Wiz Sign Josh Howard

[fishercob]

I'm wary of Green's "tweenerness." Plus, Battier's primary value is his defense. We should be targeting elite defenders for the three spot. Plus, through three seasons, Battier was a significantly better offensive player (14.6 PER to 12.7) and 3pt shooter (37.5% to 34.8%). He was older though.

A poor man's Battier for MLE+ money does little for me.

[nate33]

True - $10M may be too much...but I think we'd have to pay a little more to pry him away from OKC. Perhaps $8M or so. I see him playing a Shane Battier role for this team, with a little less defense. He's a perfect long term glue guy for the wiz IMO and doesn't forfeit Ted's rebuilding strategy entirely as a Melo acquisition would.

If we have to pay that much, then I don't want him. I'm not even sure if I'd pay $6.5M for him. Role-playing defensive SF's aren't that hard to find. If the right guy isn't available in 2011, then I wouldn't reach for the wrong guy. I'd just make do with Booker and Cartier Martin and try again in 2012.

[Liverbird]

I guess I see more in him than others.

[fishercob]

Back to Josh Howard, I'll say this about the guy: pre-injury and disastrous last season in Dallas, the dude was steadily a very good player. FOur years before last his PER's were 17, 18, 20 and 19. If he can get back to that -- even to 16, he's an excellent deal at his salary.

Consider that Tayshaun makes eight figures for similar production. ROn Artest makes 50% more for worse offense. Martell Webster makes more and is far worse offensively. Lamar Odom makes more than double Howard and is comparable offensively. The potential exists for Howard's deal to be a great one. If he's healthy and happy, it should prove to be.

[pancakes3]

the crux for howard is staying healthy. i actually think the 1 year deal hurts us. a 2, or even 3 years at 4 mil locks him into a blatche-esque salary and we roll the dice on him being able to play 180+/246 available games. see, if he blows up next season, plays well, and doesn't get hurt it'd cost a BUNCH more to resign him. if he's hurt next season, he'll still undoubtedly show promise that we can dump him as an expiring.

[closg00]

If building through the draft is really the orgs plan, then drafting Quincy Pondexter instead of Booker makes a lot more sense to me than the partial rental of Josh Howard.

[nate33]

If building through the draft is really the orgs plan, then drafting Quincy Pondexter instead of Booker makes a lot more sense to me than the partial rental of Josh Howard.

You are assuming that Pondexter will pan out to be a starting-caliber SF. We don't know that yet. I liked Pondexter as a prospect too, but I'm just a clown on a message board who does his draft research from free websites on the internet. I'm not going to sit here and conclude that EG made a mistake by picking Booker. There's no way of knowing if EG made the right move until both guys have a few years under the belt.

[fishercob]

the crux for howard is staying healthy. i actually think the 1 year deal hurts us. a 2, or even 3 years at 4 mil locks him into a blatche-esque salary and we roll the dice on him being able to play 180+/246 available games. see, if he blows up next season, plays well, and doesn't get hurt it'd cost a BUNCH more to resign him. if he's hurt next season, he'll still undoubtedly show promise that we can dump him as an expiring.

Howard's 30, and even before his ACL his was on the downside of his production bell curve. No matter how well he plays this year, he's not going to be in our long-term plans as a core piece. That being the case, I don't see how it's a bad thing of he plays well and earns a nice contract from someone else. The flexibility of having Howard on a short term deal is more important the the upside of locking him in long term for "below market."

The other thing is that Howard may have been unwilling to take a longer term deal at such a low number. Perhaps he's trying to following Deshawn's model from a few years back of resetting his value and then hitting the open market again to secure on more big payday.

[AceDegenerate]

I think I'm happy to be paying Josh Howard 4 mil per year considering Deshawn Stevenson was making that himself just last season.

[nate33]

I think I'm happy to be paying Josh Howard 4 mil per year considering Deshawn Stevenson was making that himself just last season.

Just think, we could have had Adam Morrison for half of that!

[closg00]

If building through the draft is really the orgs plan, then drafting Quincy Pondexter instead of Booker makes a lot more sense to me than the partial rental of Josh Howard.

