{John Wall looks for Kevin Seraphin - photo: K. Weidie}

{Wall looks for a trailing Andray Blatche - photo: K. Weidie}

In contrast to John Wall dropping a Rookie-Sophomore game record 22 assists on Friday night, an NBA team achieving single digits in assists over the course of a regular season game is a pretty rare feat. According to the Basketball-Reference.com database, it’s occurred just 194 times since the 1986-87 season (the extent of BBR’s game box score database). So in roughly 0.3-percent of NBA games over the last 25 seasons. And of course, your Washington Wizards did just that on Wednesday night in Orlando, tallying a mere eight dimes divided up amongst Kirk Hinrich, who had three, along with one each from and John Wall, Kevin Seraphin, Josh Howard, Andray Blatche and Hilton Armstrong.

Teams have now put up a single-digit assist total five times this season. The Orlando Magic dropped  five assists in a 26 point loss to the Miami Heat in just their second game on the 2010-11 season (the day after Orlando blew out the Wizards by 29 points in their season home opener). The Magic also had just nine team assists in a 80-74 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on December 6, 2010. The Portland Trailblazers had eight assists in a 100-86 loss to the New York Knicks on January 11, 2011. And surprisingly enough, Chris Paul’s New Orleans Hornets put up a league season low four assists for a team in a 88-70 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on December 12, 2010.

The Wizards last achieved the single-digit assist mark with nine on December 23, 2008 against the Charlotte Bobcats. That game, Mike James started at the point and went 4-16 from the field with one assist. DeShawn Stevenson and Nick Young were the only guards off the bench and Caron Butler led the team with four assists.

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The faces on the cardboard classics below say: “Hey man, we’re trying over here.”

I’m not sure I believe them all. Or maybe one is trying more than the others … at least as much as a frozen facial expression can indicate. But who’s trying the most? Or which player’s face from the past provides the most hope in the present for the future? Study carefully and vote in the poll below.

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This Skybox basketball card commemorates Darrell Walker‘s rebounding prowess as a guard for the Washington Bullets in the early 1990s. In ’90-91, Walker led all guards with 7.8 rebounds per 36 minutes, amongst those who played at least 15 minutes per game and achieved at least 400 rebounds. When strictly looking at per game stats, according to the search results at Basketball-Reference.com, Tyrone Corbin of the Minnesota Timberwolves averaged more rebounds per game as a guard, but he was more a swing-forward to Walker’s true ability to play the point. [Note: Rounded, both Walker and Magic Johnson averaged 7.0 boards per game in '90-91, but Walker was a fraction above Magic.]

In Washington Bullets/Wizards franchise history, according to BBR, only four guards have played in more than 60 games in a season, averaged over 25 minutes per game and over five rebounds per 36 minutes. Those players were: Larry Hughes (’02-03 to ’04-05), Michael Jordan (’01-02 and ’02-03), Darrell Walker (’88-89 to ’90-91) and Earl Monroe (’67-’68).

From the BBR database spanning from 1946-47 to the present day, only two NBA guards have appeared in more than 70 games, had a Total Rebounding Percentage (TRB%: an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor) above 13-percent and a Defensive Rebounding Percentage (DRB%) above 20-percent.

Those two guards are Jason Kidd (2006-07: 13.2 – TRB%; 20.8 – DRB%) and Darrell Walker (1989-90: 13.4 – TRB%; 20.4 – DRB%).

I mention all of this not just to put a classic basketball card of a guard yearning for a rebound on display, but to also note that this season’s Washington Wizards are the tied with the Phoenix Suns for the second worst DRB% in the entire NBA at just 70.6-percent. The Golden State Warriors secure an estimated league-worst 68.5-percent of the defensive rebounds available to them.

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[People joked how Saturday's win in Washington over the Celtics was a road game, but Andray Blatche found some friendly fans courtside to celebrate with after the game ... I doubt he'll get the same reception from Spike Lee in Madison Square Garden tonight.]

{photo: K. Weidie}

The most losses an NBA team has achieved in an 82-game NBA schedule?

The 1990-91 Sacramento Kings went 1-40 on the road … the 2010-11 Washington Wizards are halfway there, in the loss column at least.

