a few questions for longtime bullets\wizards fans

[brigadierjerry]

knick fan that comes in peace wondering the following:

1) what did u think of rod stricklands tenure with the wizards?
2)i know weber wanted to be traded but what was the reaon he got traded for a past his prime richmond"
3) while wes unseld was here overall how would u grade his tenure here?
4)your thoughts on jordan when he was a player on the wizards. did u think the wizards franchise was on the upwing then?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

brigadierjerry, others may disagree but here are my feelings on your questions:

1. Rod was the best PG the Wizards have had in past 30 years, IMO. He had an all star-caliber season his first season with Washington. Rod was an excellent distributor who could finish below the rim with good efficiency. Strickland's limitation was he had no three-point shot. He was slower, not as long, but much more crafty and had a better handle than John Wall. In some respects, his game was similar to Wall's. Both distributed and neither had an outside shot. That was on the court. Strickland was really good until he started having quad and hamstring issues. The only thing I had a problem with was the Wizards traded a young Rasheed Wallace for an old Rod Strickland.

Off the court Rod had at least one reported domestic incident. He had a DUI. He was hated by one of our former mods. (Pine, if you're lurking, I will leave the details of hot dog Rod to you)

2. Webber was traded because the Wizards GM and owner at the time didn't have a clue. Wes Unseld and Abe Pollin got upset over Webber getting arrested with weed in his car, after also having reports of some police activity going on at Webber's apartment. They traded him away for past-his-prime Richmond and decrepit, Otis Thorpe, because they did not properly value their asset before they traded it away. (Ernie and Ted are starting to remind me a lot of Wes and Abe)

3. Wes Unseld was a tremendous player and he has been a good man. When he coached, his talentless teams played very hard. As a GM, whoa boy … Not good. Not good at all.

4. I thought MJ wrecked his legacy a bit and he altered the future of Rip Hamilton (and Courtney Alexander) by choosing to come back. Jordan started out fine as part-owner of the Wizards. He traded Juwan Howard's immovable $120M contract and hired Leonard Hamilton to coach young players moving forward. However, MJ came back as a player and his stay in Washington did nothing but make Pollin money. MJ became selfish, mean to young players like Hamilton, Hughes, and Dixon. He brought in cronies like Oakley and he turned Doug Collins into his coach-slave. Jordan made a lot of enemies in Abe Pollin's circle, because MJ wanted to win and to do things his way right away. Drafting Kwame Brown right in the middle of all this did not help one bit. After two seasons of 37-45, Abe Pollin fired MJ.

Lots of people came to see what was a shell of the former MJ. I didn't like the way it went down. Abe took the money, and ran MJ with acrimony between them. I thought Jordan did Pollin the favor. MJ brought interest, excitement, national coverage, relevance, to a once-dead franchise. A good that came of it was MJ attracted Bryon Russell to sign. Russell voiding his deal made room for the contract of Gilbert Arenas. Personally, I'm not mad at MJ. I expect he will turn the Bobcats around sooner than Ted will truly turn the Wizards around.

I could be very wrong, however.

[Ruzious]

I'll take the first one, because there's often revisionist history with Strickland - when we had The Rod and The Staff (Bernie Bickerstaff). Rod was as gifted a penetrator as I've seen, but he was only good enough to be mediocre with, and he was a terrible teammate. Mediocre because he put absolutely zero effort into defense, and he was a very poor perimeter shooter who teams didn't cover when he was out on the perimeter. Bad teammate because of the following - and I'm sure I'm missing a lot:
1. Beat up a teammate (Murray - the shooter from UCLA)
2. Refused to play when Chris Whitney (his only backup) was playing hurt. Whitney ended up injuring both ankles, but still had to play major minutes because of Rod.
3. Multiple DUI's.
4. Would eat hotdogs around game time and was known to throw them up during games.
5. Showed an attitude in general that he was too cool for school and only cared about himself.

[nate33]

1. Strickland could play pretty well but set a horrible example with his bad work ethic. In a famous incident, he ate several hot dogs right before tip off and ended up puking on the bench during the game.

2. Weber got involved in a marijuana possession incident. Abe Pollin, the owner, was too much of a goodie-two-shoes to put up with it and told Wes to trade him. It may have been one of the worst trades in NBA history. Weber didn't actually want to be traded. Indeed, he was upset that he was traded to the Kings.

