Grunfeld a Great GM. Proves Doubters Wrong

[hands11]

Who gives a flying **** about Grunfeld right now, who says he'll even be back. Save it for the offseason and stop bumping this BS thread after every win, thats trolling. You could say what you gotta say in the GT and move on, no your still trying to prove your point in this thread give it a rest and enjoy the win. It was a helluva game leave it at that we know you love your Monumental comrades its cool we've been in this same thread arguing for months please just give it a rest. Were seeing our kids in the backcourt become men right now.

I was for letting this thread go until after they win the series if they do but since that didn't happen.

Question.

Would you be posting in the Count down to EG getting Fired thread if they were 0-2 ?
Would you also be posting in the Ted sucks ?

If things flip and they lose the next two games, will you be coming out with both barrels flaming this thread and posting in those other two as well ?

No Hands because I called truce, I'll wait until the season is over to vent and I'll just leave it in the GT. But it looks like Witt and EG are staying unless Witt is the hot commodity some columnists are saying. EG, I could care less right now, Im loving )the play of the players right now and Witt's coaching (Cant believe I said that

It is kind of remarkable isn't it.

Was it all part of a bigger picture approach and he was just letting them suffer though things to force them to learn during the regular season while they could afford to learn the hard way ? Beal looked a lot better last night. His ball handling has advanced enough to help them when he needs to do it. I didn't see as many long 2s from him.

Randy's core message was always good. It was the rotations and in game coaching that was suspect ( being kind )

I don't know the answers to all of that and more but it is a welcome site do see him making better moves the last two games.

[hands11]

Outside Wall turning into Chris Paul, Beal turning into Ray Allen, and Porter turning into Paul George with a mid-range game, what is our path to long-term title contention? For all the Grunfeld supporters.

The delusional in the Wizards fanbase consistently ignores glaring problems with the team in favor of magical optimism fairies that assume things just work out for us if we hope and believe hard enough. It's been like this since I joined the board.

The road from A to Z is not always a straight line and its always involves some luck. But luck rarely happens in total isolation.

cue typical hands11 psychobabble

As always, your posts are pure Faulkner. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. There's no substance here. No hard evidence. Just wishy washy hopeful thinking about personalty. You didn't say a word about talent or prodution or wins, just how much you like their personalities.

I like Wall and Beal and they have the talent to be star level players if not super star level players. I think Porter has talent. But I'm realistic about the situation - they could all be studs, or they could all never make a big leap from where they are now. But that doesn't say anything about our team compsotion, or future prospects, the talent on our roster, etc.

We need to deal in hard facts and not hopey changey feelings. Regardless of whether we beat Chicago, the long-term prognosis of this team is a team that is either going to take a step back in order to keep cap flexibility, or tie up or financial flexibility to keep together a team that won 44 games in a historically weak East and which has a lot of teams that will be making huge improvements, like Philly and Milwaukee, with the entire frontcourt either near or at the wrong side of 30. All the hope, optimism, denial and pop psych in the world isn't going to change hard facts.

Second, what exactly are the "glaring problems" and why do you assume things can't work out? Isn't that just as bad as assuming that things will work out?

We have a badly constructed team with no young talent outside Beal, Wall and maybe Porter, we have ZERO potential in terms of bigs and all our talent is concentrated at the perimeter, and really our only hope for championship level improvement is for Wall to go from his current level to CP3, and Beal to become Ray Allen, and then on top of that lure Durant, which imo is a 10% chance atm. Nene and Gortat are old and not going to be big contributors in the long term. We have no first round pick and Grunfield hasn't gotten anything out of a 2nd since Blatche.

Basically we COULD be a title contending team but we need a bunch of dice to come up 6s, which is a result of enormous resource wastage by Ernie/

Is it hard for you to be an ass or is it something that comes natural for you ?

Actually I did speak of talent and wins so you have no basis to say I didn't. And the hard evidence is 2-0 on the road against one of the best if not the best defense in the league.

"We have a badly constructed team with no young talent outside Beal, Wall and maybe Porter"

How about this. Just ignore my posts as I will be ignoring yours. Not interesting in exchanges like this.

