2016 Offseason Thread -- Not (just) #KD2DC

[80sballboy]

Is Anthony Bennett on the radar at all? By all reports he's trimmed down considerably and is playing some really good basketball for the Canadian national team. Brooks was hired partly due to his ability to develop young talent, is he worth the cheap risk?

I think it's an interesting idea if he can play the 4. Is he shooting the ball well or just dunking on Euros?

[stevemcqueen1]

Wall/Beal/Porter/Horford/Gortat is a decent starting five that could at least contend for lower tier playoff seeding, especially if Brooks can spark the offense with a better approach. Other than Horford, I'm not seeing significant realistic moves. I think the Wizards plan was designed by Homer Simpson.

I think you're underestimating the impact that Horford would have. He was a 10 win share player last season. He would be a huge upgrade at PF and he could play C when Gortat is off the floor.

[Aussie22]

Is Anthony Bennett on the radar at all? By all reports he's trimmed down considerably and is playing some really good basketball for the Canadian national team. Brooks was hired partly due to his ability to develop young talent, is he worth the cheap risk?

I think it's an interesting idea if he can play the 4. Is he shooting the ball well or just dunking on Euros?

I saw he had 21 points in 22 minutes vs Croatia a few days ago. 9-13 FG (3 3PT FGM). Also played most his minutes at the 4.

[FAH1223]

All in for Horford.

Offer the 4 year max and get that meeting.

He can be the stretch 4 and play some center.

[mhd]

If OKC needs to shed Kanter's contract to make a run at Horford, I'd go for him. He's a horrid defender, but his contract only lasts 3 more years. Straight salary dump ala the Splitter trade last year?

[Ruzious]

Not making a new thread for Eric Waters but I think it's a good move.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/CSNWizards/status/746771022175678464[/tweet]

If they're trying to paint him as a scapegoat for the injuries, that's an absurd move. Most - if not all - of the Wiz injuries were predictable - there was no bad luck. The local media buying into that excuse is particularly pathetic.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

All in for Horford.

Offer the 4 year max and get that meeting.

He can be the stretch 4 and play some center.

At this point, why the heck not.

Go all in and max out a player on the wrong side of thirty.

He would give us a temporary bump and save the 'stache's job for another decade and a half.

[dckingsfan]

T minus 13 until we see who EG signs...

[stevemcqueen1]

Not making a new thread for Eric Waters but I think it's a good move.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/CSNWizards/status/746771022175678464[/tweet]

If they're trying to paint him as a scapegoat for the injuries, that's an absurd move. Most - if not all - of the Wiz injuries were predictable - there was no bad luck. The local media buying into that excuse is particularly pathetic.

I don't know about the injuries being predictable. Jared Dudley and Alan Anderson yes, althought Anderson's injury was far worse than initially diagnosed, so some of that is on the medical personnel who gave us his initial diagnosis. A lot of the time missed was not from chronic or recurring injuries--Beal missed a lot of time because of the shoulder injury suffered in a collision when he was guarding Jeff Teague and the pelvis injury he suffered in a fall. Wall didn't really miss any time with his knee injuries until the season was lost and there was no need for him to play, and Beal only missed about two weeks from the stress reaction.

But I thought our training staff actually did a good job holding players out until they were healthy again after injuries and enforcing minutes restrictions. Our staff used to be bad about that.

It does look like a scape goat move to fire Waters. But I could also see a complaint that the staff wasn't doing enough to properly treat the chronic knee and leg injuries that Wall and Beal have been dealing with the past three years. And our young players have often come in and suffered through a rash of nuisance injuries that slowed their development the past six years. These should be some of the healthiest seasons of their careers.

[Ironpanthr]

There is sad irony in Ernie preserving the cap space for free agency for once instead of using it to acquire players through trades as done previously only to end up being unable to use it on (or even get a sit down with) anyone worthy. #sowizards

[montestewart]

Wall/Beal/Porter/Horford/Gortat is a decent starting five that could at least contend for lower tier playoff seeding, especially if Brooks can spark the offense with a better approach. Other than Horford, I'm not seeing significant realistic moves. I think the Wizards plan was designed by Homer Simpson.

I think you're underestimating the impact that Horford would have. He was a 10 win share player last season. He would be a huge upgrade at PF and he could play C when Gortat is off the floor.

