Missed Ted Leonsis' press conference earlier today? Worry not: Senior Editor Mike Prada, also the lead editor for Bullets Forever, has you covered with a thorough recap of today's event.
In addition to many of Ted's statements, Mike sought out and spoke with GM Ernie Grunfeld and Coach Flip Saunders. Some of their interesting quotes are below.
On Ted Leonsis and the possibility of a name or uniform change:
Ted's not changing the name, saying he's amazed that, of all the things they need to do, it seems to him that many fans care about a name change the most. He did say that, at some point, he would look into changing the team uniforms back to "more traditional colors," noting that "it's no secret I like red."
Flip Saunders, on building a team with young players:
"You get young players that are your foundation, and you get veteran players that can teach those young players how to be professional in this league. You know the young players will make mistakes, and the veteran players won't, so you just have to have a good mix along those lines."
Flip Saunders, on building through the draft:
"Things just have to fall into place. If you look at the teams that have [built around young talent], Oklahoma City, they were the worst teams for two straight years in the league. Chicago, when they brought in their influx of all their young talent a couple years ago, they were the worst team in the league for five years after Michael [Jordan] left. When you're a bad team, you have a chance to have good young players, but you have to be lucky to get the game-changing players. Usually when you lose your way in the draft, it's going to take 6-7 years to get out."
Ernie Grunfeld, on the Wizards' plan for free agency:
"Just because you have money doesn't mean you should overspend on someone that won't be apart of your long-term future. If the right opportunity comes along, I think you want to look at it, but I've said all along that we might save our powder for down the road, to see what the new CBA brings, to see if there's a hard cap or a soft cap. We don't really know all the rules going forward, so just because you have the cap room doesn't mean you should go out and spend it if it's not for the right player."
Read the entire press conference recap here.