You are assuming that Pondexter will pan out to be a starting-caliber SF. We don't know that yet. I liked Pondexter as a prospect too, but I'm just a clown on a message board who does his draft research from free websites on the internet. I'm not going to sit here and conclude that EG made a mistake by picking Booker. There's no way of knowing if EG made the right move until both guys have a few years under the belt.

*Correction* IIRC, the trade for Booker occured AFTER Booker and Pondexter had already been selected. Ernie wanted at-least one of either Booker or Pondexter. Agree on Pondexter, I don't understand the Booker pick because it is unclear what position he is going to play in the NBA.

[dobrojim]

Back to Josh Howard, I'll say this about the guy: pre-injury and disastrous last season in Dallas, the dude was steadily a very good player. FOur years before last his PER's were 17, 18, 20 and 19. If he can get back to that -- even to 16, he's an excellent deal at his salary.

Consider that Tayshaun makes eight figures for similar production. ROn Artest makes 50% more for worse offense. Martell Webster makes more and is far worse offensively. Lamar Odom makes more than double Howard and is comparable offensively. The potential exists for Howard's deal to be a great one. If he's healthy and happy, it should prove to be.

thanks for the perspective Fish. If Howard comes back anything close to what he was,
it's a GREAT signing. At the time we traded for him, I argued that if you consider the
team getting the single best player in the trade to have 'won', then we won that trade.
Howard > than any other single player involved.

If he doesn't come back to what he was, we probably won't be paying him $4m
and we're not stuck with him down the road.

[Rafael122]

According to CSN, it's a 1 year deal worth $3 million with a chance to earn $750,000 in incentives.

[no D in Hibachi]

According to CSN, it's a 1 year deal worth $3 million with a chance to earn $750,000 in incentives.

Even better, now the Wiz have more room to sign Shaq...right?!

[Terpman]

I don't see any downside to signing Howard unless his knee just can't hold up. If he sucks, it's a 1 yr deal - nothing hurt. If he blows up, we can trade him to a contender at the deadline for a draft pick or two... good signing in my book.

[hands11]

All the Carmelo Anthony love makes me a little sick to my stomach. He's a really, really good player but he's still ridiculously overrated. Despite 7 trips to the postseason, Carmelo Anthony has won a total of TWO playoff series. And none without HOF-candidate Chauncey Billups.

Arenas has had 3 healthy shots at the playoffs and won 1 series, despite having nothing near the talent that the recent Nuggets teams have had. I think there's a good chance that Wall/Arenas/Blatche/McGee has plenty of front line NBA talent. We need a Shane Battier or a healthy Josh Howard, not Carmelo Anthony.

West coast

nugh said

You need one like those player. Its a long shot that howard will end up that way but it is possible. Look at PP.

[hands11]

I don't really see the upside in having Gil, Melo and Wall around. Only if you ship out Gil for expirings does it make any kinds of sense at all and I'm not here to advocate that idea either.

But with "the new big 3" plan, come 2013, we'd have about $47 million dollars committed to three elite perimeter players who may or may not have great symmetry. It goes up to $53 million in 2014. Melo to me is a guy who can negate a lack of elite playmaking through efficient, go-to iso scoring rather than a guy poised to reach new heights when paired with elite playmaking. That makes him a great clutch scorer, but with a ball dominant, shot creating backcourt like Gilwall, I don't see the upside in a max contract on another 1st option wing scorer with those proclivities. We've got loads of shot creating potential from the 1st to the 4th. Do we really need to pay a premium for that twice? Is that offense really better than if the backcourt were collaborating with quality pick and roll bigs?

And, we've really moved away from the upward trajectory that you'd like to have in place when Wall's thinking about his future in DC (not unlike Melo in Denver now - let that sink in). We could have a lot more resources invested in younger players under alternate plans and here we'd have to swallow hard to even re-up whichever from amongst Blatche/Mcgee wasn't shipped out. I just see that group as being a drastic alteration that creates a top heavy, redundant, perimeter oriented and extremely financially overextended win-now squad. You've got that team to win, but you lack the flexibility to put the right supporting pieces in place to take it home. The only way I like that team for a contender is if Seraphin is a prime Ben Wallace in his second year.

