Digest it, behold it, listen to it whisper to you.
In terms of D-Song, well, he’s doing D-Song things: He’s ranked second at EuroBasket in fouls with 4.2 per game. Otherwise, he’s shooting 48.7-percent from the field, surely on long pick-and-pop jumpers just inside the three point line. His 3.3 rebound average per 15.2 minutes a game would be 9.9 rebounds per 45.6 minutes. So typical of Darius.
It’s also cool that Lithuania is 5-1, beating Serbia 100-90 on Wednesday, D-Song only nabbed two points, a board and four fouls in nine minutes. However, in their win against Turkey Songaila tallied 12 points, five rebounds and two assists in 22 minutes. A big offensive rebound and put-back late in the game was highlighted by NBAPlaybook.com:
I never hid the fact that I was a big fan of Darius Songaila when he was with the Wizards. I wouldn’t call it a man-crush, as Mike Miller once professed (via Twitter) for LeBron James, but let’s just say that I really hated to see Songaila go as part of the Mike Miller-Randy Foye/Etan Thomas-Oleksiy Pecherov-5th Pick (Ricky Rubio) trade with Minnesota this past summer.
Darius is an under-appreciated basketball player, and unfortunately, was under-appreciated by many Wizards fans. Not sure how people could not like a big man who set hard screens, displayed fundamentals that should make JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche jealous, hit outside jumpers, and who did pretty much anything asked without question.
Thank god Songaila didn’t get stuck in Minnesota. A couple of months after acquiring him, the Timberwolves sent Songaila and Bobby Brown to New Orleans for Darius’ former teammate, Antonio Daniels, and a 2014 second round pick. New Orleans, an already financially strapped team, obviously thought highly enough of Songaila to acquire his extra year of contract ($4.8 million in 2010-11) for the expiring contract of Daniels. New Orleans also had a need for front-court depth.
Songaila recently sprained his ankle and is slated for be out for around two weeks. But before that, he was averaging 7.2 points, 49.7 FG% and 3.0 rebounds in 18.7 minutes per game on the season. Songaila was even becoming a more valuable player off the bench for the Hornets, his minutes per game climbing from 16.1 in November to 18.0 in December to 20.1 in January to 25.0 in seven February games.
Darius Songaila, the coaches dream and a consummate teammate. I’ve made no secret that he’s been one of my favorite Wizards (if not ‘#1′) over the past couple of seasons … perhaps to the point where I’ll one day purchase a D-Song customized Wiz jersey and appear on Straight Cash Homey.net (although I’m not exactly the jersey wearing type). Songaila will undoubtedly be missed after being traded to Minnesota just prior June’s draft. But at least I can rest a little more comfortably now that he’s been moved to a good team in the New Orleans Hornets, where his contributions will be appreciated.
Songaila was unjustly criticized more than any other Wizard. Sure he was slow, white, and non-athletic … you know, the traits people only judge with a glance without digging below the surface. However, most who closely follow the Wizards realized the level of Songaila’s professionalism, leaving his detractors looking like an uneducated bunch.
Statistical critics will point to Songaila’s porous rebound numbers. And yes, for a 6’9″ bruiser, a dirty-working tough guy, they were far below where we would have liked them to be. His 5.4 rebounds/36 minutes last year was a career low, finishing below every Wizards big man, and a mere 0.3 points above Javaris Crittenton.
In the Basketball-Reference.com database, since TRB% (an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabs while he is on the floor) started being kept in ’70-71, only 14 players 6’9″ or taller have had seasons where they averaged between 19 and 20.6 minutes per game (Songaila = 19.8); less than 5.5 rebounds/36; and had a TRB% less than nine. The list ranges from your “non-big” bigs like James Worthy and Clifford Robinson (at age 40), to your traditional stiffs like James Edwards, Jarron Collins, Brian Scalabrine and Matt Freijie, to a big like Antoine Carr who was more concerned with scoring than anything else, to some cats you’ve probably never heard of before.
the prose of the poet is due north - flickr/robbed
brendan haywood was never 'that' into poetry - flickr/Keith Allison
Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas have had a welldocumented tumultuous relationship.
Now that Haywood’s braided ‘buddy’ is being shipped off to cleanse himself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka, is the Wizards’ blogging big man shedding any tears?
With Washington sending Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas, Oleksiy Pecherov and the 5th overall pick to Minnesota in exchange for Mike Miller and Randy Foye being reported by Chad Ford of ESPN, and both Wizards beat reporters, Mike Jones of the Washington Times and Michael Lee of the Washington Post, it’s time to get some initial thoughts blogged out.
