Official Countdown Grunfeld Era-2nd SuperStar?

[nate33]

By that standard, I can confidently state that I judge EG to be a sucky GM. I say this because I am certain that whatever deals we will be able to make next year involving Okariza will not be as good as the deals we could make if we had pure cap space.

[fishercob]

I'd rather have Leonard and Faried than Nene and Singleton. Just saying.

Me too, but the argumetn put forth was "if we had just followed these simple steps" we'd have both those guys and Nene and James Harden and probably Eric Bledsoe.

It doesn't hold much water for me.

Eric Bledsoe was pure speculation. I readily cede that he may not have been available.

I think it's a near certainty that we could have had at least one of Nene or Harden. If Denver didn't make the Nene trade (because they didn't have Faried), then we would have sucked bad enough through the rest of the year to land Beal (and make the Harden trade).

That presupposes that we'd rather have Harden for the max than Beal as a rookie. I know there's been some discussion of this here and at BulletsForever. I haven't dug into it myself.

I am complete agreement with you that EG sucks.

[verbal8]

By that standard, I can confidently state that I judge EG to be a sucky GM. I say this because I am certain that whatever deals we will be able to make next year involving Okariza will not be as good as the deals we could make if we had pure cap space.

I think it says something about a GM when the best move he made last season is signing a player to the Qualifying Offer and then trading him away for nothing(Nick Young). I don't think he should get credit for making the team suck enough to draft Beal.

[Upper Decker]

What are the odds that Washington starts off 0-11 before Wall returns? I think it's totally possible because the only 'winnable' game is against Charlotte, but they soundly beat Washington in the pre-season. At that point should they hold out Wall longer to ensure full recovery? I mean whats the point of risking further damage? It looks like the start of this season is going to be very similar to the start of the '08 season. Do you think Ted would even consider changes mid-season?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I've been thinking how good this team would be if EG had only made a few obvious decisions in the post Pollin era.

2010: EG made the right moves:
* Draft Wall: Obvious move. I supported it at the time. So did the rest of RealGM
* Hinrich/Seraphin acquisition: Good trade. I supported it at the time. So did the board.
* Draft Booker: Good move. I supported it at the time. The board opinion was ambivalent.
* Arenas for Lewis: Good trade. I supported it at the time. The board opinion was mixed.
* Dump Hinrich for cap room, Crawford and a pick: Good trade. I supported it at the time. So did the board.

2011: EG blows it big time:
* Draft Vesely: I supported Kawhi Leonard at the time. I don't know if Leonard was really the Real GM consensus pick, but he was liked more than Vesely.
* Draft Singleton: I supported Kenneth Faried at this spot, so did nearly everyone else on the board.
* Trade McGee for Nene. Good move. I supported it at the time. So did most of the board.
* Trade Young for 2nd rounder. I would have pushed for Eric Bledsoe, even if we had to include a 2nd round pick.

2012: EG still screwing up
* Okariza acquisition: An incomprehensibly stupid move. Most on this board disliked it.
* Draft Beal. If the Harden trade was on the table, I would have pulled the trigger.
* Draft Satoransky. Everyone here loved Crowder
* Sign Martell Webster. A good move, perhaps better than board consensus. EG deserves credit here.

If EG would have just avoided the moves that we all hated, and traded for Harden, we could have the following roster right now:

PG Wall/Bledsoe
SG Harden/Webster/Crawford
SF Leonard/Crowder
PF Faried/Booker
C Nene/Seraphin/Barron


This isn't fantasy 20/20 hindsight here. These are all simple moves that made more sense at the time that what EG actually did. The only element of fantasy is that if we had drafted Faried and Leonard in 2011, we may have been a bit too good to land the #2 pick and instead ended up with #5 or so, which might not have been enough for Harden. (It's debatable though. I don't know if Leonard or Faried would have helped much early in the year when we were still invested in McGee, Blatche and Young.)

--I thought Wall was overrated before the draft and said he would struggle against many NBA PGs. I said he wasn't even the best player on his college team (Cousins). I wanted two picks instead of John Wall. (Might have been better off with Wall).

--I immediately hated the McGee trade for Nene because of the age and injury risk of Nene. (Right call).