I can read stats, so I'm not really underestimating anything in that area. Horford had 9.4 WS last year, his most since 2011. Compare that with the WS of Nene (2.7), Humphries (0.7), Morris (1.1), Dudley (4.6), Porter (5.6), and other players that got minutes at PF. Don't know what the total WS were at PF, or how to figure which of these players' WS were at PF, but the point is that Horford's 9.4 WS are not replacing zero win shares. Say it adds 6 wins to a 41 win team. Last year, that 47 win team would have been 7th seed.

I have no particular reason to expect anything more from the addition of a healthy Horford at the top of his game, and that's no knock on him at all. It's just where Terd and Ernie's team building has left the Wizards, where you have to add an All-NBA type player (Horford's 9.4 WS were 17th in the NBA) just to maintain the mediocre status quo.

The Wizards already had a reputation, and the Durant situation didn't help. They come across like the sad crack addict in Menace II Society. Everyone knows the Wizards have been hoping, planning for, making moves in anticipation of, investing their retirement portfolio in accordance with, fapping to a poster of, etc. and then were left standing naked at the altar. No one believes the red faced "I always planned on being a single nudist." Would Horford want to come here if he gets comparable offers from, say, any of the California or Florida teams or from the Hawks (where he has supposedly been pretty happy)?

For me, treading water seems to be the Wizards best case scenario.

[dckingsfan]

nooooooo = http://tinyurl.com/z3mavuy

[dckingsfan]

please, please, please give us a Horford max instead...

[80sballboy]

That's an article from 3 days ago. Noah is not getting anywhere close to the max.

[Ruzious]

Not making a new thread for Eric Waters but I think it's a good move.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/CSNWizards/status/746771022175678464[/tweet]

If they're trying to paint him as a scapegoat for the injuries, that's an absurd move. Most - if not all - of the Wiz injuries were predictable - there was no bad luck. The local media buying into that excuse is particularly pathetic.

I don't know about the injuries being predictable. Jared Dudley and Alan Anderson yes, althought Anderson's injury was far worse than initially diagnosed, so some of that is on the medical personnel who gave us his initial diagnosis. A lot of the time missed was not from chronic or recurring injuries--Beal missed a lot of time because of the shoulder injury suffered in a collision when he was guarding Jeff Teague and the pelvis injury he suffered in a fall. Wall didn't really miss any time with his knee injuries until the season was lost and there was no need for him to play, and Beal only missed about two weeks from the stress reaction.

But I thought our training staff actually did a good job holding players out until they were healthy again after injuries and enforcing minutes restrictions. Our staff used to be bad about that.

It does look like a scape goat move to fire Waters. But I could also see a complaint that the staff wasn't doing enough to properly treat the chronic knee and leg injuries that Wall and Beal have been dealing with the past three years. And our young players have often come in and suffered through a rash of nuisance injuries that slowed their development the past six years. These should be some of the healthiest seasons of their careers.

I don't buy that even a little bit. Their 3 best players were virtually injury-free - that's luck. Beal's had significant injuries in each of his 4 NBA seasons - he's injury-prone to the point that it's not bad luck anymore.. They signed Dudley when he had an injury concern and got lucky with him. Nene looked like he was done in the previous years' playoffs - anything they got out of him was luck. Sessions was arguably their 5th best player and played 82 games. There were no other significant players on the team.

[80sballboy]

If they're trying to paint him as a scapegoat for the injuries, that's an absurd move. Most - if not all - of the Wiz injuries were predictable - there was no bad luck. The local media buying into that excuse is particularly pathetic.

I don't know about the injuries being predictable. Jared Dudley and Alan Anderson yes, althought Anderson's injury was far worse than initially diagnosed, so some of that is on the medical personnel who gave us his initial diagnosis. A lot of the time missed was not from chronic or recurring injuries--Beal missed a lot of time because of the shoulder injury suffered in a collision when he was guarding Jeff Teague and the pelvis injury he suffered in a fall. Wall didn't really miss any time with his knee injuries until the season was lost and there was no need for him to play, and Beal only missed about two weeks from the stress reaction.

But I thought our training staff actually did a good job holding players out until they were healthy again after injuries and enforcing minutes restrictions. Our staff used to be bad about that.

