The Official Washington Wizards Thread

[Hersh]

Was there any truth to the rumors of Harden being offered for the #3 pick in the draft back in June?

[pjfootballer]

Explain to me how Houston, with a **** roster featuring Lin as their best player (lol) gets Harden to sign long term but Grunfeld is telling us no one wants to come here? I swear everyday I hate that ****ing **** a little ****ing more.

Yet some of us diehards that have been fans for a long time, get a bunch of crap for complaining about the team and how things never change year after year. I will never root for another NBA team, but my fandom gets chipped away a little at a time, year after year, because I never expect anything good to happen to this franchise. Even having John Wall, hasn't brought me back to being a fan full time. It's hard to root for your team when all you see are 2nd rate players, NBDL players and a bunch of castoffs. I'm almost ready for them to fold the damn team and call it a day.

[stevemcqueen1]

Was there any truth to the rumors of Harden being offered for the #3 pick in the draft back in June?

They tried to get a deal done with Charlotte for #2 to take Brad Beal.

I don't know if they ever had any serious trade talks with us for #3.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

In hindsight, it doesn't seem like it would have been that hard to beat Houston's offer for Harden without having to give up the third overall pick.

Houston pretty much gave up just Jeremy Lamb and taking back a few small contracts for him. Martin is a one year window dressing for the deal and those draft picks are worthless.

Would a future pick and Rashard's contract have been enough to get him if we'd made the deal two days before the start of the regular season? What if we had thrown in any of our recent draftees aside from Wall? Hell, what about for Nene?

We could have gut our team for Harden, kept Wall, kept #3 and be better off today than we are in reality.

And if you're OKC, wouldn't a deal that gave you Rashard's cap room, a future pick that's probably a lotto pick, and then some mix of young draftees like Seraphin, Booker, Singleton, Crawf, or Vesely be attractive? Or maybe even Nene, who gives you some low post scoring. Wouldn't that appeal to you more than the awful return they got from Houston?

All we had to do to put our names in the ring was not shoot our ammunition off on bad deals early in the summer.

I've been screaming about this forever? You don't win in the NBA with draft picks. You win in the NBA with "A" draft pick. You need to be in the Top 4 when Lebron or Wade or Rose or Durant are available and you preferably need to be #1 or #2. I seem to be the only person that notice that the same 10 teams are in the Lottery every single year. Holding onto draft picks means that you are constantly adding a Vesely or Beal to your roster. Nothing really shows this better than the Durant draft. The Sonics/Thunder got Durant...and three picks later got....wait for it...Jeff Green who is the very definition of "just a guy."

You need a star. Actually you need two stars, but the way you get two stars is by eventually getting one star.

Houston got a star. Finally. It will be much easier for them to find a second star now.

You and I disagree on whether Wall is a star. But if the Wizards had gotten Harden, I would have immediately called Wall a star, because if he is the second best guy on your team, you are in great shape. He strikes me as a Bosh/Gasol type more than a Lebron or Kobe type if that makes sense. I think he will shine brightest when he plays with somebody better than him.

I'm losing my mind with this argument that having a few potential lottery picks in the future is better than having James Harden right now.

You are basically saying, you have two choices. Choice one is a million dollars. The only catch is that you have to spend that million in one year and you will never be given a million dollars again.

Choice two is five tickets. Each of those tickets is a 1 in 10 chance to win two million dollars. You can spend it however you like or you can save it. But we won't let you know if you won until next year. And you may not win.

What do you choose?

[Fight4RGIII]

I remember during the 2009 NBA Lottery, thinking, damn we need to get at least a top 3 pick to have a chance at Harden. I would stay up real late to catch him play at ASU. He was such a beast. Rubio would have been my second choice. We would have had a shot at him. I knew we had no chance to get Blake. Well, at least we ended up with Randy Foye and Mike Miller out of that draft. Sorry for reminding you guys.

[stevemcqueen1]

I've been screaming about this forever? You don't win in the NBA with draft picks. You win in the NBA with "A" draft pick. You need to be in the Top 4 when Lebron or Wade or Rose or Durant are available and you preferably need to be #1 or #2. I seem to be the only person that notice that the same 10 teams are in the Lottery every single year. Holding onto draft picks means that you are constantly adding a Vesely or Beal to your roster. Nothing really shows this better than the Durant draft. The Sonics/Thunder got Durant...and three picks later got....wait for it...Jeff Green who is the very definition of "just a guy."

You're ignoring a lot of recent draft picks that have paid off outside of the top 3 or 4 picks. Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Steph Curry, Rubio, Cousins, Monroe, Gordon. You've also got other guys like Noah who, while not a star, can absolutely be the second or third best player on a championship caliber team.

