I’m still skeptical that firing him now would do any good. Another coach might have more consistent rotations, but realistically only getting Arenas and Haywood back will lead to significant improvement.

However, if we’re picking coaching names out of a hat, here’s one I’d like to throw out there: Flip Saunders.

Firing Eddie might hot do any good but it appears to me that his crazy sub patterns and unwillingness to get his players to defend the three killed the Wizards AGAIN. EJ needs to be held responsible and new blood at top could shake things up. He is Grunfeld’s guy so I do not see him pulling the trigger anyway.

OH, I would fire the medical team too.

but can someone explain to me how McGee and Blatche play a combined 19 minutes? Absolutely ridiculous. I’ve always been an Eddie Jordan supporter, but what exactly is he doing? I never thought the Wizards woud light the league on fire without Arenas and Haywood for a while — but 1-10? I just don’t understand his substitution patterns or anything. Also, it’s time to start Young. If the Wizards are going to be this bad, then give the young guys a lot of minutes and shake things up. It’s not like the defense is really that much worse with Young in instead of Stevenson anyway.

Start Brown, Young, Butler, Jamison, and McGee and bring Blatche, McGuire, Stevenson, and Songaila (only at the 4) off of the bench. Dixon and Thomas should only play significant minutes if someone gets injured or is in foul trouble.

You people are taking this season far too seriously.

Consider this. IF the ultimate goal is a championship, how do you improve a team and reach that pinnacle? How do you win given these conditions: A team that’s capped out. A team with no tradeable stars due to contracts that are undervalued (Caron); injury fears (Gil) or players that the notably loyal owner is wedded to keeping at all costs (Jamison). And behind that, a collection of mid-level talent or enthusiastic young puppies with interesting flaws and potential but no consistent NBA-quality game on a nightly basis.

You work the phones, steal your opportunities when they arise (Caron for the KFB). Try to lock up your key players at a good price (Caron, ‘Wood) try not to overpay when a starter hits the open market (Larry, O-face Jeffries). And if the MLE is your only option, and you need a key role player, and if you aren’t the most attractive market and can’t cross the lux tax, well hey offer extra years instead of overbidding on a cap-year impact. Borrow agaisnt the future and hope you’ll sort it out over time (Darius, AD).

Sometimes continuity and playoff mediocrity is hard enough to maintain. It’s tread water or drown, in a town where the most reliable ticket sales used to go to the out-of-town transplants, watching their hometown stars tour on through. YOu have to at least be competitive, after 30 years of general futility.

But when you see an opportunity you got to seize it.

What team expects to survive when their starting point guard goes down with an injury? Okay how ’bout when their top scorer is out? Okay how ’bout when their +/- champion defensive centerpiece Big goes down. And your most reliable back-ups near killed themselves last year trying to save the job of their well-liked hometown boy Coach (well-liked by players, the Media, and most importantly the Owner; if not the spit-flecked ravening diehards). And now these back-ups are dragging around nagging injuries from a year where they played more minutes than their talent could handle, and are expected to somehow do it again? To do what, exactly? Barely miss the playoffs? Get waffle-stomped again by Cleveland, etc or any of the New East teams that have improved in the offseason and over the years?

That helps how again? Remembering that the ultimate goal is a championship, does high-order mediocrity help this year?

You got to take your opportunities where you find them: the two most important positions on a basketball team: starting Point Guard, starting Center. Recall that statistically if you run a regression on the team of pts per 100 possessions using only the minutes Haywood is off-court we have been not only dead last defensively, but historically colossally terrible. Recall that with the exception of last year we have lost a key defensively skilled player (starter!) every year since the first year this coach has been here:

—multi-tool defender Jeffries versatile at sorta not-sucking at defending 5 positions on the floor, his size at 2-guard allowed us to hide the 6’5" Caron at SF and not be killed for it
—long defensively active 2-guard Larry who made 1st team defense gambling for steals
—the Big Quit KFB, who despite his flaws was our most skilled one-on-one defending Big Man, capable of stifling and frustrating players like Timmy or Dirk on a good night.

And now this year Haywood. Our bar none best most irreplaceable defensive player.

