{video: Arenas & Jamison on the Wizards’ struggles and facing Eddie Jordan and the Sixers}

• As you are aware, team owner Abe Pollin passed away today, which certainly sets a different tone on reporting about the game. Sad that the man had to die amidst his team’s 3-9 record and perceived bickering among the players. A ton of people spoke about Mr. Pollin before the game (including Wes Unseld, Phil Chenier, Eddie Jordan, Ernie Grunfeld, and obviously the players). I’ll have more on Mr. Pollin’s passing later.
• DeShawn Stevenson described the feeling around the locker room as a state of shock, but the mood is still to go out, play to win, and play with respect.
• Andray Blatche dedicated this game and the rest of the season to Mr. Pollin. “Whatever is holding us back, we gotta get over it for him,” he said.
• The previous storyline of tonight’s game was the return of old coach Eddie Jordan, exactly a year to the day that Jordan was fired after handing out Thanksgiving turkeys to the needy at a team sponsored event.
• A year ago I wrote this post: “The End of The Eddie Jordan Era: Say Goodbye to the Fall Guy” and this a week later.
• Tonight, at a team sponsored event after the game, the currently injured Mike Miller is scheduled to hand out turkeys in conjunction with the Wizards Care community organization.
• Spoke with DeShawn about Jordan before the game. He said their relationship was cool because Eddie gave him an opportunity to start. Stevenson said he had no problem even though some of his teammates do.
• Andray Blatche, on the other hand, said, “Eddie Jordan is not in his mindset right now,” but did express that he’d probably work a bit harder with his old coach in the house.
• Michael Lee of the WaPost has more on Jordan’s return via Wizards Insider and via Wizards Outlet, Mike Jones of the WaTimes reports on Jordan’s surprise at the Wizards’ struggles.
• You can read a pre-game Q&A I did with Philadunkia, an ESPN TrueHoop Network Sixers blog.
• The first time Jordan, as coach of the Wizards, met his previous team, the New Jersey Nets, he lost 98-85 (Nov. 1, 2003). For more on his full career, read this: “The Epic Tale of Eddie Jordan: Connections, Relationships, and the Basketball Community.”
• With all that’s going on, the Wizards really need this win.

{flickr/Keith Allison}

Episode #4 of the Dagger Report (a Washington Wizards podcast) is here.

This week, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and I talk about the ways and means of Gilbert Arenas amidst early season struggles. To join us for his conversation, which was recorded on Sunday evening, is Jake Whitacre, contributing editor at Bullets Forever and managing proprietor of Gilbertology.net.

The second segment, recorded on Saturday afternoon, features Jordan Sams of SB Nation’s 76ers blog, Liberty Ballers. Here, we discuss Eddie Jordan’s first year in Philly and the troubles of the Sixers (which aren’t as bad as those of the Wizards).

Enjoy.

Read more »

Last night’s 90-89 win against the Sixers in Philly got a bit goofy toward the end. After the game, Flip Saunders said, “That’s what they call a learning experience,” which sort of means, ‘We better not pull any of that B.S. during a regular season game.’

What exactly did Flip see? Well, let’s start with JaVale McGee.

One thing JaVale McGee CAN’T do is finger-roll

I almost knew it was going to happen when I saw McGee snag a loose ball with a tie game, around 16 seconds left, and an open court with only one man to beat.

He thought he could try to be a hero. A true WTF moment.

Read more »

flickr/Keith Allison

If the Washington Wizards prefer to lie amongst the weeds and surprise everyone, a panel of 53 ESPN experts is trying to make that happen (despite the Wizards being voted by the same ESPN panel to have the biggest turnaround this upcoming season).

Tied with both Philadelphia and Toronto to achieve 39 wins, and finish seventh through ninth in the East (the averages actually break out to PHI – 39.4, WAS – 39.1, TOR – 39.0), the ESPN panel believes that the Wizards will be fighting just to make the playoffs.

Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix and The Wages of Wins Journal both seem to think the Wiz will be significantly better than sub-40 wins, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. Maybe some of the ESPN experts think the Wizards’ defense won’t be up to par, or that their frontcourt is too thin and they desperately need an upgrade. Of course, when Mike Prada of Bullets Forever wrote the two previously linked pieces, he had improving the team to compete for a championship in mind, not so they can solidify a playoff position. Still, both defense and frontcourt are valid areas of concern.

No one will argue that the Wizards are definitively behind Cleveland, Boston, and Orlando when trying to predict the East. And with the improvements Atlanta has made this summer, it’s even hard to put the Wiz past the Hawks. But thinking that the Heat, Bulls, and 76ers will all be better than Washington is absolutely absurd. Let’s take a glance at what those team have done this summer: Read more »

When I hear about Flip Saunders saying he’s a teacher before a coach, about how he and his assistants (namely Sam Cassell) have been working with the young guys, that he, being an ‘offensive mind’, has developed a mini-playbook for the summer league team and that he’ll be observing from a close distance on-site in Vegas, I think, “Boy, isn’t that refreshing?”

It’s comforting that a new, veteran coach, known to keep a tight bench and favor elders in his rotation, has arrived in D.C. with the mind-set of bringing along the young fellas. Not only does Flip believe that children are our future, but he practices it, knowing the jobs of both him, and the man who hired him, Ernie Grunfeld, depend on how they develop the team from top to bottom.

Mike Prada recently expressed a similar sentiment regarding Saunders in a pre-summer league post on Bullets Forever.

But in patting Flip on the back for his involvement with the youth, no one should be pointing ‘shame on your’ fingers towards former coach Eddie Jordan. Yes, Jordan used different tactics with his young players. And from the outside perspective/opinion of many (not including myself), those tactics were less than ideal.

But the fact is, we’ll never really know the true difference between Jordan’s player development and that of Saunders. An initial thought would be that Jordan was more no-nonsense, treated boys like men, and was less tolerant of mental breakdowns in concentration. Seemingly in contrast, Saunders has come in with encouragement and positive thinking.

Read more »

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, almost since Eddie Jordan got fired from his gig with the Wiz. Well, now that he’s at the helm of the Philadelphia 76ers, this is an appropriate time as ever to publish.

My feeling is that a majority of Wizards fans think Jordan was unjustly fired (or at least weren’t dancing in the streets when he departed), and that even more wish him well.

Count me among both of these groups. Although, when he was terminated, I wasn’t like, “OMG! What an injustice!”

I was more disappointed with the entire landscape of the team, and later resigned to it just being ‘one of those things’, and in the end, maybe it was best that both parties moved on. But we’ll never really know.

In any case, here goes my tribute to Jordan’s basketball career (to date).

Eddie Jordan was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers out of Rutgers with the 11th pick of the 2nd round (33rd overall), in the 1977 NBA Draft. Ernie Grunfeld was selected with the 11th overall pick out of Tennessee by the Milwaukee Bucks in that same draft.

Read more »

Did the Caps depress you this weekend? Did you spend time drinking on it?
Sorry.
The series isn’t over,
but you’re always welcome to pull up next to a Wizards fan at the bar.

First a couple Wizards-related pieces I wrote for NBC Washington (shameless self promotion):

“[Ernie Grunfeld is] panicking and that whole franchise is panicking, they are a dumb blockbuster trade waiting to happen,” said ESPN columnist Bill Simmons.
ESPN Columnist Wants To Fleece Wizards [NBC Washington]

From Miami, to throwing the opening pitch at a Nationals game, to La-La Land, Caron Butler is on a tour, going each and every place with a mic in his hand .
Caron Butler’s Championship Campaign [NBC Washington]

Speaking of … in case you missed Butler’s redemptive throw [via DC Sports Bog]:

Read more »

I’m a huge Antawn Jamison fan. He’s a classy dude, I’ve nicknamed him ‘The Gentlemen’ (hasn’t caught on), and the women folk say he’s got eyebrows for days.

