[You know what they say about little chairs? Little capacity.]

We just couldn’t let JaVale McGee get away from D.C. without giving him his propers… whatever “propers” means. And actually, “Can’t Say I Do,” the movie (let’s call it a mini-docu-drama, I think), doesn’t give much proper respect to young JaVale. Rather, it aims to convey the story of why he is no longer a Washington Wizard… because he couldn’t say “I do” to willingly understanding the game of basketball like coaches, teammates and fans expected.

All that talent in the world with only JaVale to hold himself back. No need to provide advanced statistics, describe skills and faults, or wax poetic on memories of McGee, because it’s as simple as that. He’s gone and I could [not] care less. It took about three years, eight months and 19 days, but the 18th pick in the 2008 NBA Draft (McGee), along with the 17th pick in 2007 (Nick Young), and a guy whom the Wizards essentially got for free from the New York Knicks last summer (Ronny Turiaf), was finally traded so that Washington could get some competent help at the center position (Nene). Kind of sucks that it took so long, but I’m sure the Wizards will figure it out sooner or later.

[Background: On Leap Day 2012, the Wizards faced the Orlando Magic at home, and JaVale McGee came off the bench for the first time all season. The previous night, in Milwaukee, Randy Wittman benched McGee for the entire second half (with good reason), and after the Wizards lost that game, the coach said, "I’m done with young guys. If they don’t want to play the right way, young guys aren’t going to play. It does us no good." After the Orlando game, which Washington also lost, Wittman said he spoke with McGee (and Nick Young, to an extent), about why they were benched. After that, I asked McGee if he understood the message his coach was trying to send. He could not say that he did, but seemed confident that he would figure it out sooner or later. And now we have a movie to watch...]

Read more »

Pessimism: it’s often all you got when optimism is all you need. With a season-ending six-game winning streak, things are looking on the up-and-up for the Washington Wizards, or are they? We’ve been down this road before, the path of hope, to the point where actual ‘hope’ has been greatly diluted by dusty roads, cloudy visions, and weary travelers. Still, if Wizards fans can’t find reasons to be hopeful, optimistic, then why are they fans? To gauge the overall optimism of the tired, huddled masses, Truth About It.net asked six different contributors to explain (and rate) their optimism in five key areas which are weighted differently, but come together to total 100 for an Optimism Index on the Washington Wizards franchise. The areas of evaluation are:

Current Players (out of 40);
Future Players via draft picks and free agents/cap space (out of 25);
Coaching/Player Development (out of 20);
Ownership/Team Management (out of 10); and
Arena/Atmosphere/Fan Support/Etc. (a catch-all area rated out of 5).

Read through what the collective minds of TAI — Dan Diamond (@ddiamond), Ryan Gracia (@rgracia2378), Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20), Sam Permutt (@SammyVert), John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend), and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) – have to say about the state of the Wizards and optimism, and then give us your own rating by voting in the polls below.

Read more »

Newly Stoic Nene. 

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 66 contributors: Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) from behind the television screen and Adam McGinnis (@AdamMcGinnis) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) from the Verizon Center.]

Score

Read more »

[photo: K. Weidie, Truth About It.net]

Criticism of Andray Blatche has been unabashed, perhaps filled with too much vitriol at times, and I’m including myself in this pack, obviously. That being said, it’s human nature to feel sorry for the guy, sometimes.

One of the first things I realized upon starting to cover the Wizards with media credentials prior to the 2009-10 season was that Blatche — the way he carried himself, interacted with the media, his general goofiness with teammates in the locker room — is not a bad guy. Certainly no one would confuse himself with notorious a-holes like Rasheed Wallace or Bonzi Wells. But in most senses, Blatche the basketball player — the guy who has trouble staying focused on the little things, rebounding with toughness, not emitting laziness, playing with heart — has justifiably brought all the criticism upon Blatche the person.

He suffers, personally, yet he still hosts parties and invites more critique. Awareness of public perception, much less ideals of being a good, lead-by-example teammate on the floor, are lost upon Blatche in major ways. We are approaching “it is what it is” purgatory with Andray, in that he’ll never fully realize even mere fractions of his talent.

“It is unclear whether the team will decide to move Andray Blatche, who despite the tough season is a very talented player. However, having talent isn’t enough,” wrote Blatche’s former teammate Etan Thomas in a special piece for ESPN.com today; the Poet was encouraging Wizards fans to have hope.

Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 65 contributors: Ryan Gracia (@rgracia2378), John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It).]

