Wiz trade Shard and 2nd rounder for Okafor and Ariza

[FAH1223]

I haven't been this depressed since Ernie got his contract extension.

well that wasnt that long ago

[DCZards]

I take with a grain of salt the opinion of "national" columnists like Hollinger because you can't know everything about every team. I give more credence to the views of beat writers and bloggers who cover individual teams and their players day in and day out.

[VictorPage44]

What are the more efficient ways to improve the roster this much? just interested if you guys have any insider knowledge on trades on the table or free agents wanting to play for the wizards that would have helped us more than Ariza and Okafor, who can both play which is why they're still getting 30 MPG each this late in their careers. If they couldnt play someone wouldve figured it out by now, so stop trying to reinvent the wheel by saying a guy who averages a double double is useless to a team lacking rebounding and a wing who does it all is useless because x scrub free agent wouldve been more cost efficient.

[The Consiglieri]

Im pissed if we don't get the number 10 pick if this trade. We blow out cap for a chance to be a treadmill playoff team for the next two seasons. I rather lose and stock pile picks like OKC did.

Short term, would you rather have another 20 win season and realize the season is over by January, or would you want to make a run at the playoffs with this group and see what happens? I'm saying short term here. This team hasn't won a lot of games the last 4 years or so. It's not like this is crippling the franchise, the free agent market wasn't going to be that stacked to begin with, and then you have to ask yourself, who's going to want to play here anyway.

Take the 20 win medicine. I don't care about now, I care about building something of quality that can last, not building a 8-12 seed that stinks and rarely accomplishes squat. Ask the Warriors how great it was to climb into being just "sub par" instead of horrible. You either should be a contender, or all world bad, the middle is the LAST place you want to be. This trade was unbelievably foolish, we gave the Hornets everything they wanted, and got nothing, its basically exactly like the '09 deal, except instead of trading a quality pick, we traded a ton of cap space for other peoples trash. Lovely.

[Dat2U]

Article on Ariza:

http://www.hornets247.com/blog/2012/03/ ... out-again/

Maybe those having a sissy fit about Ariza's shot selection should read this article. They might find it enlightening. I'd also refer them to the comments about Ariza by Hornet fans that follows the article.

Well why didn't his numbers improve significantly then?

[hands11]

This is yet another move to make this team semi-competitive in the short term, hopefully to keep Wall happy. I never really thought we were going to land a FA, so this isn't all too bad of a move I think.

Roster will probably look like this:
Wall/Mack
Beal/Crawford/#32 pick
Ariza/Crawford/Singleton
Nene/Seraphin/Booker/Vesely
Okafor/Seraphin

That's a lengthy, defensive team. I might consider packaging #32 + Booker to get a sparkplug scorer off the bench as the 6th man, move Crawford to backup PG.

Roster will probably look like this:
Wall/Mack
Beal/Crawford
Ariza/C Singleton
Nene/Vesely/Booker
Okafor/Seraphin/Dray

#32 pick

Doing two for one really messes up the continuity they could have done with transitioning. This makes bringing back James Singleton a lot more remote which sucks. They could have singed Mason at SG. And now how do you get Dray enough minutes to raise his value so you can move him ? And now you have a log jam with Ves and Booker. I really want both of them on the team but how do you make that work?

I liked my roster and strategy way better.

Wall/Kirk/Mack
Beal/Crawford/Mason
C Singleton/J Singleton/Crowder
Nene/Booker/Dray
Ves/Kevin

By out Lewis. I would have been much happier with that. Right now, George is not happy camper.

[willbcocks]

What a stupid trade. Indefensible.

If we had gotten back two wing veterans who were expiring in two years, then I would be unhappy, but I could at least justify it. It would be helping to change the culture and make the team competitive now to improve the growth of our stable of young players.

This just crowds our 4/5 rotation and leaves less floor time for Vesely and Seraphin. It's not a significant upgrade of our team or a move that will in any way help our long term prospects.

And we're sacrificing cap room for the next two years, giving up our only chance to use it before we have to pay Wall.

Sigh. They better draft Beal. If not this move becomes (somehow) even worse.

[zardsfan]

I have read all the posts in this thread... and yet I am un-moved. I know I am in the minority but I am still ok with the trade. I see the zards as an above average defensive team that got a little bit stronger/deeper on defense with this trade. Yes, they still need shooters in a bad way, but the summer is not over and I am hopeful that they will draft at least one shooter and attempt to get another via free agency / trade.

[willbcocks]

I'll add this--I don't mind getting Ariza. And I don't care about giving away the 46 pick. But why do we have to add freaking overpaid Okafor to a crowded backcourt and destroy our cap space?!?!

Ernie: you had managed to avoid messing since Ted got here, and while I didn't believe you had changed, I thought you could at least avoid messing this summer up. You proved me wrong. F this.

