Wizards Sign Martell Webster

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

Both the Wizards and Webster seem to really like the idea of him remaining in Washington.

http://sulia.com/channel/basketball/f/0 ... ce=twitter

[hands11]

Both the Wizards and Webster seem to really like the idea of him remaining in Washington.

http://sulia.com/channel/basketball/f/0 ... ce=twitter

Nice find. Thanks.

.....

Indications are that the Wizards would like to bring FA-to-be Martell Webster back next season, so I asked Webster

how he felt about returning. Answer, in short: Count me in.

Answer, in long: "It's a great fit for me. I enjoy the atmosphere here: coaching staff, training staff and most important, my teammates. And it's competitive. And very family-oriented. When you have that as an option, it's hard to defer away from that." Sounds as if the Wizards have done a decent job of changing the culture of not too long ago, when lockerroom gun-play seemed to be all the rage. In fact, Webster gave higher marks to his current locale than his time with the Blazers. He spent his first five seasons with them, then two with the Timberwolves before signing last summer with the Wizards. "Portland had individuals I enjoyed being around," he said. "This is the first time I've enjoyed all aspects of my team."

--

He continues to give the Wizards organization high marks. And he like his teammates. Get it done Ted/EG.

[closg00]

Wiz dumped Crawford to make-room for a Webster offer.
http://m.hoopsworld.com/hoopsworld/#!/e ... 56708f9d40

[montestewart]

Wiz dumped Crawford to make-room for a Webster offer.
http://m.hoopsworld.com/hoopsworld/#!/e ... 56708f9d40

From the trade thread, and sounds about right.

Snippet from Marc Stein:

"Sources close to the situation say that one of Washington's motivations in trading Jordan Crawford for Leandro Barbosa's expiring contract -- despite the fact that Barbosa was already out for the season -- was creating a little extra financial flexibility to enhances the Wizards' chances of re-signing Martell Webster"

Marc Stein and/or his "sources close to the situation" may have flunked math.

To those that don't follow Nivek's point, the Wizards will be over the cap and under the luxtax with or without Crawford. In either scenario. they'd have up to the full MLE (and no more) to use on Webster with no luxtax implications.

The one thing that frightens me is that maybe Stein's sources didn't flunk math. Maybe it's true that Ted is factoring Blatche's $7M a year amnesty payment in his salary calculations. Effectively, instead of a luxtax threshold of $70M, Ted may have a self-imposed salary threshold of $63M.

[hands11]

Which is why letting Dray go for nothing was a risky move.

As it stands, Dray can go where ever he wants for as little as possible and he will still make 8M next year and 8.5M the year after.

Could have kept Dray and bought out Lewis.

But they did what they did for the reasons they thought were best.

Now all we have left is seeing where this path leads.

The other path was keep Dray to raise his value them move him, sign Mason and James Singleton instead of having Trevor A and Okafor. Get assets for Dray. Get assets for Crawford.

Wall/Price/Temple
Beal/Crawford/Mason
Webster/James Singleton
Kevin/Booker/C Singleton
Nene/Dray/Ves

Could have traded Dray and Crawford and got something for them.

[sfam]

Which is why letting Dray go for nothing was a risky move.

As it stands, Dray can go where ever he wants for as little as possible and he will still make 8M next year and 8.5M the year after.

Could have kept Dray and bought out Lewis.

But they did what they did for the reasons they thought were best.

Now all we have left is seeing where this path leads.

The other path was keep Dray to raise his value them move him, sign Mason and James Singleton instead of having Trevor A and Okafor. Get assets for Dray. Get assets for Crawford.

Wall/Price/Temple
Beal/Crawford/Mason
Webster/James Singleton
Kevin/Booker/C Singleton
Nene/Dray/Ves

Could have traded Dray and Crawford and got something for them.

Perhaps we could have put both of them outside the Verizon Center on a Saturday morning with a sign that said, "Yard Sale." Thing is, someone may have showed up, but they wouldn't be paying us more then the NBA equivalent of ordering from the dollar menu. Neither had any value.

