It certainly is a good time to be the owner of the Washington Wizards and Capitals right now. Ted Leonsis's basketball team just beat the Cavaliers, in Cleveland and are approaching 50 wins for the first time since Jimmy Carter was president. His hockey team is the best in the league and has everyone in the DMV cautiously optimistic of a springtime cup run.
Between his NBA and NHL teams Leonsis has 94 wins out of 139 games played, or to be put another way, if you are watching either one of his teams there is a .676% chance they're going to win. Leonsis sat down with NBC 4's Carol Maloney to discuss how he runs the Wizards and Capitals, the abuse he takes on social media and why Scott Brooks chose to come to D.C.
Watch the whole interview here: NBC's Carol Maloney Interviews Ted Leonsis
Ted's take on criticism from fans and media:
"The tree never grows straight to heaven"
"Patience of the fans and sometimes the media is really shot. When we were 2 and 8 I was told, you should sell the team, you should fire the coach, fire the general manager."
Ted's take on his availability to the fans:
"I'm on social media, I'm probably the most active owner on social media, I open myself up to have people leave the worst comments imaginable, i used to get in email and now I get it on Twitter."
Ted's take on why Brooks chose the Wizards:
"Scott Brooks was the best available coach with the best record, he could have gone to many places this offseason and he spent time with Ernie, he spent time with me and he said this is the place i want to go. I like the organization top to bottom, i like the players, they're going to re-sign JOhn Wall, they're going to re-sign Bradley Beal, this is where I want to be."