Three years ago, Ted Leonsis began making changes. He parted ways with Ernie Grunfeld and tasked Tommy Sheppard with managing the team. Sheppard cleared the board by dumping veterans and using the team’s meager cache of player acquisition resources to onboard youngsters with potential while they waited for John Wall to rehab his torn Achilles.
With Wall expected to return, Sheppard and Leonsis shifted to a “win now” plan, which took a hard left when they sent Wall and a first-round pick to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook. As fun and frantic as the Westbrook gambit was, the team wasn’t good enough to compete for anything meaningful.