Ernie Grunfeld
by Poname84 on Mar 28, 2010 4:07 PM EDT
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Can anyone give a good reason for keeping Grunfeld around after Leonsis buys the team. Grunfeld has made some boneheaded moves and driven this franchise right into the ditch. And now he thinks he deserves a chance to "rebuild" this franchise. I hope Leonsis is as smart as the Capital's record indicates and hires a new GM before the draft.
Boneheaded Moves:
Matched the offer sheet tendered by the Milwaukee Bucks to forward Etan Thomas.
Selected forwards Oleksiy Pecherov (18th overall pick)
July 13 2008
Re-signed guard Gilbert Arenas. This guy defecated in his teammates shoes.
June 24 2009
Traded forwards Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila and Oleksiy Pecherov and the 5th overall draft pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves for guard Randy Foye and forward Mike Miller. (Grunfeld thought that the Wiz were a Randy Foye and a Mike Miller away from going deep into the playoffs. You almost never give up the 5th pick in the draft...its too valuable)
Passed up Dejuan Blair
Not getting more for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and Antawn Jamison....Your Thoughts?
Also as a side note, why aren't the Wiz doing every thing in their power to void Gil's contract?
This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.
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Not that I'm endorsing keeping Grunfeld
But here’s a reason Leonsis would keep him. When Leonsis bought the Caps, they were a fledgling NHL team. He kept the GM who was already in place, and now George McPhee looks like the best GM in the league. That says to me at least that Grunfeld will be given a chance to make his case and show how he could stick around and be effective.
When Leonsis bought the Caps, he had zero experience running a sports team
It would have been pretty bold to come in and fire the GM.
Now, Leonsis not only has experience running a sports team, he has been Wizards minority owner for years, and likely has a lot of contacts around the NBA. So, whatever move he makes — keeping or firing Grunfeld — will be done with a solid base of knowledge. As a minority owner, I would think that Leonsis has a strong opinion on Grunfeld. To my knowledge, Leonsis has never tipped his hand on that opinion.
by disgrunted on Mar 28, 2010 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
All Good Points
Rec’d. I would add that as a minority owner, Leonsis probably also knows exactly how much of the decisions were purely Ernie Grunfeld, and how much and which decisions had some some Abe loyalty influences.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
The same reason why he built...
The best stretch of basketball this franchise had seen in 2+ decades. He signed a young, relatively unknown Gilbert Arenas, traded Kwame Brown for Caron Butler, was able to get rid of Stackhouse for Antwan Jamison, built a team that went to the playoffs 4 years in a row. Without a string of bad luck and injuries (which no GM can predict) who knows where this team is at. Yes he’s made questionable moves but what GM hasn’t?!?
Also, like kseandoyle said Leonsis is in basically the same position he was with GMGM, and now they all look like geniuses.
All the moves you mentioned above, weren’t “boneheaded”, some were questionable like Pech and passing on Blair, the rest were actually decent moves that a lot of GMs wouldve done like resigning gil and matching for Etan.
Give the man his due…he’s rebuilt this team before, I say give him another chance
He got good talent
But I think where he failed was in his decision to build the team around players with the same flaws. It will be different now with Blatche
Blatche seems like he is fools gold. I'm not ready to jump on that band wagon yet. Between the benchings and the refusal to play and claiming that he is underpaid????
This guys has only been doing it for half a season. I’ve got a message for him…the season is 82 games long.
I agree about the boneheaded decisions
Yeah, he passed on Dejuan Blair, but so did a lot of guys. Also, with this team’s history, did we really want to sign a guy who doesn’t even have mcls to tear? Pech was a mistake, although Euros were very much in vogue then and he’s shown himself to be a decent rebounder, his main problem is a complete lack of basketball iq (which we should have been able to predict since he was playing in the Russian league). Etan was signed to a pretty standard contract for a quasi-starting center, plus he produced a lot. Besides, who was going to be our backup then – Michael Ruffin?
by pantslessyoda1 on Mar 28, 2010 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Etan was overpaid then, but I thought that was an Abe move
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
Dan Snyder
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never heard of Abe actually telling the head coach what plays to call.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
Isn't the job of a GM....
To run the team and make the roster decisions? I don’t buy into the excuse that Ernie only did what Abe was asking him to do.
But if he did, isn’t that more of an indictment not to keep Ernie around? He made a bad decision that he know was going to blow up in the teams face yet he made that decision cause the owner told him too?
