Posts for category ‘JaVale McGee’

JaVale McGee tends to be quick to leave his feet on pump fakes. You’ve probably already noticed that opponents are increasingly using ball fakes that will get the JaValevator a floor above them and then rising up when his cord is cut and the elevator gets the shaft. After the game, McGee expressed that he was willing to give up one foul for five misses. Lovely.

It’s also worth noting that McGee had a career high 20 points in a Wizards 105-99 loss to the Atlanta Hawks. JaVale was very active on the offensive end, proving he can be a great weapon for a transition team, or one that sets solid screens and has a point guard who can penetrate the lane. The elevator went eight floors up with that number in dunks to go with nine rebounds, five fouls and one turnover. Lovelier.

Inexperienced players just need to learn quick trigger jumping is not always a good idea, especially when Al Horford knows it’s coming. This is evidenced below. Photos courtesy of Adam, the new site photographer/media guy. Read more »

Washington fans are used to seeing JaVale McGee do a Presidential salute after dunks, a celebratory tradition that originated when President Barack Obama came to see his hometown Chicago Bulls play, and lose, to the Wizards at the Verizon Center on February 27, 2009.

On Sunday against the Celtics, McGee unveiled a new dunk celebration …

The Fish Out of Water.

Now if he could just stop behaving like a fresh fish.

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I managed to survive the recent heavy snowfall in D.C., and all the cutesy names people were calling it — #SNOMG, Snowpocalypse, etc. — but in the process, somehow found myself taking a little break from writing/blogging. But now I’m back, and hopefully a bit refreshed and motivated to keep on keepin’ on through the rest of this season nightmare.

Apologies if, at times, I tend to get a little negative/overboard on this site, or on Twitter (mostly Twitter) … and no, I’m not writing this as a reaction to JaVale McGee, via Twitter, dubbing myself, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, and Michael Lee of the Washington Post, “haters” after Friday’s game against the Magic, also suggesting that we should work for TMZ. (JaVale did this after re-Tweeting something that each of us had Tweeted, links below). Actually, I’m not reacting to anything anyone has said to me, just doing a little self-check here.

But back to McGee for second, I really don’t think anyone was “hating” on him, but rather commenting on game observations/understandably reflecting on frustrations. But if the feelings of young JaVale got hurt, then I suppose apologies are in order. I responded to his call-out with a couple Tweets of my own, nothing defensive, but mostly with a some classic music tracks. Others chose to remain silent with, perhaps, the intent of approaching McGee in person. All and all, it’s really a shoulder shrugging, no biggie situation. In other words, I could care less.

But back to my, at brief times, penchant for negativity (again, this is mostly on Twitter). It happens, oh well.  One must find a way to vent about witnessing frustrating, unacceptable effort while not going overboard … in addition to acting as a balance to the always positive light emitted from official team outlets (or the non-bias of main-stream media outlets). That’s what each of those entities are supposed to do, but speaking specifically in terms of the former, there are only so many ways to polish up a pile of crap before giving up because of the stink.

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First, JaVale McGee swatted four shots last Saturday against the Kings to surpass 100 blocks for his career.  Now this:

I’d say things are looking up for the kid. Now if he can further prove his worth in Flip Saunders’ zone defense, he just might get more burn on the court.

Relevant Stat: Wizards team blocks per 48 minutes goes up 5% when McGee is on the floor. [82games.com]

Video: JaVale McGee on achieving his 100th career block:

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Before they lost to the Thunder and before Flip Saunders got extremely perturbed, bumping a 40-game evaluation period down to 30 games when it was originally 20 games, I asked various Wizards what was their favorite present that they gave someone else for Christmas/the holidays. Several of them, such as Dominic McGuire, Fabricio Oberto, Mike James, Mike Miller, JaVale McGee, Nick Young, Andray Blatche, Caron Butler, and Gilbert Arenas answered.

It’s just Wizards being Wizards y’all.

At 10-20, with more than a record’s reason to be distraught, i.e., read this piece on Hardwood Paroxysm by Matt Moore, people ask me if it’s hard covering the team. I say …

1) I’ll always love the Wizards.

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Just released: Team President Ernie Grunfeld announced that the Wizards would exercise the contract options on Nick Young and JaVale McGee. Young will be retained for his fourth season (2010-11) for an estimated $2,630,503, and McGee for his third season (also 10-11) for an estimated $1,601,040. [Salary Source: HoopsHype]

Now on to the preview of tonight’s game … back to the ATL already?

The Wizards were in Atlanta just over 10 days ago for a preseason game that was disappointing … to put it simply. Of course, they were without Gilbert Arenas and Mike Miller due to the flu, and Antawn Jamison due to a shoulder subluxation. Still, lack of effort is lack of effort.

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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.