3. As a player, Wes Unseld was awesome. As a coach, he was pretty good as well. He consistently managed to take a collection of really bad talent and get them to play good enough to win 35+ games. The problem was that it kept the Wizards out of the high lottery so the talent level continued to get worse over time. Eventually, Wes had to get canned so they could bottom out. It's a shame because I would like to have seen Wes coach a team with actual talent on the roster. As a GM, Wes was terrible.

4. Jordan came in when the franchise was at an all time low in credibility. He did some good things as a GM including upgrading the practice facilities and providing some intensity and professionalism in practice. He made a real good trade in acquiring Haywood for a late 1st, and he signed Larry Hughes for the MLE, which turned out to be another bargain. Unfortunately, because of his desire to play SG, he made a bad move in trading Rip Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse. Also, he and Doug Collins teamed up to be "bad cop, worse cop" and provided a lousy environment to groom young players like Kwame Brown. Instead of building his confidence, they broke him.

[Nivek]

knick fan that comes in peace wondering the following:

1) what did u think of rod stricklands tenure with the wizards?

Strickland was really good for a couple years, but ultimately incredibly frustrating. I disagree with CCJ's contention that Rod was the best PG in Washington in the past 30 years -- Arenas was WAY better. Those hamstring and quad problems were because Strickland didn't do any conditioning and didn't take care of himself. He also drank too much and spent too much time partying. For example, he got arrested for DWI in McLean, VA at 5:30 in the morning. A) He lived in Maryland, so he was still a pretty good ways from home; and B) The team had a shoot-around scheduled for 10:00.

Ultimately, he quit on the team and left the PG position to Chris Whitney and his sprained ankles. In one of my favorite Michael Jordan front office moves, Jordan forced Strickland to give up buyout money to get released in time to sign with a playoff team.

2)i know weber wanted to be traded but what was the reaon he got traded for a past his prime richmond"

Webber didn't ask for a trade; he got traded because he kept getting in trouble and doing stupid things. He got traded for Richmond because...Wes Unseld was calling the shots. It was an awful, awful, awful trade. They thought they needed maturity, I guess. Hmm, something familiar about that line of reasoning...

3) while wes unseld was here overall how would u grade his tenure here?

F

F-minus

Wes presided over some of the worst personnel decisions in league history. Chris Webber for Richmond and Otis Thorpe. Signing Lorenzo Williams to a 7-year contract. Ben Wallace, Tim Legler, Jeff McInnis and Terry Davis for Ike Austin. Trying to make Juwan Howard into a SF. That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure I could find more if I did some looking.

Wasn't Wes the one who drafted the player who was blind in one eye?

4)your thoughts on jordan when he was a player on the wizards. did u think the wizards franchise was on the upwing then?

Jordan the player was okay. Incredibly inefficient on offense, but he always battled and he could still go off now and then. I wrote a piece for RealGM at the time arguing that he needed to accept a lesser role for the good of the team, but Doug Collins worshiped at his altar so he played 38 minutes a night no matter what.

Did I think the team was on the rise? No so much when Jordan was there. They were trying to do a kinda two-track thing where they wanted to develop youngsters while still bringing in veterans to help Jordan get to the playoffs. In doing that, they saddled the team with guys like Christian Laettner on a 4-year deal, and they gave playing time to folks like Popeye Jones over Kwame Brown (who still had promise back then) and Brendan Haywood. The Wizards got lucky when Bryon Russell opted out of the 2nd year of his contract, which gave them the cap space to sign Arenas in free agency.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

nate, I concur.

It would have been great to see Wes Unseld coach a talented group of players. Wes did a good job coaching what he had.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I disagree with CCJ's contention that Rod was the best PG in Washington in the past 30 years -- Arenas was WAY better.

See, what had happened was …. I was wrong!

Some how Gil slipped my mind.

[Nivek]

I also agree with nate about Unseld the coach. He was actually not bad. When he had decent players, they went to the playoffs. In 1988, they pushed the Pistons to a 5th game (back when first round series were best of 5, not best of 7). That Pistons team went on to reach the NBA Finals that season.

Then they decided to blow the team up -- the John Nash special -- but they seemed to forget that the next step in the rebuild was to acquire good players and improve.

[brigadierjerry]

thanks for responses. i will say looking back, the weber for richmond trade set the franchise back for years. also i never understood having howard and weber on the sam team. they played the same position.

also what was your view on rip hamilton as a player and do u think if kwame brown wasnt drafted so high and drafted other than by jordan, he would've had a better career?

from an outsiders view, i always thought the 90's teams problem was shooting and fit. i thought that the jordan's wizard teams was depth and the gil teams was defense.

i always have felt the bullets\wizards were a move or two from a contender but something would go wrong and they would blow up and start over or not have patience. i am also somewhat surprised how badley grunfield been because he did a good job in ny

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

thanks for responses. i will say looking back, the weber for richmond trade set the franchise back for years. also i never understood having howard and weber on the sam team. they played the same position.

