Posts in month: August, 2009

Most know about the time Ernie Grunfeld spent in the New York Knicks front office. And many probably have an idea that Madison Square Garden was Grunfeld’s home court for the final four seasons of his nine year NBA playing career. But did you know that Big Ern was on the floor the night Patrick Ewing made his NBA debut?

After playing his first two seasons in Milwaukee, and his next three with the Kansas City Kings, Grunfeld began his tenure in NYC in ’82-83 with the likes of Bill Cartwright, Bernard King (Grunfeld’s teammate at Tennessee), Paul Westphal, and one of my all-time favorite NBA names, Rory Sparrow. Grunfeld was 10th in minutes per game on a Hubie Brown led, 44-win Knicks team that made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals. But the Philadelphia 76ers, with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Mo Cheeks, swept the Knicks, advanced to beat Sidney Moncrief‘s Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, and swept the LA Lakers to win the ’83 NBA title.

Grunfeld and the 47-win Knicks fell short in the ’84 playoffs as well. This time going down in seven games to the Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and the Chief Robert Parrish. Just as the 76ers did the previous season, the Celtics subsequently beat the Bucks in the East finals, and won the ’84 NBA championship, taking the Lakers in seven.

Tough times found the Knickerbockers in ’84-85. Cartwright missed the entire season and King only played 55 games. Not even Darrell Walker, in his second season and averaging a career-high 13.5 ppg, could help. A mere 24 wins and a frozen envelope later, Patrick Ewing magically landed in the Big Apple.

Fast forward to the night of October 26, 1985, the official arrival of the John Thompson-groomed Georgetown product in New York. I just happened to be watching NBA TV the other day and caught a replay of Ewing’s first game ever. The Knicks were up against the familiar 76ers, featuring Malone, Cheeks, a stout Charles Barkley, Dr. J, and one of my favorites, Sedale Threatt.

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mikemiller33.com

Mike Miller is for serious about his social networking. How serious? Damn serious enough to debut his new website with an inspirational ‘Eminem’ “song” that came out seven years ago.

Miller also has a new blog entry, introduced by the ‘frightening/sad/tough/crying on the inside/I’m from South Dakota/my fav rapper is Killer Mike/I’d eat a man’s heart if it were legal and tasted like cheese wiz & beer‘ face you see above.

Damn. That’s serious enough to remove the ‘r’ from ‘for’ and make it a fo’.

Mike Miller is fo’ serious.

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We’ve seen the dunking prowess of the lengthy JaVale McGee …

But did you know that last year, in only 75 games and 1,143 minutes, McGee dunked more than an entire NBA Team?

JaVale McGee … 80

San Antonio Spurs … 73

• 42% of McGee’s FGs were dunks.
• His 80 dunks were good enough for 29th in the NBA and 5th among rookies, after: Brook Lopez, Greg Oden, Jason Thompson, and Marreese Speights.
• He finished 8th in the league in ‘Minutes Per Dunk’ – 14.65 – after: Shaquille O’Neal, Ryan Hollins, DeAndre Jordan, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Greg Oden, Dwight Howard, and Andrew Bynum.
• Source: Roto Evil via 82games.com

But that’s not all…

JaVale, amongst playing a Transformer and Wolverine, has a staring role in his own movie short. What exactly it’s about is left for the viewer to interpret.

Summer of Epic Vale?

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The best links from ’round the Wizards web…

Gil the leader ... more to come?

No Jordan-Wizards Love

When the Miami Heat retired Jordan’s No. 23 in 2003, the original jersey Pat Riley raised to the rafters was half Bulls, half Wizards. Today, it’s all Bulls. (It sure is)

[Michael Lee - Wizards Insider, Washington Post]

The Audacity of Challenges

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flickr/afagen

Why is Abe Pollin willing to pay the luxury tax?

First and foremost, he wants to win now, not later … the guy doesn’t have much ‘later’ left.

Second, the Wizards are relatively financially stable, ranked 15th in the NBA by Forbes in franchise value, 14th in revenue and 10th in operating income. The rankings could be better considering that D.C. is the 8th largest media market in the U.S. (in 2006). Then again, being in such a large media market helps bring in revenue from other sources.

