Hornets trade Okafor and Ariza to Wizards for Rashard Lewis and pick

That was my first thought but it may just be a cap flexibility trade. They are saying okafor and ariza would cost 43 mill and this cat Rashard Lewis can be bought out for 13 mill.

 

Not to mention that they're gonna release Rashard Lewis to clear cap space.

Sounds like a true rebuild starting with Davis.

 

Jonathan Givony @DraftExpress:

New Orleans now has unlimited cap space, in addition to the #1 pick, the #10 pick, and Eric Gordon. Not a bad time to be a Hornets fan.

 

What's crazy is that a poster on a big general NBA discussion forum proposed this trade five days ago, except he just had Ariza & Okafor in return for Rashard Lewis...not Rashard Lewis plus the #46 Draft pick

here are some of their reactions to the trade:

hornets better be throwing in that #10 pick, plus okafor and ariza?

Wow. Wizards should've asked for the #10 pick in that deal. Regardless this is a great move for both teams.

Decent trade for both teams although the Hornets got the better of it.

Good trade for the Hornets.

Hornets making good moves.

Amazing deal for NOH. Questionable for the Wiz

Pointless trade for Washington. They could fill glaring needs with Rashard's contract..These are just pointless acquisitions.

Wizards, welcome to being mediocre! I wonder if this means they choose Beal.

the ****? Okay guys let's build around John Wall! Okay here's what we'll do.... We'll trade away our capspace for an overpaid defensive specialist who is a streaky scorer at times, and another overpaid big who's got two more years on his contract!

I dont understand the Wizards.

Poor John Wall

This makes no sense for Washington. Now they're just overpaying not one, not two, but three!!! bigs. You're stuck with 4 more Nene years, 2 more Emeka years. and 3 more Blatche years. tell me how that's good? And what experience they have? Emeka? made the playoffs twice. Nene? sure he made it every year but made it only once past the first round. And blatche sucks in every facet. It's not like they're even good veterans. You're paying these guys between 30-40 million over the next two years!!!!!!

the Wizards better hit a home run pick in the draft or else the ceiling on this team is low

the Wizards aren't going to have an ounce of shooting consistency in a lineup of:
Wall
Beal
Ariza
Nene
Okafur

Wizards are going to pay Okafor and Nene? WTF?

Not sure what Washington is doing. Clogs their cap for 2 more years, makes them decent at best. Nene and Okafor is a decent front line but it's not winning anything.

The Wizards are banking heavily on John Wall making the leap into becoming an Elite PG.

Washington has never really been attractive to Free Agents, mainly due to poor management & them not being contenders. Its a smart move to see how far John Wall can take this group because his development is at the heart of this decision. If they're a Playoff team in another couple of years when they do have some cap space then they will be able to attract a legit Free Agent to join John Wall. Basically, a calculated risk.

Let's face it, the Wizards aren't going to attract premiere free agents ... Okafor and Ariza only have two more years, so its not like you are stuck with them forever anyway.

the Wizards would be retarded to think ariza is a long term solution at SF. ariza is garbage, and not somebody you wanna build around. they should still draft mkg


some of their guesses on who the Hornets will sign next in addition to the new draft picks:

--here you have young talent you can mold develop some on cheap contracts. And while you spend on your young star Eric Gordon you can play with cap space money and fill in certain positions not filled via draft. For example, Goran Dragic PG.

--add a point guard (Goran Dragic) and a combo reserve guard (Louis Williams).

--try to fill their holes with low salary, low risk-high reward signings like Greg Oden, Hasheem Thabeet, etc.

--Maybe the Hornets will target Asik - that would be a good pick up at the bigs.

 

Lewis will never play a minute for the Hornets. They'll buy out his $23 million contract for about $14 million and wipe $43 million of the books for 2012 by dumping Ariza and Okafor. That will allow them to sign Gordon to a max contract and Anthony Davis. Some speculate that the Hornets could make a play for Deron Williams, but most feel the Hornets still lack some cap space and he's likely headed to Dallas anyway. The Hornets are going to be able to play their young guys quite a bit this coming year so they could see another high draft pick in 2013.

The real kicker comes in 2013 when the only big contracts on the books would be Davis and Gordon freeing up plenty of room to go after Andrew Bynum, Dwight Howard or... Chris Paul.

 

I don't understand salary cap rules...in both football and basketball. And I never really cared that much about understanding them. That's why I don't play fantasy anything.

When it comes to salaries....wake me when it's over !!!