[hands11]

We have a badly constructed team with no young talent outside Beal, Wall and maybe Porter, we have ZERO potential in terms of bigs and all our talent is concentrated at the perimeter, and really our only hope for championship level improvement is for Wall to go from his current level to CP3, and Beal to become Ray Allen, and then on top of that lure Durant, which imo is a 10% chance atm. Nene and Gortat are old and not going to be big contributors in the long term. We have no first round pick and Grunfield hasn't gotten anything out of a 2nd since Blatche.

Basically we COULD be a title contending team but we need a bunch of dice to come up 6s, which is a result of enormous resource wastage by Ernie/

This "old" team narrative is, quite frankly, getting a little old. Gortat is not really that old at 30, and he's likely just reaching his prime. Marcin stays in great shape (only missed one game all season) and he played limited minutes his first several years in the NBA. Yes, Nene's health--more than his age--is a major concern. But if the Zards can bring in a quality big (a healthy Okafor?) to backup Nene so that he can play limited minutes/games during the regular season and be fresh (and healthy) for the playoffs...that would be a good thing.

Just about every playoff team has one or two 30 or older players (so-called "old" guys) who are significant contributors. You really don't even sniff the playoffs when you're counting solely on players in the 20-25 year old range.

You want a team made up almost solely of youngins? Well, then you want to be the Bucks or the Sixers...who ain't winning nothing in the near future.

This Zards team has fantastic chemistry...and I don't see it taking some kind of minor miracle--especially given what we have in Wall and Beal--for it to continue to improve.

And sometimes even more.

I agree its a nice blend. Some old. Some new. Some bored. Some used. They have players a various phases from Wall to younger Beal to younger Otto to seasoned vets like TA, to more seasoned Gortat, to more seasoned Nene to last round up Miller and AH

An NBA team is always getting rebuilt. And for the Wizards, having staggered ages like they do allows them to roll out players as they fade and load up behind them..i.e Otto.

And with the winning, they will start picking from a bigger pool of talent at better discounts. It a good group of player that other good player will want to play with.

[Silvie Lysandra]

Actually I did speak of talent and wins so you have no basis to say I didn't. And the hard evidence is 2-0 on the road against one of the best if not the best defense in the league.

All you talked about is how much you liked the personalities of the players. Give me some historical analysis, statistical comparisons, give me something other than this newagey hippie crap. Tell me why I should believe there's a title contender in this group of players.

Also beating the Bulls in a series means very little in the grand scheme of things. Could we have beaten them with Derrick Rose healthy?

How does this team become as good as the Spurs or Thunder or Clippers or Heat? How do you get this team from fringe playoff contender in a historically bad East to a team that can win 50-60 games a year, every year? Optimism doesn't provide an answer to that, other than the off chance of Wall becoming CP3 and Beal becoming James Harden with defense, and even then we might have to grab Kevin Durant.

[Brenice]

Zards, I don't disagree with most of what you said...having some vets is okay. I think the issue is that we don't have a contingency plan when Nene and Gortat misses games and starts to decline. We don't have that young, promising frontcourt player that we are developing for the future. Gortat is 30+, and as Kevin said on multiple occasions, chances are hegets worse from here on out. I mean, look at Okafor for example...he kept himself in great shape, but it didn't matter. Age took its toll on the guy.

With no first round pick this year and likely no capspace, we still aren't going to add that player this year.

And for the record, I still wouldn't have done the Gortat deal. I would have ran with what we had, which was enough for the 7th or 8th seed. If we wanted Gort over the summer, we could have signed him then IMHO.

I want to know who the "young big" we could have gotten with that draft pick or cap space.

[Brenice]

Actually I did speak of talent and wins so you have no basis to say I didn't. And the hard evidence is 2-0 on the road against one of the best if not the best defense in the league.

All you talked about is how much you liked the personalities of the players. Give me some historical analysis, statistical comparisons, give me something other than this newagey hippie crap. Tell me why I should believe there's a title contender in this group of players.

Also beating the Bulls in a series means very little in the grand scheme of things. Could we have beaten them with Derrick Rose healthy? How does this team become as good as the Spurs or Thunder or Clippers or Heat? How do you get this team from fringe playoff contender in a historically bad East to a team that can win 50-60 games a year, every year? Optimism doesn't provide an answer to that, other than the off chance of Wall becoming CP3 and Beal becoming James Harden with defense, and even then we might have to grab Kevin Durant.

