If Gilbert comes back this year and is able to finish the season without another knee injury, everything will be better. If he doesn’t, the team gets blown up. It already feels like we’ve regressed back to the good ole days of Michael Adams and Wes Unseld. I mean, we’re talking about Wes Unseld Jr. as head coach, for god’s sake! Wes Sr. was bad enough, but at least he won the MVP as a rookie and a world championship as a player!

I think in the end we will look back at free agency last year as a huge mistake. There is no way that Gilbert should have received a contract that large, nor should Jamison. Many on this blog said there weren’t other options, but isn’t it a problem that Ernie backed himself into a corner and had no choice but to bow to Arenas and Jamison?

Anybody remember Mitch Richmond? Rod Strickland? Juwan Howard? All signed for way too much money in an inflated market that tied our hands. I smell Abe Pollin’s hands all over this stuff. He decided to sign Etan, Gilbert and Antwan no matter what the cost, and that is why we are where we are today.

We let Jeffries and Hughes go because they wanted too much money, then we turned around and signed a past-his-prime forward and gimpy-kneed guard for way too much money. I hope Gilbert comes back soon. We need some reason for optimism. If he shuts it down for the season, bank on next season being a disappointment again as we spend all of our time wondering if Gilbert will ever return to form. What if he comes back next November and gets hurt?

I guess what I’m saying is that you can only go on so long waiting for injuries to go away. How many years should we wait?

I think doclinkin pointed this out to me once, but it makes a lot of sense:

If you look at the type of acquisitions Ernie has made, they’ve all had Eddie Jordan’s system written all over them. Combo guards (DeShawn, Gilbert, Nick, AD), bigs who can shoot and pass (Dray, Songaila, JaVale), etc. They’ve all been Princeton players. Essentially, Ernie, even though he didn’t want Eddie really, built a team suited to his coaching.

That’s both a strength and a weakness. It’s a strength when Eddie’s here and we’re healthy, but it’s a weakness now because he’s trying to change styles with a team that mostly has Eddie holdovers.

I suppose that’s a way of saying that Ernie deserves a chance to rebuild the team in his image and that these shortcomings that are spoken of have a lot to do with syncing Eddie’s system with the right personnel.

I guess I’m being called stupid here….and that really doesn’t matter much to me in the grand scheme of things, other than my opinion being misrepresented.

I never intended to give the impression of absolving Grunfeld and Jordan of any blame. We win and lose as a franchise.

However, it’s my opinion that excuses are being yearned for…..now all of a sudden, it’s “what’s up with these rotations?”, “our team is poorly constructed”, etc., etc. — and it’s not to say that some of these so-called excuses, or rather, “explanations” are invalid…….but simply put, not enough blame has been placed on the shoulders of those who PLAY the games.

When things go bad, it’s easy to get distracted from this point and start pointing fingers at a million different tweaks, line-up changes, minutes-watches, salary cap maneuverings, systems, and the what-not…..

The misery of this season comes down to two things:
1) Injuries.
2) Players not playing well.

All those other little complaints are collateral damage…..without #1, we may not have #2, and without #2, I’d bet a lot of money that the Wizards would be doing much better (championship material? who knows….), and all things picked and needled upon about divvied up minutes and roster structure go away…..and we’d probably be focusing on game-to-game items like “if he’d made that FT” and “oh man, can’t get beat on the boards.”

Look, no one is wrong for questioning the entire system…..it’s natural in times of frustration, but these day-to-day concerns are getting a little drastic, tedious, and unreasonable.

What I preach is more patience…..and that analyzing in every direction is somewhat pointless until we know what this team really has.

Will that every happen? Who the eff knows…..but that’s the Curse o’ Les Boulez that we all live under.

I’ll give him at least 2 more years so he has a chance to get out from under those crappy contracts he signed. I still have faith in the guy…. (see Kwame Brown for Caron Butler,luring Gilbert here, picking up AJ for clubhouse cancers and draft pick, drafting McGee and Blatche, and the Crittenton trade, although the jury is still out on that one)

Read my latest FanShot, and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. I’m not sure when the original conversation between Tapscott and Chris Mannix occurred, but if it was recent, then this is simply unbelievable.

Because the roster, as constructed wasn’t that deep…

And the drafting hasn’t been great either.

Would you like Pech or Rajon Rondo at this point? Or perhaps you would prefer Josh Boone, Jordan Farmar or Renaldo Balkman?

How about Sean Williams, Carl Landry or Marc Gasol?

EG might be great on trades, but his drafting has been subpar. Which doesn’t supply me with a whole lot of faith if we end up with a ton of ping pong balls…

I like Ernie Grunfeld. I think he’s done a good job. Far from a perfect job, but a good job.

The team is in a good place. Not presently, but this record is injury induced and a poor image of where this team truly is, when the team gets Arenas+Haywood back it’s in a good place. Maybe that (players returning to the court) will happen this season, maybe not.

I thought of the team as a work in progress coming into the season. It was making a transition from players like Antonio Daniels+Etan Thomas+Darius Songaila to their younger bench players like Nick Young+Andray Blatche+McGuire. The Wizards were restructuring their team for the long haul while retaining their core and building around their strengths.

The youth were too important to the future to start trying to find players to play ahead of them. They needed court time. It was better to find players like Dee Brown, because the youngsters required an opportunity. Otherwise the club might waste something valuable there.

Like most work in progress situations, there’s potential downsides and upsides, and in the Wizards case it’s how the youth develops or not. It’s never a totally clear picture, and there is always risk. In this case some things haven’t gone as well as one would hope, but there is still time for that to change.

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The team has significant problems to face (1) Defense (2) The bench (3) The youth (4) the coaching (5) The virtues of the Arenas/Butler/Jamison staying together. But they’re also in a good position to make changes. They have trade assets, they have young players, they have some stars, they have some good role players. The team can engineer the moves it needs …. and I’m enthusiastic about Ernie making those calls.

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I think the defensive issues and a few others still hold the Wizards back (good but not elite) when they’re healthy.

But if you look where this team is now and where some comparative teams like the Toronto Raptors, or the Phoenix Suns, are and the youth+star talents the Wizards hold …. Washington is in a very good place and has choices, and can continue to build and work towards putting an elite team on the floor.

Anyway, I’m still happy with Ernie. The struggles right now are ugly, but they’re not indicative of either the (1) the team at full strength (2) The possibilities for improving in the future. I think this is a team that can make changes and grow in a hurry …. and I’m happy with Ernie being the one making those calls.