[Editor's note: Ryan Gracia is majoring in sports communication and journalism at George Mason University and freelances for local sites of Patch.com. Some of his previous work for TAI can be found here. Below, he recaps the Dwyane Wade vs. Nick Young battle on Friday night.]

It was the second time that the Wizards faced the Miami Heat SuperFriends this season following a trade, and the Wiz put up quite a struggle in both contests — so great that one may even have been so inclined to commit themselves to predicting a win from the bottom-feeding Wizards at some point late in the game. But on both occasions the Heat finished the way a top team should, while the Wizards finished the way a bad team does. So Friday night’s loss in Miami wasn’t unexpected. Still, it was the way the Wizards put themselves in the situation to come away with their second road win this month was unexpected. They fought. Specifically, Nick Young fought.

Against the Heat, Flip Saunders must have shown part “deux” of The Battle at Kruger video that he showed the team before they came out blazing to beat the Nets at home by 20 points on January 7. Clearly, Young understood the concept of that video:

“It was like a lion chasing a bull, and how about how all the bulls came back and rallied as a team and helped them out, so it kind of got us going. Everyone came out and played hard.”

Well, I suppose he did. My guess is that if there was a pregame video in Miami, it may have looked something like this:

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There’s sadness to report from the Wizards’ locker room, unfortunately on Valentine’s Day, and it involves Nick Young’s  forlorn relationship with the NBA’s annual dunk contest. Upon being passed up by the League for this year’s event in his  hometown of Los Angeles in favor of teammate JaVale McGee, Young admitted that he was a little jealous. However, not two weeks ago, Young was alluding that he and McGee had something special planned for the contest being held on NBA All-Star Saturday night on February 19. Now, things have seemingly changed … sadness, and perhaps some hate has entered the realm of Young. Poor guy. Let’s hear it from him:

Believable? Well, Young did learn from the master, Gilbert Arenas … so there’s that.

LINKS.

Valentine’s birthday wishes go to former Washington Bullet Gheorghe Muresan (4o years) and former Wizards Darius Songaila (33) and Richard Hamilton (33).

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Now, this dunk wasn’t on, on Australia’s Andrew Bogut, but we’ll include him for diplomatic reasons. Turkey’s Ersan Ilyasova getting smacked around by Los Angeles’ Nick Young is really the big winner here.

One of the first things that comes to mind when looking at a picture like this is that there’s no way he’s making it to the rim.

He did.

You’d think some big time NBA advertising partner would want to sponsor a secondary dunk contest. Wouldn’t that haul in some bank on television? TNT, are you there? I understand the desire to make the official dunk contest on NBA all-Star Saturday night an elite and exclusive event, but there are too many good dunkers in the NBA not to have more than four participants.

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The Wizards have struggled this year, no question about it. The team has won just 13 games and is still hopelessly searching for its first road win. Their next opportunity for that elusive victory away from home comes on Sunday, February 13 versus the woeful Cleveland Cavaliers — a team nursing a 24-game losing streak.

Back on October 20, 2010, the crew at Truth About It.net gave their “crystal ball visions” of the Wizards’ regular season record for 2010-11. Here is what they looked like:

• Kyle Weidie – 34 wins
• Rashad Mobley – 30 wins
• Adam McGinnis – 40 wins
• John Townsend – 40 wins
• Arish Narayen – 41 wins
• Beckley Mason – 36 wins

I might choose to pass on the Buffalo wings and beer for the Super Bowl, instead opting to find a spot on my couch with an extra helping of Washington Wizards crow. This team is headed nowhere fast this season … but regular season performance in one year isn’t necessarily predictive of success and achievement in the next.

On the lighter side, here are the ten biggest single-season turnarounds in NBA history:

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Gilbert Arenas begrudgingly dealt with the media on his return trip to Washington on Friday night. Well, that’s not entirely true. He was in no mood to talk before the game. After his Magic handled the Wizards 110-92, and as soon as the press was let into the Orlando locker room, Arenas rolled his eyes and said, “I was doing a lot better about 10 seconds ago.” He then exclaimed that he didn’t mean to be rude, but he was going to go take a shower … as 20 or so members of the media waited.

