Any feelings now with another (soon to be historically) "bizarre" trade of the Wizards?

[eyes of hazel]

We had the #5 pick, not thinking anyone would "slip".

Rubio slips (who we would have drafted, I'm sure of it), and now Rubio plans to "pull a Fran Vazquez" and stay overseas (I predict forever).

Your thoughts now on us getting Foye and Miller for... basically... their salaries (with Flip at the helm)?

 

[mustbetheshoe58]

I wouldn't think Rubio would play for us, but again I read reports before the draft that if we took him, Rubio would've considered.

We don't need another lottery player waiting to develop his game. That's why we got Foye and Miller.

I am still bitter that Grunfeld didn't get DeJuan Blair with the 35th pick...argh.

This season for the Wizards will be crucial, all depending on the health of Gil and company. We shall see..

 

[im not you]

Rubio wouldn't have played here. His handlers were very adamant about not wanting him next to Arenas Even before the lottery the Wizards were one of theteams they were hoping weren't in position to draft him.

The only way Rubio would have played in the NBA this year is if Memphis, OKC, or Sacramento drafted him or a major market team (New York) traded for him.

 

[eyes of hazel]

Rubio is in NO way ready to come in and start for any sub .500 NBA team and make an immediate positive contribution (meaning increasing a previous year'swin total).

If that was the case he would have went #2 guaranteed.

So I don't get the demands from his camp, but it is what it is.

No takers for Deshawn all summer? I'm shocked!

 

[ez primo]

The wiz will win 45 to 50 games this season if healthy and easily make the playoffs this year... My problem is that they don't have enough even whenhealthy to compete against cleveland, boston, and orlando... A team full of guards is not gonna get you a championship...

Deshawn is a great roll player when Arenas is in the game and he's probably the best defender the wiz got...

 

[swish 22]

I think that Foye and Miller are solid pick ups for what was the 5th pick in the draft. Ricky (or the draft for that matter) shouldn't make or break thewizards franchise. They need to make smarter decisions in FA like maybe letting Gil go because they were the same team whether he plays or not (4-5 seed). Theycould build a great nucleus with $111M. I am more concerned with the wizards inability to get steals when they are available (Blair this year). Gil looked goodplaying streetball, but we'll see how his "healthy" knee translates to an actual NBA game.

 

[rockdeep]

Altho I thought the trading of the pick was shameful.... and the Wiz could have made another pick...altho not worthy of the 5th slot. They came out on toprelatively speaking with this situation.

Thing is, the Wolves and the Wiz and whoever else should have done ALL research on this kid and if they had the chance to pick him would he have come and whatwould be needed if he WAS willing to come. Rubio made let that contract get him out of going to the Wolves and would have let it be the reason for any otherteam he didn't like.

Notice he has already signed with another team. If he thought someone was going to buy his contract out and it was 8 million and he was only making 97K ayear... come on...

We will be talking about this on the air this Sunday... call in. I'd love to hear Wiz Fans speak on this.

*Alerting Meth* lol

 

[jupeezy]

Originally Posted by EZ Primo

The wiz will win 45 to 50 games this season if healthy and easily make the playoffs this year... My problem is that they don't have enough even when healthy to compete against cleveland, boston, and orlando... A team full of guards is not gonna get you a championship...

Deshawn is a great roll player when Arenas is in the game and he's probably the best defender the wiz got...

thats not saying much, and i dont think they will win 50.An overhaul is in the Wiz kids very near future....

 

[Methodical Management]

Your thoughts now on us getting Foye and Miller for... basically... their salaries (with Flip at the helm)?
First off we have to remember that the trade wasn't just for the #5 - we also gave up a good deal of front court depth in Songaila and EtanThomas, whose contract came off the books at the end of the year. We wound up signing Fabricio Oberto to a one year deal to try and fill the void, though weall know that Blair would've been a much better choice had the Wizards' opted to keep, rather than sell, their second rounder. #5 notwithstanding, youstill swapped big for small on a roster teeming with jumpshooters.

