For all you Wizards fans out there...
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:24 pm
So we all know that the Pistons are full of former Wizards. However, I looked at the numbers, and if the Pistons win the title (which they will), it will be historic what a botch the Wizards have made.
Between Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Darvin Ham, the former Wizards have combined to average 120.1 minutes per game in the Finals. That come just slightly above 50% of the total minutes a team can field.
50% is obviously an incredibly high number, but compared to past Champions, it becomes even more astounding. I was only able to work the numbers for the past ten seasons, but no other team has such a number above 40%. The second closest team is the 1998-1999 San Antonio Spurs, which had 38% of its team's minutes come from former Warriors. It would not suprise me one bit if the Pistons' 50% is the highest number of its kind in NBA history.
What is even more increcdible is the fact that we traded all these players, as opposed to them walking away. And not only did we trade three-fifths of a championship team, we traded them for pieces of garbage. When making player-for-player deals (which were essentially what all of these trades were), a General Manager should always satisfy at least two of these three requirments:
1. Trade small for big
2. Trade old for young
3. Trade cheap for exspensive
Let's take a quick look and see if Wes Unseld and Michael Jordan took these three criterion into account:
1996: The Bullets trade a younger and bigger Rasheed Wallace for a older and smaller Rod Strickland.
1999: The Wizards trade a younger and cheaper Ben Wallace for a older and more exspensive Isaac Austin.
2002: The Wizards trade away a younger and cheaper Richard Hamilton for an older and more exspensive Jerry Stackhouse.
Those three deals are so amazingly bad, you almost forget that they did it another time.
1998: The Wizards trade away a younger and bigger Chris Webber for an older and smaller Mitch Richmond.
We all knew our front office was filled with morons, but the Pistons winning the Championship can show us how fantastically bad we have actually been...
Between Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Ben Wallace and Darvin Ham, the former Wizards have combined to average 120.1 minutes per game in the Finals. That come just slightly above 50% of the total minutes a team can field.
50% is obviously an incredibly high number, but compared to past Champions, it becomes even more astounding. I was only able to work the numbers for the past ten seasons, but no other team has such a number above 40%. The second closest team is the 1998-1999 San Antonio Spurs, which had 38% of its team's minutes come from former Warriors. It would not suprise me one bit if the Pistons' 50% is the highest number of its kind in NBA history.
What is even more increcdible is the fact that we traded all these players, as opposed to them walking away. And not only did we trade three-fifths of a championship team, we traded them for pieces of garbage. When making player-for-player deals (which were essentially what all of these trades were), a General Manager should always satisfy at least two of these three requirments:
1. Trade small for big
2. Trade old for young
3. Trade cheap for exspensive
Let's take a quick look and see if Wes Unseld and Michael Jordan took these three criterion into account:
1996: The Bullets trade a younger and bigger Rasheed Wallace for a older and smaller Rod Strickland.
1999: The Wizards trade a younger and cheaper Ben Wallace for a older and more exspensive Isaac Austin.
2002: The Wizards trade away a younger and cheaper Richard Hamilton for an older and more exspensive Jerry Stackhouse.
Those three deals are so amazingly bad, you almost forget that they did it another time.
1998: The Wizards trade away a younger and bigger Chris Webber for an older and smaller Mitch Richmond.
We all knew our front office was filled with morons, but the Pistons winning the Championship can show us how fantastically bad we have actually been...
