Sure, you’re inundated with free-agency speculation right now. From those throwing noodles against the wall trying to see what sticks to those outraged by the hype … it’s all in good fun, I suppose. Now take a break from all that and check out the must-read links and quotes below (with some commentary) — okay, a couple do pertain to the free-agency bonanza, but not most of them.
{flickr/Pete Lambert}
Local Baltimore kid Rudy Gay was Thursday’s winner, signing a 5-year, $82 million contract and returning to the Memphis Grizzlies, while crushing the hopes of those wanting him to make it back to the DMV area. Tom Haberstroh Tweets:
“Only one active player has scored more points through their 4th season while having a career ORtg as poor as Gay (104) … And that inefficient scorer was Juwan Howard”
Yikes. Seems like a good omen that Rudy didn’t come home.
John Wall met with a few reporters after his press conference today. Wall talks draft experience, expectations, DC declaring June 25, 2010 John Wall Day, jersey number possibilities, USA World Cup Soccer, and the controversial Eric Prisbell Washington Post article. Wall is humble, candid and brings his own raw style of humor. Enjoy
At John Wall’s introductory press conference today, the Wizards played a new video for their No. 1 draft pick. It was a big welcome to the city, the John Wall Dance, D.C. style.
I saw Stephen A. Smith roaming the media catacombs of Madison Square Garden and figured I’d ask him about John Wall to the Wizards, Wall playing with Gilbert Arenas, and the proposed trade for Kirk Hinrich and the 17th pick … but I figured to not ask him about cheese-doodles, even though we’re at the NBA Draft and all that.
Smith did not disappoint in his answers, including speculation of an Arenas for Baron Davis deal, that he, however, likes the idea of Arenas staying in D.C. (because “he owes the District of Columbia a great deal after the way he screwed up”), and that he’s “not completely convinced” of the purported Hinrich trade.
While I’m in New York for the draft, Adam McGinnis is covering the goings-ons back in D.C. and brings the video below of Ernie Grunfeld’s post-John Wall selection press conference.
At the end, someone asked the Wizards team president to do the John Wall Dance.
As you may or may not know, I’m in New York City, at Madison Square Garden, covering the 2010 NBA Draft, one that will go down in history for the Washington Wizards.
As you also probably know by now, the Wizards have arranged to acquire the 17th pick in tonight’s draft along with Kirk Hinrich in exchange for providing the Chicago Bulls with precious, precious cap space. The deal can’t be official until July 8th, you can read the details about it here. Hence, when the 17th pick is called tonight, he’ll likely be a Bull for a couple days.
Nonetheless, I stopped and chatted with Coach Fran Fraschilla about who the Wizards might be targeting with the 17th pick, i.e., telling Chicago who to select.
Many thanks to Coach Fraschilla for taking time to talk.
When Maze talks, you can really tell he’s from the DMV. Just listen to how he says “area” and “experience.”
Maze Run-Down:
6’3″ guard, 195 pounds.
Bobby Maze was born in D.C. and went to Suitland High School.
Played with Kevin Durant and Ty Lawson on the DC Blue Devils AAU squad.
Maze says he’s been talking with Durant, Lawson and Michael Beasley about the pro process and intends to go back and give advice to Duke’s Nolan Smith, who is from Upper Marlboro, MD.
In his post-Wizards workout interview (video below), Maze talks about the DMV’s basketball hotbed, saying a lot of guys will go up to Georgetown or Maryland to play and that, “sometimes you got NBA players that might not get to play the first game.”
After Suitland, went to the Patterson prep school in North Carolina.
Signed with Oklahoma over Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Kansas State and Seton Hall; Maze was the first signing Sooners coach Jeff Capel made after getting the job.
Was initially sidelined with a broken foot as a freshman, but eventually became the starting PG by the end of the year.
But after the ’06-07 season, Maze and Capel came to an understanding that Maze would no longer be apart of the program.