My stance on the trade hasn't softened since we discussed it the first time around. The only "what if" factor Rubio's decision to remain overseas resolves is ascenario that, frankly, none of us wanted to begin with. Is leasing two live bodies for a year better for the team in the short run than gambling on Rubio intwo seasons? Yes, if the goal is to get a first round series victory in the next two years and get annihilated in the second round. This gives us a bettershot. I don't think that's really anyone's goal, though.

I don't see either Foye or Miller as long term pieces and if we're to evaluate "what if" scenarios, we could just as easily revisit thisquestion in a year's time and say, "well, what if they'd drafted ______." You know somebody drafted beyond 5 will emerge as a very solidplayer, if not a star. Having watched summer league play, we needn't strain ourselves to conjure a few rookies who appear better than Randy Foye, letalone Ricky Rubio. That's a little unfair, though. The draft is about as imprecise as it gets and represents a sheer gamble in most cases. Hindsight is20/20 and Wizards fans know better than anyone what it's like to pass over great players like, say, Karl Malone, for the likes of Kenny Green. Everysingle team in the league has a "if only we'd chosen ______ instead of ______" moment - in the past three seasons alone.

What draws my ire, with regard to the #5 swap, isn't the players we could have selected with the pick but, rather, the players we could've reportedlytraded the pick for. We still don't know how any of the 2009 draft picks will pan out, but we do have a pretty good concept, at this point, of the valueof established veterans for whom the pick could have been exchanged - either on its own or bundled with a high caliber player like Antawn Jamison. Even ifthat's too speculative for you, there are other players on the Wolves' roster I would've preferred over Mike Miller.

In other Wizards offseason threads, I've already explained a few of the reasons why I feel a 2010 salary dump is a complete waste of time for this club,not the least of which being the reduced salary cap that's almost sure to result from the plummeting season ticket renewals teams have already begun toexperience. The Wizards are hardly the only team peddling pyrite, but we need to recognize that this move was about cutting costs and avoiding the luxury taxfirst and foremost. Talent was a secondary consideration.

We will be talking about this on the air this Sunday... call in. I'd love to hear Wiz Fans speak on this.

*Alerting Meth* lol
You really don't want that..

 

[rockdeep]

^^

Actually Meth if you called in... with how we know everyone from the Wiz Organization listens you'd probably be tracked down to be interim GM lol...

These are the sorts of break down perspectives i'd LOVE to have on the show. I will have to talk you into that one.

Just dont call during the day and talk to Mike Wise. He'd take a bit to respond.. lol

 

[pgsyoungsavage]

I think people are quick to judge the Wizards business moves because of their horrible past, but with this season you have to look at the bigger picture. Ithink the great 2010 off-season will judge the effectiveness of this trade.

Meth is right we did jump the gun with making that trade, but I think they wanted to be on the safe side and make moves BEFORE the draft and that minimizedtheir options. If you look at the draft picks after 4, who would've helped us? The Wizards are not a good team and its going to take more than one seasonto turn this organization around into a MAJOR playoff/championship contender. I mean we can sneak into the playoffs every year but so what..

Gil can still be let go. Twan can leave with him. In 2010, there will be players available that will be looking for a fat check like they got that are morereliable than them. I think Foye/Miller are just temporary pick ups to carry us through until the front office figures out what it is they actually want to do.Right now, we're not in a position to compete with the best of the best and thats probably why most fans are upset...they arent bringing in the elementsthat we need to win at all.

BUT, i still hold my opinion that trading the pick improved the team more than actually picking up a Rubio, Curry, or Jennings who still need to develop andget exposed to the league. Foye has only been in the league for 2 or 3 years and is improving each year. Nobody's hip to the boy though cuz he played forthe Twolves and they suck.

3 yr pg > Rookie pg imo. No big men in this draft for real and thats our weakest point. Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Yao Ming, DirkNowitzki will all be on the market. Will the wiz actually make a good move? lol idk...smh.

