First of all, we know Houston’s Chandler Parsons got a put-back dunk on JaVale McGee, circling his crotch and balls around Epic ‘Vale’s head for good measure. McGee was more than posterized, he was GIF’d…
In video form, if you will…
Then, of course, in true JaVale fashion, there was this, a dunk off the backboard when down 64-60 early in the third quarter against Houston:
And people reacted…
@CraigStouffer of the Washington Examiner:
McGee’s dunk was the equivalent of Peck shutting down the protection grid in Ghostbusters, unleashed
#Wizards evils upon Verizon Center.
@JFrankHanrahan of Comcast SportsNet:
If 11-1 McGee can do that dunk not at 1-11.
Flip Saunders, John Wall and Mo Evans all thought the off-the-backboard part was a bad idea, reports SB Nation. Andray Blatche said, “I don’t really care for it.”
Royce Young on CBS Sports:
Remember last season how McGee basically sold his soul to try and get a triple-double? That’s the type of recurring issue you see within a troubled, dysfunctional team. Putting stats and self before team. At some point, you’ve just got to grow up. You can’t continue to waste talent and opportunity. Be a professional. An NBA game isn’t your own personal playground. It’s about the final score. It’s about winning and losing, the latter of which you know plenty about.
And McGee himself?
“Apparently, if you get a fast break in the third quarter and you’re 1-11, you’re not supposed to do stuff like that. I felt like I was trying to get the team hyped and trying to make a good play, so I felt like we did that, and we went on a run from there.”
Then there’s always Nick Young, via @MrMichaelLee of the Washington Post:
Nick Young’s reaction to JaVale McGee’s self-alley-oop dunk: “He had some big Kahunas.”
#wizards
And @CraigStouffer:
Safe to say Young meant to say “cojones,” but “kahunas” works just fine.
Me? Via @Truth_About_It:
2 be honest, I didn’t even care abt JaVale’s backboard dunk, was marveling in Wall’s transition D comm. & Booker’s hustle reb that led 2 it.
…While I also recognize that it was ‘typical’ JaVale McGee, or rather, a reason why he doesn’t really get it. But, just as he said this quote after Saturday’s Sixers game via the Washington Examiner:
“Whenever you’re losing, it’s hard to get things of that nature: All-Star and players of the year, defensive, most improved, stuff like that. It just doesn’t come to players that are losing, but I mean, just whatever.”
Whatever…
McGee’s backboard dunk, what do YOU think?
It shouldn’t matter. It was fun, and I get he was just trying to get guys excited (and, let’s not forget, the crowd, which is usually dead at the VC). Because we lost, and because the Wiz have the worst record in the NBA, people are going to be upset. That’s just part of the equation. I’m sure Javale knows it. If we’d won, people would be much less upset.
Like coach used to say, “Did the ball go in the hoop? Did we score? Then good play. Let’s move on. Get back on Defense”
He is an entertainer. He made an entertaining play. If our biggest complaint about the game and the way the Wizards are playing is that Javale McGee made a fast break dunk (that he happened to throw off the backboard first), we have our priorities in the wrong place.
How about all the times when the Wizards players threw the ball of the backboard accidentially, let’s start complaining about that and not one player who is playing the best on the team this season.
They turned dalembert into olajuwon…abracadabra
This dunk was just plain embarrassing because it allowed, again, the rest of the NBA and all of the national media to characterize the Wizards as clueless buffoons lacking basketball IQ.
McGee’s campaigning to be on the All-Star team. Even he must understand that he’s not going to be voted by fans to be first-string All-Star (because Dwight will be). I can’t imagine that the basketball people who choose the remaining players will be too impressed with this move.
Poor McGee. He just doesn’t get it.