On Saturday from 1:30-3 pm at the Potomac Yard Best Buy in Alexandria, NBA great and Georgetown alum Eric “Sleepy” Floyd will be making an appearance. The event is in conjunction with the NBA’s relationship with HP and the launch of Windows 7. Other former NBA stars will be making appearances at Best Buys across the country … Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles, Clyde Drexler in Houston, Earl Monroe in New York, Dominique Wilkins in Duluth, GA, B.J. Armstrong in Chicago, and a ‘TBD’ in Philadelphia. You can click here for the full schedule. There’s also a sweepstakes where you can win tickets to an NBA Playoffs or Finals game, or a new HP computer.

I’ve been invited to attend and will have a chance to speak with Sleepy. I’m sure I’ll be asking about his days in the NBA … playing in Golden State where he once scored 29 points in a quarter, playing in Houston alongside Hakeem Olajuwon, his days as a Georgetown Hoya where he still stands atop the school’s career points list (and where he was on the receiving end of a 1982 Michael Jordan NCAA title game winner), and what he’s been doing with his life since/how he’s involved with the game of basketball.

Anyone is welcome to come out from 1:30 to 3:00 pm on Saturday, October 24th. Sleepy is slated to take pictures, sign autographs, etc.. The Potomac Yard Best Buy is located at 3401 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Alexandria, VA.

{image via checkoutmycards.com}

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Flip Saunders on preparing for the last game of the preseason, the ‘Swine Flu’ back-court he will start against the Bulls on Friday, and getting Andray Blatche into his role of coming off the bench.

Brendan Haywood on getting Gilbert Arenas and Mike Miller back from the flu and the Wizards’ ‘Window of Opportunity’.

Caron Butler on his defensive progression

“So far so good. You know, still gambling a little bit after looking at some film. But, it’s still preseason … just trying to focus in on the rotation for the most part, getting to spots, talking and communicating as much as possible. And … so far so good.”

Narrowing down the rotation & JaVale McGee stealing jerseys

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Overall, I was impressed by the Wizards’ performance in Philadelphia on Tuesday night (aside from the ending), especially in response to Flip Saunders openly calling the team out on a disappointing performance in Atlanta on Monday. But …

The Wizards need to improve on defense, right? From watching Tuesday’s game, I was able to make some observations on focus and technique in areas where some individuals can stand to improve. I’ve illustrated these observation in screen shots below.

Caron Butler’s on Defensive Focus

Caron wants to be a better defender? Well, there are some simple things he could be doing that he’s not doing. Let’s illustrate …

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Last night’s 90-89 win against the Sixers in Philly got a bit goofy toward the end. After the game, Flip Saunders said, “That’s what they call a learning experience,” which sort of means, ‘We better not pull any of that B.S. during a regular season game.’

What exactly did Flip see? Well, let’s start with JaVale McGee.

One thing JaVale McGee CAN’T do is finger-roll

I almost knew it was going to happen when I saw McGee snag a loose ball with a tie game, around 16 seconds left, and an open court with only one man to beat.

He thought he could try to be a hero. A true WTF moment.

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Lost amongst the mucky sounds and words regarding last night’s stinker versus the Hawks was this sweet ‘JaVale McGee block, Mike James recovery, pass to Nick Young who tips, gathers, and throws the ball off the glass for a McGee dunk’ combo [via Bethlehem Shoals at The Baseline].

Just watch …

Also, Comcast SportsNet has been doing a ‘My Life 365‘ series on Caron Butler.

Here’s a preview …

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{flickr/Rick Austin}

Well, I started off trying to listen to the Wizards versus Hawks on DC’s 106.7 The Fan via the Internet. I heard some Randy Foye turnovers, heard him jack some threes and heard him get his shot blocked going to the rack (Foye led the NBA last season with a fifth of all of his inside shots being blocked).

I also heard the Hawks rain threes (4-4) and the Wizards turn the ball over some more (Andray Blatche had three). And this was all in the first quarter as Atlanta took a 35-18 lead.

Thankfully, technical difficulties spared me from listening to the rest as it only seemed to go downhill from there. The most telling stat(s) from the game? The Wizards’ plus/minus leaders were: Paul Davis +5, Vincent Grier +5, JaVale McGee +4, and Mike James +3.

But hey, at least the guy whose struggles I chronicled earlier on Monday had his strongest effort of the preseason. James finished with six points, four rebounds, eight assists and zero turnovers in 24 minutes.