If I know Ernie Grunfeld, he’s not done. Hell, he better not be done.
The drama is kind of exciting, knowing the President of Basketball Ops I’ve come to trust probably has more tricks up his sleeve. Judging by the roster after the trade, we might be calling Gruns “Mr. Wizard” if he pulls off something else nice to make the team complete (more on ‘complete’ in a second).
On another note, Thursday just lost a ton of luster … hey, at least the 25th is my birthday. Read more »
The Wizards were out of the game before it even started, and I really wish I had bet online. They came out lacking a ton of focus and turning the ball over….key ingredients to a disaster pie.
Cleveland was also aware of everything the Wiz wanted to do offensively before they did it. Javaris Crittenton would come down the court tapping his chin and Mo Williams would do the same. Guess the “intricate” offense (simplified for the youth, I know) of Ed Tapscott and Wes Unseld, Jr. won’t fool many.
To make matters worse, Washington was always a second behind on open passes, a telltale sign of the team going through the motions….a “we got this team in DC, so who cares about Cleveland?” type attitude.
Not to belittle the effort of some individuals, but as a team, it sucked a big one last night….what’s new? The game was no where close to the final 12 point margin.
Enjoy the screen shots.
Ed Tapscott was all smiles despite a 17-50 (now 51) record.
I really don’t care for Reggie Miller…..the television commentator. I certainly appreciated Reggie when he took down the hated Knicks with playoff heroics, once giving ol’ Spike Lee the choke sign, telling him to shut the eff up.
But Reggie on TV is just a spiraling, gangly, screeching, whiny sac of hot mess, and he’s often wrong too (well, maybe not often, but surely much more than should be allowed for someone in his position).
Reggie is no Mark Jackson, Doug Collins, Hubie Brown, or even his sister, Cheryl Miller, who is much, much better at her job.
I’ve heard some refer to Reggie as a “turd” and a “weenie bag”…and that’s just the censored opinion of the one person audience who is the tenant of my apartment.
Reggie Miller has frustrated many before, and he lived up to his reputation this past Thursday as the Cavs and Wizards matched-up on TNT.
Be sure and check out the Wiz-Cavs Screen Shot Memories on Bullets Forever. Things You Like To Hear From Gil Arenas
“I just want to flow through Antawn and Caron. They’ve been holding the ship down, so I’m not gonna come in here and step on their toes. I’m just come in here, get them the ball, get some of the young guys the ball, show them the right way to play basketball . . . I don’t need to go out here and score 30 because everybody knows I can do that. Like I’ve said before, my worst day, I can probably average 10 and 10.”
[Wizards Outlet] Songaila The Hero
Then [Brendan Haywood] paused, started grinning and yelled out “THEN IT WAS THE WHITE KNIGHT! DARIUS SONGAILA, THE WHITE KNIGHT! BACK IN THE GAME! WHITE KNIGHT!!” Songaila sitting next to Haywood getting his shoes on and gave a fist pump and grinned.
[Wizards Outlet]
Songaila isn’t one for emotion, but he really let loose on Thursday, hooting and hollering like he was playing for the Lithuanian national team, not in some relatively meaningless game for a lottery team. “You could feel the energy building up in the arena,” Songaila said. “We were all fired up. I think that definitely showed on the court.”
[Wizards Insider]
In a season that has shocked and awed….but in a bad way, as if Wizards fans were just your regular, innocent Iraqi civilian……there couldn’t be a better present heading into the off-season than Thursday’s win against the hated Cleveland Cavaliers.
(Well, a little lottery luck, or perhaps a win next Wednesday in Cleveland would be pretty effing gravy too.)
And while the dub can be attributed to an overall great team effort (Jamison being a warrior, Butler spilling Tuff Juice, Arenas creating with his presence, Haywood’s defensive communication, Young’s gutsy late layup, McGuire’s stat stuffing, McGee’s dunks, and Blatche being around and stuff), the consensus on the Bullets Forever game thread was that the game ball would go to my hero, Darius Songaila.
Songaila came up pretty big in the game’s early going, scoring eight points during his first 7:47 in the game (checked in for Haywood at the 2:12 mark of the first quarter).
But D-Song’s ‘Shine Time Swag’ came in the 4th quarter.
7:14:Andray Blatche gets blocked by Mehmet Okur…..a very sad scene to witness. Okur barely jumped, if at all, and Andray took it to the hoop like a four-year old girl chasing after a puppy.
