A lot of people were disappointed when the Wizards traded for Kirk Hinrich.  Mike Prada of SB Nation alone gave the move a “Nay”, a “Feh”, and a “D-”.

There is no question that “Kurt” is overpaid, but salary cap space only gets you so far.  Even if the Wizards had upwards of $25 million to spend, it wouldn’t get them any closer to signing a “max” contract player.  Let’s be serious.  None of the league’s top players ever really considered coming to D.C., even with John Wall.  The Wizards will be a work in progress for a couple of years, and when we are honestly competitive, Hinrich will no longer be under contract.

So is he worth it for this Wizards team?  I turned to Synergy Sports Technology to find out.

OFFENSE

Where is Hinrich most effective (at least 60 attempts)?

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Mere minutes after the introductory press conference of 2010 draft picks Trevor Booker and Hamady N’Diaye ended, rumors began to surface that Ernie Grunfeld had another trade up his sleeve to absorb the Wizards’ cap space while gaining misspent potential in the process.

The team has officially announced that they will acquire 2007 sixth overall draft pick Yi Jianlian from the New Jersey Nets in exchange for Quinton Ross. New Jersey will also send Washington “cash considerations,” estimated to be $3 million.

Ross recently exercised a player option that will pay him $1,146,337 next season. Jianlian is set to make $4,050,499 in 2010-11 with a qualifying offer of $5,403,366 for 2011-12.

The Nets obviously swing this trade because Yi has been a disappointment and they’re hungry for cap room to acquire a top tier free-agent or two (aka The Race for LeBron). The Wizards gain a player who is still a prospect, one who certainly has more promise than Quinton Ross, for essentially nothing since they are getting cash from New Jersey.

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[Editor's note: This is the second piece on TAI by John Townsend, check out his first one here.]

photo courtesy of K. Praslowicz (Sjixxxy)'s Flickr - www.kpraslowicz.com

“Just because you have money doesn’t mean you should overspend on someone that won’t be a part of your long-term future.  If the right opportunity comes along, I think you want to look at it, but I’ve said all along that we might save our powder for down the road, to see what the new CBA brings, to see if there’s a hard cap or a soft cap.  We don’t really know all the rules going forward, so just because you have the cap room doesn’t mean you should go out and spend it if it’s not for the right player.”[1]

These were wise words spoken by Wizards GM Ernie, a new herald for operational procedure and organizational preparedness, at a press conference on June 10.  As a long-time Green Bay Packer fan (my first memories of football were watching Packers games at 4am in New Delhi, India with my Wisconsin-born dad), I understand and fully endorse building a team through the draft.  There seem to be philosophical parallels between Grunfeld and Packers GM Ted Thompson, who firmly believes that the most effective way to build a winning football team is through the draft.  Thompson sees free agency as a complementary tool which can be used to add the types of players to a roster that may otherwise be difficult to find. In practice, this means that the Packers re-sign as many of their own players possible.  Rebuilding post-Mike Sherman, the Packers made 14 draft-day trades, all but one of them down, turning 31 picks into 44.  The Packers’ picks filled the roster with solid “glue guys” and have been able to add impact players including QB Aaron Rodgers, FS Nick Collins, OLB Clay Matthews, TE Jermichael Finley, WR Greg Jennings, and NT BJ Raji.  The result? The Packers are a team poised to make deep playoff runs every winter and are near the top of the NFL in just about every statistical category.[2]

Ted Leonsis, the Wizards new majority owner, made public his commitment to building a “generationally great team” that will ultimately win a championship.  Under new management, the Wizards will aim to hit their targets in the draft, spend prudently, create a competitive, cohesive team on the court that plays with an identity and within a system, and (most importantly) win games.[3] In an open note to Wizards fans, Leonsis also dismissed the generalized notion that the franchise was unwilling and averse to bringing in free agents.  Leonsis noted that that teams must consider using all of the tools at their disposal: the draft, free agency (small, medium, and large), rookie free agency, waiver wire pickups, developmental league players, and finding players in Europe.

All fans want to see that max contract free agent wear their team’s colors.  The addition of a superstar means that the team feels it is close to a winning a title and are prepared to kick down the doors of the championship fraternity. Read more »

The Pick and Roll is a staple of many NBA offenses. The Wizards, in particular, starved when it came to defending P&Rs in 2009-10.