Yeah, you get a lot of Jeff Greens once you get away from the 1 or 2 guys in any class who are just obviously the cream. But you can also find true difference makers and star caliber players just outside of that top level range.

The Thunder are an example of how to use the draft to build a contender. It's not like Harden and Westbrook were sure fire things to become the caliber of players they are now.

The draft is also useful for finding quality role players on cheap contracts. That's not going to vault any team in contention. But it will cement a team that already has its stars as a contender by filling in the cracks.

You need a star. Actually you need two stars, but the way you get two stars is by eventually getting one star.

Yes, you absolutely need at least one star. You need someone you can sell to the fan base and the media for sure. It effects the whole millieu around your franchise, and it greatly enhances your ability to draw the quality free agents which seem to make the difference between a good team and a great team. And as we've seen lately, if your star is really special, maybe you'll even lure another superstar to town via FA or trade.

The NBA is funny. Respect is the greatest currency in the sport. It's the most hierarchical league by far.

I disagree with you about Wall not being a star. I think John is a natural alpha and leader type that others respect and follow.

I also think Wall has a great deal more cache around the league than our fans and media types tend to give him. Fans and media members focus on numbers because they're outside the process. But players and coaches know who the good players are, and they don't focus on numbers because they understand how they are produced and how they fluctuate. They focus on the skills and tools.

John garners a ton of respect from his peers and the coaches who come in contact with him. They think of him as a future star at worst, superstar in a best case scenario. You've got to understand what a seeing a PG who will dunk on your C means to players. He's a shocking talent. But further, he isn't a knucklehead. He gets it. He's got court vision and plays the game with intelligence and effort despite the fact he's a top 5 athlete in the league. Players get on board with that combination.

---------- Post added November-1st-2012 at 11:45 AM ----------

I remember during the 2009 NBA Lottery, thinking, damn we need to get at least a top 3 pick to have a chance at Harden. I would stay up real late to catch him play at ASU. He was such a beast. Rubio would have been my second choice. We would have had a shot at him. I knew we had no chance to get Blake. Well, at least we ended up with Randy Foye and Mike Miller out of that draft. Sorry for reminding you guys.

In hindsight I'm not really sure who the best player at 5 would have been. Not Rubio if you like Wall, but probably Rubio if you're starting from the ground up. Though he really hasn't achieved much in the NBA yet. I doubt we'd be better off right now if we'd picked him than we already are. The future would be bright though.

Steph Curry would have been nice if not for his injuries. He's a stud offensive player when healthy. But he's missed a ton of time.

Tyreke would have been pretty nice too but his game hasn't really grown since he's been in the league and there must be something off the court happening for Sacramento to keep trying to go away from him.

DeRozan was the guy I remember liking from that class. I still kind of like him, but it's not like he's done a whole lot in the NBA. I'm not sure we could even use him that much because he's just another slasher and finisher with no shooting, rebounding, or playmaking.

I don't know, maybe the best you can come up with in hindsight is taking Rubio and then taking Cousins first overall the next year. I'm not sure I like that outcome better than the one that actually happened.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

You're ignoring a lot of recent draft picks that have paid off outside of the top 3 or 4 picks. Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Steph Curry, Rubio, Cousins, Monroe, Gordon. You've also got other guys like Noah who, while not a star, can absolutely be the second or third best player on a championship caliber team.

You can get good players in the later parts of the lottery. You can definitely find your second star there. Out of that list, the only one who I think is truly transcendent is Westbrook. I like Love a lot, but he just strikes me as the type of guy who is going to put up massive numbers on 40 win teams for the rest of his career. There is just something off about him that I can quite put my finger on. Maybe because I grew up watching a league filled with guys like Alex English and Kelly Tripuka. Dudes who put up 30 points nightly and never got out of the second round.

We are going to be arguing about Wall until he signs a max deal for the Knicks one day.

[Fight4RGIII]

You can get good players in the later parts of the lottery. You can definitely find your second star there. Out of that list, the only one who I think is truly transcendent is Westbrook. I like Love a lot, but he just strikes me as the type of guy who is going to put up massive numbers on 40 win teams for the rest of his career. There is just something off about him that I can quite put my finger on. Maybe because I grew up watching a league filled with guys like Alex English and Kelly Tripuka. Dudes who put up 30 points nightly and never got out of the second round.

We are going to be arguing about Wall until he signs a max deal for the Knicks one day.

Not with Ernie as the GM, haha.

[Warhead36]

Ernie has been here, what, a decade now?

I don't care if he built a couple of 1 and done playoff teams 5+ years ago. He needs to be shown the door.

Can't believe Ted didn't clean house when he took over in 2010. He's just as responsible for this abombination of a franchise now as anyone.

