Now that the franchise worst 16-game losing streak has departed, it’s time to remember the players who have departed the Wizards this season — via trade or release, not suspension or injury, and only those who actually received minutes.

Below you will find portraits of the departed along with their story from the night pictured and a video clip of a selected quote. Enjoy … I think.

{DeShawn Stevenson}

Depart Date: February 13, 2010

On Halloween Night after the Wizards defeated the New Jersey Nets 123-104 in their home opener, pushing their record to 2-1, (the only time it would be better than .500 this season), Stevenson spoke about how, unlike last season, everybody now wants tickets to Wizards games and that he wasn’t going to dress up for All Hallows Eve.

Read more »

Read more »

It was one of those “it is what it is” games. The Wizards gave effort and got beat by a very good team, falling 115-103 to the champion Lakers. Flip Saunders told his players that if they would have played with the same effort against the Heat and the Clippers, they would probably be looking at four wins during the now complete season long six-game homestand instead of two.

The second quarter was where the match was lost. Los Angeles put up 30 points, the Wizards put up 15. Otherwise Washington outscored L.A. by three. In the second, and for pretty much the entire game, the Lakers resembled the time-tested analogy of a well-oiled machine. Even though they were 1-7 from three in the period, they shot 56% on 14 made field-goals, got three steals, two courtesy of Shannon Brown, and shot 9-11 in the paint.

Meanwhile the Wizards turned the ball over seven times leading to nine Lakers points and only got one assist. They also gave L.A. six second-chance points in the second. Instead of a well-oiled machine, the Wizards played like they ate butter drenched popcorn for a pregame meal. Unforced turnovers served as the calling card of the hapless.

Wizards 2nd Q Lineups

>> time on court together, points scored-points given up (turnovers in parenthesis)

Read more »

In the fourth quarter against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, the Washington Wizards tallied just 10 points on 3-16 shooting. They turned the ball over six times, allowed six offensive rebounds and only managed two assists, which is pretty good in respect to three made field-goals. The Wizards lost to LA 92-78, their 29th defeat in 43 games.

It would be simple to cite constant themes of lacking energy and settling for jumpers and conclude that this team has quit on their coach, themselves, the franchise, and the fans. But these issues have plagued them since the beginning of the season. So, and pardon me if I’ve said this before, you technically can’t quit if you never start playing.

Early season issues arose from the players’ unfamiliarity with a new offensive system. That quickly beget reoccurring situations where they should have known the system, but didn’t trust it. The most recently evolution involves one of the team’s captains ignoring the coach and running his own play with the game on the line.

What’s next? Will Flip Saunders start sending ‘read between the lines’ messages about not having adequate personnel for his system? The scenario seems unlikely, but at this point just about anything can happen. The coach, in just his first season with the franchise, has made his mounting frustration more visible as of late. Drastic change could be right around the corner, and not much can be done when a team is playing poisoned. In the meantime, abruptly ending pre- and post-game press conferences and slamming doors to the coaching quarters might have to suffice as a release valve for Saunders.

Rashad Mobley has a good piece about Flip’s mounting frustration on Hoops Addict.

Read more »

As you can imagine, it’s not fun to be in the locker room after a losing effort, especially after the poor showing the Wizards gave to their home crowd on Friday night. But if you like watching people and their mannerisms as I do, being in a room full of divided millionaires is great fodder for the brain, but not so much for Wizards fans.

Enough of the train-wreck analogies and how their imagery seems too painful on the eyes, yet unavoidable to watch. No, these 2009-10 Washington Wizards are like a ship going down in deep waters. The vessel is sinking fast and everyone wants to bail.

I’m not going to claim the post-game emotion was more distraught after the 112-88 loss to Miami than it has been for any of the other 28 losses this season, but it certainly was one of the most interesting, at least in terms of home games since I’m not a traveling blogger.

The post-game scene made it clear that Caron Butler going rogue on Flip Saunders was just a microcosm of an entire team trying to read the same old, tattered book, but with everyone turned to different pages.

I don’t want to portray that players are at odds with each other or that others have stopped listening to Coach Saunders. That is not what I witnessed, although I can’t speak for what goes on behind closed doors and in the minds of individuals.

Read more »

For the hell of it, here are some locker room portraits from before and after Monday’s game against Portland. And below the jump, some must-read links that you should check out.

Read more »

Well, the Wizards lost again on Sunday, nothing new. Thing is, they actually looked decent, as they did on Friday, but shot themselves in the foot, if you will, with 19 turnovers. By the way, go read this interesting piece on True Hoop regarding the NBA and gun-play analogies.

Stepping back, it’s still hard to fathom how surreal the deplorable state of the franchise is. Whether it’s Gun-Gate related or not, every day more of the shit show emerges from the sewers, literally. Tales of Gilbert Arenas taking a dump in the shoe of Andray Blatche … I mean Christ, how immature can you get?

Let’s see, what else? Caron Butler, while off games are okay, is still a quandary — hey, Caron wanted to be “the man” and then got all sad with his second fiddle when Arenas returned, but now that Arenas is gone again …

Of course, unfortunately it seems that Caron’s definition of being “the man” involves taking bad shots and halting ball movement. I don’t mean to unfairly pick on Butler, but again, for someone who all but rested his laurels on defensive improvement before the season, it was interesting, as pointed out to me by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, that on Friday against the Magic, Butler was matched up against Matt Barnes while the just returning Mike Miller had to take on Orlando’s big gun, Vince Carter.

Ok, what else? Well, Mike Miller is turning into Mr. Glass, aggravating his calf muscle against New Orleans on Sunday. He’s supposed to get an MRI on it Monday … and the saga of woes with the Wizards’ training staff and team doctors continues. It also says a lot that the Wizards are seemingly so dependent on Miller for ball movement (see Brendan Haywood’s quote below).

Read more »

Brendan Haywood

On needing a win …

“We’ve dug a hole enough, one that seems like it’s too big, but it’s not because we’re going to keep fighting, we going to keep chipping away, and hopefully we’re going to make this playoff push.”

Mike Miller

On passing instead of shooting …

“Believe me, I hear the fans telling me to shoot more, whatever, but you know what? Passing the ball and getting the ball poppin’ is something that when you see gets going, it’s like a domino effect. Once it gets poppin’, if you saw tonight, we got it going early, and now everyone wants to do it. And it’s fun basketball. That’s how you’re supposed to play and it’s fun to win.”

Read more »

{Randy}

“We can’t reserve ourselves on defense. We gotta reserve ourselves on offense and give 110% on defense.

{Gilbert}

“Right now we stink … and we’re showing it.

Read more »