Jamison is the current patriarchal cornerstone of the franchise. This year’s team MVP? Unquestionably. He possesses the never-quit attitude that should be infecting the locker room via leadership by example … Jamison is quite the opposite of past clubhouse cancers, like Christian Laettner.

But sometimes, everyone needs to be questioned, Jamison being no exception.

Jamison’s struggles on defense are no secret. He has aging lateral movement, and as discovered this year, he’s not an adequate substitute for Brendan Haywood‘s post defensive communication. Are we to just accept Jamison’s “unique” scoring ability, rebounding numbers, and minimal turnovers as big pluses? Or should Flip Saunders seek improved defense out of the starting lineup?

Read more »

Getting ready to watch the ‘Battle of Two Interim Coaches‘ in Philly, and wanted to reflect back to last year’s NBA basketball court history between the District of Columbia and the City of Brotherly Love.

Game 10 in DC:
With Haywood in early foul trouble, Blatche steped in and caught fire, scoring 9 points in the 1st quarter and 16 by half as the Wiz took a 60-44 lead going into the locker room. To start the 3rd, the old DeShawn Stevenson got cooking. Haywood sprained his ankle and left for the night, but that was okay because the Wiz built a 30 point lead…..which was whittled down to 15 by the end of the game. The Wizards won and were led by a combined 48 points from this season’s whipping boys, Stevenson and Blatche. 116-101 DC over Philly

Game 16 in Philly:

Eddie Jordan was fired just a week ago. On the road at the time, I found out the news via email from Jake The Snake and began to hack out a post, The End of the Eddie Jordan Era: Say Goodbye to the Fall Guy.

Like many, I was surprised, but not necessarily shocked. It wasn’t until that night, as I sat in the Superdome for a great Monday night showdown between the New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers, full of raw oysters, crab legs and Ketel-tonics, that it really hit me.

“Sh*t!,” I randomly said aloud. (well, random to those around, but not to me)

“What’s wrong….what happened?,” my dad quickly replied.

“Eddie Jordan has been fired………and the Wizards suck.” (we’d already discussed the axing in detail, so the topic was not new)

Read more »

Win #1 is in the books for Eddie Tapscott…..thank god. Sure I’m disappointed that Eddie Jordan had to go, but at the same time….I suppose Eddie Jordan had to go. No sense in doing anything other than fully supporting the man in place, whether it be for the long haul or the short term.

But a win is what Tapscott really needed, almost more so than the team. He needed to get the monkey off his back so that nerves could be calmed. The pressure on the Wizards’ coach to win simply did not dissolve with Eddie Jordan’s departure, rather, it was transferred to his successor.

Now, surely a lot of people are giddy over last night’s win…and I fully realize that things could have gone entirely different. But we can’t judge the history of this battle until we get further along in the war. Did all the energy and effort suddenly appear because of Tapscott’s presence, or Eddie Jordan’s absence? Was it the ineptitude of the opposition? Or was it a ‘We got our coach fired, is it now time to be fed up with this sh*t?’ Q&A session with the team in the mirror?

I personally can’t get psyched-up about a single victory. I’ll go with Jim Zorn on this one and try to stay medium. Naturally, such a win sparks two immediate questions: Why couldn’t the Wizards/Andray Blatche do this before?, and, Can the team, not just Andray Blatche, build on this in the immediate future? Stay tuned to find out.

Wizards-Warriors Game 12 Blog on Bullets Forever

Read more »

We now know the scapegoat threshold on an NBA season in the District of Columbia: 10 losses against a solo win. As head coach of the Washington Wizards, Eddie Jordan is no more. If the WizzNutzz only had the foresight to include this among their Screaming Headlines…..

Someone had to take the fall. The Wizards crack medical staff? Well, they can’t exactly control the environment in which they work, but by most accounts, they are no medical staff of the Phoenix Suns.

The most glaring problem for the Wizards during Jordan’s tenure was bottom-of-the-barrel defense. Despite these facts surrounding the team’s stars: Gilbert Arenas, a bad defender; Caron Butler, a bad defender; Antawn Jamison, a bad defender; Antonio Daniels, a bad defender……when the pattern of defensive inefficiency creeps into its sixth consecutive year, the ultimate responsibility falls on the shoulders of the head coach.