 

[eyes of hazel]

Originally Posted by pgsyoungsavage

I think people are quick to judge the Wizards business moves because of their horrible past,

By "past" if you mean since Wes Unseld was in uniform, you have to side with the fans at this point in time...

You got fans who, before the Gilbert playoff run, only knew us for having 1 true "winning" season in their LIVES (1st round v.Chicago in Webb/Howard era).

You have to side with the fans at this point in time...

 

[Methodical Management]

I think they wanted to be on the safe side and make moves BEFORE the draft and that minimized their options.
There's no doubt on that - and you're absolutely right, they hedged their bets and opted to trade well in advance rather than wait it outand see if a player someone desperately wanted, like the overhyped Rubio, fell and thus substantially upped the value of the pick. New York would've givenyou Wilson Chandler for the #5 BEFORE Rubio slid - imagine what they would've coughed up with him on the board.

From what we've heard, the Wizards simply had better options on the table than Miller and Foye. That's where you really have to feel burned. Odds are,next year we'll be sitting here saying, "they just gave up the #5 for nothing."

By "past" if you mean since Wes Unseld was in uniform, you have to side with the fans at this point in time... You got fans who, before the Gilbert playoff run, only knew us for having 1 true "winning" season in their LIVES (1st round v. Chicago in Webb/Howard era).
Exactly. What else do we have to go on? We evaluate players based on previous performance, do we not? If Robert Swift shows up at training campand asks for a mid-level multi-year contract, what are you gonna say? When you tell him to hit the bricks (or the gym... or the boards...) and he responds,"hey man, don't judge me because of my horrible past," will you find that at all convincing? You don't sign him on blind faith that he'schanged.

We're discussing the move on the basis of its own merits, I think, but when taken in context with the team's history I don't see why anyone shouldbe in love with cost-cutting, especially when there are a number of teams out there, like Boston, that have proven willing to dip into the luxury realm to keeptheir squads in title contention. Why are we BETTER off with a stingy owner who can't even be counted on to pay a second round draft pick with potentialto considerably improve our roster? I have zero sympathy for Abe and his profit margins - and why should I? If I'm a sneaker fan, am I supposed to behappy that they're raising prices and offering me, as a consumer, lower quality products? Tickets are not cheap. I want to see the benefit of that on thefloor. Unless you're saying to me, "well, the money we're saving on our mediocre roster will result in lower ticket prices for fans and livingwages paid to team employees," I don't see why I should feel any happier as a fan knowing that, thank goodness, Washington Sports and Entertainmentwill manage to turn a tidy profit in a tough economy. As fans, we evaluate an organization's success based on win/loss records, not on profit/lossstatements.

Ernie's made some decent moves - Caron for Kwame was a stroke of genius, and something I tormented Laker fans like Holden and Ska with until the Gasol dealwent through - but this is, and by far, a riskier gamble than actually drafting at #5 would've been. You're pinning all your hopes on signing asuperstar in 2010 when the cap space may not even be there after the new luxury threshold is calculated.

3 yr pg > Rookie pg imo. No big men in this draft for real and thats our weakest point. Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Yao Ming, Dirk Nowitzki will all be on the market. Will the wiz actually make a good move? lol idk...smh.
I'm not a Rubio fan, but if you're looking down the road at this team (and, at the moment, you have to be if you're searching for hope), you have to like 1) the higher ceilings for some of these young points, like Flynn,a guard like DeRozan, or a versatile forward like Earl Clark over a combo guard like Foye - who played well in stretches for Minny last season but won'tget anywhere NEAR the same amount of looks in DC. He seems to need quite a few shots in order to be effective. You can see the matchup value in a big pointlike Crit, but we'll have to wait and see if a full season within the same offense will be enough to remedy the inconsistency he's demonstrated to thispoint in his pro career. If nothing else, he gives you a different look and you can bring him in for certain situations. A guy like Flynn operates more inthe mold of a classic floor general, which is certainly a nice option if the game slows down. What does Foye give you, though, that a healthy Arenasdoesn't? Is he intended as insurance? A spark off the bench?

