How is Rock Bottom Better?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The Wizards are a franchise worst 9-41.

How will the team even get to mediocre?

Are young players even developing, or does this team just stink?

Is there any reason to project a strong draft?

I really don't know...


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[queridiculo]

The Wizards are a franchise worst 9-41.

How will the team even get to mediocre?

Are young players even developing, or does this team just stink?

Is there any reason to project a strong draft?

I really don't know...


Sent from my SM-A146U using RealGM mobile app

The alternative would have been another 3-4 years of 35 to 40 wins, how would that have been any better?

What's happening now is simply the consequence of decades of institutionalized incompetence.

A hard cut needed to happen after the Wizards squandered yet another opportunity to right the ship when they appointed Grunfeld's disciple.

To be honest though, I don't even care anymore at this point.

Leonsis could move this team out of the region and it wouldn't even register.

Ted killed this franchise, and with his son poised to take over at some point, there is no relief in sight.

[closg00]

It's a rebuild, there's going to be some pain, OKC started the same way and successfully rebuilt via the draft.

[nate33]

OKC started by trading Paul George and Westbrook for SGA and a gazillion first round picks. It’s going to take us much longer.

[AFM]

Yo Ken, good to hear from you...

I guess we'll have to see how this upcoming draft pans out. I have high hopes for Bilal. Unfortunately, that's about it currently.

[leswizards]

With wuj being fired, and hopefully Kuzma gone by tonight, I like where the Wizards are at. They are likely to have a top 4 pick next year, and other than Jordan Poole and maybe a few other filler contracts that they have to take on tonight, the wizards are going to have almost all young players on the roster.

[closg00]

OKC started by trading Paul George and Westbrook for SGA and a gazillion first round picks. It’s going to take us much longer.

Not necessarily, the Knicks were able to wheel and deal their way to the 4th seed currently via the draft, FA, and trades

[TGW]

The Poole trade was rock bottom. One of the most cripling on/off the court trades this franchise has ever made. They got only one top-20 protected pick for the displeasure of Poo's services. That was a fleecing.

I expected growing pains with the young players, but the pains have been more with the vets than the young players.

[gesa2]

Assuming he doesn’t rehab his value, Poole is the biggest mistake so far. Luckily it’s not like we need cap space to resign anyone yet, but it’s still opportunity cost - we could have gotten more for taking on other teams trash than this

[pancakes3]

With wuj being fired, and hopefully Kuzma gone by tonight, I like where the Wizards are at. They are likely to have a top 4 pick next year, and other than Jordan Poole and maybe a few other filler contracts that they have to take on tonight, the wizards are going to have almost all young players on the roster.

unfortunately reports are that kuz isn't going anywhere.

[Tyrone Messby]

I love the tear it down and rebuild approach. You would rather we miss the playoffs with 35 wins instead of 17-18 wins? We end up at home either way and stuck in mediocrity for forever. We actually have a direction and this is likely the worst year we go through for the next decade.

[mhd]

The only benefit (aside from a direction) is seeing Turd's smug embarrassed face courtside during the games. I hope the new arena is never passed.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

The Poole trade was rock bottom. One of the most cripling on/off the court trades this franchise has ever made. They got only one top-20 protected pick for the displeasure of Poo's services. That was a fleecing.

I expected growing pains with the young players, but the pains have been more with the vets than the young players.

Out of all the moves made how did this move limit future moves?

I'm looking forward to the draft thinking there are a number of really good PG and PG/SG out there, better than Poole. What has the Poole acquisition done toward rebuilding?

For the record, I don't believe in tanking more than the one current season.

[payitforward]

When you have spent almost 20 years creating the colossal mess in which this franchise found itself one year ago, you have to expect a complex & extended process to escape the quicksand & find solid ground on which to build.

That solid ground is likely to be "rock bottom."

It ain't going to be a quick build, that's for sure. &, yes, there will be mistakes along the way. I'm sure we'll see more mistakes too. But there have already been good moves as well, & there will be more of those as well.

We got as good a deal for Bradley Beal as it was possible to get, given his contract. No more to say about that.

At least so far, both Bilal & Vukcevic look to have been good draft picks.

We got a young player with some talent in return for Chris Paul. We do not know what other possibilities there were to trade him, hence we can't possibly criticize the trade itself.