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Fact is there’s only one way to win: have more talent than the next guy. If you can: have one player with more talent than everybody else in the league. Otherwise, have a few of them that are at least in the conversation. With the exception of last year, the recent Pistons and the Michael Jordan asterix, every champion over the past three decades or so has won with a number one #1 overall draft pick.

And in those Pistons & 08 Leper-con exceptions lies the way for any GM towards that golden city on a hill. Or shiny silver ball and cone, whatever. Even the Bad Boys Piston champs had a #1 overall player, though he wasn’t their best guy, but they had a raft of top picks on that team, and high quality roleplayers, assembled by careful draft and trades. They had a guy in Joe D who uses that model to win later on with the same model, stealing an undervalued star with good value, drafting smart within a philosophy to suit the talent he has. He did is well enough that when they lucked into a #2 pick he didn’t even need it.

The Miami Heat later played a similar front-office game: stockpile talent, then steal a disgruntled supastar and re-gruntle him as best you can.

Then there’s Danny Ainge, crazy like a fox, who could commit to sucking so hard and for so long because of a fanbase that has an ungodly number of championships to reflect on. Any success by the team drags the honking hordes of Bahston fans out of the woodwork, they ain’t going anywhere. No one’s buying and moving the Celtics. While trying to suck his way into a top ticket he stockpiled enough talent that he lucked into an inside straight with the collusion of his former teammate who gave him deal on the re-gruntling project worth 4 cents on the dollar.
 
That’s the simple fact gents for a championship most roads lead through the lottery one way or the other. You got to suck colossally well in the right year. Or suck consistently for a long time. Or follow the Spurs model and suck excellently when you have an injured star or two. At a time when you ain’t winning a championship anyway, and expectations are reasonably lowered. No team wins without a PG or a Center.

Problem is you have to tank carefully. You don’t want to piss off the fan base, you have a whole year ahead of you, you don’t want to lose revenue. The team needs to be still playing hard. They need to be in every game ‘fighting their guts out’-like. You can’t tell the players that’s what’s happening. You don’t want to lose their effort. YOu want to keep a level head, not shout at the guys, praise and play the players who are giving ‘effort’ , so you can ensure a good attitude regardless.

You want to try to develop youngsters, use teaching moments by massaging their minutes —when they make a mistake, pull them so the asst coaches can get in their ear tell them how to fix it, in-game. And when energy level is assured, play fundamentally sound but undertalented players who have good technique (like Darius or DSteve) for the puppies to watch. And manage the problem of a few hypertalent youngsters who might accidentally win a few games on sheer enthusiasm.

But all the while you want to manage expectations. Tell the media we’re built to succeed with the other guys, but you know it’s hard… And give your current players an excuse to both work hard but not get too down on themselves. Thing is you can’t tip your hand really, except to the insiders and cognoscenti.

Every now and against when they’re killing you in the media you got to throw in a ‘Wink, Wink’ loss to a 7 man team with a starting two-guard who looks like a burned chicken mcnugget. Just to raise an eyebrow in front offices around the land in case there’s any question if in fact you and your team really are that bad. Just in case your front office backdoors your cooperation with them and gives you the old “we’re going in a different direction” Same way the Pistons and Heat assembled the talent then swapped the coaches..

Just saying wiz fans. You got to celebrate these losses. Our coach has to play a masterful game just to keep McGee & Nick from winning by accident. We have to dominate early to give a taste of winning then let it slip away with the vets, oh so close. Gilbert gets it, says ‘it wouldn’t be so bad…’ Caron gets it— “if we’re 1-20 I’m thinking about Tahiti” . As fans you got to keep your head up and look at the bigger picture. Blake Griffin for instance. Or even further down the lotto chute: Steph Curry.

Point being at some point we get back an perennial allstar scoring Point and a high-quality defensive Center. Imagine we also get a lotto pick talent and high 2nd rounder to play next to our Big Daddy Rookie and all.

Enjoy the first quarter, heck the three quarters before the tank rolls in. That’s the team of the future my friends. Plus a little more.

Haha! Jake, thanks for the video. You’ve brought new meaning to “I can’t feel my face” and understanding Deshawn’s 34% shooting percentage.

Call me crazy, but I think we’ll bounce back from this and still be in the running towards the playoffs.

how yall feel about Avery Johnson?