You Always Do What the Owner Tells You to Do
If you don’t, you don’t have a job. It would have been worse for Ernie if he resigned rather than go with what the owner wanted. This is why meddling owners usually end up with dysfunctional franchises. The best case scenario is for an owner to let the GM make all of the moves that he wants to make and stay out of his way, until it comes time to evaluate the success or failure of the team. The only things a good owner should ever tell a GM is, “great job!”, or “you’re fired!”
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto
Every team essentially passed on Blair once.
He went 37th overall.
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
You did LOL
Unfortunately your comment was at the bottom of the thread and I hadn’t read it. When i did I said Doh!
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
What would have happened if he blew out his ACL in training camp?
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
Yep yep.
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
We still would have signed Fab?
The 900 grand or so Blair cost wouldn’t, even if he got hurt, exactly have crippled this team.
Okay valid points...But that doesn't excuse him for making two very bad decisions:
signing Arenas to that monster contract when he had bum knees and a bum head who plays absolutely no defense and has terribly inefficient games.
and trading that fifth pick…you can get Dwayne Wade with that pick The wizards could have Ricky Rubio, or Steph Curry or Brandon Jennings or Ty Lawson right now…it would give us potential…
And yes Ernie did bring us to the play offs and I’m grateful for that but even if this team didn’t have those injuries I never thought this team was going to go deep in the playoffs let alone win a title.
Just cause some GM’s would make those moves doesn’t excuse Ernie from driving this team right to where it is…the ditch
I agree with you pretty much
but most GM’s passed on Blair…not just Grunfeld, so I wouldnt knock him for that.
Passing on him in round two
to try and stay under the luxury tax was inexcusable. I think the late Mr. Pollin might’ve had a lot to do with that, but if Grunfeld felt Blair was worth taking (and I have no idea if he did) he should’ve made a more persuasive argument to draft him.
"I say he does have to shoot me now! So shoot me now!" --- Daffy Duck
by George Templeton on Mar 29, 2010 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Arenas Was Never That Inefficient
signing Arenas to that monster contract when he had bum knees and a bum head who plays absolutely no defense and has terribly inefficient games.
I mean, every high volume scorer has inefficient games every now and then, but before the injury, Arenas was coming off 3 straight seasons of .565 true shooting percentages or higher. That was LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony territory. Now, as far as defense goes, that’s another story…
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
All I can say is look at the current state of the team. Grunfeld built the team.
Now I’m not saying he’s a terrible Gm…he’s no Elgin Baylor or Wes Unseld, or Danny Ferry, but the team is where it is right now as a direct result of the team signing Arenas to that contract. In my opinion he needs to go.
Ernie, Mike Miller and Randy Foye thought it was a steal by the Wizards
Everyone else, however, agrees with you.
i am a dissenting voice on that one
we have tons of salary cap flexibility because of that deal. (true we had to do it b/c of earlier mistakes made by EG, but oh well)
i might trade stephen curry for that right now. i don’t think having him in tow would really change the long term prospects of this team much. and no guarantee we would have drafted him or jennings. anyone think minnesota is ecstatic with their two lottery picks?! if you do, you’re nuts!
if you knew foye was going to be a bust, then good for you. that helps your cause. i still think he was worth a look, especially considering all the salary we cleared in the process.
now this year’s draft… looking a lot better to me. just hoping we don’t end up with cousins and i think we’re good.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 29, 2010 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions
As long as Grunfeld is not running the draft process for the Wizards i'll be happy...
But the thing that ticks me off the most is that he threw away the fifth pick in the draft—-a pick that you can get a franchise player at—for two role players. The fact that he thought this team was Randy Foye and Mike Miller away from going deep into the playoffs is all the more disconcerting.
who is the franchise player we traded away?
even with benefit of hindsight it’s not looking like we missed out on a sure thing great player. rubio? a big maybe. you could argue that pick by minnesota was one of the worst picks in the draft. i am underwhelmed by all of minnesota’s picks for that matter.
definitely not even close to a colossal mistake in my book.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 30, 2010 1:06 AM EDT up reply actions
Hey if you wanna play Monday Morning QB we could do that...
