Training camp is set to begin today for the Washington Wizards. Actually, it’s starting right about as I hit ‘publish’ on this post. Roger Mason Jr. is your newest Wizard, Mo Evans might be set to return, and Nick Young… well, we’re not quite sure yet. Could be a couple days.
The TAI team will do our best to cover training camp happenings, but we are also old cats with regular jobs, and other stuff. For instance, Adam McGinnis and I coach a Boys & Girls club basketball team (10-11 year old boys), and we have a game this evening that might preclude attendance at tonight’s initial training camp media section. Another TAI regular, Rashad Mobley, is very close to celebrating the birth of a new child. So, Wizards basketball will come. In the meantime, a couple of training camp musings…
Slow news day out at Wizards Training Camp on Thursday evening as practice had concluded by the time the media was let in to observe. The highlight was definitely the presence of Bullets/Knicks Legend Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, who also took time to answer a few questions about this year’s team. Flip spoke briefly along with Sean Marks, Hilton Armstrong and an under the weather JaVale McGee.
Video recap of the interviews:
Monroe also earned the nicknames “Black Jesus” and “Black Magic” from his street ball days in Philly, which was famously described by Denzel Washington in the movie “He Got Game.”
{There’s the Wizards home floor … transported all the way from D.C. to VCU’s Siegel Center in Richmond, Virginia}
Currently en route to Richmond for the Wizards’ preseason opener, I’m not exactly sure how I’ll be covering games this season. But for tonight I’m going to update the goings-ons of the game via Twitter, which will also update live in a post on this site (hopefully).
The game will not be televised, but can be heard over the radio on 107.6 The Fan.
Tonight’s match against Memphis at the Siegel Center on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA might provide the most packed crowd I’ve ever seen for an NBA preseason game.
Sure, the excitement of Gilbert Arenas’ comeback tour and the new-look Wizards are probably enough to fill the 7,500 seat arena … I mean, pictures of the Wizards are literally on the side of the building (see below).
But the main draw might be Allen Iverson, the prodigal son returning to his home state of Virginia (as a Memphis Grizzly of all things). Iverson grew up in Hampton, VA, about 80 miles away from Richmond.
I kind of heard a secondhand joke about Iverson this weekend, stating that he hasn’t been in Richmond since … [insert item from troubled past]
… since he must have been thanking then VA Governor Doug Wilder profusely for giving him clemency and detention instead of jail time due to charges related to a 1993 bowling alley brawl (which was in Hampton, but Richmond is the state capital).
I spent the days beginning with ‘S’ milling around Wizards training camp this past weekend. Media is only given access at the very end of practice. I basically got to see the team shoot free-throws on Saturday, and the end of situational scrimmaging on Sunday. Once practice is over, we’re allowed down on the floor for interviews. On each day, Flip Saunders was the first to come over and was very personable and gracious in answering whatever question was thrown his way. After that, we just try to catch the players as they emerge from the training room … most glad to stop and talk for several minutes, and a few opting to talk on the move as the media guys tried to keep up. No one dare approach Gilbert Arenas on either of those days lest he run away screaming, “No media, NO!,” possibly hurting himself in the process.
Unfortunately, because of some personal travel between the days, I wasn’t able to post as much as I would have liked. Below are some of my notes/observations/comments/quotes from those two days.
Everyone’s heard past talk from Andray Blatche about improving with results showing very little. Last Wednesday on Bullets Forever, Mike Prada reported that the 2009 development of Blatche was “so far so good.” Through training camp this weekend, Blatche has continued to display glimmers of hope that this season will finally be his.
Coach Flip Saunders hopped up, chased down Andray Blatche and gave him a high-five. DeShawn Stevenson patted Blatche on the back, and several of the Washington Wizards’ players and coaches hooted and applauded. Blatche hadn’t completed a nifty fast-break dunk or finger roll; he simply wouldn’t give Antawn Jamison any room to get off a shot in the low block. The swarming help defense behind Blatche wouldn’t give Jamison a passing lane, which allowed Blatche to later slap away the ball.
During that scrimmage, it appeared Blatche wanted to prove himself a little bit more in going against Jamison, who, as a veteran locker room leader, has probably come down the hardest on Andray in the past. Blatche was almost muscling up on Jamison, fighting him for post position, like he stole something from him.
You really have to feel bad for the guy. It seems he’s always been on teams where, especially at his position, the competition is high and the chances are low (well, with the exception of last year). Now he’s forced to wear a boot, his third time donning one this summer, and sit out the next couple of weeks, watching the competition pass him by. Wizards Insider and Wizards Outlet both have some additional details on Crittenton’s injury to his left foot, a double bone bruise and a strained tendon.
It seems like the downside of high competition (if you’re really trying hard to find a negative) has reared it’s head. With so much pressure, Crittenton likely pushed his injury, first experienced in an Atlanta ProAm game in July, more than he would have otherwise. “We tried to speed up the progress of it healing,” he said in reference to each time he’s put on a boot (in Atlanta, in DC before training camp and now), but was never able to get it back to one hundred percent.
He said he’s been able to make it through every practice despite the soreness and pain he was feeling. But on Friday his foot reached its limit and he had to take himself out of practice. The Wizards staff suggested that he get an MRI.
“The MRI came out worse than before,” said Javaris, indicating that it’s one of those injuries that just takes time to heal. He said that continuing to play on the tender ankle would only make it a nagging injury and could possibly lead to surgery.
It started sometime in the hour of three o’clock pm on Thursday when Mike Jones of the Washington Times (@sptswrtrjones) tweeted, “Arenas watched two scrimmages this afternoon. Jogging with a slight hint of a limp.”
Uh oh.
My first intuition was to not push the panic button. If Wizards fans are approaching the 2009-10 season as a whole with guarded optimism, then they’re probably guarding optimism surrounding Arenas’ knee more than Avon Barksdale’s crew guards the stash house.