Let's say you drafted a rookie. You have a few years to evaluate the player at a modest scale salary. Foye has 3 years of experience, but that also meanshe's down to his last season under his rookie deal. What happens if he doesn't work out? You let him go and use the cap room in the offseason. Fromthat perspective, it seems low risk.... but only if we EXPECT him to fail. Fewer are asking the question, what happens if he does work out? Well, then you have a decision to make. If you bring Foye back at anything near mid-level, you have no room tobring in a AAA free agent - and your front line still resembles tissue paper in depth and softness. You're back to square one. If you'd just let EtanThomas go, you'd still have the #5 signed to a modest deal and you'd only be down a couple mil relative to where we'll be in 2010 now. Your arrayof realistic options would be much the same - because we all know we're not getting any of the players you listed above.

Personally, I don't see why we'd even want Amar'e and we could have him NOW if we'd wanted. If he doesn't re-up it has the same effect asletting Foye and Miller go and at least you get a season to see if he's even worth it. Dirk isn't leaving Dallas to join another hodgepodge collectionof jumpshooters and, besides, I'd like to think even Ernie knows that you're not going to survive against the likes of Orlando, Cleveland, and Bostonby assembling the All-Charmin team (Caron notwithstanding.) Tyson Chandler would be an interesting piece, but ideally isn't that the role we'resupposedly grooming McGee for? We don't need two spindly seven footers up front. We need a Kendrick Perkins type player down there to hold his ground andprovide some ON BALL post defense. People ask "well, where are you going to find a player like that," and the answer is that we've had thepotential to execute sign-and-trade deals for players in that mold in each of the last two offseasons. Earlier this summer, I proposed a sign and trade forPaul Millsap that made sense for both teams. That's a guy who'll crash the glass, bang down low, and play hard nosed defense. You don't have todraw up any plays for him - he'll get his off of putbacks and second efforts. Instead, we mortgage the future to lease a pair of jumpshooters for oneseason.

Right now, I just don't get it and a first-round flame-out isn't exactly going to dispel my doubts or improve my opinion of the move. Ernie swung forthe fences with this one, but we'll have to wait until next offseason to see if it lands fair or foul.

 

[eyes of hazel]

Let's see if "Flip" earns his nickname this season.

But, when it all comes down to it, this roster can't stop no one with 2:00 left in the game in "grind time" basketball, not even at the Verizoncenter at home with moment. completely on our side.

Deshawn is a great roll player when Arenas is in the game and he's probably the best defender the wiz got...
I beg to differ. Hate to use any LBJ analogy, so I'll be more personal...

I'm about 6 feet. Put a pesky 5'1 person to defend me, and it may look cute with him on my waist the entire game trying his heart out and not givingup, but I'm a score when I wanna score.

 

[pgsyoungsavage]

lol yall wild...my man said Webber and Howard...calbert cheney tracy murray nem lol! ...that was a minute ago i was like 7

But anyway, the one guy I hope we pick up in the off season is Udonis Haslem...not the best power forward but he hustles and we could sign him to somethinglike a 2 yr contract at a low cost. I havent been keeping up with him but when I heard he would be a free agent he stuck out to me.

Im sure there will be more than just free agent signings though so we have to get in where we fit in with trades and all that good stuff. We could end up witha solid front court easily and still maintain a good back court even with trading Gil away...I honestly think Gil just doesnt want to play here but who wouldnt#%$$ a girl with her legs open. Hes getting paid

 

[swish 22]

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas lost 149 games to injury in the last two seasons. What he hasn't lost is his swagger.

Arenas' comeback tour is ramping up and so is the rhetoric. The Wizards point guard tells Mike Jones of The Washington Times thathe'll be back for training camp and people should expect the old Gilbert after a summer of working out with noted trainer Tim Grover.

