Comment from getabigboyoffense
Time March 3, 2009 at 9:33 PM

What if someone with these credentials was available to coach the Wizards?
NBA Rookie of the Year (1986)
All-NBA First Team (1990)
All-NBA Second Team (1988, ’89, ’91, ’92, ’93, ’97)
NBA All-Defensive Second Team (1988, ’89, ’92)
11-time NBA All-Star
2-time Olympic gold medalist (1984, ’92)
NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1984)
Naismith College Player of the Year in (1985).
Named as the 16th greatest college player of all time by ESPN.
Selected as one of the 50 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time.
Elected to the National Basketball Hall of Fame

He has a few years of experience as, and currently is, a NBA assistant coach.

He also graduated from a very respected university, and, I think, has an advanced degree…smart man. He has also been responsible for coaching probably the current best big man in the NBA.

…he is available, and he has expressed an interest in being a NBA head coach.

What if the Wiz had a local hero as the head coach, and a local hero as an assiatent coach? What if the Wiz had coaches who were so respected that every player paid attention to every word they spoke? What if the Wiz had coaches who could actually coach/teach?

Abe and Ernie, hire Patrick Ewing as head coach and Alonzo Mouring as his first assistant. Watch the intensity increase then. I believe that Gil would respect them enough to listen to them and they would both provide tremendous coaching to Blatche and McGee and every other Wizard player.

Get rid of the pretender coaches; hire some basketball MEN.

Comment from getabigboyoffense
Time March 3, 2009 at 9:50 PM

Abe, I’ll bet that your season ticket sales would go up substantially if you announced that Patrick and Zo would be running the team in 2009-2010. If you continue with Tap or someone else like him, your ticket sales will fall.

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time March 3, 2009 at 10:32 PM

Gabbo I love the idea in principle. I’m not really sure how Ewing would do as a head coach as he has primarily been a “big man” coach. He has been an assistant coach for quite a while now though. Pairing Ewing and Zo would certainly command the players respect or a sound thrashing if they don’t lol. I’m sure the DC fans would love two ex Georgetown stars coaching our team. Imo one slightly better scenario, maybe. Big John as head coach with Ewing and Zo as his assistants. Now that will fill the arena. Players would probably want to play here just to play for them.

Comment from neal
Time March 3, 2009 at 10:35 PM

Grifon, the luxury tax limit for this year is $71,150,000. Our payroll for the 14 guys under contract for next year is $75,906,170. So we are way over the limit, even if they don’t drop it and even without adding a draftee.

Comment from 2stepsaway
Time March 3, 2009 at 10:42 PM

We already know that Tapscott will not be coaching the Wizards next season…..

Change is going to happen & the same way the fans were factored into resigning Arenas this past season, consideration will be made for getting a coach that we find suitable/acceptable….

Yes, the season has not been one of much pleasure, but hey – it is what (now) is. We have to ride it out. Change is coming. Would have been nice if it came much sooner, but it is on its way…

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time March 3, 2009 at 10:49 PM

Neal I thought we were in serious trouble right here in river city. I can’t imagine Abe going that far over it. Heck I can’t imagine Abe going over it at all?

2stepsaway I wish I were as confident as you are about that. With Ernie saying how good a job Tapscott is doing you never know with the “tight lipped” Wizards. I sure hope you are right along with about every man, woman, and child on this blog. Probably a couple family dogs, cats, and goldfish too.

Change is definately going to happen. Our financial situation leaves us little choice.

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time March 3, 2009 at 10:51 PM

And NEAL… you son of a basketball (lol). When I first got here I hated everything “numbers” related. Didn’t have any use for them. Now You, Tom, Sportzwiz and others have me trying to figure out luxury tax issues? I was happier before. Too much pressure now LOL.

Comment from 2stepsaway
Time March 3, 2009 at 11:32 PM

GrifonRacing – Ernie is keeping to the “party line.” Do you really think he is going to badmouth Tapscott? Of course not, b/c doing so would be placing a spotlight on his decision to select Tapscott to lead the Wizards to where we are today…. Besides, I think we have the market on letting Tapscott really know how we feel about his coaching & “encouragement” of the team… Everytime he opens his mouth, I want to say, “Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to the Tapscott show, starring Tapscott & a bunch of guys dressed in uniform that clearly are not doing their part to make him look sparkling…”

I have to look towards the future. This past season has not had many highlights – so you have to look for the positive. What we hope to continue for next season – McGuire, Crit, & McGee continued improvement. Haywood’s returns (yeah – we do NEED to keep him, so y’all better stop! LOL!)…

Comment from GrifonRacing
Time March 4, 2009 at 1:41 AM

2stepsaway I hope you are right. Tapscott, although a very intelligent man, is no basketball coach. My fear is that Ernie and Ed are supposed to be friends. That can hinder one’s judgement. He is no teacher (I humbly pardon the referance) and he yells more than directs.