--I woud have traded down for two picks instead of drafting Beal. (Yep, Lillard is better but three years older than Beal, too. Time will tell.)

--Even at the trade deadline last season, when it was apparent Wall did not improve significantly from year one and a rookie like Kyrie Irving was better than Wall, I would have looked at John Wall trade ideas. The quickest way to turn the Wizards around is to get more value than Wall is worth in return.

nate, the sole boneheaded EG move post-Pollin has been the OkAriza deal. The truly detrimental deal is the Nene deal. Like Gilbert all over again, Nene will be paid $13M a year for the next four years, injured or not.

If Ernie Grunfeld were NOT the GM, a few moves might be reversible and the team's outlook can be much improved by the end of this season. I don't think the Wizards are necessarily stuck with Nene or Okafor. A healthy John Wall is a very valuable asset, whether he is resigned or traded. If his knee takes longer than expected to heal, the Wizards really need to wise up and look to move him.

However, as long as EG is running things and Nene's foot is sore, I think there's little hope for many wins. A trade needs to happen and I just don't think EG will do anything but more of the same.

[penbeast0]

I do want to stop a bit of revisionist history here. While Faried had some big supporters, Chris Singleton was a pretty popular pick on the board where he went; even had a couple of people talking about him with the earlier pick though that would have been way overrating him.

Vesely was, if I remember, the bottom option choice by the board of all the players supposedly under consideration for the 5-10 spots just before the draft when pundit consensus had started forming. Everyone saw that a 6-11 guy who didn't shoot or rebound well just wasn't going to be a good player in this league -- he's smart and athletic but ya gotta have the basics.

[montestewart]

Yeah, I'll fess up, I liked Singleton or Faried, had no idea Faried would have looked so much better so quickly. In the end, the difference might not be as great as it seemed last year. I wanted a trade down on the Vesely pick, but maybe no one wanted that pick.

[Illuminaire]

I was pretty vocal about Leonard/Faried, though I was perfectly fine about taking Singleton once Kawhi was off the table. I didn't see a huge difference in them as prospects then... whoops.

[Dat2U]

I wonder how bad Leonard would look for the Wizards. He doesn't have to create offense with the Spurs being surrounded by all those weapons. He's playing by a solid base of talent & has top notch coaching in San Antonio and he fills a specific role in Pops' structured system. Here, we'd be looking for him to score much more and I suspect his efficiency would take a nose dive.

Don't get me wrong. I'd much rather have Leonard than Vesely and/or Singleton but I see Leonard as a deluxe role player as opposed to a game changing talent or future star.

[payitforward]

I've been thinking how good this team would be if EG had only made a few obvious decisions in the post Pollin era.

2010: EG made the right moves:
* Draft Wall: Obvious move. I supported it at the time. So did the rest of RealGM
* Hinrich/Seraphin acquisition: Good trade. I supported it at the time. So did the board.
* Draft Booker: Good move. I supported it at the time. The board opinion was ambivalent.
* Arenas for Lewis: Good trade. I supported it at the time. The board opinion was mixed.
* Dump Hinrich for cap room, Crawford and a pick: Good trade. I supported it at the time. So did the board.

2011: EG blows it big time:
* Draft Vesely: I supported Kawhi Leonard at the time. I don't know if Leonard was really the Real GM consensus pick, but he was liked more than Vesely.
* Draft Singleton: I supported Kenneth Faried at this spot, so did nearly everyone else on the board.
* Trade McGee for Nene. Good move. I supported it at the time. So did most of the board.
* Trade Young for 2nd rounder. I would have pushed for Eric Bledsoe, even if we had to include a 2nd round pick.

2012: EG still screwing up
* Okariza acquisition: An incomprehensibly stupid move. Most on this board disliked it.
* Draft Beal. If the Harden trade was on the table, I would have pulled the trigger.
* Draft Satoransky. Everyone here loved Crowder
* Sign Martell Webster. A good move, perhaps better than board consensus. EG deserves credit here.

