[ad_1]
The Wizards are the most dysfunctional team in the NBA. There are less talented teams, several franchises with fewer victories and other fans who have endured their own embarrassment on the court and beyond the field during the first month of the season. What sets the Wizards apart, however, is the complete lack of vision for the future. Fans of Wolves and Cavs can at least console themselves, knowing that the first weeks of this season have probably been as low as possible. The Wizards can still go lower than today – 5 to 11 players in the Tuesday night game with the Clippers – and it is possible that this month or this year is just the beginning. For the moment: John Wall is in a hot tub responding to fans and Stephen A. Smith. Bradley Beal says he does not pay attention to trade rumors because "basketball is my muse". Scott Brooks has no answer, but he will not be fired. Ernie Grunfeld is apparently GM for life, as the only NBA judge in the Supreme Court. And instead of hope or clarity in D.C., apathy is only growing.
On Monday morning, ESPN announced that the Wizards were ready to receive exchange offers for all members of the list, including John Wall and Bradley Beal. On Monday night, we learned that Wall had recently been fined for unloading an exploding dam to Scott Brooks during a training. In the midst of this same practice, there were altercations involving Jeff Green, Austin Rivers and Bradley Beal, who allegedly shouted after the team leaders: "I have been facing this problem for seven years. Wizards fans can tell.
To this end, if anyone wonders how the wizards have arrived here, I am both a fan and a writer who watches all this unfold for several seasons. I have thoughts.
The original sin of the present time was to keep Randy Wittman. In 2014, the Wizards finished the season as No. 5 seed in the East. On the surface, it looked like progress. But this story was misleading. While Washington finished fifth in the conference with 44 wins, the fifth-ranked team in the West won 54 games. The Wizards beat only four winning teams after the All-Star break. The defense was solid, but the offensive finished # 19 in the NBA. Even the playoffs were a mirage; the Wizards finished fifth because the Nets put their last hand to the water to try to attract the Raptors to the first round of the playoffs. In the end, this season ended with a surprise against the Bulls and a defeat in the second round against the Pacers team among the seeds that was in the middle of a long implosion of several months.
(Note: this is the byproduct of a diseased brain, so skip this paragraph if you are more fit than me.But in case anyone would like to relive the details of the Eastern Conference playoffs From 2014, they started by shocking wizards.NB: 17 of the 18 ESPN writers had chosen Chicago to win in the first round, but Wall, Beal and a vintage Nene dominated and a core of Wheezing Bulls did not. There was no answer.This series evoked the arrival of something big.When Washington opened in the second round, with a victory on the road against the Pacers at the head of match 1. Everything seemed possible, then the Wizards have squandered match 2, before blowing off the home ground in match 3. In match 4, Washington had a 17-point lead at half-time and lost the second period by 20 points. the series Indiana was struggling but the Pacers were not going The Wizards had lost because they did not know. how to beat a smart team. The talent was there, but they could not run in tight games, and they did not do any of the little things that separate good teams from averages. This problem has persisted.)
WOO: Should wizards exchange John Wall? It could be time
Bringing back Wittman made sense. His contract expired at the end of the season, and while the Pacers' second round defeat was disappointing, the Wizards went from 29 wins in 2013 to the second round of the playoffs a year later. Good things were happening. The city was under tension and the rest of the league had taken note. "During the summer, Kevin Durant would say." Beal is a great player. One of those players that will be very exciting to watch for the next 10 to 15 years. And he's a team player from my home town, so I love him. I love Wall too, he's one of my great friends. "Everyone around the NBA could see that there was room for this team to grow, and it was reasonable – especially if you did not watch the regular season – to assume that keeping Wittman was a safe and clever game.
The problem with maintaining Wittman was that there was in fact an important distinction between security and safety. While the Wizards rewarded Wittman's fifth place by a new contract, the Warriors fired Mark Jackson after two consecutive playoff heats in the West. Golden State paid Steve Kerr $ 25 million over five years to train coaches Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Stan Van Gundy signed to train and manage the Pistons. Quin Snyder has joined the Jazz.