All the tinkering and gimmicks in the world…..match-ups zones, doubling the ball off screens, the scheming of Randy Ayers (and to a lesser extent, Flip Saunders, who made a cameo in training camp as an instructor of zone defense)…….could not circumvent the fact that it’s easier to get rid of a coach than make roster adjustments.

Unfortunately, many Washingtonians are rejoicing with election night enthusiasm at their cubicles today. Can’t exactly blame them for doing so, it’s just unfortunate that it had to arrive at this point. I have been a staunch supporter of Eddie Jordan through and through, but was even beginning to wonder myself if Jordan getting Sam Cooke’d was the right move to make.

Read more »

Not to say the Washington Wizards aren’t already a punch-line among NBA circles, but how long until NBA-oblivious Ma and Pa Kettle are watching the last days of Jay Leno as he screeches out a joke in a sporadic high tone involving approval ratings and the names of George W. Bush and Eddie Jordan? Or hearing a Letterman quip about finding the Wizards mascot in a Chinatown alley, beaten and battered, covered in “Change We Can Believe In” bumper stickers, only to find out the assault was staged by G-Wiz himself?

Read more »

I suppose I could go on some diatribe about the Washington Wizards and toughness, rebounding, offensive execution, and perhaps even coaching, but what’s the point? That’s not to say I’ve become languid about the team, or even the season. It’s just not always worth the effort to harp on the same ol’, same ol’.

I also don’t subscribe to Ivan Carter’s theory that everyone played out of their ass last year and are incapable of doing so again as individuals. Basically, his sub-prime loan comparison doesn’t hold water in my opinion.

The best way I could explain it was by comparing the team to a subprime loan. Follow me if you can. The Wizards lived above their means last season, meaning that they managed to make payments on a playoff house because they all played out of their minds. They got career years from just about every player on the roster — Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood, Roger Mason, Antonio Daniels, DeShawn Stevenson, and even Eddie Jordan coached his tail off — and they survived and thrived without all star Gilbert Arenas.

Uhh…ok, so is the comparison to sub-prime loans or to the people who are doing the borrowing? I’ll assume it’s the borrowers since that’s the path Carter continues to go down in his post. It’s a reasonable assumption that when someone lives above their means, they are being reckless and irresponsible. The marks of sub-prime loans, for the most part, have checkered financial pasts. Thus, they serve as victims of predatory lending because they can only borrow money if the loan is attached to a bunch of ill-advised catches, such as high interest rates.

Carter’s sub-prime (or borrower) comparison doesn’t work because I don’t think any of the Wizards players came into the 07-08 season with bad credit ratings. On the contrary, they previously showed the potential for growth and built upon that. There’s no reason to assume that last year’s outstanding play of each Wizard was an anomaly that could not be repeated. Sure Jamison and Daniels are of age for a downturn, but you can’t say that Haywood and Butler are incapable of playing at the same level (Haywood’s injury notwithstanding). It also must be considered that Daniels is currently dealing with knee and wrist issues, and so far this season, Jamison’s PER is the highest it’s been in a Wizards uniform (2nd highest in his career).

Read more »

So the big news: JaVale McGee and Dee Brown will be in the starting lineup for Etan Thomas and Juan Dixon. Brown is a little bit of a surprise as his play this year has been spotty, and uneventful when he does see the court. Plus, we know that Juan Dixon had built somewhat of an alley-oop rapport with McGee.

However, Dixon may be better coming off the bench, and Brown is a better defender. Still no Nick Young in the starting lineup, but if I had to choose a starting experiment, it would be McGee before Young.

What scares me: Atlanta is one of the best three point shooting teams in the league.

Q1

McGee easily wins the tip over Pachulia….on the first possession for the Wiz, the Hawks double Jamison and give Brown all the room in the world to shoot the three….he misses left.

Read more »