https://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA/s...49312932921344
https://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA/s...50973919248384After a 2-15 start to the season, the Washington Wizards have fired Flip Saunders as coach, a league source tells Y! Sports.
The Wizards have talked to assistant coach Randy Wittman about taking the interim coaching job, but nothing official yet, sources say.
My condolences to the man who has to fill this position as the "interim coach."
Double-A Hangouter - Plus Member since 12/04
Hall of Fame
Indeed.Originally Posted by Dr. FLK
Someone had to be the fall guy for management, but Vince Lombardi couldn't motivate this group.
Honestly, I don't even know anymore, but who puts this train wreck of an organization together anymore? I mean, how can a team stink this many years in a row? It's like they are the Orioles or something!
Which is ironic since Leonsis seems to be a decent owner and person. The Capitals are routinely good.
I know he hasn't been owner for long and the Wizards were quite a mess when he took over.
What I know about the NBA could fit into a thimble but you really have to be amazed when teams are this bad this often (see: Orioles).
Double-A Hangouter - Plus Member since 12/04
Hall of Fame
To be fair, they had a nice 4 year run where they made the playoffs, advanced to the second round even, but then it fell apart with a few bonehead moves, and a few costly trades.
Signing Arenas obviously didn't work out, he got hurt, then went nuts.
The #5 pick (ended up being Rubio) for Mike Miller & Randy Foye didn't work out, and they really got nothing in the Jamison/Butler/Haywood deals .
So in other words, Ernie Grunfeld should be the fall guy.
Plus Member since 02/03 - Major League Hangouter
Hall of Fame
The whole management team needs to be gutted.
Grunfeld should (and I think will) be gone. I think Leonsis has given him the benefit of the doubt for awhile and this mess this season proves he should no longer do that.
Ernie has drafted very averagely, and while he's made a few small scale deals that could be considered wins, he is essentially the sole creator of this current group of "talent".
Another thing, he clearly cannot evaluate players. I don't mean he can't evaluate talent..I think he's done a solid job of that. He clearly can't evaluate them as people. As a fan, the Gil contract was 50/50, but it was mostly because of his injuries. I'd never spoken with Gil, spent time with him, or had any knowledge of him on that sort of level. Ernie however, is supposed to. Ultimately, it's come out that Gil is pretty much bat sh*t crazy. If you've ever followed him on twitter, the dude is actually really, really weird, kinda messed up. 20 minutes of interacting with him should have been enough to say "Whoa, let's not give this dude crazy money." Same with Blatche. He's a solid player, albeit incredibly flawed. Purely on talent, the contract he got is not a good one, but it's not TERRIBLE. However, again, 20 minutes of listening to Blatche talk, it should have been obvious this guy is just not mentally the kind of player you commit big, long term money to.
The good teams fill their roster with some combination of highly motivated, high class, high energy, high effort, etc. type players. Certainly not saying every player has to be a great person, but if they aren't, they sure as hell better make up for it in other areas. Ernie has assembled a team in the fashion one who assemble a fantasy basketball team. You know you need X number at each position, look for the highest output overall, and voila. Defense doesn't count in fantasy, so let's not worry about that. Passing? Eh, a few assists here and there, but it's not all that important. High energy? High effort? Who cares?
The team is a joke and it's 100% Ernie's deal. Kevin Pritchard should be brought on. Currently the Director of Player Personnel for the Pacers, was instrumental in the overall rebuild for the Blazers.
An excellent read on BulletsForever
http://www.bulletsforever.com/2012/1...yjump?tw_p=twt
To his credit, Leonsis came in and let the incumbents prove whether they were worth keeping. They aren't. Grunfeld did a good job for the first few years, got unlucky with the Arenas deal, and its been downhill ever since. Saunders seems incapable of getting his team on the same page. I think any successor coach will be an improvement, but he will have his work cut out for him, to say the least.
Right. Leonsis followed a pretty standard protocol of giving these guys a shot, and they failed. My issue in listening to the press conference, Ernie Grunfeld seems to believe that we have this great roster that was just a mess because of Flip. Flip was not the right man for the job, but Red Auerbach couldn't get .500 play out of this group.
There are a lot of decisions to be made, and I don't want EG anywhere near them. To me, the Wizards are more depressing to watch than the Orioles and it's not close. A comparison might be if Jones struck out in an AB, and he decided he wouldn't run for a ball in the field the next inning. Or a player just being completely disinterested at the plate, just purely going through the motions to the point where it's obvious to everyone watching. The Wizards players are disrespectful to the game of basketball at times, and certainly disrespectful to the people paying them money and the people that have paid to watch them "perform". The Orioles have been terrible for a long time, but I don't think at any point I've questioned whether the players themselves were trying. I question that at multiple points of EVERY Wizards game.
As I said last post, there as serious issues with this personnel. Unfortunately you can't fire the entire team, but aside from Wall, I'm not sure we have another NBA starter on this team. JaVale will get paid by someone. Nick is a 20 minute per game bench player at best, similar to the role OJ Mayo has filled recently in Memphis. Blatche better be saving his money, because he's never going to get paid much after this contract is up. Rashard Lewis just isn't any good. Booker and Singleton I like, but they're more glue guys than anything else. You have a guy like Wall that should be surrounded with shooters and the team has 1 good shooter on the entire team (Nick), and percentage wise he's pretty average. It's just assanine construction of a team. I believe in EG's ability like I believe in Peter Angelos.
Last edited by adamwolff11; 01-24-2012 at 09:53 PM.
Agreed. Fortunately, I don't really care much about pro basketball.
At this point, I'm envious. Also, at least with the Orioles, we get to go to bed about 60-70 nights with a win from our team. The Wizards might not even win 10 games this year. The ineptitude is just at an epic level.
If you guys can't tell, I'm incredibly frustrated with no healthy outlet for said frustration
You know what's fun? Watching the local coverage and every time they say something negative about the Wizards' situation, calling it Andrey Blatche's fault.
For example: "The writing wasn't just on the wall, it was up there as graffiti."..."Andrey Blatche probably tagged the whole wall."
"Wittman said that he will treat everyone in the locker room the same."..."And strangle Andrey Blatche."
How many pieces do the Wizards have on their current rosters?
Wall
Booker - role player (7th or 8th man)
Singleton - same
Vesely - potential starter but has a lot of work to do
Young - 6th man who could provide scoring off the bench. Hopefully they do not sign him LT as their future 2 guard
McGee - Unfortunately will be priced way above his actual value
That is a pathetic list. The Wiz are in desperate need of some players with skill and basketball IQ.
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