Posts for category ‘Wizards-Cavaliers Rivalry’

[UPDATE: Hold on to 'Booing Blake' on this particular night; Griffin is out against the Wizards with a left hamstring strain.]

The Washington Wizards’ futility over the past four and a half seasons has had several consequences. Their games are no longer broadcast on TNT, ESPN or ABC; NBATV, sometimes. National pundits rarely discuss the team, unless they’re mocking them. NBA bloggers, many of whom became relevant around the time Gilbert Arenas was penning weekly posts for NBA.com, now associate Wizards history with the antics of JaVale McGee, Nick Young, and Andray Blatche. (The days of Gilbertology—and the playoffs—seem all but forgotten.) The Phone Booth now only sells out when fans of opposing teams buy tickets.

Another important fallout has been the loss of a true rival. Wizards fans of this generation always point to the postseason battles against the Cavs as a treasured memory. They were heated and controversial affairs—who can forget the origin of the Crab Dribble? Followers of each team genuinely disliked the other. DeShawn Stevenson and LeBron James definitely didn’t fake their disdain for one another. Even Soulja Boy, reliably relevant during the aughts, was somehow involved.

The Wizards eventually came out on the short end in their series against Cleveland, but they still had an everlasting emotional impact on the fan base. D.C. was united in its hatred of LeBron James and the Cavaliers. (For me, the name Damon Jones will forever trigger an immediate gag reflex; I imagine Boston Red Sox fans feel the same way about Aaron F’ng Boone.) But after Gil’s painful locker room flame out, the contemptuous relationship abruptly ended. With the Wizards now wallowing in NBA’s cellar, nothing has since replaced it.

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Truth About It.net turns a whole five years old at the end of October, which is right about now.

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.

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[Antawn Jamison ponders the Wizards - photo: K. Weidie]

Tonight, the Cleveland Cavaliers travel to Washington for a marquee match-up between struggling teams and former rivals. Though Soulja Boy is not expected to be in attendance, Antawn Jamison will be, playing in his first game in Washington since he was shipped out. Both teams look to snap losing streaks. Three questions, three answers, from three of your favorite people– John Krolik (@JohnKrolik) of ESPN TrueHoop blog Cavs: The Blog, and TAI’s Sam Permutt (@sammyvert) and Kyle Weidie (@truth_about_it) — right now.

#1) You’re Antawn Jamison, consummate professional and former All-Star power forward. The NBA has decided to merge the Cleveland and Washington teams. You get to pick four other players (point guard, shooting guard, small forward, and center) to start alongside you for the new and improved Wizaliers team. Who are you running with? And even with this merger, how successful can the Wizaliers team be?  Are they a playoff team? Championship contenders?

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[Note: This is a trial run of a "Player Lock" series in which Truth About It.net will spotlight one player over the course of a game. -John]

I chose to spotlight Gilbert Arenas in Saturday night’s contest between the Washington Wizards and the Cleveland Cavaliers. And why not? It was Gil’s homecoming — the first time he had played at the Verizon Center since January 2, 2010 against the San Antonio Spurs.

[To beard or not to beard? via K. Weidie]

Flip Saunders and Gilbert tested a bit of my patience, forcing me to wait … and wait for his debut. He didn’t check into the game until just a few minutes before the end of the first quarter. After making his season debut against the Knicks on Friday, Arenas indicated that he didn’t mind coming off the bench for the unforeseen future, saying, “When I come off, I just got to be ready like ‘The Microwave’.” And Wizards fans in D.C. were hungry for whatever he had cooking.

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Slow steps and seconds guesses were the main themes from Saturday’s night home loss to an Antwan Jamison-less Cleveland Cavaliers. The Wizards let a very winnable game slip away as Anthony Parker, Daniel Gibson and Mo Williams all burried late key three pointers and Washington fell to 1-4 on the young season.

Coach Saunders regretted sitting a hot Al Thornton (23 points on 10-16 field-goals) for the final nine minutes of the game.

“I said to Al that I made a mistake….I question myself the last three minutes about not having Al in there.”

Flip went to the long anticipated three-guard lineup of John Wall, Kirk Hinrich and Gilbert Arenas for the fourth quarter. The trio led the Wizards to a 90-85 lead with five minutes to go in the game after Arenas fueled a 3-on-1 fast break that ended with a flush by Andray Blatche.

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{via Ball Don’t Lie}

LeBron James likes wearing his own name-bearing shoes that fuel his ego. He wears MVP shoes. He wears New York Yankees shoes.

One upon a time Mike Miller wore LeBron James shoes to practice. This created a minor hubbub in Wizards Nation. In hindsight, the blog-worthy occurrence was probably a distraction. Not a distraction that amounted to much, but when added to everything else … exactly.

Sure, team captains Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler chimed in about not liking it. But DeShawn Stevenson … Mister 50/50, I Can’t Feel My Face … the Wizards’ protagonist in their rivalry with the Cavaliers (or antagonist depending on what side you’re on) … was the most vocal about Miller’s shoe selection, drawing scorn for his antics.

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The Wizards play the Thunder at 8 pm tonight in Oklahoma City. I’ll be Twittering and perhaps chatting a bit on ESPN’s Daily Dime.

We’ll see if the Wiz have the consistency, energy and focus it takes to win. Word out of Oklahoma is that the Thunder practiced their zone offense at shoot-around today.

Watch out for that Thabo Sefolosha cat. His on-ball defense is something to get excited about … when not playing the Wizards, obviously. It won’t be easy for Mike Miller or Caron Butler, whomever Thabo is guarding. That means … no dribbling around and trying to force things, Caron.

Brendan Haywood will also being going against his old buddy,  Etan ‘The Poet’ Thomas. Wizards Insider has more on the game’s matchup.

Finally, it’s Zero vs. Zero tonight, as my fellow ESPN TrueHoop Network blog, Daily Thunder, points out. Russell Westbrook vs. Gilbert Arenas … hopefully it will be fun to watch (and Gil’s not throwing up stink bombs from deep).

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

On Sunday, Mike Prada of Bullets and I recorded a podcast about the Wizards-Cavaliers rivalry with a couple “rival” bloggers.

On Monday, four Wizards (Haywood, Butler, Foye & Stevenson), talked about the rivalry after practice before heading to Cleveland.

The Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg wrote about this rivalry talk as did the Washington Times’ Mike Jones. A Cleveland writer likened the rivalry to the Browns and Steelers (ouch).

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After Monday’s practice, before setting off for hostile territory in Ohio, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler, Randy Foye and DeShawn Stevenson are prodded to talk about the rivarly/history between the Wizards and the Cavaliers.

Other practice coverage links:

• New look Wiz get ready for Cleveland rivalry [DC Sports Bog]
• Butler expeced to play vs. Cleveland [Wizards Outlet]
• Foye is fine about not getting an extension [Wizards Insider]

Episode two of ‘The Dagger Report’, a Washington Wizards podcast is out. This week, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and I discuss the Wizards-Cavaliers rivalry (if you want to call it that, I do).

And to get a perspective from both sides, a couple “rival” bloggers join us. John Krolik of Cavs: The Blog (part of the ESPN TrueHoop Network), and Andrew Schnitkey (aka RockKing) of the general Cleveland sports blog, Waiting For Next Year, were kind enough to take part.

In addition to rivalry talk, we’ll also talk about what exactly has been going on with the Cavs so far this season.

Click below to listen.

Episode 2: The Dagger Report – Washington Wizards podcast

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