First of all, I’d like to thank all who participated in this the 5th round of NBA blogger MVP/ROY voting, the first of 2009. I’m honored to have been the host. Second, the esteemed panel:
Previous Rounds:
Without further ado, here goes……
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In anticipation of tonight’s match-up between the Wizards and Pistons, the third on the season, Jessie from the Pistons Nation agreed to answer a couple questions I had about his team. Read on….
1) The Pistons have gone 9-9 since Iverson has taken the court…..meanwhile, Mr. Big Shot and the Nuggets are 16-4….care to offer any hindsight on the trade?
- Did you like it in the first place?
- Would you do it differently?
- Prior to trading Chauncey, did you seriously think that Detroit had championship material?
Personally I’m not a huge fan of the trade on the hardwood. Chaunce was my favorite Piston, and I’ve never been a big fan of AI’s improv stylings. I don’t believe he fits the team, and it shows on the floor.
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Flickr tells me that the above picture is none other than Walter Herrmann….and I have to believe it. Something tells me that old school Walter Herrmann would totally have a hair-doo like Guile from Street Fighter only to go with the ‘Fabio’ look we’re graced with today.
So a guy with a pony-tail goes off on the Wizards and everyone becomes a drama queen. I mean just look at the picture….the guy is about to dunk with a ball on f-ing fire! It’s no wonder that Herrmann was hitting trey balls and finger rolls on the Wiz. For all we know, he could be the Argentinian Chuck Norris.
Plus, the dude has been through a TON in his life that not many can imagine. In July 2003, Herrmann lost his mother, younger sister, and girlfriend all in the same car crash. Exactly a year later, he had one of the best games of his career, 38 points and 11 rebounds, in leading Argentina in the South American Championships. After the game, he found out that his father had died of a heart-attack.
So, from a guy who almost quit the game of basketball, but was encouraged not to by his older sister, to starring in the NBA today. If such a game had to happen against the Wizards, then so be it.
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If the Wizards would’ve shot better that 37% against New Jersey, they would have won, right? Yea…..who knows. When it comes to winning and basketball, no two areas are preached more about than defense and rebounding, no matter what pulpit the message is coming from. So against the Pistons, for game blog purposes, I’m going to ignore the offense and concentrate on defense and rebounding. Not all boards are attainable, and you can play great defense and not stop a bulk of an opponent’s shots from going in. That being said, I’m going to attempt to selectively focus on the particularly great or horrendous occurrences in those areas.
Q1
10:48: Ron Thompson mentioned that transition D would be key in the pregame show…here, Billups brings it down the middle in off a Wizards turnover (Etan had great position in the lane, just lost the ball). Amir Johnson comes to screen Antonio Daniels just inside the three point line. Jamison is laying back a little to protect the basket, but there’s just too much space, AJ needs to be closer to help on Chauncey. Billups takes one dribble off the screen and gets an easy jumper on the left elbow. Johnson’s screen was semi-illegal….but this is the NBA. 4-0 Detroit.
10:23: Next time down, Amir Johnson gets called for an illegal screen…..laid his butt into DeShawn.
9:35: Wiz get caught standing and confusing assignments for boxing out….can’t see whose fault it is because of the camera angle, but Prince sneaks for an offensive board and the Pistons get 2nd chance points. 6-3 Detroit.
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In anticipation of tonight’s game between the Washington Wizards and the Detroit Pistons, I present a quick Q&A with Matt from the excellent Pistons blog, Detroit Bad Boys.
[UPDATE]: Check my answers to the questions of Detroit Bad Boys
1) Over the summer, Joe Dumars said that no one was ‘untouchable’ and then did not make any major moves. How satisfied were you with what the Pistons did in the off-season coming into this year?
At first I was disappointed, but once it became apparent that Amir Johnson was going to start and Rodney Stuckey was expected to average 25-30 minutes, I got excited. Not a lot of team can undergo a youth movement while staying in contention, but I think the Pistons have a chance to pull it off. I’ve been dying to see Johnson get a fair shake the last two years and Stuckey looked like a future All-Star at times in the playoffs, so if all the pieces come together, it’ll be like the Pistons added two impact players to their rotation without giving anything up.
Plus, I’m not completely convinced the roster will look the same come playoff time. With Rasheed Wallace on the verge of free agency and Rip Hamilton potentially opting-out, Dumars will be taking a lot of calls at the trade deadline. Maybe something falls in his lap, or maybe he looks at the team and decides it’s a little younger and a little deeper than last year and sits tight. Anything can happen.
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Sometimes these game blogs get way too long. At times, it becomes difficult to temper my enthusiasm. When the Wizards do well, I’m just typing away as a result of the abundant offense (usually). If they are playing poorly, I got words too. Tonight, I’m really going to concentrate on selectivity. D’oh! Forgot this is a Triple Play…..Wizards on the main feed, Caps playoff game #1 on the left. The strugglin’ Nats on the right. Oh well, we will see.
I got a preview/run-down of all (some) things Wizards here. Laters.
Also, check out the Bullets Forever game thread for comments.
Previously on Ready to Die.
Wizards vs. Pistons Game 30: Stuck with the fat girl at the dance as DC got blown 106-93. Detroit had 33 bench points, was 11-22 from three and had 23 assists to 10 for Washington. Bad all around.
Wizards vs. Pistons Game 68: This will be known as the Gilbert Arenas hissy-fit game. The Wizards won 95-83 and made Detroit look very un-Detroit. This discovered picture of Rasheed Wallace was the most important piece of the night.
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Everyone is gushing over Chris Bosh’s All-Star campaign videos. It started with attention from bloggers, then ESPN, and now media markets all over are jumping on the band-wagon. But should Bosh really be an All-Star this year? And will the fans ever get it right?
According to common sense (and working within the current flawed voting system for starter — that’s for another post), here is how it should go in the East for the 2008 NBA All-Star game.
Let’s start with the givens, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James will be the starting forwards. KG leads all players with 1,527,963 votes and LBJ is second overall with 1,294,019.
The fans are right here, Garnett and James are putting up great numbers for great teams and they should both start at forward. No arguments.
At center, Dwight Howard is also a lock to start. He’s more than doubled up Shaq’s 2nd place 466,292 votes. Thumbs up to the fans on Howard, thumbs down for Shaq being number two. (Thank god, it’s about time Shaq missed an All-Star game — there is no way the coaches can select him, is there?)
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