Washington Wizards: It’s time to end the Ernie Grunfeld era

Grunfeld’s performance in the draft

Maybe Ernie Grunfeld is better at drafting? He has to be, right?

The NBA Draft is pretty straightforward when it comes to finding talent. Picking inside the lottery (1-14) increases the percentage of finding a great if not solid player. Outside the lottery (15-30), the results are more varied. Trying to find value in the second round, you might as well just throw darts at a dartboard.

Since the goal is to assess Ernie Grunfeld’s ability to draft the best players, I only focused on the lottery picks he made and graded them as “hits” or “misses,” kind of like a game of NBA Draft Battleship.

We start in 2003, No. 10 overall, with Jarvis Hayes, a projected bench scorer whose career is best summed up by the sentence “averaged 13 points through the first three games but hit the rookie wall within a month.” Miss.

We move to 2004, No. 5 overall: Devin Harris. This pick was actually traded to the Dallas Mavericks for Antawn Jamison. As noted before, Jamison made two All-Star games, while Harris ended up making one. Hit.

Washington Wizards

Now we go to 2009, No. 5 overall. This is probably one of the better “what ifs” in Washington Wizards history. Going into the draft, the Wizards’ situation at point guard was seemingly in decline with Gilbert Arenas coming off his second straight injury-plagued season where he only played a total of 15 games.

Probably a good idea to start planning for his successor right? Especially since the 2009 NBA Draft was forecast to be one of the best guard drafts in recent history.

So what did Grunfeld do? He traded the pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Mike Miller and Randy Foye. Basically, Grunfeld decided that a one-legged Gilbert Arenas, Mike Miller and Randy Foye were a better bet for Washington’s future than anyone in the 2009 draft class.

In retrospect, I don’t know which decision was more dumbfounding. The fact that Washington traded the No. 5 pick or that former Minnesota GM David Kahn smartly acquired the Wizards’ pick, arming them with back-to-back selections at No. 5 and No. 6, to rebuild their backcourt and still passed on Stephen Curry (who immediately went No. 7 to the Golden State Warriors). KAAAAAAHHHNNN!!!!!

As for the Wizards, they did get Arenas back for the 2009-10 season. It didn’t go well.

Huge miss. Moving on.

Thanks to the 26-56 finish from the 2009-10 season, the Washington Wizards landed the No. 1 overall pick in 2010. Enter the John Wall era. Since Wall has been selected to one All-NBA and five All-Star teams, I can safely say this pick worked out, though his recent contract extension might be the focus of a future article. Hit.

How about 2011, No. 6 overall? The only thing you need to know about Jan Vesely comes from an evaluation of his playing style comparing him to Dirk Nowitzki. He wasn’t.

Also, this confirms my suspicion that Jan Vesely’s Wikipedia page was more than likely written by Jan Vesely. Miss.

Rounding out the list, the Wizards used their No. 3 overall picks in the 2012 and 2013 drafts to select Bradley Beal and Otto Porter Jr. back-to-back. At face value, I would grade each of these as a hit; however, Beal and Porter just received massive contract extensions, making it tougher for them to perform up to expectations. Hit, for now.