The Official Washington Wizards Thread

[No Excuses]

Bringing back Ernie was a mistake but a bigger one might have been retaining Whitman. I didn't understand the support for it back then and still don't. He's a loser and proven failure at the NBA level. To trust the development of our young players under him was absolutely ridiculous. You're seeing it now. This team has no set rotation, nor does any player have a sort of sense as to what their role on this team is.

I don't think there is a bigger disaster in pro sports right now. This team is horrible from top to bottom.

[StillUnknown]

Bringing back Ernie was a mistake but a bigger one might have been retaining Whitman. I didn't understand the support for it back then and still don't. He's a loser and proven failure at the NBA level. To trust the development of our young players under him was absolutely ridiculous. You're seeing it now. This team has no set rotation, nor does any player have a sort of sense as to what their role on this team is.

I don't think there is a bigger disaster in pro sports right now. This team is horrible from top to bottom.

Grunfeld is the bigger issue. Any other GM would see that Wittman is never a viable option as a coach.

[Renegade7]

Every time I see this thread bumped, I hope it's because somebody got fired. Almost forgot we play tonight...

[stevemcqueen1]

For PER, league average is 15. Here's Hollinger's breakdown:
A Year For the Ages: 35.0
Runaway MVP Candidate: 30.0
Strong MVP Candidate: 27.5
Weak MVP Candidate: 25.0
Bona fide All-Star: 22.5
Borderline All-Star: 20.0
Solid 2nd option: 18.0
3rd Banana: 16.5
Pretty good player: 15.0
In the rotation: 13.0
Scrounging for minutes: 11.0
Definitely renting: 9.0
The Next Stop: DLeague 5.0

Wizards:
Nene 23.7
Crawford 16.3
Okafor 15.2
Ariza 13.4
Martin 12.4
Webster 12.3
Booker 12.2
Price 12
Beal 11.7
Seraphin 10.9
Singleton 8
Lingston 7.6
Barron 7.1
Veseley 4.6
Pargo .5

Hollinger's breakdown doesn't feel quite right.

First off, no one has even come close to 35 before. Putting that in as a bench mark is damn silly. If you go over 30 playing almost all of the games and getting starter's minutes then that is a season for the ages. It's only happened 16 times in the history of the NBA.

Second, 25 is not in the MVP discussion except for certain cases like PGs who are the go to scorer on their team.

Big men should need to be at 24-25 to be an All Star in most cases. A big man should be at or near 28 to get strong MVP consideration.

Third, 15 is not a pretty good player and 16.5 is not a third banana. 15 is a pretty good player if it's a young big man or a youngish guard. A vet needs to be close to 17 to be a pretty good player. 15 is pretty meh for a starting caliber vet. 14 would be the absolute minimum cutoff to consider a vet a decent option as a starter.

Also your third best player better be at or near 20 or else you aren't a legit contender now. The only exceptions are going to be if your best player(s) are in the high 20s. You can be pretty good with your third best player around 18 if the other two break 20. But I'd question that team's ability to truly contend.

---------- Post added December-26th-2012 at 05:18 PM ----------

I like that breakdown though because it quantifies how far away we are.

Nene, playing starter's minutes and most of a season for us, is probably about a 22 PER. Maybe a little less. Pretty good. Not an All Star level for a featured big man. But a significant building block. If he's a 22 PER as a starting big on a team where he's the third best player, that team is going to be extremely good. That's Chris Bosh level basically.

Crawford is a 16, good for a youngish guard like him, he's what, 24 or 25? Still a little ways off from his prime. He's a valuable player, fringe good starter. Someone who would definitely still be a valuable contributor to a team like the Spurs that have lots of players with PERs over 17 & 18.

Okafor's PER is a meh starter and he's not playing true starter's minutes. It would go down if he did. He's a bottom of the barrel level vet starter. Everyone else is in developmental territory and/or scraping at the door of barely playable.

Right now we're extremely far away from being a passable organization and it's laid out right there in the team PERs.

So what are Wall and Beal going to end up being? Them busting out into the mid 20's is our only hope of contention. I could see them both settling in around a 20-21 level player once they hit their primes. That would actually be really good. No star, MVP caliber franchise player on that team, but if you put a team together with four starters/super subs above 20, that team is going to be very good and has a chance to beat a three star construction because of depth.

[Fight4RGIII]

Haha, Mack killing already.

[Skin'emAlive]

Hello Mack. You haven't played a game this season you say? Ok.... You start tonight. Lol

[Destino]

Mack looks good but it would be helpful if Beal and Mack weren't a combined 0-9 shooting. Crawford got 5 minutes.

---------- Post added December-26th-2012 at 09:09 PM ----------

Wittman and his dumb rotations are the reason the Cavs climbed back.

[Hersh]

I don't have the game on TV so I'm following online...Do we really have a guy we just signed out of the D-League playing in crunch time?

[Destino]

I don't have the game on TV so I'm following online...Do we really have a guy we just signed out of the D-League playing in crunch time?

Yes, but it gets even better. When we had the lead late Nene "got a break" putting Vesely in the game. Cavs rallied and took the lead... Then Nene comes back in. Wittman is a ****in moron. Who the hell has their best players taking breathers with under 4 minutes in a tight game?

[StillUnknown]

Just got back from the game, actually had a decent time between meeting a few wizards fan and talking trash with the cavalier fan who sat above me. The game was worth going to just to see Kyrie, that boy good.

Haven't looked at any stats yet, but I swear it seemed like the moment Nene would leave the game, our lead would shortly follow. Ridiculous how much better he is than everybody else on our team, shame he can't get more minutes out of his body.


+25 in 26 minutes for Nene in a game we lost by 3. That's about right. We literally don't know how to play basketball if he isn't on the floor.

Seraphin plays 12 minutes doesn't get a single rebound, Cavs shot under 40%, there were plenty to be had. Terrible.

[Skin'emAlive]

If Washington does not even attempt to pick up Avery Johnson, I'm going to be angry. Now is the best opportunity for us to change the team. New gm + a no nonsense coach would really help turn this team around.

[Chachie]

If Washington does not even attempt to pick up Avery Johnson, I'm going to be angry. Now is the best opportunity for us to change the team. New gm + a no nonsense coach would really help turn this team around.

Yeah I'm in for AJ. I'd love to see a great PG coaching a PG who wants to be great. If JW really wants to be great.

[method man]

If Washington does not even attempt to pick up Avery Johnson, I'm going to be angry. Now is the best opportunity for us to change the team. New gm + a no nonsense coach would really help turn this team around.

Avery is the perfect stopgap type of guy. He is like the pre-Orioles Showalter where he can fix a team before they phase him out.

[Barefoot Kicker]

Avery would be the ideal guy to coach this team right now... please make it happen. somebody!

[StillUnknown]

If Washington does not even attempt to pick up Avery Johnson, I'm going to be angry. Now is the best opportunity for us to change the team. New gm + a no nonsense coach would really help turn this team around.

Makes too much sense for it to actually happen. Things that make sense don't usually happen around these parts.