[hands11]

It would have cost Ernie nothing to include a team-option for 2nd year when he signed Webster correct? I guess that would have required a little more effort on Ernie's part.

You really should stop reflexively bashing EG for everything. It makes legitimate criticism seem like crying wolf.

EG didn't include a team option for a 2nd year because Webster's agent would surely have declined. Webster was a 25-year old former lotto pick who presumably had a high opinion of his capabilities. Why would he lock himself into two years of salary at a measly $1.75M?

Webster intentionally signed a one-year deal on a team where he felt he could get major minutes in a 3&D role because he rightfully believed that if he only had a chance to play while healthy, he could set himself up for a much bigger contract in the following year. There was no upside in him committing to a 2-year deal.

Agreed. The crying wolf thing gets old. Webby made a good decision and so did the Wizards. Now resign him and move on.

[hands11]

Which is why letting Dray go for nothing was a risky move.

As it stands, Dray can go where ever he wants for as little as possible and he will still make 8M next year and 8.5M the year after.

Could have kept Dray and bought out Lewis.

But they did what they did for the reasons they thought were best.

Now all we have left is seeing where this path leads.

The other path was keep Dray to raise his value them move him, sign Mason and James Singleton instead of having Trevor A and Okafor. Get assets for Dray. Get assets for Crawford.

Wall/Price/Temple
Beal/Crawford/Mason
Webster/James Singleton
Kevin/Booker/C Singleton
Nene/Dray/Ves

Could have traded Dray and Crawford and got something for them.

Perhaps we could have put both of them outside the Verizon Center on a Saturday morning with a sign that said, "Yard Sale." Thing is, someone may have showed up, but they wouldn't be paying us more then the NBA equivalent of ordering from the dollar menu. Neither had any value.

If they couldn't trade him then amnestying him this off season would have been better. Look at his numbers and per 36. Someone would have signed him for 4/5M a year at least.

[penbeast0]

I admit to a lot of fear that we will commit serious money to Webster on a long term deal and it will turn out he's the player he's been the rest of his career instead of the one he's been for us in this contract year.

[MJG]

I admit to a lot of fear that we will commit serious money to Webster on a long term deal and it will turn out he's the player he's been the rest of his career instead of the one he's been for us in this contract year.

I'd be genuinely surprised if things don't play out exactly like this.

[closg00]

It would have cost Ernie nothing to include a team-option for 2nd year when he signed Webster correct? I guess that would have required a little more effort on Ernie's part.

You really should stop reflexively bashing EG for everything. It makes legitimate criticism seem like crying wolf.

EG didn't include a team option for a 2nd year because Webster's agent would surely have declined. Webster was a 25-year old former lotto pick who presumably had a high opinion of his capabilities. Why would he lock himself into two years of salary at a measly $1.75M?

Webster intentionally signed a one-year deal on a team where he felt he could get major minutes in a 3&D role because he rightfully believed that if he only had a chance to play while healthy, he could set himself up for a much bigger contract in the following year. There was no upside in him committing to a 2-year deal.

Agreed. The crying wolf thing gets old. Webby made a good decision and so did the Wizards. Now resign him and move on.

Only for you and Rico perhaps.

[nate33]

I admit to a lot of fear that we will commit serious money to Webster on a long term deal and it will turn out he's the player he's been the rest of his career instead of the one he's been for us in this contract year.

I'm not particularly concerned about any regression in his performance. The Webster of the last 3 years, when healthy, has been more or less like the Webster of right now. Webster's problem has always been health.

I'm worried about Webster staying healthy, but if he does stay healthy, I think he'll perform like he does now.

[The Consiglieri]

Webster is a former first round lottery pick. Could just be a late bloomer, maybe the next Caron Butler(not comparing play style just the fact that they both blossomed a little later into their careers).

We're due some good luck in our rebuilding.

