The NBA Draft isn’t far off and free agency will begin soon. But the Washington Wizards are still full of question marks.
The Washington Wizards are a mess going into the 2019-2020 season.
It has now been more than 50 days since former president of basketball operations, Ernie Grunfeld, was relieved of his duties after serving 16 years as the Wizards top front office guy. No replacement has been named.
As confusing as the Wizards’ player situation may be, the front office job should be as juicy as any front office job opening in the NBA. However, it doesn’t appear to be so. Nobody wants the job, at least that’s what it seems like. The Wizards haven’t made any lucrative or impressive offers to any qualified candidate willing and able to rebuild this team. Either, Ted Leonsis isn’t willing to spend top dollar for a proven GM or he believes he has his fix right in-house and is just exploring his options outside of the organization doors for appearances.
Regardless of what he’s doing, the Wizards front office position is still empty and the NBA Draft isn’t going anywhere. Yet, the Wizards have no one in place, aside form interim GM Tommy Sheppard, to lead the draft efforts.
The incoming draft may motivate them to hire someone and hire them quickly. They lost out on hiring a proven president of basketball operations in Tim Connelly, who chose to stay with the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets finished with the West’s second-best record but couldn’t get by the Trailblazers in the second round of the playoffs.
If you’re a Wizards fan and you watched the 2018 NBA draft, then you probably remember how the team drafted Troy Brown Jr with the 15th pick. However, if you don’t remember what happened, I’ll set the scene. Imagine an empty room, only a few computers to give the room some light but, nobody in the room to make the pick. Now, I’m not saying that he won’t amount to anything. He showed some flashes in his rookie season.
He may come out and prove us all wrong and shine like we hope he will. However, right now it is all work in progress.