It made even less sense to have Webber, Howard, and then draft Rasheed Wallace on the same team.

also what was your view on rip hamilton as a player and do u think if kwame brown wasnt drafted so high and drafted other than by jordan, he would've had a better career?

I think this Wizards team could use Hamilton. He's a good player who understands how to move off the ball. I would love to have Rip instead of Jordan Crawford.

from an outsiders view, i always thought the 90's teams problem was shooting and fit. i thought that the jordan's wizard teams was depth and the gil teams was defense.

i always have felt the bullets\wizards were a move or two from a contender but something would go wrong and they would blow up and start over or not have patience. i am also somewhat surprised how badley grunfield been because he did a good job in ny

MJ said the Wizards were the team of the future right after the 72-10 Chicago team swept them in the playoffs.

NBA officiating being what it was, Webber fouled out of all three games that series. Otherwise, they made one of the greatest teams ever work very hard. The 1996-1997 Wizards had Howard, Webber, Murray, Cheaney, Strickland, Muresan, Harvey Grant, Chris Whitney, and Tim Legler.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/WSB/1997.html

--Trading Webber was a terrible setback.

Other Wizards setbacks ….

--Ten years after that, not keeping Tom Thibodeau was big set back. He could have been coach by now. Perhaps Thibs could just be coaching the defense and the Lakers' Eddie Jordan would be the head coach in charge of the offense, had things gone differently. (In my world they would have drafted Steph Curry …)

--Gilbert Arenas' injury was another huge setback. The gun incident was secondary, because had Gil been healthy it would have blown over.

[Ruzious]

There was the potential back then to build a great team. Remember, Howard put up some big numbers early in his career - hence the horrendous contract. He averaged 22/8/4 plus in his 2nd year. He was the obvious player to trade. And Chicago was rumored to have offered Pippen straight up for him - when da Pip had a bad back, and Chi was supposedly in love with hometown boy Howard. If Wash had kept the Wallaces, they' could have had a HOF level front court - with Ben, Sheed, Webber, and Pippen - not to mention Mursan in reserve. They also picked up a point guard by the name of Robert Pack - who was learning the position, fit beautifully with Webber running the court, and had Arenas like ability, but he developed a mysterious nerve injury in one leg and never recovered his great athleticism. And Cal Cheaney never developed into the high quality shooting guard most thought he could. Things fell apart very quickly. With better planning and better luck, they could have built something special, imo.

[Nivek]

Even in that 2nd season, Howard was inefficient offensively. He was a solid player, but never as good as the hype, and never anything approaching that preposterous contract he got.

[Wes_Tiny_Abe_]

1996-1997 was the last really good/great basketball team in DC.

They really werent even in DC they were in PG County.

[Ruzious]

Even in that 2nd season, Howard was inefficient offensively. He was a solid player, but never as good as the hype, and never anything approaching that preposterous contract he got.

I completely agree, but I don't think NBA folks had a good handle on efficiency back then, and 22/8/4.4 turned heads - like the pretty girl with the plastic... er... kneepads.

[Severn Hoos]

Kev - Doug Roth!

(But I don't think Wes drafted him, maybe Nash did?)

Thanks for the memory, got a chuckle out of that one.


[Edit - just looked it up, I was merging Doug Roth and Ed Horton, who were drafted the same year. Doug Roth is the one who was legally blind in one eye:]

[Higga]

1. Liked Rod as a player, but he had no work ethic and was basically a cancer. He did make some really bad Wizards teams kinda fun to watch though.

2. Already been answered, but yeah was an awful trade. I remember being super depressed about it, I was a kid at the time and Webber was my favorite athlete.

3. I was too young to see him play but his accomplishments speak for themselves, he's an all-time NBA great and probably the best player in our franchise history. Awful awful awful GM though. He makes Isiah Thomas look like a genius.

4. I actually don't think Jordan hurt his legacy at all as a player. No he wasn't as great as he used to be, but he made arguably the worst franchise in sports relevant and at like 40 years old almost single handedly took the team to the playoffs. He at least made us respectable for a couple of years. Obviously as a GM he was horrendous and his personnel decisions set this team back.