If EG would have just avoided the moves that we all hated, and traded for Harden, we could have the following roster right now:

PG Wall/Bledsoe
SG Harden/Webster/Crawford
SF Leonard/Crowder
PF Faried/Booker
C Nene/Seraphin/Barron


This isn't fantasy 20/20 hindsight here. These are all simple moves that made more sense at the time that what EG actually did. The only element of fantasy is that if we had drafted Faried and Leonard in 2011, we may have been a bit too good to land the #2 pick and instead ended up with #5 or so, which might not have been enough for Harden. (It's debatable though. I don't know if Leonard or Faried would have helped much early in the year when we were still invested in McGee, Blatche and Young.)

I wrote something to this effect about a week ago, I believe. I agree with myself and with you.

Ernie had an excellent off-season heading into 2010 season. I loved the picks of Seraphin and Booker (although I thought that Damion James would have been just as good a pick, and I think I'll turn out to have been right; don't sleep on him). I did wonder whether he'd have fallen to #30 -- he wasn't projected as high as #23. But I've always assumed Ernie knew someone was going to take him before that slot.

As to Wall, I didn't love him one bit, but I couldn't see Evan Turner or Favors being better picks. I *loved* Paul George off of his numbers and workout videos where it looked like no one could check him. I whiffed on Monroe. In retrospect, George and Monroe look to have been great picks.

You are right that 2011 was the disaster -- definitive. Of course Leonard -- though a trade down that netted us Motiejunas and another pick would have pleased me even better. Of course, Faried -- I had been hoping he'd come out for two years!! With that "other pick" (had we traded down -- and I don't claim there was such a trade available), I'd have taken Tobias Harris -- outstanding freshman year, born in '93 (not much older than Beal!), perfect "extra pick" for a rebuilding team. I had Chandler Parsons pegged for our round 2 pick (wouldn't make any difference since Ernie would have cut him in favor of "veteran leadership").

When the trade for Nene happened, my first reaction was not to like it -- stare McGee and mama down I thought. Nene had been injured and had played badly when on the floor that year. He turned me right around when he arrived.

Note that had we picked Faried, we certainly wouldn't have been trading McGee for Nene.

Young plus #2 for Bledsoe -- I'd have loved to dump Young, but as we see that #2 has become (or could have...) Jae Crowder. But, sure I'd have traded him for a #2 pick, but I don't think that was in the cards: Ernie wasn't going to let himself look that bad in that obvious a way.

Every single move since then, and every obvious non-move, has been a disaster. But the proposed trade for Harden? What trade? Trade whom? A single #3 draft pick? Look at what they got, wch included that high a pick.

Best I can suggest might have been McGee for Harden. Would they have gone for that I wonder? They might have: If so my version of your squad would be:

PG Wall/A-FA-Not-Price/Machado
SG Harden/Beal/Anybody-But-Crawford
SF Leonard/Webster/Parsons/Crowder
PF Faried/Booker/James Singleton
C Seraphin/Cook/Kyle O'Quinn (at #46 in 2012)

which is not distributed quite right and is 16 guys, but once you start to do things right other right things become possible. Crawford for a round 2 pick and Webster moves to the 2....? No Webster, and we sign Brand off the amnesty wire?

Oh well....

[payitforward]

I go back further in my sense of the Ernie disaster. Most people here hated the '09 draft-day trade, and I did too. But I also thought Ernie massively under-optimized the 2008 draft.

Go back and look at what Daryl Morey did on draft day to get an idea of what was possible. I wanted to trade the #18 for two picks lower in round 1 (Morey proved this possible, btw) and pick Batum w/ one of them. Then I wanted to trade the other one for 2 high round-2 picks and pick Chalmers and DeAndre Jordan.

It would have been possible to make this happen. Even if it had failed, it would have been easy to wind up w/ Batum and Jordan on that day and absolutely trivial to wind up w/ Jordan and Chalmers. Inasmuch as I thought Jordan was better than McGee in the first place, I was kinda motivated.

In '09, I wanted Lawson a lot -- he was the most underrated guy in the draft IMO (look at his college numbers). Even when we made the dumb trade (I would have *certainly* taken Curry!), I was sure we could have squeezed the #18 pick out of David Kahn who was beside himself to make this trade (one of the few deals he was right about). Gee, I guess we could have thrown in our high round 2 pick, huh -- since we sold it anyway!