In retrospect, it would have been a h@ll of a lot better to draft Trayce Jackson-Davis at 57 than it was to trade the pick for Baldwin & Rollins. That said, there was no way to predict Rollins foolish behavior. OTOH, of course, we could have taken T J-D at 35 rather than moving the pick to the Bulls. I definitely did not understand trding that pick.

[nate33]

The Poole trade was rock bottom. One of the most cripling on/off the court trades this franchise has ever made. They got only one top-20 protected pick for the displeasure of Poo's services. That was a fleecing.

I expected growing pains with the young players, but the pains have been more with the vets than the young players.

Out of all the moves made how did this move limit future moves?

I'm looking forward to the draft thinking there are are a number of really good PG and PG/SG out there, better than Poole. What has the Poole acquisition done toward rebuilding?

For the record, I don't believe in tanking more than the one current season.

The Poole move hasn't really set us back at all, other than the opportunity cost of what else we could have traded Chris Paul's expiring contract for.

The new CBA requires every team to spend at least 90% of the salary cap. So if Poole's salary wasn't on the books, we would have to sign some other player anyway. It's no longer an option to stand pat at $30M below the cap and wait for the middle of the season and trade that cap space to some team desperate to offload salary and avoid the luxury tax.

And with Poole finally breaking out of his slump and looking like the Golden State version of Poole, the contract looks somewhat less awful. Over the last 24 games of the season, Poole averaged 21 points and 7 assists in 32 minutes a game with a TS% of .567. That's not awesome or anything, but at least it's not longer the horrific detrimental play he was demonstrating earlier.

[penbeast0]

The Poole move hasn't really set us back at all, other than the opportunity cost of what else we could have traded Chris Paul's expiring contract for....

Well, maybe not contract wise but all those minutes Poole got could have gone to someone else, anyone else. Jared Butler, Corey Kispert, Johnny Davis, all of whom are less damaging to the players around them than Jordan Poole was last year.

I hope what he showed at the end is real and that will be his standard going forward but even with that he's neither a smart player nor one who plays defense. He does have a rep for hard work which is the only positive in all this.

[nate33]

The Poole move hasn't really set us back at all, other than the opportunity cost of what else we could have traded Chris Paul's expiring contract for....

Well, maybe not contract wise but all those minutes Poole got could have gone to someone else, anyone else. Jared Butler, Corey Kispert, Johnny Davis, all of whom are less damaging to the players around them than Jordan Poole was last year.

I hope what he showed at the end is real and that will be his standard going forward but even with that he's neither a smart player nor one who plays defense. He does have a rep for hard work which is the only positive in all this.

Kispert has had plenty of minutes. And let's not act like Butler is the star PG of the future or anything. He's a nice role player, but I'd rather take the chance that Poole develops into an actual star than bet that an extra 20 minutes a game will materially affect Butler's development.

[penbeast0]

I think Butler got the time he was earning after Tyus's injury, before that he was not getting any and that was when Jordan Poole was cementing his place as the worst player in the NBA. I don't think Poole has any chance of developing into an actual star, maybe an actual scorer like an Anfernee Simons or Tyler Herro, which would be great, but that's still a one dimensional talent who isn't a star to my mind. I also agree that Butler is not likely to develop into anything special but Poole has had a lot of minutes to show what he can do; Butler has not.

[nate33]

I think Butler got the time he was earning after Tyus's injury, before that he was not getting any and that was when Jordan Poole was cementing his place as the worst player in the NBA. I don't think Poole has any chance of developing into an actual star, maybe an actual scorer like an Anfernee Simons or Tyler Herro, which would be great, but that's still a one dimensional talent who isn't a star to my mind. I also agree that Butler is not likely to develop into anything special but Poole has had a lot of minutes to show what he can do; Butler has not.

Yeah, by "star" I really meant "useful dynamic scorer" in the Simons/Herro mold. He'll never be a two-way player so he can never be the best player on a team. But it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could end up as a CJ McCollum tier player. Since we're stuck with his contract at the moment, I'd rather invest in that outcome than give his minutes to Butler who has a much lower ceiling.

The point here is that I don't think Poole's presence has been detrimental to the development of anyone meaningful. It was a problem when both Poole and Tyus were getting a ton of minutes, but if we remove Tyus from the equation, there's room on the roster to develop other guys.

[penbeast0]

I do agree that once Tyus was injured, they started giving minutes to Butler and Davis that they hadn't gotten all season. Even PBJ got some meaningful time eventually.