But as history is, well, history … the one road win for those Kings came against the Washington Bullets in Landover, MD on November 20, 1990. The zinger is that the 34-year old Bernard King had 45 points that night, but the Bullets fell 87-82 — they played in front of a reported 6,105 fans at the Capital Centre (from Sam Davis’ game report in the Baltimore Sun).

Only two other Bullets scored in double figures, Darrell Walker had 10 and Harvey Grant had 14. The rest of the team pitched in a whole 13 points, seven from the bench. On the Kings’ side, the late Wayman Tisdale led five Sacramento players in double figures — including Lionel Simmons (14), Travis Mays (13), Rory Sparrow (11), and Antoine Carr had 15 points off the bench.

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Ted Leonsis has been extra attentive toward celebrating the history of his new pro basketball franchise. There was the establishment of an official team alumni association back in early October 2010, headed by Bob Dandridge, among several other events featuring franchise greats — such as alumni appearances at the team’s training camp fan fest, having Earl Monroe speak to the team at training camp, co-hosting viewing parties with alumni association members at Kevin Grevey’s restaurant in Falls Church, VA, recognizing various association members (Dandridge, Grevey, Jack Marin, Kevin Porter and Michael Adams) at a home game in December and having Elvin Hayes visit with the team on a recent two-game road trip in Texas. The older fans I’ve spoken with absolutely love this stuff.

Now, the team has announced that they will unveil a new trophy case near section 100 before Friday’s game versus the New Jersey Nets. The case, according to the team press release, will feature new graphics and a refurbished Tiffany & Co. trophy celebrating the 1978 championship. A picture of the case, courtesy of the Wizards’ official FaceBook page, can be seen above. Another can be found on the Wizards.com website.

Leonsis is going above and beyond the call of duty, which makes a recent visit from Peter Vecsey’s slinging fecal matter regarding an inaccurate report of his that Unseld was “stripped” of his season tickets by Leonsis all the more curious … or not, because it’s Peter F-ing Vecsey. Dan Steinberg covered this incident extensively on the DC Sports Bog and Leonsis posted a response on his blog as well. Essentially, through this incident, Vescey further exposed himself for the ugly wart that he is … which we pretty much already knew. So, who cares? Vescey just needs to go away.

Moving on past that noise, in my research of the forgotten 1976-77 NBA dunk contest, I came across a YouTube user, WiltatKansas, who had posted a couple videos of Wes Unseld in high school. The first video below is of the 1963 Kentucky state championship between Seneca (Unseld’s high school) and Dunbar. The second is of the 1964 Kentucky state championship featuring Seneca versus Breckenridge County. Seneca won both games.

The footage is pretty grainy (the first video is in black and white), and there is no sound, but it’s not hard to spot big Wes wearing No. 31 in home white in both videos. (BTW, Free Darko/Bethlehem Shoals came across this last December and I’m only now remembering.)

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Fact: No one composing this blog post knows where Christian Laettner is today. I’m sure someone knows, just not me. Here are a couple of pictures from when Laettner was last seen playing for the Washington, D.C. professional basketball franchise, with whom he appeared 206 games over three-plus seasons…

(disclaimer: most, some, or all of these pictures have come here courtesy of the Internet, a place(s) that you can get to by typing letters in the The Google.)

Here’s Laettner shooting a lay-up, except for the wrong way:

Here’s Laettner’s mug shot-esque photograph in a retro Washington Bullets uniform while he’s about to sneeze:

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[Looking south down 5th St. NW from Grant Circle]

The Wizards are 0-6 on the road so far on the season, but they are treating faithful fans to a 5-2 record at home. The last time the team started 0-6 away from home came in 2008-09, they won road game No. 7 against the New Jersey Nets on December 2, 2008. The worst before that came in 2006-07 when the Wizards started 0-8 on the road before beating the Knicks in New York on December 6 … and actually, that represents the worst road start in franchise history.

The 1961-62 Chicago Packers, technically the first season in franchise history, actually started their season 0-8 “away from home” — in that their seventh game of the season versus the New York Knicks took place in the neutral territory of Detroit, Michigan. The Packers won their eighth “true” road game, ninth “away from home” against those same Knicks in New York on November 21, 1961.

