Fabricio Oberto

Fabricio Oberto - Oberto has actually unretired. He's threatened to do this on a couple of occasions since retiring in 2010, but it's really happened this time, playing the last two months with Argentinian team Atenas. Oberto is averaging 9.9 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 23 minutes per game, but hurt his hamstring 86 seconds into his last game and is out for at least two weeks.

Two years ago, the Wizards sold the No. 32 pick to Houston for $2.5 million, and then re-invested most of it in signing veteran big man Fabricio Oberto, whom they then saw fit to actually play in actual games. Despite recording 121 fouls to only 105 rebounds and 83 points, the Wizards would repeatedly turn to Oberto ahead of JaVale McGee, a core young piece, because Oberto would play the “right way.” He would screen, hand-off, pass, only sometimes throw the ball away, and try his level best to not be too slow in his defensive rotations. Signing Oberto, and playing him ahead of infinitely more talented players, was supposed to set a standard for Wizards basketball, a means to instil discipline and good habits into youngsters by making them sit and watch inferior veterans do it first.

It didn’t work. The Wizards continue to be submarined by a lack of discipline on the court, the folly of youth with little veteran savvy to correct it with. There’s plenty of talent on the roster but there’s no cohesion to it. And without IQ, heart or intensity, talent counts for nothing.

Fabricio Oberto - Last season for Washington, the 35 year old Fabricio Oberto totalled 650 minutes, 83 points, 105 fouls, 36 turnovers and 121 fouls. He's a good little-things player, and it's good that he is, because he sure as hell can't do the big things any more. The fact that Washington sold the number 32 pick for $2.5 million, just to spend $2 million of that on Oberto's terrible year, is representative of the kind of thinking that got the franchise so stuck in the first place. At least they've finally blown the doors off of it and can begin again.

Washington also decided to save money in the second round when they sold the #32 overall pick to Houston for a record $2.5 million. That's an awful lot of money for a second rounder, particularly in these more conservative times, and so even though it cost them a shot at possible contributors such as DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, Chase Budinger, Jonas Jerebko or Marcus Thornton, the move made some sense. And I say that as a big Sergio Llull fan.

But what didn't make sense is what the Wizards did with that saved money; a few short weeks after cashing it in, the Wizards signed Fabricio Oberto for the full amount of the Bi-Annual Exception, $1.99 million. Knowing that they were already over the tax threshold, and knowing that they already had four capable big men in place, the Wizards committed what looked to be as near as is $4 million's worth to one year of a player who had averaged slightly less than 3/3/2 the previous season. (The 2 is for fouls per game.) Oberto has responded by totalling 38 points, 49 rebounds and 70 fouls this season, numbers inferior to every member of the draft's second round, even those who haven't played in the NBA. A bad decision both financially and basketball wise.