By Fred Katz 1h ago 1
WASHINGTON — The message was clear. Ted Leonsis was pushing patience over all else.
The Wizards owner guested on Chris Miller’s podcast, NBC Sports Washington’s Wizards Talk, on Thursday, spending most of the appearance discussing a front-office vacancy that’s lingered since he fired the former president of basketball operations Ernie Grunfeld on April 2. He made it apparent over the 36-minute interview that he doesn’t believe waiting eight and a half weeks (and maybe more) for a replacement is a problem.
On its face, he’s correct. But that’s because he’s misappropriating some of the criticism. The concern here is not that finding the next Grunfeld has taken two months and counting; it’s that he hasn’t used two full months to his advantage.
“I’ve invested in; I’ve led, I’ve run other multibillion-dollar franchises. The notion that you would hire a leader in a two-hour interview in business would be scoffed at. It would be, that’s irresponsible to your shareholders,” Leonsis told Miller. “And so my intent on this is to be very, very thorough in all of the due diligence, which continues, to put the actual work in.”
He expanded later in the interview.
“I don’t think it’s the right process to meet a person for two hours and then bring them back and spend two or three hours with them and say, ‘That’s the person,’” he said. “I think there’s a lot of due diligence that’s involved.”
Those quotes might be logical. But Leonsis’ actions don’t match his words.
The Wizards have interviewed three known external candidates: At-the-time Rockets VP of basketball operations Gersson Rosas (who has since gone to the Timberwolves), Thunder VP of basketball ops Troy Weaver and former Cavaliers, Hawks and Pelicans general manager Danny Ferry. The team has spoken with the interim Tommy Sheppard, as well.
They’ve interviewed Ferry and Weaver twice. And Leonsis is correct: You don’t hire an unfamiliar character to a high-profile job after only five hours of getting to know him or her. But here’s the thing: No reasonable argument would implore him to do that.
Who cares that it’s been two months? The real issue is that Leonsis has had two months to get to know candidates and instead, he’s spent only a few hours with the leading ones. As The Athletic wrote less than a week ago, the problem here isn’t the timeline. It’s the process behind it.
“We’re gonna give you a lot of time. This is the first time I’m ever meeting these people,” Leonsis said. “That’s what’s been kind of funny. It’s like, I’ve been married for 33 years. It’s not like I went on the first date with my wife — I might’ve had the internal voice that said, ‘This is the woman I wanna marry,’ but I didn’t at the end of dinner say, ‘Hey, let’s get married!’ She probably would’ve run away. ‘This guy’s crazy! Making me an offer to get married on the first date?!’”
Yep, it would be totally bonkers to propose after a first date. But it’s also not much crazier to go on two short dates over two months and hope your love interest will call you back when you text after weeks of not speaking. And it’s not too effective a strategy when you know you have to marry someone in the coming months.
Let’s string the analogy even further. One of the oddities of the Wizards’ search came relatively early in the process. In a now month-old conversation with a source held shortly after Washington reeled off interviews for Rosas, Weaver and Ferry all in the same day, the source referred to the trio of meetings as “speed dating.” The Wizards brought all three of the aforementioned candidates in for interviews on April 30. That raised some red flags with people around the league.
Maybe it’s not unheard of, but it’s certainly abnormal to pack three team president interviews into one day, especially when the group conducting them hadn’t interviewed anyone for four weeks before. Normally, candidates will receive their own days and thus, meet with team officials for however long is necessary — probably, so people doing the interviews don’t have to make decisions based on only a couple hours of personal interaction.
All of this ignores, of course, that Leonsis already hid a ring in Tim Connelly’s champagne glass shortly after meeting with him. Connelly, president of the Denver Nuggets, flew to the DMV on Friday, May 24. He received an offer to run the Wizards that weekend after the team waited more than six weeks for Denver to get eliminated from the playoffs so it could speak to him. The Athletic reported that Connelly was Washington’s top target the same day the team fired Grunfeld.
The Connelly chase elicits another question about Leonsis’ process.
If the No. 1 theme during Leonsis’ podcast with Miller was patience, No. 2 was collaboration. He wants a more synergetic front office. When Grunfeld was in power, the owner met only with his president. No one else. As he put it, “That was the deal we cut.” Fascinating phrasing, to say the least. He wants to change that and become part of what he calls “the new NBA.” He wants other intelligent staffers to have more of a voice.
If Connelly had come to D.C., he would’ve received a president title, and he would’ve been a clear No. 1. But he’s also credited for much of the up-and-down positive culture in Denver. Could the Wizards be looking for someone to replicate that kind of vibe?
Leonsis implied he wouldn’t meet with someone whose team is still in the postseason.
“There’s a lot of teams that are in the playoffs, and I wouldn’t let my key people in the playoffs go and interview,” he said.
Could he still be waiting for someone? There are, after all, two teams still playing basketball. NBC Sports Washington and some others have linked the search to Raptors president Masai Ujiri. Of course, Ujiri already makes about twice what Grunfeld was earning, according to sources, and would logically command more than that to head anywhere else. (That’s not to mention that Ujiri is under contract and Toronto ownership could easily not allow the Wizards to speak with him at all — or could demand multiple unprotected first-round picks as compensation for letting him out of his deal.)
No matter if it’s a big name or a small one, Leonsis will do his due diligence, which is the only intelligent way to play it. But one thing is for sure: The NBA is packed with smart people, and if he wants to meet available candidates or get to know the ones he’s already interviewed better, nothing is stopping him.
“Our fans, our employees, my partners, they deserve a fully vetted, fully researched, strong point of view on why we’re making a hire, who we’re hiring, why we’re hiring them, how it’ll fit,” Leonsis said. “And my expectation is that we’re gonna build a new team. And it’ll have a lot of people who are here. It’ll have a lot of new people.”
