad is Emeka has appeared in only 6 playoff games over 8 full NBA seasons. The Hornets were better with him out of the lineup, by a lot last season. Ariza's offense has been bad, bad, bad the past three seasons.

DCZ, for this to work out guys will have to buy in and Wall is going to have to facilitate in a way that gets Okafor and Ariza more efficient offensively. Increased talent on the roster is going to have to make for competitive practices. Wittman is going to have to play guys based on merit of how well they play, and not on salary.

If Emeka is done he better not freeze Seraphin out of the lineup.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

okafor has always been top 10-15 in total rebound percentage.

So has Javale McGee. For his career, Okafor's 18% total rebound percentage isn't much better than McGee's 16% TRB.

In fact, last season for the Wizards Javale rebounded at 18.2% on total rebounds.

... apart from the fact that TRB only tells one part of the story about effective rebounding, how does McGee factor into this trade or discussion?

He doesn't.

Ernie traded for rebounding is where I think VictorPage44 was going. He traded away rebounding first.

[7-Day Dray]

Did we get #10?

Without it, this is just EG getting fleeced as usual.

#10 for Lewis?

WTF? We also took too bad contracts in Ariza & Okafor off your hands, and we gave you our #46 pick, a pick that we could've used to trade-up into the 1st round.

But you should be happy. You guys fleeced us as usual.

[Knighthonor]

when can we see them in action?
?

[Upper Decker]

Two year ago the NOH gave up the 11th pick in the draft so the Thunder would take Mo Peterson's contract. It was a one year deal for 7 million bucks.

The Wiz just let the NOH off the hook for 31 million dollars and mysteriously didn't get a pick back??

How is it not absolutely clear to everyone, Ted included, that EG is simply worlds behind the quality GM's of the league?

EG's terrible, but I blame Ted. He mandated this horse ****. Put his head on a stake.

The problem with this is EG's sucked for so long no one even cares about basketball in DC. The casual fan will say...hmm...good trade, Lewis didn't even play at least Ariza will.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I will also add that it is not likely that any "difference maker" free agents are going to come here via FA until this team is competitive. Moreover, no one is going to trade a "difference maker" unless they get a 'difference maker" in return. We don't have any of those yet. The only reason to wait and save money would be to hope that someone gives us a good draft pick to take on a bad contract. Even then, its a crapshoot with the draft pick. Not saying EG made the right move...just saying I don't think it is as clear cut horrible move as many make it out to be. It could be....it also could be the right move given the point in our process.

That would be infinitely better than this suck-ass trade.

This trade is almost as bad as the 5th pick for Foye and Miller trade.

I'm kind of surprised EG didn't give up the 3rd and only get back the 10th.

[Severn Hoos]

Right now we have 5 NBA-caliber players (giving Jan the benefit of the doubt) at PF & C. In one sense, that's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem. There just aren't enough minutes for all of them - if they're all healthy - especially the younger guys, who need the development.

That said, I wouldn't rush into any trades because we know two of those guys are "older" by NBA standards, and there have been some injury concerns. On any given night, we may find that out "overcrowded" front court is a lot thinner than it looks right now. In fact, I hope they do sign another big (JSing if he'd take it - better than China, right?) or maybe draft one for down the road (Melo, Ezeli, etc.)

Compounding the problem is the fact that the two best talents from among the 5 are the old guys that we expect won't be here when the team hopefully starts competing in the top half of the conference. There are no guarantees on Seraphin or Vesely, we just have to hope for the best.

In the short term, it's actually a pretty nice PF/C rotation. Witt and the FO will have to juggle the tasks of being a competitive team on a nightly basis with developing the youngsters. I don't envy them for that.

In the long term, it's still diappointing to give up the cap flexibility. Now we have to hope for some deals when these guys become expirings. For example, they could swing a deal with OKC to swap Okafor for Perkins next summer or at the subsequent trade deadline. Perk goes through 2015 @ around $9M, and with Harden & Ibaka due for raises that will be kicking in then, that savings could be significant.

Or dream big and hope that someone like Kevin Love becomes so disgusted with his current situation that he demands a trade. Wiz could package Okafor, some 1sts, and a mix of their younger guys to (maybe) make the best offer that Minny could hope for.

And so on. But it still would have been easier to pull off those types of deals with raw cap space.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Whatever the basketball equivalency of the 'battered wife syndrome' is called, Wizards fans have it and this thread is a prime example of it.

Some folks here will defend any and everything Ernie does. No matter how little sense it makes.

Two days from now, half the people who hate the trade today will come around on it and love it.

+1

To put the icing on the cake, let's see Ernie draft Harrison Barnes at 3.

I'm just gonna take in the entertainment at this point. I'm not even angry anymore.

When he does that I am going to unleash a barrage of expletives that would make Jules of Pulp Fiction envious.

I can only think of two letters. M and F. Not as in male/female, either.

[mhd]

CCJ and Dat, what do you think of my Booker+#32 for Roddy B+#17 trade idea? Dallas gets an extra year of a rookie deal in Booker, and can always buy back into the late first if they need to (they tend to anyways).

[7-Day Dray]

We probably weren't picking 3 rookies anyway.

We could've used that #46 pick to trade up into the 1st round.