[Editor's note: After his initial profile of him, TAI's Adam McGinnis (also known as Adam Douglas) has become the unofficial Emir Preldzic/Turkish League correspondent. Who is Emir Preldzic? Well, he's the overseas prospect the Wizards got from Cleveland as part of the Antawn Jamison deal. Read Adam's follow-up piece on Preldzic below.]
With John Wall mania at fever pitch levels, and only going to crescendo even higher as this Thursday’s draft approaches, it’s a good time to check in on one of the Wizards’ own Euro-stash prospects, Bosniak Hero, Emir Preldzic. The 22-year old, 6’9″ point-forward’s rights were acquired from Cleveland in the Antwan Jamison deadline deal. The last time we left Emir, his team, Fenerbahce Ulkler, had failed to qualify for the Euroleague playoffs but was still competing for the crown of the top tier Turkish Basketball League (TBL), where Preldzic was a key performer.
Fenerbahce finished the TBL regular season in second place with a 23-7 record. Emir averaged 11.8 pts, 5.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists in 29 games. He tallied up the 13th most assists in the league and had a single game high of 23 points. He was selected Honorable Mention All Turkey League by Eurobasket.com.
It seems that D.C. can’t get enough good sports news these days. Weird.
Yesterday the Washington Nationals took Bryce Harper in Major League Baseball’s amateur draft with the first overall pick … I hear that guy’s supposed to be pretty awesome. Also, SB Nation had their official launch party for SB Nation DC, where I’ll be contributing as a weekly columnist on sports and the media. Big kudos to senior editor Mike Prada for the SB Nation DC launch by the way.
Speaking of … my first piece is up. Of course it’s about Stephen Strasburg, which brings us to Strasmas. I’ll be one of the lucky few going to Strasburg’s debut this evening. And I didn’t have to stand in line or pay scalper’s prices for tickets … just got hooked up by some cool bros who will undoubtedly be receiving some beverages of appreciation from me.
And that brings us to latest bit of good D.C. sports news … today the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale of the Wizards to Ted Leonsis. Sure, it was a mere formality, but Washington will take all the positive formalities it can get. So a big congrats goes to Mr. Leonsis for becoming officially official and congrats to Wizards fans as well.
Yes, odd post title/combination of folks, but totally true.
I may have soured on Caron Butler as a basketball player as a result of the 2009-10 season (if you want to know why, here aresomelinks), and that could ever so slightly reflect on perceptions of his personality.
But none of that skews from the fact that Butler is a good guy, a stand up person who’s never forgotten to represent where he’s from, whether it be his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin or his adopted hometown of Washington, DC. He concocted “DC, stand up!”, and just because he plays for a different team now, it doesn’t mean the phrase should be retired.
Caron was always glad to be apart of and give back to his community. In particular, he’s a big advocate of bicycle riding, including holding Bike Brigades in the Summer and giveaways at Christmas … and it’s all for the kids. He’s the Santa Claus of bikes.
But let’s not digress too far from the title of this post. Next Monday, June 7th, starting at 9:30 am, Caron will be back in the District of Columbia to promote cycling and bike advocacy by riding with the Crown Prince of Denmark (Frederick Andre Henrik) and a couple Members of Congress (Representative James Oberstar, D-MN and Representative Thomas Petri, R-WI).
The crew will ride from near the Capitol, to Freedom Plaza near the White House, around the National Mall, and back again. Still unclear why the Crown Prince of Denmark is involved, but it is what it is.
On Friday I tweeted, “I am now the proud owner of a pair of autographed Juwan Howard shoes from when he played in Washington.” Now I’m here to share the pictures.
The shoes were won in a silent auction held at work created to benefit efforts in Haiti. My specific contribution went to Doctors Without Borders. The lady who donated them said her husband was an equipment manager for the team long ago.