Finally, there is hope in the Nation’s Capital that if you build it, they will come. If Ernie Grunfeld constructs a contender, then the fair-weather transients around the DMV area will show up amongst the bars, restaurants, and museums of Chinatown to see a winner in the Phone Booth.

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Count on seeing McGee in warmups more than in uniform - flickr/Keith Allison

Amidst Flip Saunders’ talk of an 8-man rotation (well, according to his quote below, really an 8 + 2 rotation), I wanted to attempt to predict the 2009-10 minutes distribution … all the way in August.

My philosophy’s always been you play eight players, nine and ten play when you have some foul trouble which you’re always gonna usually have in a game. -Flip

The idea reflected in my numbers below is that eight players will receive consistent minutes and the ‘plus 2′ can be any combination of the remaining players, given which one, contingent on a number of factors that will be judged by Saunders’ coaching experience, best fits the circumstance.

(Note: I first came up with my numbers on some gut feeling, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink! type of thinking. I then read a great post, ‘How Deep Was My Bench?’ by bwoodsxyx on Bullets Forever. The post relays some great research and numbers that support the ’8 + 2′ idea when it comes to Saunders’ rotation.) Read more »

We all like to reminisce to the days of health in 2004-05 when the Wizards started the year by winning 26 out of their first 41. Since, they haven’t gotten out of the gates so well.

In 2005-06, they won five out of their first six, but then lost 17 of the next 24, going 12-18 in the first 30. The Wiz started 4-9 in 2006-07 before they got going, 0-5 in 2007-08, and last year … well, do I really need to give out the numbers?

It’s the NBA, and no game this year is going to be easy. Hell, this team can’t afford to think one might be easy. A good start is tremendously imperative to setting the swagger level of the year. Why? Because the playoff stretch of March could be brutal.

We already know this from the previous post:

The toughest stretch comes from Feb. 28th to March 31st when the Wiz have 12 road games (versus the Nets, Bucks, Celtics, Pistons, Jazz, Nuggets, Blazers, Lakers, Pacers, Bobcats, Rockets, and Hornets) against only 5 home games (versus the Bucks, Rockets, Magic, Bobcats, and Jazz).

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flickr/Keith Allison

Well, the Washington Wizards 2009-10 schedule is out.

The first thing you wonder … when are the match-ups with the Cavaliers?

Well, there are only three of them. And unfortunately, two are in the Mistake By The Lake — NBA Scheduling FAIL!

The first meeting is on November 3rd in Cleveland, the second comes on national TV (ESPN) in D.C. on November 18th, and the third comes on January 6th, Gilbert Arenas’ birthday, in Cleveland.

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flickr/Keith Allison

In the dog days of August, not much happens NBA-wise (aside from the schedule being released). So, in the spirit of George Santayana’s famous quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” in the next several days, I’ll be providing some Wizards highlights and lowlights (mostly the latter) from each month in the past year.

First up: August 2008.

The only Wizards player who has an August birthday is Andray Blatche. He will turn 23 on August 22nd, and will be entering his 5th year in the league.

So, for the sake of age comparison, I did a Basketball-Reference.com search for all the players between 6’9″ and 7’0″ who, in a single season: Read more »

After being dormant for a bit, Wizards player evaluations for ‘08-09 are picking back up. DeShawn Stevenson is up sixth. My thoughts are below, you can check on a full report on Bullets Forever.

[Previously: Oleksiy Pecherov | Juan Dixon | Etan Thomas | Javaris Crittenton | JaVale McGee]

flickr/Keith Allison

DeShawn Stevenson was a nice role player. Played defense, played hurt, nailed the open three. Through the ’07-08 season, Ernie Grunfeld had himself a steal to the tune of a reasonable 4-year, $15 million contract he signed Stevenson to in July of 2007 (after swiping the free agent from Orlando the previous season for a cool million, Stevenson having rejected a 3-year $10.5 million offer from the Magic in the summer of ’06).

Only 32 appearances due to a back injury later, Stevenson is labeled as a has-been, a bad contract, and a prime candidate for riding the inactive list.

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