Washington returned with Wittman and got essentially the same results as the previous year. The Wizards have won 46 games, qualified for the second round of the playoffs, and lost a win-win series against a smarter but less talented Hawks team. The following year, after carefully carving up the stunt years in advance and leaving the entire league wondering if the Wiz could steal Kevin Durant in attack, the wheels broke free. The injuries happened at the worst time. The offense has regressed. Wittman lost the locker room in the middle of the year. The Wizards missed the playoffs. Wittman was fired in April and the Wizards ended up paying a lot more to Scott Brooks (5 years, $ 35 million) than they would have paid to almost every new coach in 2014. But at that point, it was too late.
Kevin Durant did not even meet Washington. Al Horford signed with the Celtics. Dwight Howard paid with Atlanta before the Wizards did, while rumors of Washington targets Luol Deng and Joakim Noah went to the Lakers and Knicks. The Wizards had no choice but to take all the money they had saved for Durant and use it to overpay players who could help optimize the performance of John Wall. Ian Mahinmi has signed for four years, 64 million dollars. Andrew Nicholson signed for 26 years 26 million dollars. Jason Smith has signed for three years, $ 16 million. (Read this paragraph three times and it may be impossible to know the true joy again.)
There had been mistakes before 2014 and many missed opportunities after the summer of 2016, but the Wittman example is a useful point of reference for anyone wondering how this team could end up suddenly at the bottom. A version of Wittman's logic in 2014 – "this is probably not the best solution, but it's not the worst either," repeats itself every year in Washington. Half measures are the mark of front office, property, and even players of this team. John Wall has never been mean, but has not really improved in five years. Bradley Beal has always been good, but he has never been as good as he should be. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum both ran Sunday night, and the Blazers' losses are still poignant, as this unstoppable but wonderful team from Portland is what the Wizards could be if their two best players really wanted to lead or get their hands on. 39; improve. .
Every few days this season, I receive text messages from friends who ask what is wrong with this team. How did it become so serious? How can they get better? What must change? The difficulty is to explain that no scapegoat is satisfactory and that no change would be enough. All this is connected.
Wall has been disappointing for all the reasons that I have mentioned during the summer. Last year, he signed the richest contract in franchise history, qualified as the league's best two-way guard, was ready to camp, called his team-mates and the situation was not good. made it worse. This season is a continuation of the story of last year. Wall's efforts come and go. His attacking work is impatient and chronically inefficient, and his defense can turn any opposing playmaker into a star player for just one night. His party habits have been the subject of debate in recent weeks, but I have never been to Rosebar. I know that a few years ago, an NBA leader was asked about Wall's social life and about his aging. He said players who like to party too much tend to see a significant decline during the second half of their careers. Part of this phrase certainly seems to apply to the Washington franchise player. (We will not even talk about the contract, but yes, this Wizards HoopsHype page is becoming its own urban legend.)
The problem with blaming Wall's leadership is that he never really had the chance to learn to do things differently. While he should be held responsible for the disappointment caused by D.C., but the Wizards have never had a member of the team able to teach him to become a franchise player. There was no coach, no veteran teammate (except one year with Paul Pierce), and no leadership with sufficient credibility to hold Wall accountable for errors while offering viable alternatives. This is a larger organizational dead angle that dates back to the Arenas years, and now he seems to have poisoned another superstar career. While a team like the Celtics can trade for Kyrie Irving and be certain that their culture will minimize their worst habits and maximize their most valuable skills, the Wizards have essentially done the opposite with Wall.
