Former Georgetown Hoya Hollis Thompson was all of two-years old when Sam Cassell made his NBA debut with the Houston Rockets in November of 1993.

So, with Cassell serving as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards, who have been putting 2012 NBA Draft hopefuls through workouts, including Thompson last Thursday, we are given a chance to crunch the age numbers as the two faced-off in a drill on the Verizon Center practice court.

Cassell will turn 43-years old this November, and Thompson turned 21 this past April; the difference between them — 21 years, 4 months and 16 days — is currently greater than Thompson’s age.

The drill was defensive in nature. Participating players were required to rotate properly on help defense as the ball was passed around. The final component involved the main defender rotating from helping in the paint to closing out on a wing player in the corner (Cassell) using proper technique.

From there, Cassell had free reign to relish the opportunity of scoring on a kid at least 50-percent less in age. And this wasn’t the first time Cassell has dueled with kids — previous battles have come against the likes of John Wall, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, and Andray Blatche — and it likely won’t be the last.

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Things have happened recently.

With apologies to Mugsy Bogues and Manute Bol (who had a soft-spot for gambling, it was written), an account of historical note has recently been relayed to us by the mouth of Gilbert Arenas. Yes, Gilbert Arenas.

This bit of history comes via a USA Today piece regarding how things are ’different’ now for Arenas in Memphis. Basically, it’s Gilly being Gilly… running his mouth as only a self-preserving historical revisionist can. An excerpt from the article pertaining to the now infamous-game of airplane Bourré (Boo-Ray) which ignited a firestorm:

Then-Wizards center JaVale McGee had beaten Crittenton out of $1,100 in a card game. Wizards guard Earl Boykins loaned McGee $200. McGee didn’t immediately pay back Boykins as he won the money and an argument blossomed. Arenas says he wasn’t involved in the actual bet.

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[Some transition opportunities end with John Wall dunking and the other team watching, you're about to read about a different version of the break.]

Back in 1991, when I was playing varsity basketball and trying to fulfill my pseudo-NBA dreams, my coach used to always discuss his version of the perfect fast break.  As he saw it, this would happen when one player grabbed the rebound, started the first of four passes without dribbles, and then the last player would lay the ball in the basket (nobody on our team could dunk).  Our coach was so in love with this concept that he promised to take us out for ice cream if we ever achieved the milestone (we didn’t).

For years I’ve watched basketball on the professional and collegiate level, and every now and then, when I see the “perfect fast break,” I stop and marvel at its beauty.  Then I think back to my high school coach and say to myself, “Wow, my coach was right, this IS the perfect way to run transition offense!”

On Tuesday, John Wall and Nick Young showed me a different light, making me believe there’s more than one way to run a  perfect fast break.

With 57 seconds gone by in the fourth quarter, Sixers guard Evan Turner attempted to drive the lane, but Wall swiped the ball away–something he did nine times in his Verizon Center debut.

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[Kirk Hinrich and Wizards assistant coach Gene Banks.]

[Yi Jianlian catches up with Rod Thorn.]

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[Editor's note: Below is third piece Arish Narayen has written for TAI. He first broke down the Wizards' small forward situation in early July, and then wrote about the Wizards' third summer league game against the Mavericks. -Kyle]

If you haven’t had a chance to read this study linked on TrueHoop Monday, check it out. In the piece, Neil Paine of Basketball-Reference.com analyzes how NBA players performed against above and below average defenses in 2009-10.

Paine begins by ranking each team’s defense by using a defensive version of the Simple Rating System, taking into account margin of victory, strength of schedule, and home-court effects. Taken from the article, here are the relevant bits about the Wizards:

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After the Wizards’ second day of mini-camp, young JaVale McGee messed around a bit with old Sam Cassell for a couple rounds of one-on-one. Let’s check that real quick.

Otherwise, Epic Vale is working hard. And on Friday he was all tuckered out, needing to bend over when initially speaking with the media after the session. He even later Tweeted: “Man … tired ain’t the word … I’m tired as a house.”

Not sure what ‘tired as a house’ means. I imagine that the partied out house of a Miami Heat fan on a celebratory bender is pretty tired right now. Maybe McGee is that tired, except the basketball equivalent.

When speaking about JaVale this afternoon, Flip Saunders twice mentioned that he needs to work on his defensive rebounding. Seems like a pretty big emphasis. Last season, according to 82games.com, the Wizards team defensive rebound percentage was 65% when McGee was on the court. That shot up to 71.6% when he was off the court. So that can’t be good.

