Ernie Grunfeld will be charged with cleaning up his own mess.
The team president will stay as the man guiding the Wizards ship for at least a couple more years, reports CSNWashington.com (the Washington Post broke the story). Grunfeld has been with the team since 2003 and now will be with them through the summer of 2014 at least.
The Wizards have missed the playoffs the last four years and not had a winning percentage above .317 in that stretch. They have made the playoffs four of the nine years Grunfeld has been in charge but never advanced past the second round.
Despite having a potential superstar in No. 1 overall pick John Wall the Wizards surrounded him with guys such as Gilbert Arenas, Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee and the team went nowhere and had a bad locker room. Grunfeld built that. Now he will be the guy charged with cleaning it up, something that started since owner Ted Leonsis came in and ordered a rebuild. A key move there was when McGee and Nick Young were moved for Nene this season. Flip Saunders was fired after a 2-15 start this season and the question now is what coach will come in to turn the culture and team around.
The Post says that a number of agents had reached out to Leonsis to promote new candidates for GM, but that Leonsis didn’t take their calls.