[hands11]

The only way {that I see) that we could have signed a FA was if we had won the lottery....but we didn't. Hopefully we have enough of a solid team around Wall to let him develop properly, and we can add somebody in a few years that can pair up with Wall.

Until then, we have to develop some kinda culture where we aren't perennial losers.

The culture was already changing after they sent Blatche home packing. How does adding 2 over-paid veterans with very mediocre stats help?

I'm with you. If it was about culture change, it wasn't needed. All they needed to do was draft Beal and Crowder and keep on rolling. They were going to win more game even without the new picks.

They need to trade at least Emeka now. That is an over crowed front court. Can we find an overpaid short contract SG or SF to swop with.

Why didnt they just buy out Lewis. Ted really have me pissed right now.

Uggg.

[willbcocks]

And another thing--EG has the worst f'ing timing of any GM. Why do this move now? Wait until the last minute and see if you can find anything better. He always settles for crap.

[go'stags]

What is ted's e-mail?

[closg00]

And another thing--EG has the worst f'ing timing of any GM. Why do this move now? Wait until the last minute and see if you can find anything better. He always settles for crap.

Because that is his MO, he always panick-trades and ends-up paying over the sticker-price for what he's getting.

[Dat2U]

yes, okafor is a better 3rd big than booker because #1 and #2 bigs are not good rebounders and neither is booker so that doesnt make Booker as good a fit for our team as Okafor because we can actually play okafor on the court at the same time as seraphin/nene and not get rebounded all over. Who's better overall is pretty arbitrary if you're 25th in rebounding. Saying that Ariza is only a minor upgrade is a clear example of overvalueing our players. You're saying Ariza is only marginally better than Singleton? please. Ariza also averaged 5 boards and over 3 assists per game. He shot the ball less than once every three minutes. Crawford shoots it more than once every two minutes, on fewer pts per shot attempt. That's a significant difference, you cant campare the two.

Who's better a rebounder is pretty arbitrary when the best rebounder is also the third best big.

I'm not seeing a significant win totally difference from subbing in Okafor for Booker as the 3rd big.

So basically your paying $27-28 million to upgrade from Booker to Okafor for the next two seasons.

If I have to explain how that's not an efficient way to improve the roster then I don't know what to say.

Regarding Ariza, I'm not overvaluing Singleton, I'm saying Ariza solidly below average starting SF and frankly our SFs issues still exist. Ariza isn't the answer to anything. We still need an upgrade at the position and paying $14 mil for 2yr stopgap makes no sense.

[go'stags]

BTW, all this trade does is justify all of the posts by clos00 and mohamed, the most incessantly pessimistic and critical posters in regards to EG and Ted. What an awful trade.

I feel dumb for even thinking that maybe we were trying to build something smartly. Of course we weren't. .500 is all Abe, er, Ted, and EG require. It's like we lost out on Davis so we just decided to be mediocre for as long as possible. I'm disgusted enough to become a fan of another team- something I never thought possible in ANY sport.

[kirubel94]

EG mentioned that Ariza can play the SG Spot, if thats true, dont eliminate MKG or Barnes off the draft board yet.

[nuposse04]

EG mentioned that Ariza can play the SG Spot, if thats true, dont eliminate MKG or Barnes off the draft board yet.

if we pick Barnes then it's just the icing in our ass. Ernie's rape of our potential will be complete.

[davidgrant]

Now the Wizards have no chance to sign a quality free agent for the forseeable future. Damn such a horrible trade. I got nothing done at work after i found out about it.

I'm not a big fan of the deal, but 2013 is a very poor unrestricted free agent class, so having Okafor and Ariza is better than most of the free agents we could sign. Plus in 12-24 months their expiring contracts will put us in a good position to trade them or just save the money for the 2014 free agent class. Additionally, the 2013 draft class doesn't appear to be very good, so tanking for another year would likely not be worth it.

Hopefully we'll draft Beal who will complete our guard rotation and we should get a useful player with upside in the 2nd round. The more I think about the deal the more I'm okay with it. We'll be a much better team in 2013-14 and we will have lots of salary flexibility in 2014.

[willbcocks]

Can someone please clarify our projected 2014 salary situation?

My understanding is we are screwed because we'll have Nene on the books, plus that will be the first year of Wall's extension. Combined with Vesely, the #3 pick, and whoever else we have on the roster, we're not likely to have anything like max caproom. Is this accurate?

[VictorPage44]

it makes more sense to walk into the season with no one than to pay for a stopgap with money that wouldve been spent on somone less spectacular on a longer deal? I'd go into why having a 3rd big who can rebound isnt arbitrary, but if I'm gonna have to do that I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other dumb things I'm going to have to explain as well.