Keep Brendan? They had BETTER! He is the sole reason this season has been so bad. Haywood “anchors” us in the middle on offense and, most importantly, on Defense. He has been sorely missed this season. If he alone comes back next season 100% healthy (no matter who we are going to lose… alas) we will have a realistic chance to compete. He will make Andray, Darius, JaVale, and (dare I say it? Pesh) much better players with him to lead them and to have him to fall back on.

The play of Dominic and Javaris leads one to think they can be good players in this league for many years to come. I’m glad they are on our side for semi cheap. Don’t be too surprised though if we have to be without one of them next season. They both are turning into good players and we are in trouble financially. Enough said.

I sure hope JaVale has the chance to play with Crit at the point, Gilbert at the 2, Caron at the 3, Blake Griffin at the 4, and a healthy Brendan at the 5 (with a weight room enhanced JaVale to back him up).

Time to go dream for real

see you guys tomorrow.. actually later today lol. We have a real chance to silence the “thunder”.

Go Wiz

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time March 4, 2009 at 7:53 AM

The problem is not just that the Luxury Tax limit will drop, but that it will drop for *everybody* — meaning there aren’t going to be too many teams out there looking to acquire one of our high-priced contracts.

I don’t think, in a contracting economy, that Ernie would be so foolish as to trade away one of the players who are a bargain at their prices (JaVale, Javaris, McGuire, Blatche), although one of them may have to go in to make a trade happen.

The guys at most risk of being traded are Caron and Brendan. Caron for obvious reasons, and Brendan because I have no idea where we’d take the $ to re-sign him, which we have to do next year, given that we already have $210m on the books.

As to our draft, if we can get Blake Griffin I don’t think we’d be stupid enough not to somehow swallow the cost. If we can’t, we’ll either trade the pick (grrr) in a way that somehow reduces our salary load going forward, or we’ll take Ricky Rubio and he’ll stay in Europe for 2 more years.

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time March 4, 2009 at 7:59 AM

Getabig and the rest — I *very much doubt* that Ed Tapscott ever wanted or now wants to be a coach. He was President of Basketball Operations at Charlotte, and here he had a less demanding job than being the head coach. This will be his only year.

Patrick Ewing? It’s an idea, but don’t you think, Getabig, that his lack of experience might go against him in a situation like the one the Wizards find themselves in? Zo as an assistant, however, is a great, great idea.

Comment from millie mill
Time March 4, 2009 at 8:17 AM

I wouldn’t mind Patrick Ewing being the head coach as long as we had an offensive minded assistant coach. I do think he will help McGee, and Blacthe develop. Maybe Ewing can teach Haywood and Songaila a few things also.

I’m sorry but I think Gilbert is going to be a problem for any coach that is stronger minded than him. Gil had Jordan in his hip pocket IMO. He seems to get anything he wants from Ernie and Jordan.

Comment from getabigboyoffense
Time March 4, 2009 at 8:18 AM

Actually, I believe that Patrick Ewing has served his apprenticeship as an assistant coach. He is an intelligent person and a very knowledgeable basketball man. He knows the league; he knows how to play the game; he knows the players. He will be the head coach for some franchise next year. I hope that it is the Wizards.

There is no comparison between what we currently have and what Patrick would bring to the team. Tap is a front-office guy tasked to be a coach; Ewing is a Hall-of-Famer; one of 50 best NBA players ever. I’ll take coach Ewing in a heartbeat.

Comment from Tom Mandel
Time March 4, 2009 at 8:18 AM

I don’t know whether anyone else has quite grasped this fact, but the Wizards are now in rebuilding mode. We are not contending for anything, and we aren’t going to next year with our 2 missing players back. I doubt we’ll get past 35 wins based on Gil and Brendan being back.

We are rebuilding around JaVale, Dominic, Javaris, Andray, and (hopefully) Blake Griffin. Pech is just a spare part, and Nick looks like he won’t ever be an NBA starter, but those 2 are in the mix as well.

Any of the other 8 guys that we can trade, we should — although at this point we might be best off just letting Etan stay around so that his contract can come off the books. I hate to say it, but we might have to do the same thing with Brendan — Ernie has done that good a job of working us into a corner salary-wise. Or… it really might have been Abe insisting that we re-sign Antawn for big dollars and essentially max out an injured guard.

Somehow, Donnie Walsh managed to rebuild a horrid Knicks roster, which looked impossible to do. So maybe it won’t be impossible to work ourselves out of our problems. I sure hope Ernie can do it. He is definitely on the spot.