There was a dead certainty that some changes would be occurring in the Washington Wizards' organization following the team's 1-10 start.And because it seemed unlikely that Ernie Grunfield would fire himself, and it was already too late to start trying to trade Gilbert Arenas or Antawn Jamison and because Caron Butler is the truth ... well, it stood to reason that the first scapegoat would be Eddie Jordan. According to the Post's Wizards Insider, that has now come to fruition.
According to sources familiar with the situation, the Wizards have relieved Coach Eddie Jordan of his duties. Jordan was informed of the decision this morning.Again, I don't know if it's deserving -- Jordan has done a pretty fine job of coaching up what is a quasi-limited roster since he's been in Washington. And additionally, he's currently missing about $110 million worth of said roster ... but yeah, the team is in the basement of a very winnable division, Gil and Brendan Haywood are talking about not coming back this year if the playoffs aren't an option, and someone has to get blamed. If the reports are accurate, looks like that guy is Jordan.
Ed Tapscott, who had carried the title of Director of Player Development but traveled with the team and essentially served as an extra assistant coach, will take over coaching duties, starting with a practice that will begin today at 11 a.m.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
This has to be the dumbest thing they could have done... aside from signing a player with two bad knees to a $110 Million contract and not having an adequate Center to back up Brendan Haywood. I've lived in DC all my life, this is heartbreaking. Eddie Jordan is not the reason they are 1-10, their messed up roster is. The Wizards were losing games by 4 or 6, not 20 or 30. How they can justify this move is beyond me, and it will probably set the franchise back another 10 years. Were they getting to a championship anytime soon? No, but at least they had .500+ records and were consistently in the playoffs. This is insane.
Bobby is right!
How is Eddie Jordan a good coach if all he could do with a team with 3 all-stars was barely stay above .500 and get knocked out of the first round? He carried his best players for four years while doing nothing to develop any young players to replace them, which is how he got into this shit situation hes in now. If he hadn't yanked around blatche and young for so long so he could play bums like songalia or etan thomas ahead of em maybe they could have stepped up for gil or haywood. People who blame this on gil conveniently forget that it was Jordan who played him a league leading 41 minutes per game at the beginning of last season when he was coming off his first injury, which suprise suprise led to more knee problems.
The real difficulty with the Bullets (Wizzards) is their ownership. As long as Abe Polin is the principal owner of the Wizzards they will be nothing more than a second round, at best, contender, not a true NBA championship team.