 

i read through the thread on this trade on the Washington Wizards forum. here are some of the more interesting responses. "Ted" is the owner, Ted Leonsis (he's been owner since 2010), and "EG" or "Ernie" is the GM, Ernie Grunfeld (he's been GM since 2003)...



Uhhhhh but why? This makes no sense to me.

LOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL Did we get the bottle of lube at least? Please?

omg Ernie no!

Horrible trade. Crazy. I'm glad I decided not to renew my tickets.

Our gm is killing me.

I can't even describe my disgust at this trade.

this trade is a disaster.

What a stupid trade. Indefensible.

Once again this is yet another example of Ernie showing that he doesn't have clue of what he's doing unless it's to cover his own ass or assign blame elsewhere for his mistakes.

This stinks.

This is just beyond the scope of being bad.

I hate the trade

EG got clowned...

WTF. I don't know what else to say.

Ernie: you had managed to avoid messing since Ted got here, and while I didn't believe you had changed, I thought you could at least avoid messing this summer up. You proved me wrong. F this.

Inexplicable trade

What is ted's e-mail?

I am at a complete loss for words. W T F

Get use to mediocrity.

Depressing, just flat out depressing

I never thought I'd say this but I'd rather have Dan Snyder as the Wiz owner. WTF EG? WTF Ted?

don't get this one

I'll let this one sink in but unless there is another move on the horizon, this looks pretty foolish.

why was this a good idea at all?

ted is about to get an irate email

Welp, it wouldn't be draft time of year without EG getting fleeced. Good times.

They really got taken with this deal. I don't like it, but after thirty years of not liking moves from this franchise, why start now

Raptors fan here. Didn't believe this trade at first. Not Sure why you'd do this trade. Just my opinion though.

Can someone please give me Ted's email address. I want to let him know a few of my thoughts

Terrible trade. The Wizards have now taken enough cap space for two maximum contracts and transmogrified it into Nene, Okafor and Ariza. I'm disgusted.

This is a horrible move. At this point, I am wondering why Grunfeld still has a freakin' job. He has pissed away a ton of cap money on Nene, Okafor, and Ariza. This is a effin travesty.

Damn such a horrible trade. I got nothing done at work after i found out about it.

I'm not even angry anymore. This is just pure comedy to me. :lol: It's like Ted wants this team to fail.

I haven't been this depressed since Ernie got his contract extension.

all this trade does is justify all of the posts by clos00 and mohamed, the most incessantly pessimistic and critical posters in regards to EG and Ted. What an awful trade. I feel dumb for even thinking that maybe we were trying to build something smartly. Of course we weren't. It's like we lost out on Davis so we just decided to be mediocre for as long as possible. I'm disgusted enough to become a fan of another team- something I never thought possible in ANY sport.

To save the Hornets 30 million over 2 years, the Wiz should have been able to acquire more than 2 middle of the highway veterans.

We just blew all our cap space for two overpaid vets that make the team 3 wins better. Loser franchise with a loser FO

acquiring middling players with BIG contracts isn't how you build a franchise. The Wizards wanted to get "something" for Lewis. Well, they did -- two more years of being up against the cap and mediocre or worse production during that time. These are bad moves. It would have been far smarter to conserve cap room and draft well than to go out and burn it all on these guys.

This trade was unbelievably foolish, we gave the Hornets everything they wanted, and got nothing, its basically exactly like the '09 deal, except instead of trading a quality pick, we traded a ton of cap space for other peoples trash. Lovely.

We would've been much better off cutting Lewis and giving a big contract to a player on the rise. now we're stuck paying nearly $30 million extra for two declining players over the next two years.

We got two "meh" players for our biggest asset in the expiring contract.

we gave away all our financial flexibility for the next two seasons to add guys who aren't real difference makers.

We blew our entire cap space for marginal upgrades. That is never the right answer.

Maybe Grunfeld is trying to set himself up for his next job. He just did the NBA a big favor by taking those 2 cruddy contracts off the Hornets' books. I mean, this has to be the only reason why a move like this was made. It definitely isn't because Ariza and Okafor make us a playoff team.

This is exactly why I feel Grunfeld is trying to set himself up for a job post-Wizards. He did a huge favor for the NBA by making this trade. It helps the Hornets significantly, and doesn't help the Wizards at all. Grunfeld may not be a good GM, but he's a genius when it comes to finding ways to save his own ass.

The NBA owns the Hornets. Maybe there's a nod-nod wink-wink deal for us to land a top 3 pick next year.