If you ship out Gil for expirings and trade, say, Blatche and our 2011 1st for Melo, you're just putting Melo on a rebuilding team, so that doesn't sound much more coherent strategically, even if it makes more sense financially. If you shipped out Gil for expirings and Melo didn't sign an extension, you could theoretically create a situation to where you could sign him after the lockout without being wildly irresponsible as you'd have a reasonably priced squad with upside, but contingent on the wide gamut of if's that would be required to see that into actuality. The iffyness of the those ifs is epic, so I would hope that some time had been invested into formulating Plan B (personally, I wouldn't trade Gil to "make a run at Melo", it would actually be for the opposite reason of pushing the window back and steady rebuilding).

In short, the whole thing sounds like a wildly misconceived bungleation spawned through whimsy without follow through on the implications. If we're building with Gil, we're much better off nabbing some younger restricted free agents and creating a sustainable up and coming team with more emphasis on - and resources committed to - the interior.

I agree that a Wall/Arenas/Melo core isn't a great fit relative to their cost. If we go after Melo, we either need to dump Arenas first, or have a plan to dump him afterwards.

That said, I think a Wall/Melo tandem would be a fantastic core - much better than Wall/Arenas. What's good about Melo is that he's a finisher. He doesn't need to dominate the ball out on the perimeter like Lebron. He'd be happy to have a great PG like Wall deal with all the ball-handling duties and get the ball to Melo where he wants it. Melo + a great PG > Melo alone. I'm not so sure that's true with Arenas (or with somebody like Wade or Lebron for that matter).

I also think Melo would be a great fit alongside Blatche. Blatche is very good both in the post and on the perimeter, as is Melo. They could take turns either posting up or spreading the floor depending on who had the weaker defender guarding them.

Right. Thats what Ive been talking about. If you can get melo, you get him. If it cost Gil, that would be to bad. We have Wall, we need a Melo more that a Gil. But I would take first if it look like that was the best call at the time

[hands11]

According to CSN, it's a 1 year deal worth $3 million with a chance to earn $750,000 in incentives.

Even better, now the Wiz have more room to sign Shaq...right?!

let me help

[hands11]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizard ... .html#more


When he returns from his injury -- his agent, Derek Lafayette, says late October; the Wizards don't expect him to be ready before the start of the regular season -- Howard will have an opportunity to compete for the starting job at small forward, which is expected to be occupied by Al Thornton, with support from Nick Young and Yi Jianlian.

Late October ? That's interesting as an ETA.

Also, they didn't mentions Booker in that list. I know the kid is a little bit of an unknown but he should a least be mentioned.

According to a source with knowledge of the talks, they made some early inquiries into the availability of Portland swingman Rudy Fernandez,

Howard reportedly spoke with Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, San Antonio, Sacramento and Miami, he still felt a connection with the Wizards.

( Nice to see we were selected or at least the one to best work out the deal first - Good job Ted and Ed )

In order to sign Howard, the Wizards had to renounce the rights to free agent James Singleton, which is merely a formality. The Wizards remain interested bringing back Singleton, who arrived in Washington along with Howard, or Fabricio Oberto to fill out their frontcourt.

( Thats what I have been hoping for )

Howard visited his doctor in New York on Tuesday, and Lafayette said that he is "ahead of schedule." But the Wizards really want Howard to take his time in his return. They'll be pleased if Howard can return by the beginning of the season, but don't feel the need to rush him along because they would still like to evaluate Thornton, Young and Yi.

( wow, things really do seem to be falling into place. Howard could be ready enough to play but actually get extra time because they don't want him to be ready to soon as they look at other players. Excellent. I think you are going to defiantly see some bodies moved come the trade deadline. I think it's now or never for Nick if he doesn't want to be a bench player the rest of his career. He doesn't have to show it all, but he has to show enough that a team would invest in him. He has to show enough that we could consider moving Gil for the right asset)

I love how this team is designed. So many options. So much upside potential. So Deep.

[closg00]

The Heat called and Josh Howard listened. So did the Celtics, Bulls, Spurs, Cavaliers, Kings and Clippers. A lot of teams were interested in the former All-Star.

They just weren't interested in spending a lot of money.

Most were offering the veteran's minimum for one year, about $1.3 million.

http://www.nba.com/2010/news/features/a ... ef:nbahpt1

There you have it, Ernie tripled what was being offered to Howard. Won't break the bank but.....