Washington Wizards 2016-2017 Season Thread - Thanks for a great season!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...c11eb8-a118-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html

I think we should tell Ted what MJ told his predecessor, who whined about losing money during the '98 lockout:  

"Sell YOUR team." 

This is what's wrong with the NBA and its anti-trust exemption.  Incompetent owners want guaranteed profits - and they want the public to pay for it.  If this were any other field, Ted would be out of business.  If this were soccer, the Wizards would be a D-League team and we'd have some other nearby franchise that had earned the right to play in the NBA through competent management. 

It is awful that, because of the NBA cartel and its regional monopolies, we are stuck with a dead weight, ballast franchise that exists only to enrich its owner and serve as schedule fodder for the rest of the league.  

The DC Metro area has, for generations, developed some of the best basketball talent in the world.  This is a region that lives and breathes the game of basketball.  

We deserve better than this trash franchise.  

If you can't turn a profit in the NBA with its GENEROUS revenue sharing and immense TV deal, you don't deserve a franchise.  You're a detriment to the league and a detriment to the community you purportedly serve.  

Sell your team.  The Clippers sold for $2 billion.  The Wizards are worth far less due to decades of incompetence, but any sale would yield an incredible and undeserved profit.  

Can't stomach that?  Fine.  Move to Seattle.  I'll take my chances with an expansion team.  At least then we'd be guaranteed new ownership.

 

He didn't threaten to leave the entire area, but it's sort of implied that, while their "goal" is to stay in DC, they'll start casting a wider net if their demands aren't met:  

John Oliver did a great segment on stadium funding last year, which I can't responsibly post here due to profanity.  

I don't know of many actual DC residents who love the Nationals' stadium deal.  If you live in Virginia and like baseball, you don't care that it put the city $500 million in debt or seized a bunch of land through eminent domain.  

The economic benefits of these stadiums tend to be wildly overstated, and it really comes down to a ransom demand for increasingly lavish forms of corporate welfare, lest a team leave town and anger sports fans who vote based on emotion.  It's awful.

If American sports leagues are to benefit from anti-trust exemption, the least we could get in return should be basic consumer protection against the worst abuses of monopolistic business practices.  

 

These are the longest tenured GM's in the NBA:

Pat Riley, started 6/18/1995, 12 division titles, 3 NBA championships.

Mitch Kupchak, started 8/7/2000, 7 division titles, 4 NBA championships.

RC Buford, started 7/1/2002, 9 division titles, 4 NBA championships.

Danny Ainge, started 5/9/2003, 6 division titles, 1 NBA championship.

Ernie Grunfeld, started 6/30/2003, 0 division titles, won a total of three playoff series.

Larry Bird, started 7/11/2003, 3 division titles, reached conference finals three times.

Donnie Nelson, started 3/19/2005, 2 division titles, 1 NBA championship.

Daryl Morey, started 5/6/2007, 1 division title, reached conference finals.

One of these things is not like the others...  

That's another reason why this crybaby routine is so offensive:  the Wizards alone are not responsible for the arena costs.  The arena is shared by all Ted's teams, and any other event held there.

If it's the "worst arena deal in pro sports," why hasn't he used it as an excuse for the Capitals inability to win a title?  Why are they competitive, in a league that generates less revenue, despite paying "$40 million a year in arena costs?"

You're telling me that $36/square foot to own prime real estate in downtown DC, where prices have been rapidly escalating for years, is a liability? 

He needs to get all the way out of here with that.

That's correct.  

No one should have any sympathy for Leonsis.  

"Boo hoo hoo!  I pay $36 million a year to own, not lease, a ONE MILLION SQUARE FOOT facility in downtown Washington!"  Nobody asked you to buy the team or the building in the first place.  If you can't hack it, sell the team.  There are plenty of wealthy investors out there who would love to have this opportunity.  Step aside and give this long-suffering region the competently run franchise it so sorely deserves.  If you can't successfully run a business that's propped up by taxpayers and safeguarded against competition thanks to a regional monopoly, you shouldn't be in business, period.  

"A fantastic training facility, the best coaches" is this guy Donald Trump now?  He's delusional.

Nobody outside of that front office believes that Scott Brooks and his staff are "the best coaches."  Scott Brooks doesn't believe that Scott Brooks is "the best coach."  If he's supremely confident, maybe he thinks he's top 10 - and that would be a huge stretch.

This has been such a disgustingly tacky franchise.  Before the games, they appear to sell access to visiting players as they enter the court.  Just to get to the floor, you now have to run a selfie-stick gauntlet.  Who does that!?  You had to find a way to fleece visiting players as they walk 50 feet from the tunnel to the floor?  Affording them basic professional dignity is too much to ask?  Ted's got Verizon Center looking like Moron Mountain.



What's next?  Sell streaming access to the visiting team's urinals on your "digital sports entertainment empire?"  

You KNOW they'll be among the first to have ads on their jerseys, too. 

I'd love to hear how that "$36 million a year in building expenses" was truly responsible for all the team's problems.  "We would've drafted Kawhi Leonard instead of Jan Vesely and signed him to an identical rookie scale contract as dictated by the CBA... but we couldn't because... we pay a mortgage?"  "Kevin Durant would've accepted our maximum contract offer instead of Golden State's, but he couldn't meet with us because.... we pay a mortgage?"  "I would've interviewed more than two head coaching candidates in all the years I owned the team... but I have to pay a mortgage?" 

How does that work?