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The battle for Wizards starting shooting guard is crucial. The backup power forward spot almost just as much, especially with Antawn Jamison nursing injury and little to show in terms of front court depth. The backup point guard position, however, is a relatively unheralded story.

The talented and rock-steady Randy Foye is thought by many to be the favorite to spell Gilbert Arenas. Foye is also in the mix to play off the ball some. But, there’s already quite a crowd competing at shooting guard with Mike Miller, DeShawn Stevenson, Nick Young and even Caron Butler factoring in.

And then there’s Mike James. With Javaris Crittenton currently out with a foot injury and an unknown timetable for return, some of the competition at point has been eliminated … or at least postponed. But with two DNPs in five preseason games, is James being given a fair shake?

“The only way you can really assess yourself is by playing … I got two DNPs in preseason,” James said after Friday’s practice. “Whether it’s fair or not, I’m not the coach, so I can’t say. All I can say is the opportunities I have, I gotta take advantage of them, weather they’re short or not.”

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Sure this is a Wizards blog, but as a DC sports fan, I can’t go without poking fun at the pathetic state of my Redskins.

Now that his play-calling duties have been taken away, I bet Jim Zorn feels just as bad as baby Falcon Heene. It’s probably only a matter of time until Zorny throws up on TV from all the nervousness caused by his pappy, Tiny Dan Snyder.

I bet if he could, Zorn would hop on a balloon and fly far into the sky, away from all his troubles.

{Jim Zorn, Balloon Boy}

And now, Wizards links …

When Gilbert Arenas was asked how he reacted to Antawn Jamison getting injured against Cleveland, he said he thought Jamison had a “cramp.” Yea, riiiiight.

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There was a larger than usual media contingent at the Wizards’ practice this afternoon. I can’t really say this with conviction since it was only my second time attending a practice, but let’s just say there was a presence on a national level. And we’re talking about practice.

Waiting to be let into the gym, I surveyed the media scene. A bunch evil, lazy looking mofos … with daggers in their eyes and hate in their blood. Of course, I’m being extremely facetious here. But in the eyes of Gilbert Arenas, that’s what they are. Ok, again, I must confess, I’m putting words in Arenas’ mouth … but he did call the media “lazy.”

Arenas spoke in such a sullen and somber tone, he seemed like a kid who’d just lost his puppy. I halfway expected him to break out in a smile, but he didn’t. I know I broke out a couple uncontrollable smirks myself. When Arenas was done, he just quietly put his head down and walked to the locker room.

Here’s an excerpt of his presser …

I later spoke with Mike James about the differences between Agent Media and Agent Teammate: Read more »

On Thursday, along with J.A. Adande, I participated in a Live Chat Q&A about the Wizards on ESPN.com.

There were a ton of Cavs fans/Wizards haters in the house … and I avoided each and every one of them. {Pat on back, they were hard to resist.}

Really wish I could have stayed longer to answer more questions about the Wiz. There were so many I wasn’t able to get to. Being on the other side for the first time, now I know how hard it is. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience … so I thank ESPN for including all the TrueHoop Network team bloggers in these chats.

Anyway, here’s the recap (via Cover It Live):

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{flickr/Ben Chau}

H1N1, much less the ‘regular’ flu, ain’t no joke. How do we know? Because the media tells us so.

LeBron James, Darnell Jackson, and Coby Karl missed Wednesday’s game against the Wizards with the flu … they weren’t even allowed in the Quicken Loans Arena.

Turns out each of them tested positive for ‘Influenza A’ and are awaiting the results of an H1N1 test.

Also turns out that three Cavaliers who were on the court against the Wizards, Jawad Williams, J.J. Hickson and Andre Barrett, showed flu-like symptoms on Thursday. Hickson and Barrett did not travel with the team to Texas to face the Spurs, Williams did … as reported by Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Twitter, and later in a story by Mary Schmitt Boyer in the same publication.

As you can imagine, there’s a great deal of contact and sweat exchanged during the course of a game. So should the Wizards be concerned?

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Via Washington Wizards Media Advisory

Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced that an MRI performed today showed that forward Antawn Jamison suffered a subluxation of his right shoulder.  He will miss the remainder of the Wizards’ preseason games (Oct. 19 at Atlanta, Oct. 20 at Philadelphia and Oct. 23 at Chicago) and will be re-evaluated next week after the inflammation subsides.

Godspeed Mr. Jamison.

{flickr/timkelley}

First action item: ESPN CHAT

I’ll be chatting/answering questions about the Wizards on ESPN.com today along with J.A. Adande.

