Wizards owner Ted Leonsis is firmly behind team president Ernie Grunfeld, as well as the rest of the front office, and he explained his rationale for not making broader changes, writes Jerry Brewer of The Washington Post. “Because we were executing to the plan,” Leonsis said. “If we had varied from the plan and the plan didn’t work, then I think it would’ve been in my realm of responsibility to take a look. But we were executing a plan that we agreed to when I bought the team five years ago.”
Here’s more from Washington:
- During exit interviews, many of the players on the Wizards indicated that they liked and admired Markieff Morris and that they wanted to play alongside him on the court, according to Leonsis, as J. Michael of CSN Mid-Atlantic passes along.
- Leonsis also compared the Wizards‘ deal to acquire the power forward to the 2013 deal for Marcin Gortat, as Michael writes in the same piece. “Was [the Morris trade] on strategy or off strategy? Who did we get for Gortat? Would I trade Gortat for [Tyler] Ennis? The answer is yes,” Leonsis said. The Suns received the No. 18 selection of the 2014 draft as a result of the Gortat trade and they selected Ennis. Washington owes its first-rounder, currently slotted as the No. 13 pick, to Phoenix as part of the Morris trade, as long as the lottery doesn’t move the pick into the top nine.
- Newly hired coach Scott Brooks believes John Wall has a chance to grow his game even further and bring the Wizards to new heights, Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post writes. “He has another level, maybe two or three levels. Not only from a basketball standpoint, [but] from a leadership standpoint.” Brooks said. “He has the ability to be one of the best players in the game,”