The Official Washington Wizards Thread

[The Robert Griffin Experience]

If (when) we do reach that point and fire Ernie, what should be done? I know I've asked that before in more general terms, but specifically, how should we tear this down? How do we start our next rebuild? What do you keep? What so you do with any assets we may actually have? What's the plan for the new rebuild?

I'd find a way to package Wall to get rid of Nene. and hopefully get a lottery pick out of it. Or maybe even another lottery pick for next year.
I'd see if I can make a Ves and Crawford package into something. Ves is 7 feet tall and has a few skills and is fairly athletic, can't we get something for him?


Basically:

Wall + Nene for Dragic, Dudley and Brown + Top 3 protected Suns pick which turns into unprotected in 2014
Probably not the best return for Wall, but we get useful players and a potentially high pick.
Vesely and Crawford for a draft pick maybe? I'm not a fan of Crawford's style. Maybe Ves and Crawford to the Lakers for Blake and Ebanks and their midrounder.
We keep Seraphin and Beal.

With this deal we'd end up with most likely 2 high lottery picks. I'd draft Noel and Alex Len with those picks. Hopefully we've invested in real player development. Or Noel and Muhammad if we end up with #2 and #4 or something. Our 2013 roster would be:

Dragic/Blake
Beal/Shannon Brown
Muhammad/Dudley
Noel/Seraphin
Seraphin/Okafor

It'd be a few years before we'd get out of cap hell, but that's going to be a nice young team in 2 years, with lots of cap money to play with, and if we go with Len, a really formidable group of big men. Sadly, that team will likely be too good for Wiggins or Parker, probably good enough to win 30 games, especially if Beal turns out to be as good as Harden is now, and Noel lives up to his potential.

[Destino]

Beal nonexistent in this game. Tough match up for a guy getting his dribbling down despite his recent better play. He had Kobe guarding him outside and Howard looming in the paint.

[Thinking Skins]

That's because the winning streak at the end of last season meant nothing. Seriously, what was there to get excited about? Beating a Miami team twice in which the big-3 didn't play either game, beating the worst team ever in Charlotte, beating an equally awful Cleveland team?

Yeah, that's the easy thing to say, but the truth of the matter is that we were playing as a team those games and no matter who you win against you're still playing NBA ball and that counts for something. I know people complain that those wins hurt our draft position, and gave Ernie and Whittman contract extensions, but that's not a part of my argument. From a basketball perspective Crawford and Martin and Seraphin were playing together so Crawford knew where Martin and Seraphin would be when they ran a fast break or a pic and roll. You can't say that about Crawford and Ariza because they'd never played together. Then Martin goes from being a starter at the end of the year (given, due to injury), gets resigned and then gets buried at the bottom of the rotation when (at least) 2/3 of our team can't shoot worth a damn?

This is all aside from the Harden deal or the Okafur/Ariza deal. Or any off the court stuff. I'm just looking at this team from a chemistry perspective. It'd be one thing if we had traded for the starting lineup from the Miami heat in the offseason. I could understand giving them the starting spots. But giving a bunch of nobodys from other rosters starting spots because of what? Their salaries? their reputation? their years of experience? It just doesn't make sense. And its frustrating that as a fan I've got to ask for just a competent coach who's willing to play the best man and give everybody a chance. We were all saying that Crawford was this team's best player early in the year, but he couldn't get into the starting lineup. Ariza couldn't do anything for like the first 10 games, but he seemed to have a starting spot reserved for him. It just doesn't make sense.

[Hersh]

Yeah, that's the easy thing to say, but the truth of the matter is that we were playing as a team those games and no matter who you win against you're still playing NBA ball and that counts for something. I know people complain that those wins hurt our draft position, and gave Ernie and Whittman contract extensions, but that's not a part of my argument. From a basketball perspective Crawford and Martin and Seraphin were playing together so Crawford knew where Martin and Seraphin would be when they ran a fast break or a pic and roll. You can't say that about Crawford and Ariza because they'd never played together. Then Martin goes from being a starter at the end of the year (given, due to injury), gets resigned and then gets buried at the bottom of the rotation when (at least) 2/3 of our team can't shoot worth a damn?

This is all aside from the Harden deal or the Okafur/Ariza deal. Or any off the court stuff. I'm just looking at this team from a chemistry perspective. It'd be one thing if we had traded for the starting lineup from the Miami heat in the offseason. I could understand giving them the starting spots. But giving a bunch of nobodys from other rosters starting spots because of what? Their salaries? their reputation? their years of experience? It just doesn't make sense. And its frustrating that as a fan I've got to ask for just a competent coach who's willing to play the best man and give everybody a chance. We were all saying that Crawford was this team's best player early in the year, but he couldn't get into the starting lineup. Ariza couldn't do anything for like the first 10 games, but he seemed to have a starting spot reserved for him. It just doesn't make sense.

