The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

In hiring a general manager, the Wizards should think smaller

Monumental Sports & Entertainment CEO Ted Leonsis is on the hunt for a new Wizards GM after firing Tommy Sheppard on Wednesday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
6 min

Several Monumental Sports & Entertainment employees cited a common feeling circulating through team headquarters this past week after CEO Ted Leonsis fired Tommy Sheppard as president and general manager of the Washington Wizards.

It goes something like this: This time, it can’t take three months.

Leonsis launched a hunt for a general manager for the second time in four years Wednesday, and there is at least one major difference between now and 2019. In the sequel, Leonsis did not name an interim general manager, as he did with Sheppard back then. While work at the Wizards’ offices continues, the question of “So whom exactly do you report to now?” was met this past week with a whole lot of “I’m not sure.”

With the draft lottery set for May 16 and the draft itself arriving a little more than a month later, Leonsis must be feeling some sense of urgency. That’s change enough from four years ago, when he took the time to speak with 78 advisers before finally promoting Sheppard in July from interim to full-time general manager.

Wizards fire president and general manager Tommy Sheppard

That’s a start as far as mind-set changes go. But Leonsis could take it a step further and not just revamp his front office but set a new tone for how the Wizards think about themselves.

Sheppard is gone, meaning the last remnants of the Ernie Grunfeld era are out after two decades. Should Leonsis want to grab hold of this golden opportunity for a fresh start, he could look around the NBA for recent success stories — Milwaukee, Memphis, Sacramento — and realize it might be time for the Wizards to downsize.

Or at least to start thinking smaller.

Masai Ujiri, vice chairman and president of the Toronto Raptors, and Bob Myers, president of basketball operations and general manager of the Golden State Warriors, are big names floating around as potential candidates for the Wizards. Hiring either would be a big-market move — both have the sparkling résumé, street cred and know-how to attract big-name talent. Both would come with a price tag appropriate for best-in-class executives. And both, given their success in the NBA, presumably would come in wanting the type of control Leonsis has been reluctant to hand over.

Case in point: Leonsis has already put up guardrails in backing Coach Wes Unseld Jr., who will return for a third season.

But instead of daydreaming about Ujiri and Myers, why not think like a midmarket team? Go after a basketball mind who will focus on getting the on-court product up and running first. Recruit an under-the-radar, fresh talent evaluator who has succeeded in moderate markets; that’s where the Wizards exist. The D.C. metro area, despite having all the perks of a big city, isn’t Miami or Los Angeles. Goodness knows the taxes aren’t as friendly as they are in Texas and Florida, and it doesn’t attract free agents as a typical big-market organization does.

No problem. Neither did Milwaukee, once upon a time.

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That’s a strong argument for ticket-buyers. Wizards fans might not need a big name on the court, but they do love young, exciting talent willing to embrace the city. Think of how folks latched on to Jordan Goodwin this season. This is the city of the Goodman and Kenner leagues. The people just like good basketball.

Leonsis going a little — just a little — smaller feels like the best way to bring it to them.

Here are four names to consider, all of whom have been mentioned as potential candidates in recent days by rival front-office executives and people within the Wizards organization:

Trajan Langdon

The New Orleans Pelicans’ general manager honed his craft working under Nets GM Sean Marks, first in San Antonio and then in Brooklyn, where he was named assistant general manager in 2016 before the Pelicans hired him in 2019. His name has come up frequently since Sheppard’s exit, and he earned special praise for landing Trey Murphy III in a draft-day trade. Murphy, 22, has evolved into one of the Pelicans’ rising stars: He averaged 14.5 points on 48.4 percent shooting from the field and 40.6 percent from beyond the arc in his second NBA season.

Scott Perry

The New York Knicks’ GM has quite the résumé: He worked in the Detroit Pistons’ front office under Joe Dumars during their run as a title contender in the early 2000s, a stretch that included a championship in 2004. Perry also drafted Kevin Durant with the No. 2 pick in his time with the Seattle SuperSonics. Other draft highlights include selecting Victor Oladipo and Aaron Gordon in Orlando before he moved to New York in 2020.

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Milt Newton

If you’re looking for the right combination of under the radar and highly talented, picking from the league’s ranks of assistant general managers isn’t a bad idea. Newton, who holds that title in Milwaukee, is a highly regarded talent evaluator who was with the Wizards from 2003 to 2013, mostly working as vice president of player personnel. As GM in Minnesota from 2013 to 2016, he traded Kevin Love to Cleveland in a deal that brought in 2014 No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins; he also drafted Karl-Anthony Towns and Zach Lavine.

Tim Connelly

If Ujiri and Myers cost too much for Leonsis, the same could be said of Connelly. He isn’t making as much as Ujiri, but the Timberwolves’ head honcho is somewhere in the $8 million range (and reportedly has ownership equity as a sweetener). But some in Minnesota might take a pay cut to get away from Rudy Gobert. If Connelly does, well, Leonsis has forked over that kind of cash before — former coach Scott Brooks made $7 million per year back when he was part of the plan to lure Durant to Washington.

Connelly’s name must be on the list of candidates because he has the most buzz of any candidate and because it just makes sense. If you’re asking which newly hired GM would be okay walking into an organization with a coach preselected for him, the answer might be Connelly, who has been close buddies with Unseld for about two decades.

Connelly is a Baltimore native who began his career in the Wizards’ video room in the late 1990s before building the Denver Nuggets, with whom Unseld was an assistant before joining the Wizards, into a powerhouse. The biggest argument against Connelly, aside from his paycheck, is that he’s coming off a year in which he orchestrated the ill-fated trade to bring in Gobert from the Utah Jazz. At least the Timberwolves made the playoffs.

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