but i’m of the opinion that having a very high pick in the NBA draft and the potential that comes along with it is worth more than having two medium level bench players especially if your team needs potential. Ernie Grunfeld squandered that possibility by thinking that his team was two role players away from making a deep run into the playoffs. I would much rather have a Stephan Curry, or a Brandon Jennings, Johnny Flynn, Jordan Hill, DeMar DeRozan, and even the potential of having Rubio on your team or to trade him in the future. They all bring something Mike Miller and Foye do not bring to this team: hope and potential for the future. Furthermore, the jury is not out on Johnny Flynns future or Rubios future. Here are some of the player you can get with the 5th pick:
Jeff Green
Kevin Love
Raymond Felton
Devinn Harris,
Dwayne Wade,
Jason Richardson
Mike Miller
Vince Carter
Ray Allen
Kevin Garnett
Mitch Richmond
Scottie Pippen
Charles Barkley
Walt Frazier
Now sure there were some busts along the way such as Shelden Williams and others,
but i’d rather take the chance on getting a top flight talent that acquiring two role players for a team that was nowhere near as good as Grunfeld thought they were at the time.
I don't disagree with you
I never liked the trade in the first place.
However, you’re definitely cherrypicking the best results. For the sake of balance, here are other #5 picks:
Shelden Williams
Nikoloz Tskitishvilli
Jonathan Bender
Tony Battie
Juwan Howard
Isaiah Rider
LaPhonso Ellis
Kendall Gill
J.R. Reid
Kenny Walker
Jon Koncak
Sidney Green
LaSalle Thompson
Danny Vranes
James Ray
Purvis Short
Wally Walker
Freddie Boyd
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
LaSalle Thompson!!!!
I never realized Tank was drafted 5th overall.
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
a couple of those guys were okay
Juwan Howard was and still is a solid role player.Isiah Rider was good for a couple of 20ppg+ seasons…JR Reid played for a long time…TOny Battie sucks but has been a solid backup(i agtree, a bust)..Bender had injury problems his whole career…Tskitishvilli was a huge bust…shelden sucks.
you're operating in a vacuum
grunfeld also had to consider: quality of the draft that year, position availability (all the good available players were point guards), and salary situation.
of all the reasons we’re in bad shape right now, trading the 5th pick last year is pretty darn low on the list.
mike already made the rest of my point for me. let’s talk about last year’s draft, not a hypothetical draft from another year.
i think grunfeld should go at this point, but not b/c of this deal.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Apr 1, 2010 11:31 AM EDT up reply actions
Personally, I didn't hate the idea of trading the pick at the time
I hated what we got and figured if we were only going to get a package like that, it was worth just keeping the pick and drafting someone like Curry. I also would have limited it to a pick swap of sorts and Miller, rather than also including Foye.
But that’s all going back to the summer.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
that's fair
i’m not calling it a great deal, it’s just not anywhere near the disaster people make it out to be. and we’ve been through this before.
i wonder if i’ll respond to the next guy who cherry picks good 5th picks over the years and discounts the possibility that foye is a talented kid who could have panned out as well as all the bad salary we cleared.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Apr 1, 2010 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions
I Just Realized Something
As I was finishing writing a reply post in the Rockets post-game thread. The reason we sucked this season had nothing to do with trading our 5th pick, nor did it have anything to do with Randy Foye and Mike Miller not playing up to expectations. Nor was it a problem of Ernie overestimating the talent level of our Big 3. The reason we sucked this season, IMO, is because our Big 3 did not play like they used to. Each of them has not played up to their previously set standards, and that is why our supposed 50 win squad could barely win 1 out of every 3 games.
Consider that when Gilbert was last healthy, he was an elite player in this league. 24.0 PER, .565 TS%, 27.2 assist %. He was dropping game winners left and right. He was the star in the backcourt that Mike Miller and Randy Foye were supposed to accommodate. Notice my choice of words. Stephon Curry might be a better shooting guard than either Miller or Foye, but he probably wouldn’t have been as good as a complement to an elite guard like Arenas as those two would have been. Mike was brought here to set Arenas up and hit the occasional open 3-pointer when defenses collapsed on a penetrating Agent 0. Randy was brought here to backup Arenas at the point and do many of the things Arenas did. What was Arenas able to bring this season? 18.9 PER, .511 TS, and a surprisingly high 36.6 assist %. This is somewhat of a mixed bag because of the higher assist %, but still not what any of us would have expected from Arenas scoring-wise. The elite scorer that Miller and Foye were here to complement became an inefficient scorer whom they both needed to help.
