What should the Wiz do on draft day?
The Washington Wizards are a team at the crossroads. They are good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to make it past the second round. What should they do with the 18th pick to get to that elite level?
Here are some options from rumors I’ve heard around the net:
- Package their draft pick with a current player on the roster in exchange for a star quality player
- Pick a Point Guard
- Pick a Center/Power Forward
I truly don’t know what the Wizards are going to do and to be quite honest, I doubt they know what they are gonna do either. There are a lot of moving pieces in this organization right now; such as offers for Arenas or Jamison that the Wiz might have to match (none yet), what to do with Roger Mason, the Etan Thomas saga, the faith (or lack thereof) in Brendan Haywood, etc. etc.
My take
The Wizards simply do not have the explosive scorer or the excellent defense to win the NBA finals as they are currently constructed. As much as I love Jamison and Arenas, neither one of them can be referred to as a “defensive stopper”. They try to have Stevenson fulfill that role, but in this day and age of the NBA, teams must have at least 3 good defenders on the floor at all times who can score as well as defend.
Therefore, somebody (a starter) has to go. Butler is a budding star, always in the top 5 in steals per game and is more of the solution than the problem, so he stays. Stevenson is their best perimeter defender, inexpensive and is a fairly good scorer, so he stays. Haywood had a career year and if the Celtics can win it all with Kendrick Perkins, Haywood is just as good if not better. So the choice comes down to Arenas or Jamison. To keep both means more of the same, but to lose both would cause the Wiz to scramble for a consistent scorer.
I say let somebody else pay Arenas his MAX money and resign Jamison to a 3-year deal; allowing him to retire as a Wizard. Jamison’s game isn’t very demanding on his body so as he ages, he will probably continue to score well, but his rebounding will diminish; so he can be a serviceable veteran and a good mentor to the younger players. In the meantime, use the leftover Arenas money to find a somewhat young but NBA experienced, pass-first, defensive minded point guard who will turn Butler into the Superstar we all know he can be. Jamison can be his wing-man and let the rookies and youngsters (i.e. Blatche, Pecherov, Young, McGuire) run with the new point guard who would rather get 10-assists per game than 40 points.
Use the first draft pick on a Power Forward/Center who wants 15 rebounds more than he wants 30 points. Use the second pick on the best center, power forward or point guard available.
Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know how you feel below…
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Free-Agent, Point guard, Washington, Pecherov, Arenas, Haywood, Wizards, Trade, NBA, draft, Basketball, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Les Bullez.
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13 Responses to “What should the Wiz do on draft day?”
June 19th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
E-mailed response:
“I think you hit the nail right on the head with your analysis. I have been saying that the Wizards should ship Arenas’ ass out since last year. He is not a team player, but the Wiz need to make sure they get comparable value. They need to re-sign him and trade him, since he is opting out of his contract. If he signs elsewhere it’s just a loss for the Wiz.”
The Kingly-1 response:
I don’t think it would be a loss if the Wizards did not match an offer some other team threw out there for Arenas. Remember: they would save at least the 12.5MM they would have had to pay him next year; in addition to the new money on the new contract. If they spend that 12.5mm wisely, they could get a solid point guard for around 4 or 5 million a year and keep some cash around to throw at somebody who gets cut unexpectedly later in the off-season.
Some possible PGs that we could go after for around 5mm a year would be Jose Calderon, Moe Williams, Beno Udrih, or Earl Watson. If Chicago goes for Derrick Rose, a smart GM would throw some money at Kirk Hinrich or Ben Gordon…
June 19th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I’m with you on lack of defensive stopper(s) — outside of DeShawn….but I guess Gilbert’s knee issues make him an explosive scorer no more? I might disagree.
And yea, AJ is 32 as of last week….but I’d say he has more than 3 years left before he retires…especially being the shooter he is.
Besides that, you’ve got some issues here:
1) Gilbert is not a restricted free agent - if another team signs him, they sign him….there is no ability for the Wizards to match. The best hope to get assets back if Gilbert is intent on going somewhere else is a sign and trade.
2) The Wizards have $42,165,117 on the books for next season…..the salary cap for 07-08 was $55.63.
Say you give Jamison a a 3-year, $32 million dollar contract with $9.75 mill in year 1 and 9.5% yearly increases…..that only leaves about $3.7 million to work with under the cap (last year’s cap - of course, next year’s cap will probably increase)….either way, there won’t be $12.5 million to spend wisely.
Basically, since there are only a couple exceptions (such as the MLE) for teams to circumvent the cap to sign new players, none of which will net you a star to replace Gilbert, you will have to let both Jamison and Arenas walk for nothing to have significant money to spend.
I know people are just willing to let Arenas’ ass walk, but you have to consider the market and the restricted free-agents vs. unrestricted free agent crop, which isn’t that impressive.
Do you really think Grunfeld would let talent walk for nothing just to get money to play on a market when there is no guarantee that another team won’t match an offer for a restricted free-agent or an unrestricted even choosing to sign with the Wizards?
I love Caron Butler and all…he’s my favorite Wizard, but you are not going to build a team around him without additional all-stars….and those just don’t fall off trees.
Face it, the best move for Grunfeld is to resign both Gil and Jamison at reasonable prices and adeptly fill in pieces around them.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
seems to me they have little choice but to sign everyone back and take their pick of project big men in the draft, either DeAndre Jordan, Marrese Speights, Javale McGee or Robin Lopez hoping for lightning to strike with one of them. If this sounds like deja vu . . . you got it.
June 19th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I like Gil but I think he might be a little too selfish for this team. We dont’t need someone like that. I think in the long run he’ll hurt the team more than help.