It does look like a scape goat move to fire Waters. But I could also see a complaint that the staff wasn't doing enough to properly treat the chronic knee and leg injuries that Wall and Beal have been dealing with the past three years. And our young players have often come in and suffered through a rash of nuisance injuries that slowed their development the past six years. These should be some of the healthiest seasons of their careers.

I don't buy that even a little bit. Their 3 best players were virtually injury-free - that's luck. Beal's had significant injuries in each of his 4 NBA seasons - he's injury-prone to the point that it's not bad luck anymore.. They signed Dudley when he had an injury concern and got lucky with him. Nene looked like he was done in the previous years' playoffs - anything they got out of him was luck. Sessions was arguably their 5th best player and played 82 games. There were no other significant players on the team.

I think it's more than just using him as a scapegoat. Ted just doesn't fire guys in this organization for nothing. Maybe Scott Brooks wanted his own guy. Maybe Wall was still upset the way his broken hand was dealt with in the 2015 playoffs. Maybe it's something else.

[stevemcqueen1]

Don't know what the total WS were at PF, or how to figure which of these players' WS were at PF, but the point is that Horford's 9.4 WS are not replacing zero win shares. Say it adds 6 wins to a 41 win team. Last year, that 47 win team would have been 7th seed.

Six win shares added in a vacuum from one single move would be a pretty huge boost. Even if you don't worry about the cascading/synergistic positive effect that adding a player that good would have on your other players, that one move puts us in the neighborhood of 50 wins. And more wins can be gained by adding a couple of good bench players, getting better coaching, and getting a bump in win shares from the improvement of Beal and Porter and the continuity of line ups we could hope for now that we'd have a three man big rotation set and in place for a whole season.

Adding Horford to the puzzle would be like adding a big chunk of pieces that have already been fitted together. Acquiring a legit second All Star can really change the ceiling of a team.

Would Horford want to come here if he gets comparable offers from, say, any of the California or Florida teams or from the Hawks (where he has supposedly been pretty happy)?

I don't know, but that's a different question from assessing what his value to us would be. Hard to see us beating the Warriors for any FA, but I'm not sure Miami is in fact a more desirable landing spot than we are if they lose Whiteside. They don't have a lot of financial flexibility and their roster is aging. I could see non basketball reasons being a factor in Horford's decision though. All we can do is make the best pitch to him that we can and hope he picks us.

[payitforward]

I hope it's Horford or Hassan. Why? Because I'm absolutely scared to death of who it might be if it's not one of those 2. Ernie Grunfeld is in charge of an offseason that requires the acquisition of 9 or 10 players. We could be looking at coffin nails.

I love the image of bad players acquired by a bad team as "coffin nails." Did you invent that or read it somewhere? Terrific, really.

[Ruzious]

Don't know what the total WS were at PF, or how to figure which of these players' WS were at PF, but the point is that Horford's 9.4 WS are not replacing zero win shares. Say it adds 6 wins to a 41 win team. Last year, that 47 win team would have been 7th seed.

Six win shares added in a vacuum from one single move would be a pretty huge boost. Even if you don't worry about the cascading/synergistic positive effect that adding a player that good would have on your other players, that one move puts us in the neighborhood of 50 wins. And more wins can be gained by adding a couple of good bench players, getting better coaching, and getting a bump in win shares from the improvement of Beal and Porter and the continuity of line ups we could hope for now that we'd have a three man big rotation set and in place for a whole season.

Adding Horford to the puzzle would be like adding a big chunk of pieces that have already been fitted together. Acquiring a legit second All Star can really change the ceiling of a team.

Would Horford want to come here if he gets comparable offers from, say, any of the California or Florida teams or from the Hawks (where he has supposedly been pretty happy)?

I don't know, but that's a different question from assessing what his value to us would be. Hard to see us beating the Warriors for any FA, but I'm not sure Miami is in fact a more desirable landing spot than we are if they lose Whiteside. They don't have a lot of financial flexibility and their roster is aging. I could see non basketball reasons being a factor in Horford's decision though. All we can do is make the best pitch to him that we can and hope he picks us.

And really, are there any better ways to use their cap money that are at all realistic? Not with EG as the GM. Might as well shoot for being competitive in the playoffs rather than trying to compete for the last playoffs spot.

[Rafael122]

My fear is that b/c we missed out on Durant, Ernie's going to freak out and give Parsons the max.