Of course, current team personnel doesn’t consider those two seasons in Chicago (’61-62 as the Packers and ’62-63 as the Zephyrs) as part of the franchise’s history that counts.  If they did, we’d be celebrating the franchise’s 50th season in existence this year. Instead, as a member of the Wizards’ PR team informed me a while ago, the franchise’s 50th anniversary will be celebrated two years from now, marking half a century since the franchise arrived in Baltimore, instead of when they actually started bouncing balls on courts.

So, with history potentially on the line, the Wizards have 10 road games left in 2010 — most are daunting, some not so much. Here’s the rundown: Read more »

What do you write after a team shoots 65.8% (50-76 field-goals) on their way to a 114-83 win over the Wizards?

Chalk it up to the Boston Celtics being a great-passing veteran team at home and the Wizards being a non-passing, relatively inexperienced team on the road and move on, I suppose.

Oh, lest I forget a stat fact that you’ll surely be made aware of by others: the Boston Celtics had 32 assists, the Washington Wizards had 31 made field-goals.

But let’s go back to this field-goal percentage thing. It’s kind of like winning in overtime when you didn’t deserve it … a win is a win.

Sure, the Celtics were pretty hot and likely would have been scorching the nets against most teams on this very night on their own parquet floor. But 65% is 65% … this game won’t be exempt from the Wizards’ defensive statistical record no matter how in the zone the Celtics were.

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Not too long ago we took a look at some of the worst shooters in Bullets/Wizards franchise history. Now, especially since shooting is such a concern, we’ll take a look at some the best shooters in team history, specifically from the three-point distance.

[Basketball Court - Georgia Avenue/Howard University - photo: K. Weidie]

Last season was the 31th anniversary of the three-point shot in the NBA. Well, sorta. The three-point line was implemented on a trial basis for the 1979-80 season and set into permanent rule for the 1980-81 season. So, perhaps technically this season is the 31th anniversary of the three-point shot in the NBA. Nonetheless, stats on the shot have been kept for the previous 31 seasons and are available thanks to Basketball-Reference.com.

Kevin Grevey of the Washington Bullets hit the first three-point bucket in franchise history, on opening night against the Philadelphia 76ers at home on October 12, 1979. Evidently there is some dispute as to whether Grevey hit the first three in NBA history; Chris Ford of the Boston Celtics is usually credited with accomplishing this feat, which occurred on the same night.

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[Shaw Rec. Center - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

In mid-September, ESPN.com contributor Tom Haberstroh made an attempt to determine the five worst players in the franchise history of each NBA team [ESPN Insider]. The requirements, along with the implementation of John Hollinger’s PER, were:

“… a player needed to have played at least 10 minutes per contest over the course of at least 100 career games with the franchise. Furthermore, we’ve added the “Bruce Bowen Corollary” to exempt players who started for championship teams.”

And the list of distinguished gentlemen for the Bullets/Wizards franchise:

And while a standard qualification is necessary to measure across all teams, it’s still subjective. Any of us could find other players just as bad, or worse, using the database of Basketball-Reference.com. Today, I’ll focus on bad shooting players in franchise history.

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Remember former Washington Wizard John Coker? Of course you don’t (especially since he’s wearing a Phoenix Suns jersey in the image below).

[Note: This appears to be the only picture of John Coker on the entire world wide web, so please excuse me if I've "stolen" it from use amongst several websites. To be safe, I've done some artsy-fatsy stuff with it using a filter in Photoshop.]

Not many even remember this guy’s entire NBA career, which is a tad interesting, and very brief.

The four-year product of Boise State went undrafted in 1995 as a 7’1″ center, but was picked up by the Phoenix Suns as a free-agent in September. He only played 11 minutes over five games in his rookie season, but that was evidently enough to get him a two-year contract with Phoenix in July of ’96. Then he was waived by the Suns before the end of October ’96.

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ESPN.com currently has this “Franchise Five” feature going on for all NBA teams. Basically, they have an interactive page where visitors can vote for the “best” player in franchise history at each position (PG, SG, SF, PF, C).