Judging from this 2000-01 season basketball card where Howard is wearing the Nike Team Max Zoom, he probably wore these shoes in 1999-2000, which was statistically his worst season with the franchise and his last full one in Washington. Knowing that Howard was probably booed more wearing these shoes than any other pair/season in his career makes them extra historical, I’ll assume.
You probably missed Tracy Morgan throw out the first pitch at recent Orioles-Yankees game. When it happened, you probably still had hope the Washington Capitals would win game seven against the Montreal Canadians.
Or, you’re here because this is supposed to be a Wizards blog and you don’t care about other DMV sports … and that’s fine. But it’s Tracy Morgan.
When I first moved to D.C. in 1990, I was just as much of a Baltimore Orioles fan as a Washington Bullets fan. For about 20 times a year for several seasons, my dad and I would make the trip up to old Memorial Stadium and later Camden Yards.
I went to games in both of Baltimore’s unsuccessful trips to the playoffs in the last 26 seasons, losing to the Yankees in the ’96 ACLS and to the Indians the next year. I went to the ’93 Home Run derby won by Juan Gonzalez over Ken Griffey, Jr. in a playoff and to that year’s All-Star game where Kirby Puckett was named MVP. I was in attendance on September 6, 1995 when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak.
Then one day, spawned by the ownership of Peter Angelos, and sealed by the arrival of the Nationals in Washington, I found myself not caring about the Baltimore Orioles. I wish them well/don’t see them as a rivalry, but I divorced myself from being an O’s fan long ago.
Statistics versus observational analysis. Many prefer one over the other and to varying degrees. Those who are way into the latter are referred to as “old school” — the type of people who usually hate change. The type of person I will always strive not to be. The others are often referred to as nerds or geeks, but even those terms are out-dated. With the internet age, there are so many classifications of people that calling someone a “nerd” is more meaningless than the connotation of the label being “not cool.” In other words, being into statistics and sports these days is cool.
However, there are those who have such a great love for sports and statistics that they marry the two without considering other relationships. A life-example of this would be a jerk friend running off to wed a significant other and forgetting about friends and family.
What I’m trying to say is statistics and observational analysis can, and should, go hand and hand. This is the type of person I am, but one who very slightly favors observation and our inherit ability to know things in the Malcolm Gladwell “Blink!” kind of way. I believe in statistics. I believe in advanced statistics. I believe they should be used along with other methods to tell a story, but definitely not used by themselves to tell the entire story.
Dave Berri and his cohort Martin Schmidt, however, are economists. Berri is an economics professor at Southern Utah University and writes the popular Wages or Wins Journal, and Schmidt is an economics professor at William and Mary. Understandably, they are way into statistics. If Berri could program a computer/robot using data from the history of man to properly raise his child without him needing to be there to see it happen, I believe he would. Okay, that’s going too far.
Berri and Schmidt, have a lot of very interesting things to say about managerial and coaching decision-making in sports, which includes several interesting arguable observations about the NBA. Their new book, “Stumbling On Wins,” which has been described as a “MoneyBall” of sorts that expands way past baseball, provides a lot of fodder for the great debate (stat heads v. non-stat heads v. in-betweens) and a unique perspective that should greatly interest the well-rounded sports fan.
The Wizards aren’t putting Josh Howard’s face next to that on a banner anytime soon … unless they want to ad a fourth ‘C’ for cap space. Like Caron Butler, Howard was once an All-Star. And like the one they call Tuff Juice, the one they call J-Ho has recently fallen far from basketball skill grace.
On Thursday, along with J.A. Adande, I participated in a Live Chat Q&A about the Wizards on ESPN.com.
There were a ton of Cavs fans/Wizards haters in the house … and I avoided each and every one of them. {Pat on back, they were hard to resist.}
Really wish I could have stayed longer to answer more questions about the Wiz. There were so many I wasn’t able to get to. Being on the other side for the first time, now I know how hard it is. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience … so I thank ESPN for including all the TrueHoop Network team bloggers in these chats.