I hear ya and I'm mostly in agreement. For me it's not just chemistry though, it's about developing the younger players with meaningful minutes. At least if that's the path this franchise is going to crawl down.

---------- Post added December-15th-2012 at 02:25 AM ----------

Only a 6 point loss. That's just as good as a win for Ernie and Ted.

[Renegade7]

Stat line is decent and very close to even with the Lakers. Those turnovers look like the difference though, cool seeing we had at least 4 guys almost have 20 points each. This was a lose, not a moral victory, but in this game at least I do believe Wall would've made a difference enough to pull it off.

Speaking of Wall, I feel so inept as a fan hearing we now don't know when he's coming back. It's like our training staff got their medical training from that boardgame "Operation". JC, Ted/Erine = Old Snyder/Vinny...

[stevemcqueen1]

Beal the victim of 3 of the worst foul calls I've seen in the NBA this year. Tough luck for the rookie.

Not sure what the Lakers have done lately to get calls like that, especially on the ****ing road.

Yeah. But I can't even really summon the usual outrage for it. This was a winnable game too.

---------- Post added December-14th-2012 at 09:40 PM ----------

Beal nonexistent in this game. Tough match up for a guy getting his dribbling down despite his recent better play. He had Kobe guarding him outside and Howard looming in the paint.

He made some nice plays like that nasty little tear drop in the lane but he got into foul trouble too early. That offensive foul call was an absolute jobbing and broke the camel's back. Probably the worst foul call we've gotten this year.

It's more about the process with him than the results though. He's a shooter that's just not going to shoot well yet. But one thing I want to see are specific fixes here and there that will eventually add up to him becoming a good shooter at the NBA level. One thing I've got in mind is him getting more depth when he comes off screens at the elbow and squares with the basket. He's making a lot of long twos just inside the three point line that says to me he's still shooting college threes and hasn't fully adjusted to the NBA line. I want him to keep playing on instincts right now and I don't want to tamper with his shot. But by the end of the year I would love to see him adjust to NBA spots. That would be a tangible sign of progress.

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=Kfog6nS-N8I

NSFW but the John Wall part hard me dying. This guys videos are great if you love the NBA.

I been dying off these videos for a while

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uchTolOSMNM

[StillUnknown]

6 point loss? Ted counts that as a victory.

[DCchillin89]

Watching the Nuggets game and McGee is playing so well... Sometimes I like pondering which trade was the worst: Foye/Miller for the 5th(rubio), Nene for McGee or Okariza.

[StillUnknown]

The Orlando Magic have 9 wins.

We have 3.

[Skin'emAlive]

Watching the Nuggets game and McGee is playing so well...

McGee wasnt playing bad here. He was just made a scapegoat. People saw a lanky tall guy with suspect facial expressions, and that was that.

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

McGee wasnt playing bad here. He was just made a scapegoat. People saw a lanky tall guy with suspect facial expressions, and that was that.

he was a scapegoat, but the real deal was the Wizards were going to have to pay him a stupid contract in the coming seasons.

It may work for denver where they are a solid team, with solid vets, but it was never going to work out here.

[Destino]

The thing with McGee is that people never understood that a turnover is a turnover and it doesn't matter how spectacularly dumb it may look. They saw his lowlight plays (hard to miss them) and didn't bother to check out the rest of his game so they assumed that because he looked so magnificently stupid that his game must be entirely horrible. It wasn't. He was one of the few Wizards that showed improvement and work ethic and in truth no one in Denver is calling him lazy. Now it's important that people not over rate him either he still has major flaws. Overall I think his production on a stat sheet is comparable to Nene. I think Nene has big advantages when it comes to on man defense, setting picks, quickness, decision making, and versatility because he can player PF. McGee has a more effective back to the basket game and is a better rim defender on help defense situations. Mcgee looks more athletic than I think he plays and appears to be slow in moving his feet and hips. Neither player is a great or even good rebounder. I think Nene is clearly the better player.

As for which one is worth the contract the only real debate is if Nene can stay healthy and age. MeGee is six years younger I doubt that he's ever going to be good in pick and roll situations on either side of the floor. Is an off the bench scoring big man worth McGee's contract? Maybe but he's going to need to become more prolific scorer in order to justify it and he's a long way from that.