Just heard about this trade. To my understanding the Wizards traded Lewis for Ariza and Okafor. The Wizards should have gotten more out of that trade!


ON NOT GETTING THE #10 PICK FROM THE HORNETS

When the details of this trade finally come out and Washington adds the Hornets 10th pick, will you guys look at it differently?

Im pissed if we don't get the number 10 pick with this trade.

Bad GMing if the 10th pick isn't involved.

If the 10th pick is included, then the trade becomes a lot more fair and I could learn to love it with the right draft selection.

I refuse to believe we'd make this deal without getting the 10th back, otherwise there's no logic in it.

I can only understand this if the no. 10 pick is included!

The only way this trade is even mildly not grand theft is if we get the 10th pick.

I hope the 10th pick is included. Otherwise, this is a tough one to justify.

I sure as hell hope that we got that #10 pick.

If we don't get the tenth pick with this trade it's just bad GMing. It's trading from weakness. It's underplaying your hand. And it's shooting for mediocre.

is it safe to assume that we got New Orleans' 10th pick in this deal? If EG didn't get the 10th pick, then he's a bigger dumbass than I give him credit for.

This is a HORRIBLE trade unless we're getting the #10 pick. Okafor is redundant with Nene and Seraphin. We simply don't need him. Ariza is a decent wing but not any better than what we can find in free agency. Only with this trade, we obliterate any potential cap room in 2013. I just don't understand it.

Did we get #10? Without it, this is just EG getting fleeced as usual.

They needed to get a 1st rounder to make this a reasonable trade.

Seriously...where is our 1st round pick? If Ernie wasnt our GM, i would say that there "must be another move" in the works. But he is. and there isnt.

This is an awful trade for us. We take on BOTH Okafor and Ariza and don't even get the 10th pick? We just gave NOLA a HUGE favor. Ladies and gentlemen, Ernie Grunfeld, the king of selling low.

Two year ago the NOH gave up the 11th pick in the draft so the Thunder would take Mo Peterson's contract. It was a one year deal for 7 million bucks. The Wiz just let the NOH off the hook for 31 million dollars and mysteriously didn't get a pick back?? How is it not absolutely clear to everyone, Ted included, that EG is simply worlds behind the quality GM's of the league? EG's terrible, but I blame Ted. He mandated this horse ****. Put his head on a stake. The problem with this is EG's sucked for so long no one even cares about basketball in DC. The casual fan will say...hmm...good trade, Lewis didn't even play at least Ariza will.

 

ON GIVING UP ONE OF THEIR SECOND ROUND PICKS TO THE HORNETS

Cleveland GOT a lottery pick from the Clippers for absorbing Baron Davis' contract. A LOTTERY PICK! Meanwhile, we just GAVE UP a second rounder to the Hornets for doing the exact same thing. For all the people defending this inept trade...do you not see a problem with this?

Giving up #46 in a draft this deep is mind boggling.

so we give away a pick and a player that can be cut loose for lots of extra cap space. In exchange we get two washed up losers with more time left on their large contracts.

This would be a very questionable deal if it included the #10 pick. Without it, this is just an embarrassingly bad trade for us. I especially love us throwing in the #46 pick. It's like after they finished lubing up, we piped in with "Hey, I think you missed a spot."

Wizards could've bought out Rashard Lewis for $13.7 mil by 6/30. Emeka Okafor & Trevor Ariza are owed a combined $43 million through 2014. How can anyone see any good in this?! And on top of it all, we gave them a pick to do it! Without the 10th pick as compensation, we got screwed!

We agree to take out someone else's trash and then they ask for $5 while we do it. They should be paying us - not the other way around.

EG just did the Hornets a huge favor, clearing their payroll. This year or next they can add a big FA to go with Davis and a resigned Gordon. And he had to give a 2nd for his trouble. He was had.

WTF? We took too bad contracts in Ariza & Okafor off NOLA's hands, and we gave them our #46 pick, a pick that we could've used to trade-up into the 1st round. We got fleeced as usual.

we helped NOH big time and didn't get compensated for it. We just cleared all of their salary woes away in one fell swoop. Oh, and for our trouble, we also gave them a pick. We help them more than they help us and we still are the ones adding extra incentives. It just reeks of Grunfeldian philosophy.

