Wizards fire Eddie Jordan

[MPK76]

The Wizards fired coach Eddie Jordan this morning. Ed Tapscott will serve as interim coach.

Source (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3722783)

[Dr. FLK]

It probably had to be done, didn't it? This has been the same type of team for his tenure. They can score, but they don't defend. And, they just can't win in the playoffs. I don't know if it's all his fault, but a change at the top is certainly warranted. I don't know that making this change in the middle of the season will do anything. I'd probably let him coach at least until he has a healthy team, but I figured he'd be gone at some point.

[adamwolff11]

It probably had to be done, but I still don't like it. Eddie is a very competent coach, who is dealing with a starting 5 missing 2 parts, which both leave large voides. Gil represents a large amount of scoring, and without Heywood the Wiz don't have much presence down low at all. He should have been probably given this season, at least to see how the team played once Gil comes back. He'll be a head coach in the NBA again very soon, and with the right team could probably be quite successful.

[blakesta]

Injuries to our Starting Point Guard and our Starting Center and Jordan gets fired...

Logical?

Absolutely not.

[blakesta]

Also, if I recall correctly, didn't Gil say a while back that he would not sign and extension if EJ wasn't going to be the head coach?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[hammer310]

How do you guys not like this?

Sure, no Arenas or Haywood, but this team flat out sucked. They were getting leads early, and then completely blowing them.

Also, where has Jordan gone the last six years? He has never made it out of the first round of the playoffs, and that was with a healthy Arenas and Haywood.

It was time for a change

[BaltimoreTerp]

How do you guys not like this?

Sure, no Arenas or Haywood, but this team flat out sucked. They were getting leads early, and then completely blowing them.

Also, where has Jordan gone the last six years? He has never made it out of the first round of the playoffs, and that was with a healthy Arenas and Haywood.

It was time for a change

Unless Jordan was on the court, it is still the players' fault.

Do you honestly think there was something WRONG with him that wasn't there over the rest of the time he was coach? Do you think the new coach is going to do something Jordan WASN'T?

Unless the GM is out as well for not putting the right players in place both in those playoff runs and as depth against these kinds of injuries, this was a worthless decision.

[Rock]

I don't like this move at all. If anything, they shouldn't have resigned Arenas to a huge contract when his health was questionable.

I think some people tend to forget how horrible the Wizards were before Eddie Jordan became the coach. Maybe they didn't go far in the playoffs but Eddie turned them into a perennial playoff team.

When healthy, the team looked really really good. Continual injuries to his stars was Eddie's downfall.

[tylerfrombelair]

Personally, I think Grunfield should of been the one to get the boot. Lets give a player who has had 2 knee surgeries a long term contract up to 111 million, hand out a ludicrous contract to Etan Thomas, and to top it all off has got to be one of the worst at drafting players. To be honest, I can't recall a player the Wizards have drafted that have amount to anything in the past decade.

2001- Kwame Brown- LAUGHABLE
2002- Jared Jeffries and Juan Dixon in first round
2003- Jarvis Hayes- couldn't shoot to save his life
2004- Devin Harris- traded for Jamison.. Harris is becoming a star in NJ while Jamison is one of the most under rated players in NBA.. trade is wash
2005- Andray Blatche- is shaping to be a soft big man that is one dimensional
2006- Oleksiy Pecherov- another soft big man that is shaping to be a bust
2007- Nick Young- good pick here
2008- JaVale McGee- good pick

Now lets look at who we could've picked at the same slots

2001- Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol Jason Richardson
2002- Tayshaun Prince, Carolos Boozer
2003- David West, Leandro Barbosa, Josh Howard
2004- Luol Deng, Andre Iguodala, Josh Smith
2005- Ryan Gomes (out rebounding and scoring Blatche)
2006- Rayshon Rando, Josh Boone, Marcus Williams
2007- Satisfied with pick
2008- Satisfied with pick

At the time when we were at the bottom of the standings and had a real chance to build contenders, we didnt draft the right kids.

Also take into the account that the Wizards have not had a force down in the paint since C-Web in the mid 90's.

Grunfield has known this and chose to ignore it in the past 6 years when the team was some what competitive. Is Jordan to blame for the lack of competition that has been shown this year, Some what, yeah, but the lack of drafting, and signing a premier big man have hurt this team

[adamwolff11]

Looking at the draft is disgusting. With as poor as the Wizards have drafted lately, all I really ever expect out of the draft is a bench player who might be able to give a few minutes. They've done well in trades though, acquring Butler and Jamison, even though Devin Harris looks like he could be blossoming into a young star. I mean, honestly, did they ever see Pecherov play before the took him? He's got a DECENT shot, but he can't rebound at all, he's slower than Shaq, and most guards could probably knock him over. Just because he's a tall foreigner doesn't mean he's the next Dirk. One of the problems I do have with the firing of Eddie is that I feel that there's a chance that he was the "rock" of this equation. Starting out terribly, obviously getting a lot of criticism, what's going to stop this team from just completing tanking in and not putting forth any effort. I think with Eddie, he could at least make the situation seem a lot more stable than it is, while an interim coach is most likely going to just make the situation more clustered. Prior to this move, I would have said Wiz rebound from tough start to win around 30, but with an interim coach, 20-25 most likely.