[Fight4RGIII]

It's pretty shocking that Ernie has drafted one all-star in over 20 years of being in an NBA Front Office, well, I guess not that shocking considering what we know of him. But hey, every few years, he makes a medicore trade to give ownership a big enough reason, albeit tiny, to keep him on board.

[stevemcqueen1]

You can get good players in the later parts of the lottery. You can definitely find your second star there. Out of that list, the only one who I think is truly transcendent is Westbrook. I like Love a lot, but he just strikes me as the type of guy who is going to put up massive numbers on 40 win teams for the rest of his career. There is just something off about him that I can quite put my finger on. Maybe because I grew up watching a league filled with guys like Alex English and Kelly Tripuka. Dudes who put up 30 points nightly and never got out of the second round.

It's because Love is not a two way player.

To be a true superstar that elevates a team to championship caliber on your own, you can't be awesome on one end of the court and a serious detriment to your team on the other. Otherwise you are canceling yourself out.

You have to be at least passable on defense, and if you're only passable, then you need to be transcendent on offense. And vice versa (think Durant and, to a lesser extend Dwight).

Love is a scrub on defense. He'll never be able to make a difference for an organization as the only star player on the roster. But put him on a team with other stars and guys who can cover for him defensively and he'd make a huge difference.

I think you're generally right about the second star only outside of the top few picks trend. Looking back, the only superstar transcendent types that came outside the top 3 the past decade are Wade, maybe Bosh, CP3, Roy, and Westbrook. Maybe Cousins will be in there, hard to say right now. Bosh, CP3, and Westbrook were 4th overall picks. Wade and Roy were fifth overall picks. It stands to reason that if their classes hadn't been so deep or in Roy's case, a few teams in front of Portland hadn't ****ed up so egregiously, they'd have been taken in that transcendent player range.

The NBA really does a horrible job developing its young talent when you think about it. How many draft picks end up being merely worthwhile? A little more than 10%? That's so much worse than the NFL, odd because NBA contracts are guaranteed and injury is an orders of magnitude bigger problem for the NFL.

It's pretty much left up to a "well the cream rises to the top in spite of every obstacle we'll throw in their path" mentality for the majority of NBA teams. There is just a general lack of professionalism in the NBA compared to the NFL. It's not a coincidence that the best run and most professional organizations like the Spurs, Mavs, Bulls, and Thunder are the only organizations that are successful developing their own draft picks.

Anyway, guys like Noah and Lawson and Love and Curry and Monroe are good examples of second stars who are really really good at a few things but aren't complete. Basketball is a game where value is determined by what you bring to the table versus what you take away from it. In the case of each of those guys, they bring a lot more to the table than they take away IMO. But they still take away enough to keep them from being of that Superstar caliber

We are going to be arguing about Wall until he signs a max deal for the Knicks one day.

Better them than Miami.

My fear is that he's going to be hitting the open market in his prime around the same time as Wade is pretty much done and he's going to go play with his buddy LeBron and reopen their championship window for the duration of LeBron's career.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

The NBA is not built to develop stars. Training camps are short. The season packs a ton of games into a short window. Once you get beyond Christmas, you don't really practice and what practice you do have is built around the starters. In the NBA, you either develop on your own in the summer or you die.

It also doesn't help that no one gets four years of college any longer. I mean, how much can John Calipari really teach you in six months?

30 years ago, Wall would have had - at worst - three years in college to slowly learn things like "a jump shot" and "defensive positioning" and "playing under control." Now, it's six months at college (where practice time has been severely limited) and suddenly you are on a private plane, playing cards with Andray Blatche.

[Thinking Skins]

It's pretty shocking that Ernie has drafted one all-star in over 20 years of being in an NBA Front Office, well, I guess not that shocking considering what we know of him. But hey, every few years, he makes a medicore trade to give ownership a big enough reason, albeit tiny, to keep him on board.

What's your take on that trade this year? I say he nixes Seraphin, Booker and Crawford for a 35 year old SF with a jumper.

[stevemcqueen1]

It's pretty shocking that Ernie has drafted one all-star in over 20 years of being in an NBA Front Office, well, I guess not that shocking considering what we know of him. But hey, every few years, he makes a medicore trade to give ownership a big enough reason, albeit tiny, to keep him on board.

Is that All Star with his team only or All Star with other teams once they escape his organization?

[RonArtest15]

I wonder if the Wizards ever made an offer to the Thunder for Harden? I'm looking at what was given up to get him, and I'd have to say the Wizards COULD have pulled something off.

#3 overall
Seraphin
top-5 protected pick in 2013

A core of Wall, Nene, and Harden would have made some noise in the East....****, there wouldn't be any discussion about sneaking in as the 8th seed...I would have said the Wizards were a LOCK for the playoffs.