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Lost amongst the mucky sounds and words regarding last night’s stinker versus the Hawks was this sweet ‘JaVale McGee block, Mike James recovery, pass to Nick Young who tips, gathers, and throws the ball off the glass for a McGee dunk’ combo [via Bethlehem Shoals at The Baseline].

Just watch …

Also, Comcast SportsNet has been doing a ‘My Life 365‘ series on Caron Butler.

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A scene from glorious Grand Rapids, MI - {flickr/OZinOH}

Listening to basketball on the radio is hard … damn hard. Hard like drinking warm milk and eating boiled eggs in the hot July sun while getting bit by mosquitoes and suffering from a tequila and red wine hangover.

Ok, well maybe it’s not that bad. Wizards radio guys Glenn Consor and Dave Johnson do a helluva job keeping team faithful updated with developments.

Still, when I hear Consor officially declaring Gilbert Arenas to be “back”, indicating that he hasn’t felt this way about the guard’s preseason cameo appearances up until now, I feel pretty deprived from not being able to see the moving pictures.

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Even though we’re in a state of “this damn economy”, we can rest comfortably that there’s always an NBA player willing to implement his own mini-stimulus package to consumerism … such as Gilbert Arenas and his need to purchase a refrigerator and microwave for one day. And this took place in Michigan, which has recently fallen on hard times … so more kudos to Gil.

How do we know about all this? Why, the Twitter account of one @bigdaddywookie aka JaVale McGee.

{via @bigdaddywookie}

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I’m not even sure you can call JaVale McGee a ‘hipster’ in this instance, since so many aspects of hipsterism have been disseminated into mainstream (and copied and recycled like a virus). But thick frame glasses, a faux(ish)-hawk, and a horizontally striped v-neck is all I need to make the insinuation. Wait, what the hell is a ‘hipster’ in the first place?

McGee has already expressed displeasure with the nickname Epic Vale (or The Choppa, or whatever), opting to dub himself ‘J-Mac’ or ‘Big Daddy Wookie’ or ‘Kill + Mode = Chee$e’.

But now, perhaps ‘Blipster Daddy Wookie’ should be added to the list. And with the stuffed shark in the background, I’m not sure on which site this photo would be more appropriate, this one or this one.

In other news, via Twitter, JaVale might sell his all black Impala on 24s for 25K. Holler at him if you’re interested.

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Remember in Rocky IV when the main character, also named Rocky, was training for a big fight in Russia? He was outdoors, chopping wood, running in the snow, fighting wild Russian wolves with both hands tied behind his back, and fueled by a three-day vodka-only diet (I think all of this happened, my memory is fuzzy).

Meanwhile, Rocky’s counterpart, the evil Dolph Lundgren, was training in the lab with robots and steroids, and robots on steroids.

I’m not sure who eventually won the fight, I just remember the speech that Rocky made at the end being a life changing experience. Not so much because of his words, but more because of the kick ass song that followed, “Hearts on Fire” by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.

What does this have to do with JaVale McGee? Well, he’s been putting in au naturale work just like Rocky.

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With Haywood back in the fold, there might not be a lot of minutes at the center position. Saunders might not lean on [JaVale McGee] too much if he starts believing his own hype and focuses more on video and music production and less on rebounding and blocking shots.

- Michael Lee – Wizards Insider, Washington Post

This may not be the first jigging of the knob on the door of criticism should McGee struggle next season, citing his “extra curricular” social media activity as a possible target for blame.

When the guy is having slumber parties with Nick Young, staying up until 7 a.m. and making videos about playing doctor, pointing out potential connections between sophomoric activities and performance on the court is easy to do.

But when it comes from a Wizards/NBA beat reporter for the Washington Post, it can be seen as a subtle, but valid challenge to McGee, preemptively opening the inevitable eyes of Wizards Nation.

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We’ve seen the dunking prowess of the lengthy JaVale McGee …

But did you know that last year, in only 75 games and 1,143 minutes, McGee dunked more than an entire NBA Team?

JaVale McGee … 80

San Antonio Spurs … 73

• 42% of McGee’s FGs were dunks.
• His 80 dunks were good enough for 29th in the NBA and 5th among rookies, after: Brook Lopez, Greg Oden, Jason Thompson, and Marreese Speights.
• He finished 8th in the league in ‘Minutes Per Dunk’ -- 14.65 -- after: Shaquille O’Neal, Ryan Hollins, DeAndre Jordan, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Greg Oden, Dwight Howard, and Andrew Bynum.
• Source: Roto Evil via 82games.com

But that’s not all…

JaVale, amongst playing a Transformer and Wolverine, has a staring role in his own movie short. What exactly it’s about is left for the viewer to interpret.

This is JaVale McGee and his team USA Basketball mini-camp jersey. Don’t ask questions, just know it came from his TwitPic account.

JaVale McGee interview at the USA Basketball mini-camp:

And now the best links from ’round the world wide wizards web … Read more »