[Dr. FLK]

Unless Jordan was on the court, it is still the players' fault.

Do you honestly think there was something WRONG with him that wasn't there over the rest of the time he was coach? Do you think the new coach is going to do something Jordan WASN'T?

Unless the GM is out as well for not putting the right players in place both in those playoff runs and as depth against these kinds of injuries, this was a worthless decision.

I agree with you in part...There is plenty of blame to go around. The GM needs to be scrutinized for putting together this team. The players need to take some of the blame as well. But, a lot of them just aren't that good...so, what can we really expect?

I think that a new coach can do something EJ wasn't. This team never, ever played any kind of defense. They were always a willing participant in a first round exit. This season, they would just fold and blow leads. I just never got the impression that he was really in charge.

All of that being said, do mid-season coaching changes usually work? I mean, the HC was an AC just a few days ago...is he much of an improvement? I don't blame them for canning EJ, but was this the time?

[bgtimber75]

Terrible move. They've given Jordan basically the same team every year he's been here. When do we start to look at Grunfield for building a horribly one dimensional team?

[PaulBako]

The Wizards are doomed because of Ernie Grunfeld. That idiot set the team back 10 years for signing an injured point guard and an old power forward to long term deals.

We need to replace Grunfeld, not Jordan.

[bgtimber75]

The Wizards are doomed because of Ernie Grunfeld. That idiot set the team back 10 years for signing an injured point guard and an old power forward to long term deals.

We need to replace Grunfeld, not Jordan.


Exactly....

[hammer310]

Unless Jordan was on the court, it is still the players' fault.

Do you honestly think there was something WRONG with him that wasn't there over the rest of the time he was coach? Do you think the new coach is going to do something Jordan WASN'T?

Unless the GM is out as well for not putting the right players in place both in those playoff runs and as depth against these kinds of injuries, this was a worthless decision.

Then why even have a coach? The players could just coach themselves using this logic.

Jordan has gotten to the playoffs, but hasn't even gotten out of the first round. The team had plenty of weapons when they were all healthy, and I guess he got out coached, I dont know.

I dont know if I would have fired him, but I would have really thought about it. You dont know what goes on with him and the team. Maybe they dont practice hard enough. Maybe the guys werent fully behind Jordan and so Grunfeld had to do this, sorta like the Billick situation. You just dont know what the reasoning was, and it could have very well been the poor start.

You never know what can spark a team. The Caps had the same exact team when Boudreau was hired after they fired Hanlon (and they guys liked Hanlon too). Now look what they are doing under Boudreau, they won their Division and are leading again this year.

Jordan's philosphies and coaching techniques were obviously not working, and a change was needed. He called the plays and ran the team, and thats who gets blames. Hopefully Tapscott can come in and set a new culture to this team.

By the way, they won tonight.

[Dr. FLK]

Terrible move. They've given Jordan basically the same team every year he's been here. When do we start to look at Grunfield for building a horribly one dimensional team?

Didn't Grunfeld get players that fit EJ's "style" of play? I was under the impression that these were the kind of players EJ wanted. He likes to run. He likes athletic scorers. He doesn't like "big guys" clogging up the middle for all of his back-door cuts, so he chooses smaller, more athletic big men.

[Nigel Tufnel]

I have a feeling that Abe Pollin is really the problem. He insists on keeping the established stars because he's worried about losing attendence - he basically makes decisions based on marketing instead of on basketball.

But he also refuses to pay the luxury tax, so it's impossible to add any meaningful players to the core group, other than through the draft. And that's a slow process, especially if you're just good enough to miss out on the lottery every year.

So if you have a year where two of your core guys are hurt, you don't have a healthy point guard on the roster, and every other team in the division improved, there's going to be a major problem. And if Arenas can't come back at 100%, that problem is going to persist.

The team looked good last night, though - they actually seemed to be trying. But that's to be expected in their first game with a new boss. The question is if Tapscott can get them to keep it up.

[adamwolff11]

Hopefully he does, and hopefully I'm able to eat my words when I said I didn't like the firing of Jordan. The team definitely played last night with a new energy. Andray Blatche and Dee Brown looked great, and as a whole the team played like the NEEDED to win. Hopefully he can keep this going!

[bgtimber75]

He likes athletic scorers.

How does that explain the non athletic euro's that are on the team now? Not really athletic or scorers.

[adamwolff11]

I read a prospect report about Pecherov from a few years ago, and apparently he used to actually have some ability. He seems to have been heralded as an excellent 3 point shooter and wasn't really a liability anywhere else. And apparently being INSANELY slow and looking confused everytime he touched the ball wasn't on the report either.

[Dr. FLK]

How does that explain the non athletic euro's that are on the team now? Not really athletic or scorers.

All 2 of them?

[bgtimber75]

1/6th of your roster if fairly significant. You get no defense out of either and you can't run your offense with them. Granted it's not a huge deal and not the reason they were 1-10 it's just shows me that he really didn't have much say in the roster.