I would keep jamison and pay him a little more. After what he did last year without Gil and Caron for most of the year, I think he proved his worth.
As far as the draft, we’ve messed that up for years. So as far as that goes, I’ll believe it when I see it. Hopefully one day the curse will end
June 19th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
As far as the draft goes, I think the Wizards should keep the pick and get the best player available. They should resign everyone, and hope to bring back the best roster in the East, and pray that they finally get the chance to play together again. Everyone seems to forget what the Wizards were when they were healthy and complete (with the exception of Songalia who hadn’t joined the lineup yet). They were the top team in the Eastern conference!!!! That’s why Eddie Jordan was the coach of the East in the all-star game.
At that time they were the second highest scoring team in the league with Arenas beating the Nuggets (51 points), Lakers (60 points) and the Suns (54 points). Since then, injuries have victimized the team, and this foolish notion of the team somehow being better without Arenas was allowed to fester and grow and eventually snowball out of control. That is absolute nonsense.
To win it all, you better have a high octane scorer (see Paul Pierce, Dwayne Wade, Manu Ginoblu, Kobe Bryant) all players with rings this decade. I think Ernie Grunfeld, an amazing GM realizes this, and will bring back the team as in tact as possible.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I think Darrell Arthur will slip to you. He’s like a young Antonio McDyess. That gives you some depth and if you can’t resign Jamison, then Arthur will fill the gap.
June 20th, 2008 at 10:15 am
KW - I understand where you are coming from in terms of the money, but your argument has a couple of holes in it:
1) As you preluded to, this year’s cap is still unknown. Therefore, we don’t actually know how much money will be left if we sign Jamison to a three year deal.
2) We also don’t know how much it will take for Jamison to resign. He has moved around a lot in his career and staying put for the final few years of his career may be more impotant than you think. Plus, the Wizards will let him know about his dimishing value; which will also influence the amount of the contract. It may not require as much to re-sign jamison as some speculators think.
3) Just because Arenas walks doesn’t mean we automatically lose production or “talent”. Sure, he is talented, but if the Wiz pick up the right guy who would replace Gilbert’s 25 ppg with 15 and 10 assists, that may actually make this team better; not worse. I think Grunfeld is thinking about not only the money side of things, but team chemistry on the court; which wasn’t very good when everybody was standing around waiting for Arenas to make a play.
June 20th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
As we’ve seen many times this decade, defense still can win championships. The Pistons, the Spurs, and the Celtics all used tough defense to get titles. And the Wizard defense has improved significantly ever since Randy Ayers arrived in Washington. To the end of improving defense, I think that a big center or forward with good interior defense would be more valuable than Arenas to the Wizards’ future. Whether you were to get a big man from the draft or trade for him, I think it would be a good move to make that the top priority of the team. Roger Mason’s perimeter defense improved this last season, and he would be a good re-sign. Regardless of what happens, keeping Stevenson, Butler, and especially Jamison is necessary if the core of the team that has been successful even without a bigtime scorer (in Arenas’s absence) or the aforementioned center (although Haywood has made a big step this last season, he probably isn’t the answer). My solution: let Arenas go, sign some big center with good defense from somewhere, get a PG that can deal assists to replace Arenas and function more effectively to deliver the ball to the cutters in Eddie Jordan’s Princeton offense, and re-sign Jamison and Roger Mason. It’s a very doable solution to the problem of being stuck in the first round of the playoffs. Losing to the damn Cavaliers one more time might just make me pop some blood vessels…
June 20th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Thank you for seing my vision Collin. See fellas - it’s quite simple. When is the last time a team with score first, pass second, play defense third attitude won an NBA championship? Has that ever happened?
I’m not sure about this guy Darrell Arthur, but I’d be ecstatic with Roy Hibbert. He’s taller and bigger than Haywood and we could stick them both in there at the same time and play zone if we really had to. That would free up Blatche to back-up Jamison at his natural PF position and Pech could back up all non-guard positions. That would also let us get rid of Songalia and not need to depend on Etan coming back. Hibbert is real explosive, but as the old saying goes “You can’t coach seven feet”.
Even if it isn’t Hibbert, we gotta pick a big man if we keep the pick; unless Augustin somehow falls to 18 - that dude is a beast.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
btw - Here are some of the current NBA PGs rumored to be on the trading block:
TJ Ford
Moe Williams
Jarrett Jack
Tinsley
Hinrich
Ridnour
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
BOTTOMLINE, WE NEED A BIG WITTA SEVERE ATTITUDE THAT LOVES TO BANG AND INTIMIDATE TO GO ALONG WITH BRENDON, AND WE NEED A PURE POINT GUARD…..SOMEBODY CALL AND SEE IF WE CAN GET STEVE BLAKE BACK
June 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Steve Blake? pfft….. if you want a team that doestn sniff the playoff go ahead and start Blake.. if Areans leaves DC it should be via sign and trade, but since he already opted out, there is no way to do that before the draft…. with that being said…. the Wizards should shop their 18th pick for a solid veteran Guard, maybe a TJ FOrd or even a Hinrich… if they do that, and Gil and Arenas both walk….. they have 30 million in capspace to pursue a Elton Brand or Josh Smith at Pf, while trying to acuire a solid SG/SF in the backcourt to either come off the bench or rotate with Nick Young, TJ Ford, Butler, and Stevenson….The Wizards have alot of young pieces already in place with Blatche, Young, and Butler…. they just need some solid veteran scoring and a straight banger like Brand.. Brand next to Haywood with Blatche and Thomas off the bench would be a really nice front line..
June 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
TJ FORD MAN…..NOW SIR’S….AND I WASN’T SAYING WE SHOULD START BLAKE, I HOPE WE KEEP AREANA’S
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