Once again turning to Synergy Sports Technology, we learn that as a team, the Wizards defended the P&R ball handler 1,128 times in plays that ended with a FGA, TO or FTA. This accounted for 12.6% of the team’s defensive plays. Defending these plays, the Wizards gave up 0.89 points-per-possession (PPP), which is tied for the most allowed in the NBA.

Against the Wizards, the P&R ball handler shot 43.2% on field goals and scored 42.9% of the time, which is the second highest scoring rate allowed in the league.

Conversely, the Wizards had to defend the P&R roll man 406 times and fared slightly better in the PPP department.

As you can imagine, the roll-man in a P&R is usually getting better looks at the basket. The Wizards allowed the roll man to score 49% of the time while shooting 49.5%. However, the one (1) PPP given up to roll-men ranks 7th lowest in the NBA. Read more »

After a recent Detroit Pistons practice, Ben Wallace said, “They say losing builds character, I say losing sucks. That’s what I think.”

The Wizards are just as bad as the Pistons … same 24-53 record that’s currently tied for fifth worst in the NBA. Actually, one could say the Wizards are worse because their expectations going into the season were much higher, according to most experts.

But regardless of Washington’s downtrodden ways, the question of losing, ‘Does it build character or does it suck?’, was worth posing to several Wizards before Tuesday’s game against the Golden State.

Al Thornton, Quinton Ross, Randy Foye, Cartier Martin, Mike Miller, Cedric Jackson, Shaun Livingston and Earl Boykins answered … well, not really Boykins. Video below the jump …

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Eight seconds left in the game. Your team is up three points, having just hit two free-throws making the score 90-87. Your opponent must go the length of the court, i.e., no timeouts left in the NBA or a regular made basket scenario in college.

Do you foul and put your opponent on the line for two-free throws (no fouls to give/in double-bonus)?

Or do you play straight-up defense, allowing the other team a chance to tie the game with a three?

Opponent can be a factor, and that did come up when I posed this basketball strategy question to several Wizards before Sunday’s Nets game: Mike Miller, Quinton Ross, Cedric Jackson, James Singleton, Al Thornton, Randy Foye, Cartier Martin and JaVale McGee. Here’s what they had to say:

For the record:

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Quinton Ross has a player option for $1,146,337 million next season. I’m sure some Wizards fan out there don’t want him to take it. Get over it. He probably will.

But yea, Ross is bad … well, at least his stats are, which certainly serve as a partial reflection of his abilities as a player, but are incapable of telling the whole story … such as his reputation for being a good defensive player, which can certainly be debated.

Leading up to Saturday’s game against the Jazz, in Ross’ 19 games and 193 minutes with the Wizards he had a PER of -0.3.

On Saturday, taking and making one shot, along with committing a single foul in five minutes of action pushed his PER with the Wizards into positive territory at 0.1.

Bless his heart. But I’d definitely rather Ross than Stevenson. He’s easier to tolerate, if you will … and kinda less hideous to look at.

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The first practice for new Wizards Josh Howard, James Singleton and Quinton Ross had a media buzz in the air, yet a slightly somber tone on the court. Most of those already on the team ducked the awaiting press by exiting the practice court from a side door. Antawn Jamison, however, made his presence known by singing the Black Eyed Peas’ “I got a feeling,” down the hallway as he headed into the locker room. He later would make the media wait around 30 minutes for him to speak until a Wizards PR person finally declared that ‘Twan had left the building. For good? We don’t know.

It seemed like forever since I’d been in the Verizon Center. Sixteen days to be exact. With the Atlanta Hawks game originally scheduled for February 6th postponed because of snow, the last time I was around in the catacombs of the house that Abe built was on February 1st when the Wizards barely mustered 10 points in the fourth quarter and lost to the Boston Celtics 99-88.

Days like Tuesday afternoon’s practice are always interesting. I walked into the press lounge to see several faintly familiar faces; the television personalities who only show up on noteworthy days with their camera crews in tow. Some of the regulars wondered how many of them knew the difference between Ross and Singleton. Nonetheless, I don’t expect much coverage from the infrequent media masses once the trade deadline passes.

Of course, I type this as if I were some grizzled veteran when I just started covering the Wizards with media access last September. Then again, the circumstances surrounding the team this season is enough to give a blogger some gray hairs.

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