Contract year - Nene / McGee
2012/13 - 13,000,000 / 10,000,000
2013/14 - 13,000,000 / 10,750,000
2013/15 - 13,000,000 / 11,250,000
2015/16 - 13,000,000 / 12,000,000
2016/17 - FA Age 34 / FA Age 28

I don't think this trade is nearly as bad as Okariza. The Foye/Miller trade was also horrible considering how short sighted it was and what little value we got in return. Nene for McGee is fine so long as Nene can stay healthy and really that is true for every trade.

[Fight4RGIII]

Source: John Wall's knee issue is similar to the one that prompted Blake Griffin to cut short his summer-league
stint prior to his rookie year. Griffin, of course, kept thinking the patellar-tendon pain would eventually subside and kept working out. Whether that directly led to the knee-cap fracture that cost him his entire rookie season is not clear, but the Wizards don't want to find out. Hence, the caution with Wall. Best-case scenario, from what I've been told, has Wall back to practicing in next week or so and playing at start of New Year. Worst-case: closer to All-Star break.

Ric Bucher
http://sulia.com/channel/basketball/...source=twitter

[stevemcqueen1]

The thing with McGee is that people never understood that a turnover is a turnover and it doesn't matter how spectacularly dumb it may look. They saw his lowlight plays (hard to miss them) and didn't bother to check out the rest of his game so they assumed that because he looked so magnificently stupid that his game must be entirely horrible. It wasn't. He was one of the few Wizards that showed improvement and work ethic and in truth no one in Denver is calling him lazy. Now it's important that people not over rate him either he still has major flaws. Overall I think his production on a stat sheet is comparable to Nene. I think Nene has big advantages when it comes to on man defense, setting picks, quickness, decision making, and versatility because he can player PF. McGee has a more effective back to the basket game and is a better rim defender on help defense situations. Mcgee looks more athletic than I think he plays and appears to be slow in moving his feet and hips. Neither player is a great or even good rebounder. I think Nene is clearly the better player.

As for which one is worth the contract the only real debate is if Nene can stay healthy and age. MeGee is six years younger I doubt that he's ever going to be good in pick and roll situations on either side of the floor. Is an off the bench scoring big man worth McGee's contract? Maybe but he's going to need to become more prolific scorer in order to justify it and he's a long way from that.

Contract year - Nene / McGee
2012/13 - 13,000,000 / 10,000,000
2013/14 - 13,000,000 / 10,750,000
2013/15 - 13,000,000 / 11,250,000
2015/16 - 13,000,000 / 12,000,000
2016/17 - FA Age 34 / FA Age 28

I don't think this trade is nearly as bad as Okariza. The Foye/Miller trade was also horrible considering how short sighted it was and what little value we got in return. Nene for McGee is fine so long as Nene can stay healthy and really that is true for every trade.

McGee also brought a negative in the intangibles and chemistry department. He was seen as a clown and his teammates didn't trust him IMO. It was just poisonous overall, same with Blatche and NY. We couldn't get the most out of him individually here, and we couldn't get him to have a synergistic contribution to the overall makeup of the team--which I believe every team needs from their players in order to be great (look at the Lakers right now).

We definitely get a synergistic gain from Nene. The whole team plays better when he's in. Not just from the intangibles he brings. He plays good positional D and boxes out, passes extremely well, never dominates the ball, scores with elite efficiency, and makes his teammates better. Nene would make any team in the league better no matter the scheme or surrounding talent--when he's healthy.

If the choice has got to be either Nene or JaVale, we won that exchange easily IMO.

But those weren't our only choices and the problem with that Nene trade is going to end up being that we overestimated our own readiness to contend when we made the deal. We thought we had done most of the work assembling our future contender and that long term flexibility was no longer valuable for us.

I also no longer accept that we had to get a big out of any move with JaVale because Seraphin has emerged. We wouldn't have gotten a better big than Nene out of JaVale. But we didn't really need to get that good a big TBH since we've been horrible anyway.

In hindsight, I think our best choice was to just let JaVale walk or deal him for something cheap and short term. That season was certainly lost at the time we made the trade. This season has ended up being even worse. So bad that the fanbase universally lost faith in the FO and wants to start over again.

I think Nene's contract put the kibosh on a Harden deal. It would have forced us to go with a big 3 of Harden, Nene, Wall with Harden being our best player. That's not good enough to beat the other contenders. But if you take away Nene's contract, you still have a shot at getting a big time player to round our your big 3 and force Harden and Wall into #2 and #3 roles. Harden and Wall and probable room for a max player might be enough to lure a legit star player in 2014. It could be someone who is a star today or it could be someone who emerges by that point like Derrick Favors or DeMarcus Cousins.

That construction might have been good enough to contend with.