4th Minute:JaVale McGee has got a couple nice offensive boards, but doesn’t use his body/leverage to his advantage. He’s trying to be all arms and hops. So on one, he missed a forced hook and on the second, he got blocked byOkur (who the hell is this guy, Mutombo?).
In the first…..Utah’s passing looks good (6 assists on 9 made FGs = Swiss Cheese Wiz D)….but Deron Williams has four turnovers (two on the first two possessions of the game) to only one assist.
2:00: McGee gets an offensive rebound with two hands, keeps the ball high with both hands on it, and gets fouled on a missed attempt….now that’s the way to do things.
Just like last Wednesday’s game against the NOLA Hornets, I attended Friday night’s game against the O-Town Magic and forgot to set my DVR to compose a game blog later. But twitter tweets provide a similar account and save me the time from having to watch a loss….again – suffered enough of that this season. So, here are the tweets from last night’s game with some guests.
BulletsForever: I wouldn’t hold it against the Magic if they tried to one-up the 3 point record they set against Sacramento. -Jake Friday, March 13, 2009 6:53 PM
Dennymayo: Apparently the wizards were called the zephyrs way back in the day, pre-bullets. Who would have thought, or cared? Friday, March 13, 2009 7:04 PM
erivera7: I feel bad for Nick Young, JaVale McGee, and Andray Blatche. Friday, March 13, 2009 7:12 PM
You may or may not know that I have an infatuation with Darius Songaila (chill out….it’s healthy and non-sexual).
D-Song is a baller-brawler, a hustler, and he doesn’t care what you think. Play him a lot, play him a little, he’s still going to give you the same effort night in and night out.
Unfortunately, Songaila doesn’t always get the recognition he deserves. He’s slow, too undersized to play center, and doesn’t rebound well — he’s averaging a career low 5.0 per 36 minutes this year (but if there was a hockey assist equivalent for rebounding, Songaila would kill).
But finally, someone with much more credibility than me is giving the Lithuanian his props.
Just look at those hot spots son! Bask in their warmth…but not too long, you might get a tan.
Not only did D-Song go off with an 8-9 FG, 19 point performance against the T-Wolves, but those stats are from his last TEN games.
Before the All-Star break, Darius “Dirty” Songaila played in 52 games, starting 10, and dropped 6.1 ppg on 50% shooting. In the 11 games since the break, all starts, he is draining 65.9% of his shots and scoring 11.5 points per.
A piece I wrote about Abe Pollin on NBCWashington.com has not exactly been well received. Oh well…. I still stand by my assertion that it’s time for team ownership to change hands. Nothing against Mr. Pollin, as I think he’s done some very great things for the franchise and for the city. However, every view of him need not be looked at through rose-colored glass. Speaking of….I’ve yet to read Washington Post (Mike Wise) and Washington Times (Tim Lemke) pieces on Polllin, but I’m about to.
The Wizards beat an inferior Timberwolves squad, 110-99, Minny’s 10th loss in a row, thanks to veteran swag and strong contributions from the mostly youthful bench.
The four oldest players available (Jamison – 32, Dixon – 30, Songaila – 30, and Butler – 28) combined to score 81 points, 73.6% of the total.
But that doesn’t take away from what Blatche, McGee, Crittenton, Young and McGuire contributed in the win. In fact, Young and McGee led the team in +/-, both finishing +11.
The Wizards bench outscored the Wolves bench 26-16 and also contributed 16 of the team’s 46 total rebounds. Paced By A Lithuanian
Darius Songaila came out on fire…..before you knew it, he had 11 points in the first 4:34, finishing the game on 8-9 FGs and 19 points, four off his career high.
Typical scene from modern day Oklahoma where the dust bowl continues.
Started to watch the beginning of the Wizards-Thunder game last night…but fell asleep, bloggers need naps too. I’d intended on waking up at some point and watching from the start…..but then thought, am I really missing anything?
So, the game blog picks at the end of the 2nd quarter. ———————————-
Why do they play “Whomp, There It Is!” when good things happen at OKC games? (well, when Russell Westbrook does good things) Bet that’s the only hip-hop song (wait, is that song considered hip-hop?) that’s “safe” for the white people in Oklahoma.
As soon as I turn the game on, you got 10-0 Thunder runs, Wizards matador defense, Russell Westbrook dunks…..36-35 OKC.
Of course, the Thunder are in a competition with the Wiz to see who can turn the ball over more.
[via EuroBasket 2011 profile]
