Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of #WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.

TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

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[Ed. Note: Lukas Kuba (@Luke_Mellow) is TAI's foreign bureau correspondent on all things Czech Republic/Jan Vesely/Tomas Satoransky-related. —Kyle W.]

After this previous Truth About It.net post about Wizards 2012 draft pick Tomas Satoransky playing for the Czech national team in an attempt to qualify for EuroBasket 2013 got the ultimate praise from Wizards owner Ted Leonsis (Big thanks, Ted!), I couldn’t resist writing another. Of course, you can’t find it anywhere else but here at TAI…

Our main man Kyle Weidie updated you on the Czech Republic’s game fourth of the EuroBasket qualification, where they easily defeated Turkey, 82-64. I can add that the Czechs played great in this game, getting contributions from up and down the roster. Hell, when you have someone named Jakub Kudlacek hitting all his shots (14 points in 16 minutes), there’s almost no way your team can be beat. Also, this game was sort of a coming out party for 19-year-old Czech center Ondrej Balvin, who defended Turkey’s Semih Erden in the low post. The 7-foot-1 kid is the best Czech big man prospect since George Zidek, and he has NBA potential (I think). It was really a fun game to watch, and the hometown Czech fans really got into it, even doing the wave (as you can watch here).

Two days later, the Czech team showed how tight their collective bond is. First, in the streets of Chomutov, they tomato-ambushed their assistant coach, Mike Taylor (who is an assistant coach with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the D-League); Taylor was celebrating his birthday. They then capped it off at a local ice hockey game by pranking Taylor with whipped cream in the face. Fun times.

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Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of#WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.

TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

Read more »

Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of#WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.

TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

Read more »

“It doesn’t really matter where you start it’s where you finish,” tweeted former Washington Wizard Andray Blatche just before 1 p.m. last Saturday. After workout with the Brooklyn Nets soon thereafter, Blatche has a new team, his second NBA team, via a minimum, one-year non-guaranteed contract.

An employment change can do wonders for some people. New, crisp shirts are purchased. A fresh haircut. Definitely a shave. Whatever else a transitional cleansing involves. When on new ground, the goal is to be extra visible to co-workers. Quickly respond to emails with a “thank you.” Buy people some coffee on a morning mission to the local shop. Don’t mind staying late.

No one necessarily knows if you were just as good at your old job, if you’re a climber, and have aspirations. Or if you hated your last boss—he was a dick. Or if you were severance packaged due to a numbers game or dwindling value. Or if you just felt it was time to move on. Or if you just plain sucked.

Except when your job is in the public eye. Even so, with the dissemination of man and woman unto social media, the lines between public figures and Joe Citizen are fading. Andray Blatche has represented the transition. He is that fading line.

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Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of#WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.

TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

Read more »

[ShareBullets: links, thoughts, randomness, shares, Washington Bullets...]

John Wall turned 22-years old on Thursday, September 6. Kevin Willis turned 50 on Thursday, too. (Could’ve sworn he was 60 … he was still playing in the NBA less than 2,000 days ago.) Who else celebrated a birthday on September 6? None other than Pippa Middleton, Foxy Brown (the rapper), Jeff Foxworthy (the redneck), Rosie Perez, and Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from The Wire). Now let’s check out some John Wall birthday club fliers — Wall surely won’t become the next “Party All Dray,” right? (H/T DC Sports Nexus)

First, there’s New York…

And then Miami, where there will be girls holding boobs, clearly…

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Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of #WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.

TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

Participants were given the full list of 56 in alphabetical order, and included for each player were total games, minutes, PER (player efficiency rating), and WS/48 (win-shares per 48 minutes) only from the last five seasons. Participants were asked to rate each player on the scale of 1-to-10 according to this criteria: on court performance; off court performance; intangibles; and own personal memory. Yes, this is totally subjective, but relatively collective. So let’s get it started…

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Hamady N’diaye, left, at 2010 Wizards Media Day

You heard right, John Wall is the longest tenured Washington Wizard. He was drafted first overall in 2010; Kevin Seraphin and Trevor Booker were taken in the same draft, but acquired via trade. Wall’s 4,992 NBA minutes are also twice the number logged by JaVale McGee, the Wizard with the second most minutes played over the last two seasons. Yep, 32 players aside from Wall have donned a Wizards uniform in the 148 team games over the 26-plus months since the “Game Changer” was introduced to the District on a red carpet. By the beginning of the 2012-13 season, the total number of Wall’s teammates in Washington will have climbed to 37, at least.

All those boarding on and off the USS Wizards had memorable moments good or bad (or infamous). Mike Bibby played the least amount of minutes over the last two seasons, but did score a single basket for the Wiz, and Truth About It.net was there to capture his thought-provoking reaction. Mustafa Shakur saw 159 minutes of action, 24th most, and got a whole DC Sports Bog post dedicated to his jersey malfunction. Othyus Jeffers, 314 minutes, 21st most, is still remembered and missed by faithful followers of the team.

Hamady N’diaye played 83 total minutes, 28th most, and was also drafted in 2010 (56th overall), but spent much more time on the Verizon Center practice gym than he did under the lights of the main court. N’diaye, known as “H,” is still highly regarded by Wizards team executives. “Look at the meat hook!,” exclaimed one with endearment as N’diaye threw up a sweeping hook shot at the 2012 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas as a member of the Charlotte Bobcats; it missed.

What “H” is most remembered for is his positive attitude, his resilience during challenging life experiences, and his smile. Someone has to contrast the parade of bad characters who have hogged the attention of Wizards fans over recent seasons. What makes N’diaye’s story stick is that he comes from Senegal (discovered via the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program); that he had to deal with escaping a questionable prep school basketball experience in the U.S.; and that he prevailed against the odds, graduated from Rutgers as the Big East Defensive POY, and got drafted by the NBA.

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ShareBullets: (basically, they’re pixels)… but also, they’re bullet points from ’round the web about the Bullets Wizards.

Elevators, Dupont Circle N., D.C.

>> Ted Leonsis calls Michael Lee’s pixels ‘fair pixels‘ … Question mark pixels, I say. Either way, the Wizards and their direction under a relatively new owner, a ‘been there’ GM/team president, and a ‘wanna be there’ old school coach will be interesting to watch. I’m excited. Question is, will the team marketing slogan be up to par?

>> Again, not much to get excited about with summer pro-am basketball, but do check out new Wizards point guard A.J. Price putting in work at the Hartford pro-am… Nice dimes.

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