What does a healthy Derrick Rose look like? I don't think the beginning of this year version of Rose would have been much better than Augustin. He certainly doesn't shoot as well. So add Rose and take away Augustin and I think the Wizards would beat Rose and the Bulls.

[hands11]

Actually I did speak of talent and wins so you have no basis to say I didn't. And the hard evidence is 2-0 on the road against one of the best if not the best defense in the league.

All you talked about is how much you liked the personalities of the players. Give me some historical analysis, statistical comparisons, give me something other than this newagey hippie crap. Tell me why I should believe there's a title contender in this group of players.

Also beating the Bulls in a series means very little in the grand scheme of things. Could we have beaten them with Derrick Rose healthy?

How does this team become as good as the Spurs or Thunder or Clippers or Heat? How do you get this team from fringe playoff contender in a historically bad East to a team that can win 50-60 games a year, every year? Optimism doesn't provide an answer to that, other than the off chance of Wall becoming CP3 and Beal becoming James Harden with defense, and even then we might have to grab Kevin Durant.

I have done it in many posts myself as have other others. It makes no difference. No need to repost it just for you since you ignore it all anyway.

As for your name calling antics. Not impressed. Its a weak first step in trying to prove a point.

[DCZards]

Zards, I don't disagree with most of what you said...having some vets is okay. I think the issue is that we don't have a contingency plan when Nene and Gortat misses games and starts to decline. We don't have that young, promising frontcourt player that we are developing for the future. Gortat is 30+, and as Kevin said on multiple occasions, chances are hegets worse from here on out. I mean, look at Okafor for example...he kept himself in great shape, but it didn't matter. Age took its toll on the guy.

With no first round pick this year and likely no capspace, we still aren't going to add that player this year.

And for the record, I still wouldn't have done the Gortat deal. I would have ran with what we had, which was enough for the 7th or 8th seed. If we wanted Gort over the summer, we could have signed him then IMHO.

EG’s and Randy’s mandate from “boss Ted” was to make the playoffs this season. So trading for a quality, proven big man after Okafor got hurt was probably a no-brainer as far as the Zards FO was concerned. I’m not as convinced as you are that the Zards are even a 7th or 8th seed without Gortat, especially given that they would have had to rely on Seraphin as their primary big man. Add to that Nene’s always questionable health and you have a potential frontcourt train wreck without the addition of Gortat.

As for being able to sign Gortat even if they had not traded for him: I believe it will be a whole lot easier to re-sign Gortat now that he's here and presumably likes the team and has, hopefully, grown comfortable living in the DC area. In fact, you might be able to re-sign him for somewhat less because of that.

It also helps that, thanks in large part to Gortat, the Zards won 44 games this season rather than 34. It’s much easier to attract a quality free agent, like Gortat, when you have a winning record (and some playoff success) as opposed to a losing record.

I agree that the Zards need a young big to eventually replace Gortat and Nene. The lack of such a young big is one of EG’s major failures. There might be a good young big available to the Zards via free agency, which, imo, is more likely to yield that kind of talent than the mid-first round pick that they gave up in the Gortat trade.

[Nivek]

I sorta agree with you Zards. I thought they could have made the trade for Gortat unnecessary if they'd addressed big man depth in the offseason, but given the "make the playoffs" mandate (that was coupled with a tacit "and you'll keep your jobs" promise) it was a logical thing for Grunfeld and Wittman to do.

This Wizards team is average, but competitive and fun to watch. They play hard and they seem to enjoy playing together. And that's good. But man have they used a TON of assets to get to this level.

[Kanyewest]

I sorta agree with you Zards. I thought they could have made the trade for Gortat unnecessary if they'd addressed big man depth in the offseason, but given the "make the playoffs" mandate (that was coupled with a tacit "and you'll keep your jobs" promise) it was a logical thing for Grunfeld and Wittman to do.

This Wizards team is average, but competitive and fun to watch. They play hard and they seem to enjoy playing together. And that's good. But man have they used a TON of assets to get to this level.

I'm struggling to think of guys they could have gotten that would have been as good as Gortat this season. Blair and Wright were some free agent options that I remember that were available but they are not as good as Gortat. To me, it's not the end of the world if the Wizards didn't make the playoffs this year, adding another good piece in this year's draft would have been the way I would have gone.