"Nobody could guard me before, and can't nobody guard me now," Arenas, 27, told The Washington Times last week, breaking a silence hemaintained since departing for Chicago in July. "If I hadn't come up here, I'd be starting off the season with a 95 percent chance that I'd besitting out more games. ... [Mr. Grover] saved my career."

Jones later provided theouttakes from his conversation with Arenas, who seemed upset with former coach Eddie Jordan.

"Flip asked me to lead this team and I'm gonna be his leader," Arenas said. "The last coach didn't want me to be his leader, so Ididn't want to be."

On Tuesday, WashingtonWizards.com releasedthe first of a three-part video series showing Arenas' offseason workouts with trainer Grover.

"I think Gilbert is going to have a phenomenal year," Grover said. "The opponents better watch out."


We all know that Gil never lack confidence which is good, but I think he should stay away from these types of comments before his knee goes out again.

 

[swish 22]

http:// [h3]Jamison's championship vision[/h3]
10:51AM ET

[h5]Antawn Jamison | Wizards[/h5]
Top Email


The Washington Wizards have been plagued by injuries the last few season and Antawn Jamison believes they can compete for a championship if they stay healthy.

"I've been around here for six years and championship talk wasn't a norm around our locker room. That's all we're talking about now," Jamison tells The Washington Post. "If we stay healthy, I think we can compete with the upper echelon of the NBA.

"We won 19 games last year and I'll be honest with you, we didn't have a lot of our horses. But I don't have anything else to play for. I'm not going to sit here and sugar coat things because it's not the right thing to say. I believe it. I believe playing the game the right way and staying healthy, we can compete with Boston, we can compete with Cleveland and Orlando and if you can compete with those teams, you can put yourself in that category as far as teams that can contend for a championship."

to quote Rick Patino slightly...."Wes Unseld ain't walking through that door"....again the confidence is a good sign, but lots of question marks.

 

[eyes of hazel]

"...I believe it. I believe playing the game the right way and staying healthy, we can compete with Boston, we can compete with Cleveland and Orlando and if you can compete with those teams, you can put yourself in that category as far as teams that can contend for a championship."

 

[mustbetheshoe58]

^

 

[im not you]

What's everyone's thoughts on this deal now?

 

[djeo23]

Originally Posted by Im Not You

What's everyone's thoughts on this deal now?

I'm up in the air about it but the fact that we have some expiring contracts helps a bit. Rubio would have taken years to develop/transition. I likeMiller. He plays hard for our team and probably is the least selfish player on the team, along with Boykins. We're in the John Wall sweepstakes now.

 

[eyes of hazel]

If I was John Wall, I would pull a Steve Francis and Kobe Bryant at the draft.

"Hey Wizards, don't draft me. I will not show up......"

 

[djeo23]

Originally Posted by eyes of hazel

If I was John Wall, I would pull a Steve Francis and Kobe Bryant at the draft.

"Hey Wizards, don't draft me. I will not show up......"

I would hope that wouldn't happen.

 

[eyes of hazel]

I'm a fan of the home team (die-hard 20+ years), but I keeps it funky.

Name the last lottery draft pick we initially drafted, developed, and that player fulfilled or surpassed his initial "potential"?????

[Katt Williams] "Don't worry, I'llwait...................................................."

.C./Wizards is dooms day to draftees...

 

[gimmemo23]

Originally Posted by eyes of hazel

I'm a fan of the home team (die-hard 20+ years), but I keeps it funky.

Name the last lottery draft pick we initially drafted, developed, and that player fulfilled or surpassed his initial "potential"?????

[Katt Williams] "Don't worry, I'll wait...................................................."

.C./Wizards is dooms day to draftees...

Nobody. We get them, then trade em or let em walk away. Go elsewhere and turn into productive players. This team needs a disciplinarian to keep the knuckleheaded guys we do get in line.