Score

Read more »

Photo by David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images

Nineteen wins, people. With a 95-86 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Washington Wizards have now matched their win total of three seasons ago, 2008-09, the first season they did not make the playoffs after making four post-seasons in a row. Meaninglessly meaningful, totally. While you were likely watching Capitals playoff hockey, Adam McGinnis (@adammcginnis), John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) have your Wizards-Cavs reaction…

M.V.P.

-John Converse Townsend

Read more »

ShareBullets: A Q&A with Kemba Walker and some links…

Before Monday’s Wizards-Bobcats game, I headed to the Charlotte locker room while it was open to the media. Tumbleweeds. The Cats’ beat reporter from the Charlotte Observer wasn’t even sent to cover the game. Go figure. In any case, upon my entry into the threshold, some eyes turned toward me, and then quickly looked away. I could’ve sworn that Kemba Walker immediately looked at me, deadpanned, and said, “No.” Can’t blame the Bobcats players. Not. At. All. But, Kemba did end up speaking with me — perfectly willing and perfectly nice about it, he was. So here that goes…

KYLE WEIDIE: Going from winning a championship at UConn to being on the worst team in the NBA, who is giving the best advice on how to deal with the drastic environment change and what are they saying?

KEMBA WALKER: “Nobody really, just the people that’s around me on an everyday basis, like my coaching staff, Rod Higgins, just everyone who’s just been around … my teammates, just doing a great job of keeping me positive and making sure that, regardless of the losses, that I’m still getting better.”

Do you tell yourself anything… anything extra to get motivated to play? Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 64 contributors: Ryan Gracia (@rgracia2378) and Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) from behind the television screen, and Adam McGinnis (@adammcginnis) and Kyle Weidie (@truth_about_it) from the Verizon Center.]

Score

Read more »

Someone had to be the first to throw a flagrant elbow after the Ron Artest-James Harden incident. And if Vegas had set odds, Charlotte’s Tyrus Thomas, a guy who recently got in a physical confrontation with his coach, might have been one of the favorites. Last night in Washington, he delivered.

No, it wasn’t a violent, or even wholly, apparently intentional blow. If you were following Twitter at the time, you might have even seen comment that Thomas delivered a phantom elbow to the chops of Washington’s James Singleton, that he didn’t really connect. And, perhaps, that the referees had found their first post-Artest victim of hyper-senstitive, swift reaction (although Artest — Metta World Peace – has yet to receive game suspension punishment from the league himself). Let’s watch…

Hard to concretely tell from that video. And personally, I didn’t see the play unfold while attending the game at the Verizon Center. But the refs immediately hit Thomas with a flagrant-2 technical foul and stopped the game for a more in-depth video review. Not long after they were done watching, Thomas was ejected from the game. A muted elbow swing or not, the referees obviously saw enough to make an educated decision. What they heard, however, likely played an even larger role in the punishment than the visuals.

Read more »

Is change in the air? Certainly not if you ask Washington Wizards fans this morning, a majority of whom are entrenched in disenchantment with the reported return of team president Ernie Grunfeld. The only true change fans might be used to at this point is a high-rate of roster turnover — after this season, the longest tenured Wizard, John Wall, will have been with the team for only the last 148 games– as well as the inescapable, save for one time, disappointment in NBA Draft Lottery position.

But we’re talking about change on the court, specifically the emergence of a basketball product that’s at least competitive — with a 101-73 win over the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday night, the Wizards have now won four in a row for the first time since December 2007. Of course, we should also be mindful of the fact that the Wizards will, at best, finish with one of the nine worst season winning percentages in 51 seasons of franchise history. Also, 22.2-percent of Washington’s 18 victories this season have come against a Bobcats franchise that has now lost 21 games in a row and is flirting with the worst winning percentage in NBA history if they don’t win one of their final two contests.

Ask some of the Wizards players about the reason for basketball product differences between early in the season and now, and you’ll get veiled explanations about new personnel and guys coming together as a team. Does it boil down to the fact that I like, and strive, to beat like a dead horse: that Nick Young, JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche (hopefully) are gone? It feels all too easy, almost disingenuous, to use the mentally inept as scapegoats. Yet, here we are, with a different basketball team, one that actually might find success given the right additions this offseason.

Maybe veteran Mo Evans said it best when asked about how late season success this year, as opposed to similar circumstances over the past several seasons of futility, should be evaluated with any grain of credibility.

Read more »