I think Doc said it best when the trade was made though, Leonsis created this situation by giving EG 1 year opportunity to fix all the past mistakes that he has done.

[MDStar]

I sorta agree with you Zards. I thought they could have made the trade for Gortat unnecessary if they'd addressed big man depth in the offseason, but given the "make the playoffs" mandate (that was coupled with a tacit "and you'll keep your jobs" promise) it was a logical thing for Grunfeld and Wittman to do.

This Wizards team is average, but competitive and fun to watch. They play hard and they seem to enjoy playing together. And that's good. But man have they used a TON of assets to get to this level.

That last line is probably the most damning evidence of why EG needs to be replaced.

Kev, I do have a question for you though. I've seen you and others mention quite a bit that the trade for Gortat could have been unnecessary with a better offseason. Would the better off-season have made the Wizards the playoff contender that every seems to believe they are now?

For instance, if EG never signed Maynor, what type of player could’ve been signed at that time who the Wizards would’ve been straight with filling the starting center spot once Oak went down? Maybe I'm wrong but were there any starting caliber PF/C that could've been had for the amount of money we had available.

[Nivek]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

[Kanyewest]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

Even with those moves, I don't think the Wizards are necessarily a playoff team. Especially if it means that Seraphin is going to be the team's starting center.

[MDStar]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

Even with those moves, I don't think the Wizards are necessarily a playoff team. Especially if it means that Seraphin is going to be the team's starting center.

I think that there are two separate conversations being had.

The first which most will agree on is whether EG has done a good job because of the teams recent and brief success. The short answer is "absolutely not" and wherever this year ends, the team is not setup to be very successful in the future.

The second conversation revolves around the "need" for Gortat as it pertains to the current success of this year’s team. This is the conversation I think is possibly worth having because from where I sit (stars aligning or not) this team has a chance to be really successful THIS YEAR. Sure, the regular season was what it was but the playoffs seem to be playing out a bit differently. By removing Webster and Gortat and adding Blair and Wright, I think we have a worst regular season to where we're either a very low seed, if playoff bound at all. No way would we be in a position to make any noise and possibly challenge the reigning champs. So by that logic, the trade for Gortat was very necessary for the success of the franchise.

Only time will tell if the pending success/failure of this playoff run will justify giving up the 1st round pick. Which is all that I was saying when I asked if making a deep playoff run, validate the trade.

[TGW]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

Even with those moves, I don't think the Wizards are necessarily a playoff team. Especially if it means that Seraphin is going to be the team's starting center.

I probably would've moved nene to center, started Booker at power forward, and signed someone cheap like a Kaman, Blair or Dalembert for cheaps. Saved the pick for use on a young bigman.

[Nivek]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

Even with those moves, I don't think the Wizards are necessarily a playoff team. Especially if it means that Seraphin is going to be the team's starting center.

If you're talking Seraphin as starting center, then yeah -- no question. And Wittman may have been just the guy to start Seraphin in this hypothetical. More likely, it's Nenê as the starting C with Booker or that other big at PF. Unless it was Wright, in which case maybe Wright starts at C with Nenê at PF and Booker coming off the bench. When Nenê got hurt, they would have just moved the other big into the starting lineup and signed Gooden (which they did, of course).

[hands11]

Actually I did speak of talent and wins so you have no basis to say I didn't. And the hard evidence is 2-0 on the road against one of the best if not the best defense in the league.

All you talked about is how much you liked the personalities of the players. Give me some historical analysis, statistical comparisons, give me something other than this newagey hippie crap. Tell me why I should believe there's a title contender in this group of players.

Also beating the Bulls in a series means very little in the grand scheme of things. Could we have beaten them with Derrick Rose healthy? How does this team become as good as the Spurs or Thunder or Clippers or Heat? How do you get this team from fringe playoff contender in a historically bad East to a team that can win 50-60 games a year, every year? Optimism doesn't provide an answer to that, other than the off chance of Wall becoming CP3 and Beal becoming James Harden with defense, and even then we might have to grab Kevin Durant.

What does a healthy Derrick Rose look like? I don't think the beginning of this year version of Rose would have been much better than Augustin. He certainly doesn't shoot as well. So add Rose and take away Augustin and I think the Wizards would beat Rose and the Bulls.

