Time to #ReFollowNBA?

Well, not so fast. Both sides have to vote on the deal. And you know what happens when people start voting…

Nonetheless, here’s a checklist of things the Washington Wizards should starting doing, as it pertains to their current(ish) players, STAT! In terms of free agency? Well, there will be plenty of little time to discuss that. GO FORTH NBA!

Find Andray Blatche.

Not sure where he is, how he is doing, and if he was continuing to workout in Miami as it looked like the reality of a season was falling apart (in addition to handing out turkeys). But somebody find Blatche, quickly. I’m assuming you will need to following: a hose, several scrub brushes with long handles, industrial strength anti-bacterial body wash, some Asian flu masks, and probably a team of scientists.

John Wall.

Have you rested at all this summer? Training camp could be less than two weeks away (give or take, tentatively scheduled to start December 9th), and rumor has it that your groin has been bothering you.

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[You don't want to see Jan when he's angry.]

[Editor's note: This is Lukas Kuba's first post for TAI. He is a longtime San Antonio Spurs fan (going back to the days of The Admiral Robinson) from Slovakia, Europe, but when the Wizards drafted his "sort-of" fellow countryman Jan Vesely in the 2011 NBA Draft (they both were born in Czechoslovakia), Lukas immediately became a fan of the Washington Wizards too (Well, except when they play the Silver & Black). Lukas has been monitoring Czech media coverage of Vesely and is praying for a resolution to the lockout. Words can't explain how eager he is to see Vesely play ball with John Wall. Follow Lukas on Twitter: @Luke_Mellow]

Don’t worry (or rejoice, depending on your point of view), that’s not Jan Vesely’s new girlfriend. Want to find out who it is? Read on.

Last Friday, my man Kyle Weidie send me an e-mail, saying: “Looks like Jan is heading back to the Czech Republic… Not being able to see him play is one of the most frustrating aspects of this whole thing.” I wholeheartedly agree. Wizards fans are being robbed of a chance to see his highlight dunks, ‘wow’ plays, everlasting hustle, and this spectacular plaid shirt.

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While some Wizards are attempting to eat spoonfuls of cinnamon… While some NBA players, including John Wall, are avoiding bullets at a place called the Juliet Supper Club in New York City… While Ted Leonsis welcomes the “buzz and interest” created by a show making fun of the Wizards team name (but don’t ask him about changing it, he’ll get annoyed)… While Jan Vesley returns to the Czech Republic to contemplate his basketball life… While real estate sites are getting in on the lockout action by posting about NBA player and owner housing…

While NBA players seem rather frustrated about the Lockout, but doing alright nonetheless, the rest of us have done… Not much, aside from being working-stiffs, or in school, or entrenched in unemployment, or perhaps involved in a myriad of issues more concerning than the NBA Lockout. Some days for some of us are good, some days for some not so much. Maybe all is not that bad… unless you’re a Redskins fan in a rainy and foggy District of Columbia the Monday after the football kicker couldn’t pull it out against the rival Dallas Cowboys in overtime.

Perspective. No one on either side, players or owners, seems to have it. Fans, especially those who will inevitably come back to the NBA game anyway, are left with a feeling of helplessness. We are often only left, in the midst of this NBA Lockout, with social media and online pictures. Could you imagine if this happened in 1998? The game and its players would’ve disappeared from our visual pixels exponentially.

I can’t even begin to try to name all the states in which John Wall has played exhibtion basketball this summer – Maryland, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Washington, California, New York, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia (there were events in Minnesota and Connecticut where he didn’t show up). I’m likely missing several. He’s been playing basketball overseas as well. Trips to Paris, France.

For the most recent exhibition event, the ‘Good Squad Classic’ held on the campus of UC-Davis outside of Sacramento, Wall showed up, but didn’t play. Jonathan Santiago of Cowbell Kingdom writes, “I had overheard some chatter about his groin giving him some issues, forcing him to sit out the contest.  Donté [Greene] told me that that Wall was indeed injured because he had been playing overseas and that the Washington Wizards guard wanted to ‘rest his body’.”

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Thanksgiving is fast approaching, but the Lost NBA Season (now in full effect) leaves us with a bit less to be thankful for this year. On the bright side, it gives us an opportunity to remember what we can of the past. Shall we?

When the Goodman and Drew Leagues faced off in their inaugural summer league exhibition game back in August, one of most intriguing battles turned out to be the face-off between Washington Wizards center JaVale McGee and Sacramento Kings big man DeMarcus Cousins. McGee showed off his athleticism and shot-blocking prowess, while Cousins countered with his strong power post-up game and rebounding dominance.

Although their physiques are obviously different, both players do have some similarities. No one can question their elite athletic ability, as they do things on the basketball court few at their size can pull off. Yet, both also sometimes think they’re guards; JaVale is famous for showcasing his dribbling “talents,” and deep down Cousins loves to launch threes.

Both have had fisticuffs with teammates that led to team-sanctioned suspensions. Goodman League commissioner Miles Rawls has nicknamed Cousins “Bad Attitude,” with good reason, and McGee constantly possesses an on-court scowl. Both love to raise the blood pressure of their coaches with mental lapses and by taking plays off. Most importantly to fans, both have potential to be solid performing anchors for their respective franchises for a long time.