Two seasons ago, both Antawn and Caron were All-Star level players. 20.3 and 20.7 PER, .525 and .558 TS%, 7.2 and 21.9 assist % respectively. This is the kind of production that can carry a team deep into the post-season. Antawn actually increased his production last season, while Caron began his decline. This season, here are the numbers – 17.7 and 13.6 PER, .528 and .506 TS%, 5.9 and 9.7 assist % respectively. Aside from Antawn’s TS%, which is about the same but still not that good, each of these stats reflect a significant drop-off, especially for Caron. They simply were no longer the same players we got used to seeing before. They were no longer capable of carrying a solid portion of the scoring load of an elite team, nor were they setting up each other nearly as well as they used to.
So in retrospect, I think Ernie had the right idea with the moves he made. But our Big 3 let him down. Now we need to embark on the journey of replacing our once highly-skilled Big 3 with similar talent to compete in the playoffs again. And we need to hope that our new collection of talent doesn’t drop-off before it’s too late to win a championship.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto
by cuppettcj on Apr 1, 2010 9:51 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well said cuppet.
EvilCowtownInc: Screwin Suckaz over since 1985......
No mistakes in the tango, Donna. Not like life. Simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get all tangled up, you just tango on.....
While I agree with the analysis
The problem is, while I am most likely in the vast minority, I was never really a big fan of the team as it was constructed in the first place (it all started with the Arenas and Jamison contracts). So trading the 5th pick for a couple of guys who were just supposed to accent that lineup was never a good idea to me.
The trade was the last straw in opinion
I cherry picked the good pick ups with those picks because it illustrates my point that you can get an all start/franchise player with that pick. Sure you can bust with that pick, but i believe that it is risk that a team should almost always be willing to take. A pick that high is potential, plain and simple, and Grunfeld traded that away for a pipe dream. As a result we don’t have a Steph Curry or a Brandon Jennings, or a Johnny Flynn or even a Ricky Rubio bargaining chip to look forward too. Instead we have two role players that may or may not be here next year. To me, using the 5th pick outweighs acquiring Mike Miller and Randy Foye
all respect i had for ernie
was lost when alonzo gee signed with san antonio… he needs to go… we need a fresh start and that means the front office too and maybe even the coaching staff… honestly why not just let sam cassell coach the team, its only a matter of time before he gets a head coaching job anyway, and with our luck it will be with the la clippers in two years and he’ll lead them to their first playoff trip in my lifetime… god damn it i liked gee and i am not watching quinton ross play 20+ a game
by jeffbenson on Mar 29, 2010 5:51 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I don't think EG quite gets the credit he deserves but I think it is time to go
Kinda the same way I felt about Caron and AJ.
I can't really fault EG
the man made some mistakes but he had some coup’s as well and really made PRO basketball in DC relevant again.
Literally my entire teenage/adult life ( im 27 ) the bullets/wiz have sucked so the fact that EG came along and we had 3 play off appearances in a row is not easy for me to dismiss.
If there is one thing I lament its that we wasted those years running a a college offense that hasn’t won anything at any level of basketball.
Disagree With This
If there is one thing I lament its that we wasted those years running a a college offense that hasn’t won anything at any level of basketball.
The Princeton offense helped get the Nets to the NBA Finals and it helped our team become one of the better offenses in the NBA a few seasons back. What I lament is never getting the players to play solid defense to go along with our potent offense. But I now think most of that was due to the players, not the coaching.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto
+1
Couldn’t agree more. And don’t forget how much the Princeton offense helped the Kings in their rise to a near NBA title (Pete Carrill on the staff then).
"I say he does have to shoot me now! So shoot me now!" --- Daffy Duck
by George Templeton on Apr 1, 2010 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions
I've got no beef with the Princeton offense
But it would have worked a hell of a lot better if we never got rid of Rip. Not that that’s Ernie’s fault, I’m just saying.
Grunfeld has definitely been Hit or Miss
The man has made some great deals (Jamison for Devin Harris; Butler for Kwame Brown), and he has also made so godawful ones (any in 2009-10). Just makes you wonder if it was all Grundfeld’s decision to pull the trigger on those recent deals, or if he was the scapegoat. I will guarantee that if Leonsis keeps him around, it will be on a probationary basis.
The one thing I have hated about Grundfeld is his tendancy to sell draft picks. I have hated that with a passion and 110% against that practice. Should never sell draft picks for cash. If you dont have anymore roster space, at least draft the rights to an interational prospect.
Would also like to see the Wiz start utilizing some of the development tools available to us like the NBDL. McGee and Young should’ve been playing there this year (as well as last year) instead of sitting on the bench for most of the season. Players dont develop on the bench, they need to be in actual gametime situations in order to develop.
Selling the Picks
Might have been an Abe thing, done to make up for going over the luxury tax.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto
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