Makes you wonder if he will be a Gil repeat.

[hands11]

Zards, I don't disagree with most of what you said...having some vets is okay. I think the issue is that we don't have a contingency plan when Nene and Gortat misses games and starts to decline. We don't have that young, promising frontcourt player that we are developing for the future. Gortat is 30+, and as Kevin said on multiple occasions, chances are hegets worse from here on out. I mean, look at Okafor for example...he kept himself in great shape, but it didn't matter. Age took its toll on the guy.

With no first round pick this year and likely no capspace, we still aren't going to add that player this year.

And for the record, I still wouldn't have done the Gortat deal. I would have ran with what we had, which was enough for the 7th or 8th seed. If we wanted Gort over the summer, we could have signed him then IMHO.

EG’s and Randy’s mandate from “boss Ted” was to make the playoffs this season. So trading for a quality, proven big man after Okafor got hurt was probably a no-brainer as far as the Zards FO was concerned. I’m not as convinced as you are that the Zards are even a 7th or 8th seed without Gortat, especially given that they would have had to rely on Seraphin as their primary big man. Add to that Nene’s always questionable health and you have a potential frontcourt train wreck without the addition of Gortat.

As for being able to sign Gortat even if they had not traded for him: I believe it will be a whole lot easier to re-sign Gortat now that he's here and presumably likes the team and has, hopefully, grown comfortable living in the DC area. In fact, you might be able to re-sign him for somewhat less because of that.

It also helps that, thanks in large part to Gortat, the Zards won 44 games this season rather than 34. It’s much easier to attract a quality free agent, like Gortat, when you have a winning record (and some playoff success) as opposed to a losing record.

I agree that the Zards need a young big to eventually replace Gortat and Nene. The lack of such a young big is one of EG’s major failures. There might be a good young big available to the Zards via free agency, which, imo, is more likely to yield that kind of talent than the mid-first round pick that they gave up in the Gortat trade.

Nice summary of what has been posted numerous times.

But DCz, if they don't get it. They don't get it.

I agree. I have very little faith the team would be where it is without Gortat. And Wall wouldn't have developed the PnR like he has. The Gortat signing was a huge plus.

[hands11]

They wouldn't have needed someone as good as Gortat to make the playoffs in the East. I don't want to go back over all the stuff we've all posted about the past 2-3 offseasons. In the most recent one, Blair could have been signed for the deal they gave Maynor. He considered coming to the Wizards for a minimum salary offer, but ultimately signed with Dallas (for the minimum). They may have been able to land Wright for the MLE they gave Webster -- he signed a two-year contract with Dallas for less than the MLE (and the 2nd season isn't fully guaranteed).

Even with those moves, I don't think the Wizards are necessarily a playoff team. Especially if it means that Seraphin is going to be the team's starting center.

And both players chose Dallas. You can't get left with nothing. It burned them with Maynor but they hit with Gortat. Nate wasn't coming either. I wanted them to go after Beno, but even he chose NY. Not sure if they could have gotten him.

Why ? Because they had a loser reputation. Something that is now changing. Now they can get more of the FA they want and for less. Just like other winning teams.

[pancakes3]

Give me some historical analysis, statistical comparisons, give me something other than this newagey hippie crap. Tell me why I should believe there's a title contender in this group of players.

I don't know whether to get on you for poo-pooing new age hippie crap while asking for "historical analysis" or bump Doc's new age hippy crap thread to remind you how well the metaphysics work.

Actually, I think
a) This squad isn't a contender. At all. In fact, short of Lebron or Durant, we're not even at "1 player away" status. Contenders are lucked into, not made. Between the lottery and the randomness at which generational talents pop up (Lebron, Durant...) there's really no way for a GM to even come up with a road map to championships. It's entirely up to fate. And hell, Lebron didn't get one until 2 years ago and Durant still doesn't have one. Dwight is ringless, as is Chris Paul. KG is a top 20 player of all time and only played in the finals but twice. Rings are damn hard to come by. Contenders are damn hard to assemble. Demanding a 5 year plan without a single all-nba caliber talent is shooting for the moon a bit.

b) EG isn't entirely incompetent. His FA deals are... average. It's his drafting that stinks big time.