And they would continue to wait. Arenas knew this. He wants to talk, he just acts like he doesn’t. Yea, you remember ‘that’ guy … because that’s how Gilbert is, always looking for a show, or an angle, or to just make people wait for him. After he disappeared beyond the shower door just next to his spot in the visitor’s locker room, Dwight Howard joked with the media that he wasn’t going to come out.

“Agent Zero!, Agent Zero!,” Howard mocked the mass of microphones and cameras. “Agent One!,” another Magic player responded from across the room. Howard later joked that Arenas was taking a bath while another reporter joked that he might have found an escape route through the drain. Howard clearly didn’t know Arenas and how much the D.C. media, myself included, feeds off just about any quote that comes out his mouth, eager to jettison them into the algorithm in the form of pixels, tiny little pixels. “Well, we’re going to wait,” I responded to Howard at one point.

When Arenas was done with his excruciatingly long shower, he again put on an act of the unwilling.

“Y’all know the Super Bowl’s going on, right?,” he said as he finished getting dressed from a seated position, surrounded by dozens of pairs of feet. When he was asked who he liked in the game, his retort was simply: “Whoever wins.”

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Nick Young and Gilbert Arenas were close … still are. When Arenas was traded, before he left town as quickly as a plane could carry him to Orlando, he knocked on Young’s door to tell him the news, and a goodbye. He didn’t even say goodbye to his family (and now we kind of know why), but still … point is, Nick and Gil were a close pair of teammates. Here’s a link to Young talking about Arenas before the Wizards played the Miami Heat on the day of the trade.

Midway through pre-game warm-ups before tip-off of Arenas’ return to Washington as a member of the Orlando Magic, a basketball “mysteriously” went astray from the other side of the floor, bouncing right near Arenas. None other than Young surfaced to claim the errant ball, smile on his face and eager to catch up with his friend. Below are a couple pictures of their encounter…

Marcin Gortat’s head is pretty stoic for the position that it’s in.

This was one of those weird times when some huge official arena flash went off while I was taking a picture … came out kind of cool though.

Before getting weirdly entertained by a white man from Iowa wearing Oakleys, in a January 20 chat on ESPN.com, John Hollinger wrote about Nick Young, when not even specifically asked about Young:

“But Nick Young is making a real case for MIP votes. And I find it weirdly entertaining to watch Kirk Hinrich constantly fiddle with his glasses.”

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I challenge you to watch the range of emotions expressed by Nick Young after scoring a career-high 43 points and not like the guy … he’s made for Hollywood … he’s Nick the Thriller.

No “typical Wizards’ losing ways” from the media…
No ranting writers calling for heads…
No outrage of radio call-in shows…
No bloggy posts about how Nick Young is like the worst passer, ever…

Winning is the big differentiator. The Wizards did so, 136-133 versus the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night … barely.

[BTW, did you know, including Tuesday night's whopping three assists, Young has accrued 17 total assists in the last seven games -- since the Dec. 29 home win versus the Indiana Pacers. Those 17 assists represent 7-percent of Young's previous career assist total ... SEVEN PERCENT! ... Over 261 games!]

It’s almost like Nick is making even more progress … in other departments. What kind of bizarro world are we living in?

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The below video is silly, inane, goofy … so why even post it? For those very reasons.

Andray Blatche’s recent hair stylings (and how they somehow reflect his ‘rollercoaster’ life) have been well-documented. Nick Young has also displayed a sweet hair-do game this season. What does it all mean? That maybe Nick & Dray should start a Hair Club For Wizards.

Limbs get tangled all the time in the NBA. But for some reason, when it involves tangled arms, you can depend on a two things: arms from two opposing players will become inexplicably intertwined so fast that you’d think elastic were involved, and the result is going to be tension filled until there is separation.