Grunfeld is another problem, but you knew it, because everyone knows it. Grunfeld has been in charge of the Wizards for longer than any other GM besides Pat Riley, RC Buford, Danny Ainge and Donnie Nelson. All peers with the same mandate have titles on their resumes; The best result of Washington for 15 seasons with Grunfeld is fourth place in the East. The team has finished over .500 seven times in those 15 years and has won more than 45 games just twice. That's why Grunfeld has become a strong line among rival teams and rulers. But like Wall, the story is slightly more complicated than it appears. Despite all the jokes about its longevity, it should be noted that Grunfeld has not enjoyed a great job security. It's a crucial distinction compared to someone like Danny Ainge, who has the leisure to take aggressive risks or stay as he pleases.
The loyalty of owner Ted Leonsis seems to be conditional; One can forgive past mistakes and persistent shortcomings, but only as long as Grunfeld can help the franchise to save face with a playoff series each spring. So, one season, Grunfeld swapped a first-round pick for Markieff Morris and the next, a first for Bojan Bogdanovic. This summer, he played on Dwight Howard and Austin Rivers. In 2016, there were the aforementioned agreements on Mahinmi and Nicholson. Some of these movements worked better than others, but each of them was an attempt to make the most of a bad situation. And while Grunfeld was responsible for creating this damage in the first place, he was also encouraged to look for short-term solutions to the detriment of any long-term vision. In the end, this dynamic leaves wizards the worst of both worlds. In keeping Grunfeld, they ensured that there were no new ideas on the management side, but refusing to grant him long-term security (or even to publicly announce it its extensions), the team left Grunfeld without any possibility of being patient or daring. It's a recipe for eternal mediocrity.
There are other factors to consider if someone is interested in diagnosing problems. Take Bradley Beal. He had the goodness to let everyone know if Wall is Washington's best player, but as Wall's game evolves, Beal has generally struggled to shoulder his responsibilities when he was asked to take on more responsibility and close the games on their own. Or Otto Porter. Like Joe Ingles, he should play a leading role, but he paid twice as much, which complicates his relationship with fans and even his teammates. Markieff Morris has games in which he solves all of Wizards' problems and looks like one of the NBA's best deals as an expandable player who can close games at Ball Five. These Morris games are usually followed by four or five other games in which he is content with pullup pullup contested, does not keep anyone, speaks too much in the trash and embodies the worst instincts of the entire team. Scott Brooks is not a bad coach and he has done his best, but he has not had enough authority or creativity to deal with these issues in the last two seasons.
In the end, the problem is everyone. The whole team is disappointing and broken in a fundamental way. There is not much room to change anything, and even if there were, there was really no reason to think that Grunfeld was the right person to change that. . If we want to speak specifically: a very big commercial kicker will make Wall's wall deal extremely difficult for Wall's supermax until July. Even in this case, the Wizards probably can not expect a significant return from the team that decides to play its next seasons. That leaves Beal and Porter. They are the only two players in the lineup to report real value. Although the team would theoretically be interested in keeping them, it is unlikely that a team built around Beal and Porter would be good enough to have significant success. .
This last point is what will determine the future in Washington. What does success mean in DC? Losing in the second round has always been celebrated as a breakthrough in Washington, and now we are here. Coaching and management are currently half as proficient as the best teams in the NBA, players have stabilized individually and chemistry has never been so bad. Not everyone can be a warrior, but consider organizational norms that define teams like the Celtics, Raptors, Jazz and Rockets. In a league filled with teams that are constantly looking to get ahead, the Wizards always have a length in advance. They sold second-round picks, swapped first-round picks, knocked down a free agency, hired bad coaches, excused the flaws of their stars, and now find themselves with very little recourse except to press a full reset.
If the goal is to eventually win a championship or at least fight significantly, this team will have to be more aggressive and more creative than the franchise for 25 or 30 years. On the other hand, if the goal is to make the playoffs for an extra year and save this season with a bit of symbolic redemption, there is good news: the Wizards are only 39% of the time. to 2.5 parts of the eighth seed.
[ad_2]
Source link