Saunders went on to say, “As much from a strength standpoint, going against main type centers, he’s not as strong as some of those guys so he gets pushed around. What happens is he gets in foul trouble so quick and that takes him out of his game. He’s going to have to learn to play at our level and be able to play as far as from the beginning.”

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Most Wizards fans wouldn’t mind seeing Mike Miller on the team next year, but know there is virtually no chance of it happening, despite Miller’s offer of loyalty immediately after the last game of the season, and more recently telling Comcast’s Chris Miller, “the Wizards landing the number one pick changes everything,” and that he would “love to play with John Wall.”

We know Mike wants to play for a championship contending winner, desperately. His hunger was only increased by the sour taste of 2009-10 with the Wizards. And the 2010-11 Wizards won’t quench his thirst either.

We also know Mike is boys with LeBron James. We know Mike went so far as to name his son, Maverick, after the close friend and adviser of James, Maverick Carter … or so LeBron claims. We know that the 2010 NBA Free Agency dominoes are held hostage by Mr. James. Mike Miller knows this too.

“That’s when everything will start,” Miller recently told Stu Whitney of the Argus Leader, “LeBron and those guys will start making their decisions, and that will open the floodgates for some of the second-tier guys.”

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The Pick and Roll is a staple of many NBA offenses. The Wizards, in particular, starved when it came to defending P&Rs in 2009-10.

Once again turning to Synergy Sports Technology, we learn that as a team, the Wizards defended the P&R ball handler 1,128 times in plays that ended with a FGA, TO or FTA. This accounted for 12.6% of the team’s defensive plays. Defending these plays, the Wizards gave up 0.89 points-per-possession (PPP), which is tied for the most allowed in the NBA.

Against the Wizards, the P&R ball handler shot 43.2% on field goals and scored 42.9% of the time, which is the second highest scoring rate allowed in the league.

Conversely, the Wizards had to defend the P&R roll man 406 times and fared slightly better in the PPP department.

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It’s tough to truly remember Antawn Jamison’s time in D.C., yet hard to do it enough. Wish I were around to cover him when times were good, but this year had to happen. Still, Antawn did it with dignity. He did it with class, emulating the owner he looked up to so much. An owner whose family is making a classy move with a free “Living for the City” Stevie Wonder concert for some of the people touched by Abe Pollin’s spirit for his community. Antawn was the Gentleman Jamison. He deserves an Unsilent tribute. Hence, Jack Kogod (aka Unsilent Majority) of Kissing Suzy Kobler, and occasional Wizards correspondent for Mr. Irrelevant,  (not to mention that he sits in some really good season tickets for a ton of Wizards games), agreed to share his thoughts. Here’s what @Unsilent had to say:

>>>>>>>>>

I miss Antawn Jamison more than I thought I would. When the house cleaning commenced I thought it would be Caron Butler I missed the most, but I was wrong. Of course I’m wrong a lot. I was wrong in my belief that the Wizards  should have held on to the fifth pick in the ’04 draft to select Luol Deng (although I couldn’t be too upset with any trade that sent Jerry Stackhouse packing), and I was wrong to think that Jamison wasn’t the right guy at the right time. It only took one season for him to prove me wrong. Jamison made his All Star Game debut in that first season, and he helped lead the Wizards on a fantastic turnaround. The Wizards won their first playoff series of my lifetime that year, and that wouldn’t have happened without Jamison.

A lot changed in the years between the ’05 playoffs and the ’10 trade deadline, but Jamison never did. Throughout his time in Washington he was the most consistent player on the team, and one of the most reliable performers in the entire league (defensive shortcomings notwithstanding). There is a reason why Abe Pollin considered Jamison to be the Wes Unseld of the modern Wizards, because he have all of himself to the organization. I hope for nothing but the best from Jamison, just short of winning a ring of course. Afterall, he is a Cav now.

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At least we know Gilbert’s kid has a sweet kid-SUV.

Today is Siete de Mayo, the day Gilbert Arenas was allowed to go from his halfway house to his wholeway house … at 7 am sharp. Or is it from half to full?

And of course … paparazzi pho-togs were on the scene at Gilbert’s house in an attempt to score a money shot of the elusive agent.

He didn’t wave like a goofball. He didn’t give the camera a middle finger (which is popular among athletes these days). He simply constricted the strings on his black adidas hoodie so tight that breathing probably wasn’t easy on a humid(ish) day in May.

A retreat. The old ‘Do Not Disturb‘ sign.

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