Which is why I and many other posters loved this low risk high upside move last fall. The cost was little, the upside was sizable. Generally players go as high as he did for a reason. They may fail due to injury (Oden), inability to translate skills/talent to the next level (Ves/W. Mathews), or a combo of that issue and opportunity (D. Williams, or simply that the player is a flat out epic bust (inumerable examples, including virtually the entire 2000 draft). He was well risk the flyer and it now appears simply opportunity and health have revealed webster to be at the very least, a competent perhaps league average starte, or a little less than that, instead of a bust. An absolute steal for us .

[FAH1223]

We essentially traded a 2nd round pick from 2005 in Blatche for a lottery pick in 2005 this past summer

[TGW]

I admit to a lot of fear that we will commit serious money to Webster on a long term deal and it will turn out he's the player he's been the rest of his career instead of the one he's been for us in this contract year.

I definitely see this happening. The Wizards have been burned so many times in the past by players in their contract year. Etan Thomas and Deshawn Stevenson come to mind. I'm up for resigning Webster, but any deal over 3 years is a foolish one IMO.

[The Consiglieri]

...But they did what they did for the reasons they thought were best.

.

No they didn't. Ownership couldn't psychologically handle the idea of an amnesty of Rashard Lewis for nothing. They made an idiotic trade for non-basketball, cheapskate idiot reasons. It had nothing whatsoever to do with what was for the best, and everything to do with not wanting to pay Lewis a mountain of cash for nothing, when they could do the same for Dray, for less cash, and because he was loathed within the organization and an amnesty provided symbolic satisfaction for them.

They ran last year's offseason like a bunch of spoiled childish brat and his desperate to please buddy who knows his meal ticket depends on kissing the brats arse and doing his bidding. Basically Leonsis is Joffrey, and EG is any of innumerable toadies in GOT trying to stay in his good graces.

It was pathetic and embarrasing. There is no white washing that horrid decision.

As for Webster's chance of failing, or repeating the issues of Etan or DBrick. Its definitely a possibility, but less of one than with the previous debacles. In each of those cases and others there were serious issues. Etan was an extremely limited big man with few assets to his game, DBrick was D and laying bricks like he was from a family of hall of fame mason. Going back further, the Antwan extension was stupid because he was going to get worse, not better, ditto Arenas because he'd blown his knee out.

The issues with Webster are largely related to health which carry risk, but beyond that, he seems to provide positive chemistry, and has the skills necessary to be a quality plug and play option till we find better. As long as the years and layout aren't crazy i have a hard time seeing it blow up in our face. This may be his ceiling, but his floor, and expected production would strike me as reasonable.

[Rafael122]

I admit to a lot of fear that we will commit serious money to Webster on a long term deal and it will turn out he's the player he's been the rest of his career instead of the one he's been for us in this contract year.

I definitely see this happening. The Wizards have been burned so many times in the past by players in their contract year. Etan Thomas and Deshawn Stevenson come to mind. I'm up for resigning Webster, but any deal over 3 years is a foolish one IMO.

The Stevenson contract wasn't that bad, 3 mil per year. It was the length, which I believe was 4. Should have been a 2 year deal or 3 at the most.

Etan's contract was horrible.

[Ed Wood]

Stevenson's contract was only really "bad" because he had that roughly 80 game stretch during which it was galling that he was being paid any amount of money to play basketball. That coincided with the team being more or less equally bad and was therefore pretty unappealing.

Webster is pretty good, I'd go ahead and say you should assume he'll do this next year but hit like 38% of his threes. That's still a worthwhile package, however, and there's certainly something to be said for being excited to don the sorcerous garb 82 times a year.

[Jimmy Recard]

''We're playing for something that's bigger than just nine games left,'' Martell Webster said. '' Fighting for that ninth spot because for us, that's fuel for next year.''

I love this guy

[hands11]

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/2795/martell-webster

Wow. Webby really struggling lately.

1-16 from 3

That injured stomach much be getting to him.