The session starts at 2 pm EST, you can click here to go to the live chat page.

Second action item: PODCASTING

Mike and Jake of Bullets Forever, along with myself, took part in a Wizards variety show/preview Podcast with Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm … which is part of the ESPN TrueHoop Network and one of the premiere general NBA blogs on the web. It gets slightly choppy a couple times with a delay, and I actually got cut off from the conference call twice … hey, those are the breaks. But the Podcast was a lot of fun to do and may thanks goes to Matt for putting it together.

One thing I’d like to clear up … when I got cut off the second time, after I was dialed back in, Matt made a joke about how he was telling Mike and Jake that they were better bloggers than me. Then you hear a voice say “I don’t agree.” That wasn’t me in some LeBronsian moment of self-touting douche-baggery (as sometimes it was hard to tell who was talking). That was actually, I believe, Mike Prada. And I would, in turn, like to disagree with Mike. He has built an absolutely stellar community of Wizards fans … I mean, Bullets Forever is ‘the’ original Wizards blog. Although on occasion Mike and I don’t see eye-to-eye, I always enjoy his analytical train of thought and reasoning. Mike and the whole crew at BF do absolutely excellent work.

Anytime you want to talk Wizards (without the often times irrationality of some of the commenters on the WaPost’s Wizards Insider — no offense to Michael Lee who’s a great writer … what the commenters say isn’t his fault), just head over to Bullets Forever and comment on a post, or start your own discussion with a Fan Post. Read more »

The Wizards beat the Cavaliers last night. The Cavs were without LeBron James, Mo Williams and Delonte West (among others). Brendan Haywood sat out for the Wizards and Antawn Jamison got hurt around five minutes into the match, more on that later.It was just a preseason game, but hey, the Wiz won 109-104. And when it’s against Cleveland, I’ll take it.

One trend for the Wizards during this preseason has been their play in the third quarter. On Wednesday night, they outscored the Cavs 33-23. Now granted, this was against a second half Cleveland starting lineup of Boobie Gibson, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, JJ Hickson, Shaq (Arenas, Miller, Butler, Blatche and Oberto for the Wiz) … so, make of it what you will.

What I want to analyze is the third quarter offensive efficiency of the Wizards in Flip Saunders’ system. Each possession is outlined below. There were 22 total — 16 resulted in scores. 3 resulted in a turnover. 3 resulted with a missed shot (each a ‘good’ miss). 8 of the 11 FGs were assisted upon — of the three which were not, 2 came in transition and 1 came from an isolation. Pretty damn good, huh?

Before the list of 3Q offensive possessions …

Notice #1: Our friend Fabricio Oberto is delightfully involved. Perhaps Roger Mason Jr. was right when he called Oberto the sleeper sign of the summer. Fabricio is only credited with three assists for the game with two coming in the third … but Mike Miller was wrongly credited with one of those (#11). So Fab had three in the third and four total for the game. As he continues to get his legs, it’s clear to see that he sets damn good screen (almost never looks to slip quickly like Andray Blatche), and is a guy who just knows where to be (#8 and #14).

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Mike Miller is keeping his LeBrons …

Okay Mike, I get it and it’s cool with me. Although I may think what I think about LeBron James, I’ve got no beef with you.  LeBron’s shoes are your most favoritest in the whole wide world … and you are BFF with the guy who chose to have a tattoo artist ink ‘Chosen 1′ on his back.

I’m not sure who LeBron thinks actually “chose” him to be whatever it is that he thinks he is (maybe Sports Illustrated is god to him — whatever the case, it’s kind of arrogant).

On a side, but related note: It’s funny … when an athlete is good and some sort of athletic freak-of-nature, he is said to have “god-given talent” (aka chosen). But when someone is born with a disability, it’s called a “being tested.” Oh well and whatever, I’m digressing way beyond my worldly means of comprehension.

The point is, Mike, you named your son after LeBron James’ friend and now you want to keep wearing his shoes. They are light and no other shoe will ever, ever hold you with the same embrace. You say you’ll wear them until they hurt you. Basically, LeBron’s shoes are like a girl you’re seriously dating (but not necessarily one who’s achieved ‘girlfriend’ status … yet).

But here’s the problem, this girl you’re dating (or what the shoes represent: LBJ and the team he plays for, the Cleveland Cavaliers), has had “issues” … not only with at least one of your current teammates/friends, but she has left bridges burning all over the city in which you live/play.

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