Sometimes the tangles and locks are unintentional. Sometimes the maneuver is enacted by a foe with the simple intent of getting under someone’s skin by quite literally, getting under their skin … knowing that referees are more likely to see and respond to retaliation rather than the instigator’s act. And the instigator can be an offensive or defensive player.

Such an instance happened in the waning minutes of Saturday night’s game versus the Hornets. Nick Young had just made a shot with 1:36 left in the fourth, still keeping the Wizards just outside of striking distance at what would be the final tally, 92-81 New Orleans.

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Nick Young is one of the most unique players the NBA has ever seen. Now in his fourth season, his numbers improved from his rookie to his sophomore year, then took a dip across the board last season, his third. Now, this season brings dramatic improvement from any Nick Young we’ve ever seen.

He’s found confidence to go along with his offensive talent, has vastly improved his jump shooting and does the other little things he needs to do to keep himself on the court. His stats, thus far this season, certainly would have kept him in the Sixth Man of the Year conversation, had it not been for the trade of his friend Gilbert Arenas to Orlando, thrusting Young into Flip Saunders’ starting lineup (assuming he starts more than he comes off the bench — right now, out of 28 Wizards games, Young has appeared in 27 and started in four).

But none of this exactly makes Young unique. What makes him unique is that he could be one of the worst passing guards the league has ever seen. Ever.

Let’s start by plugging some of Young’s stats this season in the historical database at Basketball-Reference.com. This season, Young is averaging 25.8 minutes per game, 20.4 points per 36 minutes and 0.9 assists per 36. His per game averages are 14.6 points and 0.6 assists.

First, the players who have averaged at least 25 minutes per game, over 20 points per 36 and less than one assist per 36 for an entire season. And I realize that this is a limited judgement of Young’s passing ability, especially in a sense that I’m predicating it on how much he’s able to score, but I do feel that part of the assessment is how much offense one creates for themselves versus for others. Also, there’s probably only a handful of non-NBA/team employees who have watched as much or more of Young’s game over his NBA career than I have. Essentially, let’s be real, not only does Young not pass, he’s bad at passing, and I’m simply illustrating how bad with numbers.

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That move. I saw Nick Young pull out that sweet, tricky move against the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday night. It was slick. It was sweet like bear meat. It was smooth enough to match …

… Nick’s hair style after the game:

Which, of course, reminded me of this:

Which, of course, led to this:

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With 9:15 left in the fourth quarter, the Wizards were in the midst of an unlikely comeback against the sloppy New Jersey Nets. It wouldn’t be enough, but this play gave the Washington faithful hope that Gilbert and Hinrich’s heroics would be enough to put them over the top.

I like this play for the Wizards because it came out of structured early offense. Washington doesn’t really have the personnel to get consistent high percentage looks against set half-court defenses. However, during the secondary break, the semi-structured moments between the fast break and a called play, the Wizards’ athleticism and speed can be effective. This particular secondary break “set” came off of a free throw situation, so it’s almost certainly something Flip signalled from the bench to get a quick bucket.

The play itself is a relatively simple action that isn’t all that deceptive. However, because the Nets are in transition, they are out of position just enough to yield an open three when Hinrich attacks the middle of the paint.

Take a look:

Figure 1: Hinrich (No. 12) dribbles across mid-court as Arenas (No. 9) fills the left corner, and Nick Young (No. 1) and Al Thornton (No. 14) execute a rub screen at the opposite elbow to free Thornton up a bit has he comes to screen for Hinrich. McGee (No. 43) jogs down to the weakside block, where he and Young will stack up. Read more »

Sure, you’ve seen Nick Young’s sweet 360 spin move, but why not watch it again (via the bootleg TAI remix version)?

So in honor of Nick’s move against the Lakers in Los Angeles, Truth About It.net is giving away four free tickets to see the Lakers play the Wizards in D.C. next Tuesday, December 14 … in a suite no less.

Yep, exactly … more free tickets (and again, courtesy of StubHub — they keep providing TAI with free tickets, and we, in turn, are glad to provide them to readers … everybody wins). Here at the details:

What?

Wizards vs. Lakers

When?

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