- Dec 8, 1999
- 7,414
- 29,418
Groundhog Day
It takes four playoff series wins to captures an NBA championship. Unfortunately for Ernie Grunfeld and the Washington Wizards, you have to win them all in the same season.
In sixteen years, Ernie Grunfeld's Washington Wizards won exactly four playoff series, while compiling a cumulative record of 536–678. Under his direction, the team failed to achieve a single fifty win season - but lost fifty or more games six times, including last year's 30-52 finish.
This most recent debacle proved too much to bear even for majority stakeholder and disappointment devotee Ted Leonsis. "It’s probably the biggest miss I’ve had in setting goals with [what] the actuality will be,” he commented at the time, adding, without any reported hint of irony or self-awareness, “I apologize, but I do think the fan base knows our sincerity in doing what is necessary.”
Predictably, and after a series of delusional smokescreens including, most pitifully, the NBA equivalent of offering to purchase Greenland, the Wizards decided to cheap out and elevate Grunfeld's sidekick Tommy Sheppard to General Manager. Instead of cleaning house, Leonsis merely rearranged the furniture.
If you're a Wizards fan, you've heard this song before.
"They say we're young and we don't know. We won't find out until we grow."
Among his first acts as the team's acting GM, Sheppard set about replacing the young forwards his predecessor fruitlessly pawned to evade a looming luxury tax bill, drafting Rui Hachimura and Admiral Schofield. A few days later, the team added Lakers castaways Mo Wagner and Isaac Bonga to facilitate the trade that would send Anthony Davis to the Lakers.
"They say our love won't pay the rent. Before it's earned, our money's all been spent."
When free agency began, the Wizards leapt into the fray, rushing to sign yet another a small, journeyman point guard with their mid-level exception, as if to beat the rush, then added an injury-plagued former All Star on a short-term make good deal - because old habits die hard.
After watching Bobby Portis, Jabari Parker, and Tomas Satoransky all leave in search of greener pastures (and bank accounts), the club managed to retain the services of Thomas Bryant, who agreed to a three year, $25 million deal on the heels of a break out sophomore season.
In all, only six players from last season's roster are still with the team: John Wall (now the league's highest paid coach), Bradley Beal, Thomas Bryant, Jordan McRae, salary albatross Ian Mahinmi, and last year's seldom used rookie, Troy Brown, Jr.
Earlier this week, Bradley Beal assented to a two year contract extension, including a 15% trade kicker and a player option for the 2021-2022 season, thus making him eligible for parole in the summer of 2021. To some, it is an endorsement of the "new" regime. To others, it's merely a short-term insurance policy that will place Beal in more or less the same situation as Anthony Davis found himself in last season.
For as long as most of us have been alive, Washington's sputtering NBA franchise has oscillated between mediocre and awful, like a quantum superposition.
Welcome back to the perpetual rebuild.
Rise and shine, campers. And don't forget your booties, because it's cold out there today.
It's cold out there every day.
It takes four playoff series wins to captures an NBA championship. Unfortunately for Ernie Grunfeld and the Washington Wizards, you have to win them all in the same season.
In sixteen years, Ernie Grunfeld's Washington Wizards won exactly four playoff series, while compiling a cumulative record of 536–678. Under his direction, the team failed to achieve a single fifty win season - but lost fifty or more games six times, including last year's 30-52 finish.
This most recent debacle proved too much to bear even for majority stakeholder and disappointment devotee Ted Leonsis. "It’s probably the biggest miss I’ve had in setting goals with [what] the actuality will be,” he commented at the time, adding, without any reported hint of irony or self-awareness, “I apologize, but I do think the fan base knows our sincerity in doing what is necessary.”
Predictably, and after a series of delusional smokescreens including, most pitifully, the NBA equivalent of offering to purchase Greenland, the Wizards decided to cheap out and elevate Grunfeld's sidekick Tommy Sheppard to General Manager. Instead of cleaning house, Leonsis merely rearranged the furniture.
If you're a Wizards fan, you've heard this song before.
"They say we're young and we don't know. We won't find out until we grow."
Among his first acts as the team's acting GM, Sheppard set about replacing the young forwards his predecessor fruitlessly pawned to evade a looming luxury tax bill, drafting Rui Hachimura and Admiral Schofield. A few days later, the team added Lakers castaways Mo Wagner and Isaac Bonga to facilitate the trade that would send Anthony Davis to the Lakers.
"They say our love won't pay the rent. Before it's earned, our money's all been spent."
When free agency began, the Wizards leapt into the fray, rushing to sign yet another a small, journeyman point guard with their mid-level exception, as if to beat the rush, then added an injury-plagued former All Star on a short-term make good deal - because old habits die hard.
After watching Bobby Portis, Jabari Parker, and Tomas Satoransky all leave in search of greener pastures (and bank accounts), the club managed to retain the services of Thomas Bryant, who agreed to a three year, $25 million deal on the heels of a break out sophomore season.
In all, only six players from last season's roster are still with the team: John Wall (now the league's highest paid coach), Bradley Beal, Thomas Bryant, Jordan McRae, salary albatross Ian Mahinmi, and last year's seldom used rookie, Troy Brown, Jr.
Earlier this week, Bradley Beal assented to a two year contract extension, including a 15% trade kicker and a player option for the 2021-2022 season, thus making him eligible for parole in the summer of 2021. To some, it is an endorsement of the "new" regime. To others, it's merely a short-term insurance policy that will place Beal in more or less the same situation as Anthony Davis found himself in last season.
For as long as most of us have been alive, Washington's sputtering NBA franchise has oscillated between mediocre and awful, like a quantum superposition.
Welcome back to the perpetual rebuild.
Rise and shine, campers. And don't forget your booties, because it's cold out there today.
It's cold out there every day.
