Recap: Wizards Offseason Moves
After the signing of Fabricio Oberto as possibly the last piece to the puzzle, the Wizards’ roster now stands at 14 players. “In all likelihood, these are the players we are going into camp with, unless something very interesting comes along from a trade standpoint,” said Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld.
With the hiring of the new head coach Flip Saunders to kick off the Wizards offseason makeover, which also is marked by many as the best and deepest squad Grunfeld ever put together in Washington, the new ear of the Washington Wizards seems very promising. And the excitement keeps buidling along with the updates from Saunders’ visiting Gilbert Arenas’ workout in Chicago last week. “If you walked into the gym, you wouldn’t know he was hurt,” said Saunders.
Below is the summary and comparison before and after the Wizards 2009 offseason moves.
| Players Lost | Players Added | |||
| G | Juan Dixon (FA) | G | Mike Miller (Trade) | |
| F/C | Oleksiy Pecherov (Trade) | G | Randy Foye (Trade) | |
| F | Darius Songaila (Trade) | F/C | Fabricio Oberto (FA) | |
| C | Etan Thomas (Trade) | |||
| Players Staying | |
| G | Gilbert Arenas* |
| G | Javaris Crittenton |
| G | Mike James |
| G | DeShawn Stevenson* |
| G | Nick Young |
| F | Andray Blatche |
| F | Caron Butler |
| F | Antawn Jamison |
| F | Dominic McGuire |
| C | Brendan Haywood* |
| C | JaVale McGee |
* Wizards players who missed significant amounts of games due to injury in 2008-09.
| Eddie Jordan | Flip Saunders | |||
| Seasons | 8 | Seasons | 13 | |
| W-L | 230-288 | W-L | 587-396 | |
| Pct. | .444 | Pct. | .596 | |
| Playoffs | 8-18 | Playoffs | 47-51 | |
| Pct. |
.308 |
Pct. | .480 | |
| Lost in 2nd Round in 2005; lost in 1st Round in the next years | Reached 1st Round 7 times; Reached Conference Finals in the last four Playoffs |
|||
Posted: August 14th, 2009 under Wizards.
Comments
Comment from neal
Time August 14, 2009 at 2:46 PM
On paper things look rosy indeed. Wish I had a rose for every pre-season I thought so and was later disappointed.
Comment from datonypony
Time August 14, 2009 at 6:41 PM
If no injuries this will possibly be the best in 5 years.
Comment from GlingGling
Time August 14, 2009 at 7:03 PM
UHH, preseason where are you?!?!
Comment from neal
Time August 14, 2009 at 10:35 PM
I’m with you Gling. Let’s get it on.
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 14, 2009 at 11:11 PM
With guys getting heathy…. some for the first time in a few years, and a few new very positive changes how can we not be excited? We need to lobby David Stern to get less down time between the playoffs and the start of training camp. Summer league is just a tease 
Comment from Phemy
Time August 15, 2009 at 10:17 AM
yeah, can’t wait for the season to start. I think the thing that made me the most excited was the comment by iguodala about gil being “back”!
Quick off-topic question:
As a friend of mine is visiting washington in september, I wanted to ask if there are any “special” wizards merchandising shops you could recommend.. or is every regular sports-shop “ok” ? Shouldn’t be to hard to find, are they? thanks 
Comment from M2
Time August 15, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Modells at Verizon of course…
Comment from GlingGling
Time August 15, 2009 at 4:47 PM
Gotta go to Mo’s. Gotta go ta Modell’s. Gotta go to Mo’s, Modell’s!
Comment from datonypony
Time August 15, 2009 at 8:41 PM
Summer League is ^@#^&^@*&# But yeah….. this is taking too long.
Comment from dmac
Time August 15, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Hey i just checked out some video footage of Gil playing ball at Barry Farms. He just got in from Chicago and went to SE @ Barry Farms and hit 35 points. He had on no knee brace and had plenty of spring in the legs. Yeah he threw down several dunks. I got the footage off of hoppshype.com The footage came from the Washington Times.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 15, 2009 at 10:00 PM
And Crittenton is playing in a league in Atlanta:
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/08/14/pratherleague/
Gil at Barry Farms:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/outlet/2009/aug/15/gil-struts-his-stuff-at-berry-farms/
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 15, 2009 at 11:22 PM
Thanks Dmac and Tom. He really does look good.
There is a nice video clip on NBA.com on Randy Foye. I’m not computer literate enough to give you guys a hyperlink. I didn’t realize he went through so much growing up. His Grandmother is wonderful.
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 15, 2009 at 11:23 PM
Yes Phemy.. for the “real stuff” gotta go to Mo’s
Comment from neal
Time August 16, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Saunders has won 60% of his games as a head coach. That’s 49 wins in an 82 game season. That works for me.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 16, 2009 at 10:35 AM
Joe Smith just signed w/ Atlanta for the vet minimum — seems a little curious to me that we didn’t go after him, a local guy etc., in place of Oberto.
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 16, 2009 at 11:36 AM
“Somebody” was going to fall. Patience is a virtue, just not Ernie’s virtue
We will be fine, but, we could have been “better”.
Comment from GlingGling
Time August 16, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Tom, I’m still of the mind that Oberto was a finely crafted decision. They wanted a reliable guy, a role player, but I don’t think they wanted to put pressure on either the forward or center position. Joe Smith is a good enough player that he would have been “stealing” minutes from Andray or McGee. Now one might say, well wouldn’t we want a guy like Joe Smith getting minutes there? I don’t think that’s how Ernie feels about the situation, development seems to still be at least a small part of the plan for this season.
Comment from Wizards4Life
Time August 16, 2009 at 2:22 PM
Oberto was a better choice for us… not because of his basketball skill but because he is the kind of guy to help your rookies bigs grow into better players he knows what his job is and he is fine with not taking shots and knows he might not play over 10 mins. a night but if he has to do so he is ready to do that and he is a big guy not to say much about anything but thats the kinda body you want to put on a shaq or Howard so there not going to just push him under the basket every time down the floor so im fine with him as a bench player
Comment from GlingGling
Time August 16, 2009 at 4:59 PM
I found a video of four wizards (James, Young, McGee, Blatche) in a hilarious commercial spoof. It is really great. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JoMULx5GZg
ps. SportzWiz, I’m still getting Page Not Found quite often.
Comment from Wizfan4life
Time August 16, 2009 at 9:18 PM
I’m trying to make it to the preseason game in Richmond in October, given that I live in Richmond….does anybody know how much it costs for the tickets?
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 17, 2009 at 9:00 AM
wizfan4life, when I hear that tickets go on sale I will let you know. I don’t believe they are available yet.
Comment from DA-Wiz
Time August 19, 2009 at 11:49 AM
Is Oberto really that much of an upgrade from Songalia. Looks like they want a similar style player-unselfish, do the dirty work. I think Songalia had better ft%.
I say they try and get another backup big and send JaVale to D-League to work on him game and get big minutes there. Bring him up as playoff time comes, assuming he’s dominant there. I’d say send Critt to D-League as well, but I don’t think he’s elligible.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 19, 2009 at 9:25 PM
Yes, Oberto is a much more productive player than Songaila. Esp. because he rebounds the ball, something Darius couldn’t do.
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Comment from GlingGling
Time August 14, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Things is lookin’ rosy.