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"This was an extremely complicated process with so many different hurdles to get through and Ted Leonsis and Michael Winger were unbelievable partners in making this happen," Bartelstein told ESPN. "From the day that Ted drafted Brad he has been by our side along with [former general managers] Ernie Grunfeld and Tommy Sheppard. They've always had Brad's back in every way and now we have experienced the exact same thing with Ted and Michael Winger. We are extremely grateful."
Josh Robbins: The Wizards are not employing a search firm to identify candidates for their vacant GM/President of Basketball Operations job, league sources told @TheAthleticNBA today. Four years ago, the team used a search firm after Ernie Grunfeld's dismissal. A different approach this time.
The opening pages of Dan Grunfeld’s “By the Grace of the Game,” are difficult to read. The subtitle “The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream” gives some indication of the tragedy and sadness within the pages. A few chapters in, Grunfeld, the son of longtime NBA player and executive Ernie Grunfeld, spells out the atrocities: His paternal grandmother, Livia, who Dan calls Anyu, which translates to mother in her native Hungarian, lost both her parents and three siblings at Auschwitz and another of her sibling’s died in labor camp in Ukraine during World War II.
Other relatives were also killed. And yet, his grandmother somehow finds light amid the darkness, had a son (Ernie) who came to America not knowing English and became the first NBA player whose parents were Holocaust survivors. “My grandmother always said just because a story is difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell it,” Grunfeld told USA TODAY Sports. “It was hard. It’s hard to think about these things happening to anybody let alone to your family. For my dad, these were his grandparents who were killed in Auschwitz. For my grandmother, these are her parents and siblings.
Q: Not a lot of people knew the entire story of your dad’s background. Dan Grunfeld: "It’s not something my dad has ever concealed. It’s known. They did a "30 For 30" on him and Bernard. It’s in there – Ernie Grunfeld is the son of Holocaust survivors. In the book, you’ll see his journey. Basketball came out of nowhere and changed the trajectory of my family, and it gave my dad a new life in America. There’s never been a reason to look back much on all these painful things. It’s a hard history. He never had grandparents. They were all killed in the Holocaust. That’s very difficult stuff, so on a human level, you empathize with that. I talk a lot in my book about privilege. I’m privileged in many ways, and one of them is that I have a generation of separation from that tragedy. I can write about it with some distance. My dad never had that luxury. He was so close to it. There has been some catharsis in certain ways (for my dad). It’ll never be easy, for anyone, myself included. Again, I go back to my grandma. Just because stories are difficult doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be told. I think certainly everyone in my family is happy I told it."
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"Just because something's improbable doesn't mean it's impossible," insists Dan Grunfeld, who has authored a powerful multigenerational saga that serves as proof. In "By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream," the son of former NBA star and front-office executive Ernie Grunfeld shares the incredible story of his family's journey from Auschwitz to New York City, the Olympics and pro basketball fame.
Ernie became a college legend at the University of Tennessee and won gold at the 1976 Summer Games. He went on to be a standout player for the New York Knicks, and later, the president and general manager of the team during its 1990s glory days. He's the only player in NBA history whose parents survived the Holocaust.
Durant, on the other hand, would entertain Gortat's half-joking recruitment attempts whenever the Thunder came to the District. “I was helping. I was helping (general manager) Tommy (Sheppard), I was helping (former general manager) Ernie (Grunfeld). It was the time everyone was talking about KD, obviously later he signed with Golden State, but hey, everybody was trying to get KD. I was like let me help out," Gortat said. "Obviously it was more of a joke for me, I don't have any power to convince KD to come to play for Washington, but I was doing my part. I was being me, I was fooling around."
Ted Leonsis, owner of the Washington Wizards, called former President Obama when rethinking the team's direction after this year's disappointing season, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. Leonsis, whose managing group also owns the Washington Capitals and Mystics, got in touch with Obama after firing longtime team president Ernie Grunfeld.
If Ujiri says no to the job, league sources believe Wizards VP of basketball operations Tommy Sheppard, who has been running the team in the interim since former president of basketball ops Ernie Grunfeld got fired 10 weeks ago, would be the favorite to land it, though it’s possible he doesn’t receive a long leash. One possibility would be Sheppard continuing to run the team with an interim tag on him, league sources believe. In that situation, he and the Wizards could decide a predetermined date to reevaluate his position. Another option could be him working the 2019-20 season on a one-year deal and then revisiting his job status next spring or summer.
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Arenas was right. Although the fine slip went to Ernie Grunfeld, the former Wizards president of the basketball operations who had the final say on such matters, no financial punishment was taken. This was not an isolated incident. For the past decade, the Wizards have not always held players accountable, a problem the next president of basketball operations might find difficult to uproot. “When I was there, the culture really wasn’t set,” said Brendan Haywood, who played the first 8½ years of his NBA career in Washington, from 2001-10. “There was never a set place [or] plan of: ‘Listen, this is what we do here. This is how we go about things here,' that you sometimes see in other organizations.”
Over several months, The Washington Post conducted interviews with 23 people closely associated with the Wizards franchise: current and former players, team staffers who have spent years in Washington and high-level executives across the NBA. They were asked for their interpretation of the Wizards’ team culture, and in those interviews, a revealing portrait came into focus, offering possible insight into Washington’s struggles to build a contender. Grunfeld, who spent 16 years as team president before being fired April 2, was described as clever and precise but also a pushover, allowing players to dictate their own rules. In seeking to create freedom for his players, particularly stars, he overlooked slight transgressions with the same patience that had been afforded to him by two tolerant owners.
Several people with knowledge of the Wizards’ front office said that if a player broke one of the team rules, a fine or suspension would be recommended to Grunfeld, but they said they believe Grunfeld did not approve many of the punishments issued at Arenas while most of the fines directed at other players went through. Even lesser lights received star treatment. Haywood recalled a time when Andray Blatche, who played in Washington from 2005-2012, refused to lift weights. Grunfeld’s solution: deputize the strength coach to force Blatche into the weight room. Haywood, who witnessed this interaction, said such enforcement should be Grunfeld’s job. “I said: ‘That’s where you come in,’” Haywood said. Grunfeld “didn’t like the fact that I said that and kind of thought I was abrasive at the time and didn’t like it.” “[A player] basically gets to do whatever he wants to without any repercussions,” Haywood said of the Wizards. “That’s the culture.”
The next architect of the Washington Wizards will inherit a long list of complications, from an injured star to a below-average roster to an embattled coach. Even so, league executives firmly believe that Wizards owner Ted Leonsis will have no shortage of experienced, high-quality candidates as he seeks to replace Ernie Grunfeld, who was fired Tuesday after a 16-year tenure. This relative optimism stems from two major factors: respect for Leonsis as a deep-pocketed, engaged and patient owner; and a belief that the Wizards’ position is clearly superior to other vacant jobs with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans because of the organization’s stability and resources.
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