Yuck. Okafor AND Ariza, and WE give up a damn pick for it????????????????????????????
?????????????????????????????????? Someone E-Mail Leonsis, stat. Grunfeld is a pushover. Get him away from this team. We arent even going to be bad enough to tank for the good players in next years draft. We might even make the playoffs. HOORAY 8TH SEED FIRST ROUND EXIT IM SO EXCITED FOR MY NEW WIZARDS TED AND ERNIE YAY.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop, we help NO clear-up cap with Shard's expiring contract and WE give-up a pick??? There's got to be something else happening on draft-night for us.

the Wizards have turned max cap room into players who aren't difference makers. Meanwhile, they've made the Hornets pay NOTHING of value in exchange. Want to get a sense for how bad this trade is, look at it from New Orleans' end of things. They offload two overpaid players, AND they don't have to give up a single asset for the future to do it. Plus, they pick up a 2nd round pick where they could get a solid role player if they choose wisely. This trade sucks.



ON ARIZA AND OKAFOR


Okafor is a backup at this stage of his career but is paid like a star. Ariza plays like a backup but is paid like a starter. We payed out the wazoo for the two of them There's no logic in that no matter how you hard you try to explain it. But I wouldn't have expected anything different from Ernie. He's a wylie politician who can shmooze his way in the boardroom and but gets taken to the cleaners by GMs year after year.

How does adding 2 over-paid veterans with very mediocre stats help?

EG always settles for crap.

Scary stat - Okafor averaged less than a block a game in 28.9 minutes a game this season, and he's going to turn 30 before next season starts. And he's one of the highest paid players in the game. Ummm.

Okafor blocks less than 2 shots per game. He is hardly a shot blocker. I don't people realize just how mediocre Okafor is at this point his career. And Trevor Ariza is still living off of one post season.

Ariza is a solidly below average starting SF. Ariza isn't the answer to anything. We still need an upgrade at the position and paying $14 mil for 2yr stopgap makes no sense.

Okafor isn't that good. Ariza sucks. Horrible trade

Ariza is a marginal upgrade which is really damning indictment of Ariza considering how bad we were at the 3. We can dream about him being some magical 3 & D guy but that fact is he's been an abominable shooter with miserable shot selection. He's not the type of player that's going to help you win games.

Ariza is the Jordan Crawford of SF's and I wanted Crawford out of DC yesterday.

Ariza sucks. The last thing this team needs is an overpaid wing who can't shoot. His TS% of 49.6% was actually worse than Jordan Crawford who is an inefficient chucker. At least Crawford has an excuse since he is young. Ariza doesn't have that excuse. He just sucks.

How is Okafor significantly helping this team? Ariza is decent but we could have easily signed someone in free agency who could have been just as impactful (and cheaper). I can understand adding expensive role players if they are unquestionably upgrades but I'm not seeing that in this instance.

We could still turn right around and trade Okafor, right? I know Ariza isn't going anywhere because nobody with any sense would want him.

Ariza--nice defender---but is kills his team offensively because his shooting is always below .40 percent most nights which equals a loss. Both Okafor and Ariza are horrible passers which demonstrates a very low BBIQ. So again, EG feels the roster with low BBIQ players or players with low BBIQ and serious physical flaws.

I thought they were going to follow the OKC model. This is NOT the OKC model. Not once do I remember the Thunder wasting millions of dollars on mediocre vets with huge contracts. As a matter of fact, they did the opposite--they got rid of those types of players. Okafor and Ariza suck.

Okafor is a bad player AND HE'S NEVER BEEN A GOOD PLAYER. Not only that, but he's been injured the last two seasons.

What exactly does Emeka bring to the table? How does he score his points? He's not an explosive guy, he's pretty stiff without much of a post game. Is he just a more glorified Kendrick Perkins? Also, over the last decade has there been a more highly regarded loser than Emeka Okafor? His career winning percentage is 38%, which is roughly 31 wins a season.

Emeka has appeared in only 6 playoff games over 8 full NBA seasons. The Hornets were better with him out of the lineup, by a lot last season. Ariza's offense has been bad, bad, bad the past three seasons.

the only silver lining I see is that both these acquisitions are at worst here for 2 years.

The funny thing is there's a chance that this deal actually makes us worse. Okafor's impact at this stage is muted. People might not want to acknowledge it, but his game is slipping. Ariza at SF has been clearly below average in terms of performance. Is he better than Singleton, yes. But is he answer there? No. He's a below average starting SF. Question, add in 2 average at best (but expensive) players to a roster that was the 2nd worst in the league, what do you get?

We've got to look at the silver lining for this deal - if Okafor and Ariza both completely suck this year (which is a definite possibly) and we are stuck in late lottery hell again next year its about the only chance I can see that Ted might consider axing EG next spring.