Here are the candidates:

Point Guard:
Gilbert Arenas, Rod Strickland, Archie Clark, Kevin Porter and Michael Adams

Shooting Guard:
Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Jeff Malone, Phil Chenier, Kevin Loughery and Don Ohl

Small Forward:
Bernard King, Caron Butler, Bob Dandridge and Calbert Cheaney

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When you want to relive your favorite NBA moments (like the time Stromile Swift murdered Tyrus Thomas), where do you head? YouTube, of course.

Now, if you were interested in seeing highlights of Hall of Famer Gus Johnson, well, you won’t find anything more than a few snippets. Until recently, Johnson was a player who never got the notoriety nor the respect deserved from contemporary audiences. It is so hard to praise, and even harder to remember, someone you have never seen. Never known.

Time makes forgetting easy. In explaining why LeBron James need not be afraid of Michael Jordan, J.A. Adande once wrote:

And just because you might remember the old days doesn’t mean everyone does. There are Chicago kids celebrating their 12th birthdays this month who weren’t even born the last time the Bulls won. He has the chance to win over a whole new generation of Bulls fans who would then ask, “What was the big deal about that bald-headed No. 23 guy?”

What was the big deal about No. 25? Without further ado, I present to you: Gus Johnson, in excerpts from around the web.

[Bullets superstar Gus Johnson and his custom Cadillac. Among the amenities are a leather interior, a TV set and a license plate that lets the world know. - Baltimore Sun]

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While Andray Blatche will be celebrating his 24th birthday a bit early this evening, there are a couple former Bullets/Wizards who are actually turning an additional year in their lives on today’s date, August 18. Now, these aren’t franchise greats by any means — in fact, one didn’t make it to 60 games in Washington and the other came just short of 100 games — but both hold places near and dear to the fun-loving hearts of those who have suffered with this futile team.

So here goes …

[image via DC Sports Bog, David Bergman - AP]

Isaac Austin turns 41 today. Yes, the same Ike Austin who the Wizards traded for in August 1999 in exchange for Terry Davis, Jeff McInnis, Tim Legler and Ben Wallace. Austin was fresh off a 49-game 1998-99 campaign with the Orlando Magic where the center shot 40.8-percent and averaged 9.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.7 blocks and 2.3 turnovers during 25.7 minutes per game … I guess those numbers were impressive to someone at the time. His 6.7 points and 4.8 rebounds he averaged in 19.9 minutes over 59 games with Washington in 1999-2000 (hey! his REB% improved! — 10.9 to 13.8)  earned him the famed Ike Austin Cheese Boot and being made fun of years later for loving donuts. Austin was traded to the Vancouver Grizzlies for Obinna Ekezie, Felipe Lopez, Cherokee Parks and Dennis Scott in August 1999.

But don’t feel that bad Wizards fans. In a sense, Magic fans should feel worse, even though they did pawn Austin off on the Wiz (like I said, “in a sense”). In ’95-96 the Magic won 60 games and made the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the Chicago Bulls in a 4-0 sweep. Then Shaq bolted for L.A. and left Penny Hardaway all on his own.

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[Photo via SI Vault]

Manute Bol spent about all of his time as a Washington Bullet before I became a fan of the franchise upon moving to the District in 1990. I barely remember his six minutes and two games during a second stint with the team in the 1993-94 season.

Still, his lore as an NBA player, who was really much, much more as a person, lives on with me and many others. So while I unfortunately can’t recount any personal memories of Bol, who passed away at age 47 yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, I suggest you remember his legacy by reading the links and watching the videos below.

From the Washington Post’s must-read obituary by Matt Schudel:

When the Bullets drafted him in the second round in 1985, he was measured at 7 feet 6¾ inches in his bare feet — usually rounded up to 7-7 — and he weighed a mere 190 pounds. Mr. Bol had limited basketball skills, but with a fingertip-to-fingertip wingspan of 8 feet 6 inches, he proved to be unusually adept at one aspect of the game: blocking opponents’ shots. Standing flat-footed, he could extend his hand above the rim of the basket 10 feet off the floor.

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