The following video contains highlights of the duo from that D.C. summer evening at a packed Trinity University that I recorded with my Flip Cam, so bear with me on some of the grainy footage.

There are also interviews featuring John Wall, DeMar DeRozan of the Toronto Raptors, Craig Smith of the Los Angeles Clippers, and event MC, ex-NBA star Marques Johnson.

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September 22, 1971. Louisville, Kentucky. Freedom Hall.

Just over 40 years ago the Baltimore Bullets made the 600-mile trip west from Northern Virginia, where they had battled the N.B.A.’s New York Knickerbockers in their preseason opener the night before, to square off against the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association in the biggest game few today have ever heard about. The contest would be the second act in an Inter-League Exhibition Game (ILEG) series, a sporting event invented by the owners who were looking for something to make “airing out the big arenas, sweeping the floor and printing up tickets worthwhile,” amid rumors of a merger between the two roundball associations. Though early on, these exhibitions were not well publicized, they weren’t without meaning.

The 1971 ILEG series was headlined by two N.B.A. titans, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Baltimore Bullets, both gearing up for another shot at an N.B.A. championship. They were scheduled to play five A.B.A. squads in five A.B.A. cities; the games were held in A.B.A. cities like Louisville and Winston-Salem for the simple reason that the N.B.A. didn’t want to legitimize the upstart league.

Baltimore Coach Gene Shue, two years removed from an N.B.A. Coach of the Year Award, journeyed westward without star guard Earl “The Pearl” Monroe (sent home with knee bursitis) and forward Gus “Honeycomb” Johnson (still working his way back into shape after off-season surgery in both knees), but still had a championship-caliber roster at his disposal. It was a homecoming affair for Bullets guard and Louisville native Westley “Wes” Unseld. Unseld was the star center for a Seneca High School team that won two state championships, and a three-year letter winner at the University of Louisville; the Cardinals played their home games at Freedom Hall, just six miles down the road from Seneca. In the 1968 A.B.A. draft, the Kentucky Colonels drafted Unseld, but lost a bidding war for their hometown prodigy, who inked a four-year $400,000 contract with the Bullets as the second overall selection in the 1968 N.B.A. draft

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Representatives of the owners and players emerged from the umpteenth NBA lockout negotiation session on Wednesday (actually, Thursday — this one was of the 12-hour variety, 1 pm to 1 am), with an agreement to continue to negotiate on Thursday. Neither black nor white smoke emerged, but rather a bunch of smoke blown up our collective butts. That and the telltale sign from covering media via Twitter: ‘Two different press conferences, you know what that means.’ It means no basketball.

No news is not good news, it’s no news. Yet, people are forced to look for silver linings, some citing the mere fact that NBA commissioner David Stern “stopped the clock” (his words) on a previously given ultimatum of a 5 pm Wednesday deadline (for a player acceptance of the owners’ offer) as a positive sign. Afterward, neither side could publicly say whether progress was made.

“I can’t characterize whether they showed flexibility or not in certain system issues,” said player rep Derek Fisher. “Nothing was worked out today,” said Stern. Media sources have, however, indicated a semblance of progress. “Progress was made on three system issues,” wrote the Twitter account @WojYahooNBA.

When asked by Howard Beck of the New York Times if the NBA was in a position where they could give the players some semblance of what they want (in terms of in exchange for a 50-50 Basketball-Related Income (BRI) split) Stern said, “I don’t know how you would define ‘some semblance’.” Exactly.* Nothing appears as it seems, or vice versa.

There are no indications optimism nor pessimism the Commissioner told us. So into an uncertain tomorrow (or later today) we go. The mystery on the evening/morning, however, might not be the details of the negotiations, but why player union rep and Washington Wizard Mo Evans seemed unable to restrain chuckles on several occasions. I like to imagine that Dikembe Mutombo was sitting in the front row with a dry erase board drawing pictures of things that would like to sex him. Read more »

Wes Unseld doesn’t come around much anymore, and it has nothing to do with the lockout. We’re talking the house that Abe built, the Verizon Center.

Sure, he’s part of the franchise’s alumni group and has a seat “for life,” once blogged Ted Leonsis. This was in response to a oddity spewed by New York’s own Peter Vecsey in January 2011, saying Unseld’s season tickets had been “stripped” from him. Dan Steinberg aptly described the curious case on the DC Sports Bog, as both Leonsis and Unseld denied such; and as Mike Wise said, “Let’s put it this way, Tony Kornheiser’s not an evil human being. He has an evil side to him, but he’s not an evil human being. But Peter Vecsey is Satan incarnate.” Always nice to have Kornheiser involved.

Still, season tickets or no season tickets (after all, someone, somewhere had to be miffed enough to drop of a nugget for Vecsey to run with, unconfirmed), Unseld was no where near as present at games last season as he used to be, when Pollin was owner. And that’s okay. He was Abe’s guy. Constancy is neither sacred, nor a vice. Plus, sometimes in life there are other things to do.

New can always be found without the old, but often can’t be appreciated without what’s already been done. And that’s why on this Wednesday, we appreciate Wes, just as the Washington franchise and fans of the franchise always will.

Wes and Connie Unseld.

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