Oklahoma City Thunder Provide Lessons, Not Reassurance, For Washington Wizards

The key here is the effort put in, and the environment that fosters this.

Models are just that…

Kinda puts it all in perspective. An OKC rebuild isn’t for the faint hearted.

and maybe Ted can read this before he does his next Take

"I never talked to our guys about being young, because that’s an easy out. That’s an easy crutch to fall on."

the bottomline about the OkC “model” is that Kevin Durant is one of the truly, truly elite talents in the entire league. Physically, mentally, character…if no one on our roster is his equivalent, then we arent on their path til we get someone who is. Let’s all hope John can be that guy.

was that from the top of the roster down, guys work their ASSES off. And not in a “I’m going over there by myself to work on X” kind of way, but a “WE are going to stay HERE and work on this TOGETHER”.

I loved that John was working on stuff this summer, but he was working individually when he’s playing a team game. If John was serious about exploiting his natural abilities, he and JaVale would have been joined at the hip all summer getting their chemistry right. There is just no reason those two aren’t exploiting 85% of the 1/5’s they face with a ridiculous PnR based on natural abilities that they have and nobody else does. Except, obviously, for the fact that PnR isn’t part of Flip’s offense and that John doesn’t really seem to like JaVale very much. And therein lies the problem.

Obviously most of us have zero access to either team’s locker room, but from the outside it looks like KD and Westbrook aren’t exactly the “best” of friends – but they work together and succeed. Whatever jealousy Westbrook has of KD’s accolades, he (for the most part) keeps those feelings bottled up both on and off the court. The accolades here obviously flow to John, but the comparison can still be made – if John was willing to put aside whatever feelings of annoyance or irritation he has with JaVale and WORKED with him, BOTH guys would be much better off. Of course, maybe John has reached out and JaVale has said “Nah, I’d rather work on my post moves”. Who knows. I don’t and none of us do. But if we’re going to base our rebuild on the OKC model, we need guys with the same kind of mental fortitude and attitude of doing whatever it takes to succeed, regardless of who gets what praise and how much effort is needed.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, our culture will not allow this team to rebuild through the OKC model because we just don’t have the mind-frame to pull it off. Guys are too worried about the individual and not worried enough about the whole.

I think the big change will happen this off season. Lewis is gone, Blatche seems destined to be out, as does Nick Young, which leaves only McGee (an RFA) as the most likely “pre-rebuild” era player to remain on the team. I see those subtractions as positives to the culture of the organization, simply from a “fresh start” outlook.

The ‘12 draft class presents the team with another chance to draft a player with the “right” mentality for their team. There’s lots of talent in the class, yet there isn’t a ton of separation between the top 5 players in the class (projected), making the interview process very important.

As for the rest of the players, they all seem like gym rats to me. Wall, Crawford, Singleton, Booker, Vesely, Mack, Seraphin, etc… these guys are “workers” and seem willing to put in the extra effort.

The cultural change is coming this summer, that is apparent. Flip (if he makes it that long) will be a lame duck coach and Ernie’s clock is ticking. Faces will change and the crumbles are separating themselves from the core. Ted has a front row seat for all of this and keeps a watchful eye.

the Wizards are not doing the necessary things to lay a strong culture that fights through all the losing like the Thunder once did.

Can you be more specific? You make it sound like either the players aren’t putting in extra work, the coaching staff/front office isn’t trying to instill that work ethic, or some combination of both. What exactly are/aren’t they doing in comparison to the Thunder?

…..for the Wiz to become a championship contender.

1) the owner needs to lay out a reasonable strategy (done)
2) the GM needs to assemble the talent (2-3 stars, synergistic role players) (not close)
3) the coach needs to lead and develop the players and the team (not being done effectively)
4) the best player needs to provide additional leadership by example (not clicking yet)

During this process, the team’s culture will evolve and take shape.

The bad news is that we are losing the battle on points 2 and 3 and are getting further away from reaching the end goal, not closer (and the culture has become a losing one).

where are yall getting this from? Because I really don’t see that at all

He cleaned out the roster. He mandated a strategy – acquire talent through the draft. He got a first round pick and drafted Wall. Besides firing the coach and GM, what else should he do differently?

It is going to take TIME because its going to take DRAFT PICKS.

http://dimemag.com/2012/01/top-5-javale-mcgee-nba-dunk-fails/

Durant struggled at times his 1st season looked really frustrated but stayed the course with hard work.

and began to emerge as eleite before the team started to win. Fired the coach and put a better coach in place a more disciplined detail oriented coach.

I think Wall is at the stage where Durant was and is on the verge of having his breakout this season.

We got 2 pieces with Wall and Mcgee a couple of bench role guys in Singleton, Booker and maybe Vesely.

The hard part is now we need a scorer an elite player to take a scoring burden in the draft.