None of that is hindsight; it's just what I was hoping for at the time. Hell, if I were making the calls, we'd still have Dominic McGuire on the team!

[tontoz]

I can't get past the stupidity of the Okariza deal. I understand the reasoning behind the Nene deal even though that could blow up in their faces, but i see absolutely no logic behind the Okariza trade.

[payitforward]

I can't get past the stupidity of the Okariza deal. I understand the reasoning behind the Nene deal even though that could blow up in their faces, but i see absolutely no logic behind the Okariza trade.

To me the question about Nene isn't the reasoning but whether we could have known we were getting damaged goods -- and if we could have, we should have. Obviously. This isn't kindergarten here. $$millions are at stake. Not to mention my sanity.

[closg00]

What I don't understand is that Ernie was highly motivated to use two 2nd picks to move-up and get Booker, but didn't appear to try to do the same to say target a dropper like Perry Jones.

[willbcocks]

Every single move since then, and every obvious non-move, has been a disaster. But the proposed trade for Harden? What trade? Trade whom? A single #3 draft pick? Look at what they got, wch included that high a pick.

Best I can suggest might have been McGee for Harden. Would they have gone for that I wonder? They might have: If so my version of your squad would be:

I think you're underestimating the value of a #3 pick and overestimating the value of what Houston gave OKC. Houston gave the 13 pick, a strange Toronto pick, a late first rounder and an early second rounder.

If we assume that OKC values Lamb as a #13 pick and Beal as a #3 pick (I.e., our assumptions would blow up if they rated Lamb the #6 player in the draft and Beal the #5) I would put all of the assets Houston traded to OKC, combined, at roughly the same value as the #3 pick. We could throw in our second rounder and a future protected first if need be.

Then, we could have taken on Perkins, something Houston did not do. That would have been huge for OKC and easy for us.

I doubt OKC had any interest in McGee. They knew they would have to pay him, and they already decided to pay Ibaka.

[Nivek]

In '09, I wanted Lawson a lot -- he was the most underrated guy in the draft IMO (look at his college numbers).

Yep. Lawson's junior season is one of the highest rated PG seasons I have in YODA. His YODA score was consistent with being the first overall pick in many drafts; top 3 in virtually any draft. The year he came out, I had him rated 2nd overall behind Blake Griffin.

2009 had a few significantly underrated players, including Lawson, Blair, and Danny Green. In YODA, Green had a rating consistent with a top 7-10 pick in most drafts. Blair, of course, had length, agility and health concerns (no ACL in either knee), but still was productive enough to rate a top 10 selection. He would have been a good 2nd round pick where the risk/reward ratio would have been very much in the Wizards favor.

Oh well.

[GswSucks4Ever]

What is the YODA score?

[Nivek]

What is the YODA score?

YODA = a nickname someone on the boards (wish I could remember who) gave to my draft research, which I'd been calling Ye Olde Draft Analyzer. YODA stuck.

I posted info from it on the various draft threads we had going, and summarized findings on my old blog. Here and here.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

In '09, I wanted Lawson a lot -- he was the most underrated guy in the draft IMO (look at his college numbers).

Yep. Lawson's junior season is one of the highest rated PG seasons I have in YODA. His YODA score was consistent with being the first overall pick in many drafts; top 3 in virtually any draft. The year he came out, I had him rated 2nd overall behind Blake Griffin.

2009 had a few significantly underrated players, including Lawson, Blair, and Danny Green. In YODA, Green had a rating consistent with a top 7-10 pick in most drafts. Blair, of course, had length, agility and health concerns (no ACL in either knee), but still was productive enough to rate a top 10 selection. He would have been a good 2nd round pick where the risk/reward ratio would have been very much in the Wizards favor.

Oh well.

Lawson is someone I think the Wizards could consider in a John Wall trade scenario if the breakout doesn't happen. Ty Lawson grew up in Clinton, MD, a few miles from my childhood home. I liked him at UNC and he is a good pro.

[Dat2U]

Unrealistic, Nuggets just extended Lawson, I don't see anyway that would happen CCJ. If Wall breaks out, why would we trade him? If he doesn't improve or regresses or if he eventually needs surgery, why would anyone trade anything of value for him at that point?