A D.C. pic and links …

I came across this big banner hanging on a building at the northeast corner of 13th and L Streets NW, about nine blocks or so from the Verizon Center. It features “Monumental Action” and the Verizon Center website URL followed by Alex Ovechkin, Andray Blatche, Crystal Langhorne, Beyoncé Knowles (I believe), and who appears to be Chris Wright of the Georgetown Hoyas. The logo of the Ted Leonsis-led group, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, is featured in the lower right-hand corner. I’m not sure what other monumental banners are around the city (or DMV area), or how long this has been up (the Monumental logo was released on July 16), but I am curious to see if Blatche will allow himself to be the Wizards representative of Monumental Sports in the future.

Preparation “H”

Michael Lee reports that it’s unlikely the Wizards will sign 2010 second round draft pick (56th overall) Hamady N’diaye, rather likely opting to let him develop in Europe.
[Wizards Insider]

I had a feeling something like this was coming, as N’diaye remained unsigned, and it was previously reported that an Italian team had interest in him. The Wizards will still hold N’diaye’s rights for the future, but now, since it looks like Kevin Seraphin will need a fair bit of time to develop (and he isn’t going to the D-League — link below), it makes sense for Hamady to get more experience overseas.

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A D.C. pic and some links …

[Behind the Back - Columbia Heights Youth Center - 1400 block of Girard Street NW - K. Weidie]

Want more John Wall? Of course you do. In the second video TAI posted yesterday, Wall could be seen getting crossed up, and it would later surface that the ball-handler was Austin Rivers, son of Doc Rivers who is also ranked No. 2 overall in the ESPNU class of 2011 rankings.

On Rivers’ Scouts Inc. profile on ESPN Insider, the ‘Weaknesses’ section starts:

One definite area of needed improvement that sticks out about Rivers is that not only does he love going to his right the majority of times he has the ball, but if forced to his left he does not attack with the same aggressiveness. When played to his left he is reduced to relying on a one-or-two dribble step-back jumper for the majority of his offense.

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Remember last year? I do. I blogged about it and all. In fact, I’ve been blogging about this Wizards team solid since October 2007. And what have I learned most? Curb your enthusiasm. Now, I’m not here to sell you a glass half-empty today that I purchased half-full yesterday. I do, as just about anyone involved with the Wizards, from within the organization to outside, from media to fans, have hope for a better future (thanks to, namely, John Wall and Ted Leonsis).

It’s just that being entrenched in D.C. sports and getting hype for what may lie ahead no longer go hand-and-hand, at least for me. I’m not sure if this feeling has existed within me the whole time, it’s just now I’m older, wiser. Or if the whole Gilbert Arenas gun ordeal last year (as the topping on other D.C. sports futility), which at one point had me contemplating ending this whole blog … briefly, has created a faintly apathetic feeling toward hope (or a hatred of false hope).

My point: Donovan McNabb comes to town and I shrugged my shoulders (and thanks to Mr. Irrelevant, I’ve also been cautioning people that we’ll likely see Rex Grossman start for a couple games). The Wizards land the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft (okay, that was bat-sh*t surprising), and take Mr. John Wall … more shoulder shrugging (sort of).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than thankful that I’ll get to cover Wall, but right now, he’s just a fresh-faced kid who happens to wear the jersey of the NBA team I’m close to.

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A D.C. pic and links …

[Card game, no guns - Meridian Hill Park, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

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John Wall is currently out in California participating as an assistant coach, along with Brandon Jennings, at the 2010 Boost Mobile Elite 24 event in Venice Beach. The players have also been getting some good run, via John Wall’s Twitter account. Check out this oop from Jennings to Wall that was recently uploaded to YouTube:

[UPDATE] Here’s more video of Wall and others from the Elite 24 runs. Looks like Johnny gets crossed up at the 0:59 mark. [via Ball is Life; h/t SLAM]

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[a basketball hoop somewhere in Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

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Excuse the comparison to the men’s game and think of the following more as context to what the Washington Mystics have accomplished this season. Through their run, a prevailing storyline has been about someone who hasn’t played at all, all-star Alana Beard. No one expected Washington to do anything after Beard had season-ending surgery on an injured left ankle tendon in April. Instead, the Mystics finished as the first overall seed in the East.

Unfortunately for the growing Mystics fan base, their team lost its opening playoff game against the Atlanta Dream in D.C. on Wednesday night. They’ve long moved past the ‘what if we had Alana’ stage, but for context, perspective, and for the hell of it, let’s find the NBA equivalent of Beard’s statistical production for a better idea of her impact, or lack thereof.

I chose three advanced stat categories to put in the Basketball-Reference.com historical NBA database (and please excuse the refresher course via the Basketball-Reference glossary): Read more »

When you want to relive your favorite NBA moments (like the time Stromile Swift murdered Tyrus Thomas), where do you head? YouTube, of course.

Now, if you were interested in seeing highlights of Hall of Famer Gus Johnson, well, you won’t find anything more than a few snippets. Until recently, Johnson was a player who never got the notoriety nor the respect deserved from contemporary audiences. It is so hard to praise, and even harder to remember, someone you have never seen. Never known.

Time makes forgetting easy. In explaining why LeBron James need not be afraid of Michael Jordan, J.A. Adande once wrote:

And just because you might remember the old days doesn’t mean everyone does. There are Chicago kids celebrating their 12th birthdays this month who weren’t even born the last time the Bulls won. He has the chance to win over a whole new generation of Bulls fans who would then ask, “What was the big deal about that bald-headed No. 23 guy?”

What was the big deal about No. 25? Without further ado, I present to you: Gus Johnson, in excerpts from around the web. Read more »

[Florida Ave. Grill - Florida Ave. & 11th St. NW - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

<FREE LINKS (AND COMMENTARY)>

(*) Josh Howard is the subject of a recent post by Zac Crain on Free Darko. Interesting stuff. If I can get the gist: Michael Finley kinda caught basketball cancer from Michael Jordan, and in turn gave that cancer to Josh Howard whereas Howard went from doing the little things to settling for fade-away jumpers. Reminds me of Caron Butler, a little. My take: if defense is preached first, and Howard listens, he can return to a solid all-around player. Oh, and if his knee gets better.

(*) Trevor Booker, after the Las Vegas summer league, participated in the development camp of Denver Nuggets assistant coach Tim Grgurich, as reported by the Washington Post’s Michael Lee. Grgurich was an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks during Ernie Grunfeld’s tenure as their GM.

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Sure, LeBron appears to be wearing jeggings (jean-leggings, c’mon folks) in his recent GQ spread. Good for him. But did they make a movie out of the production of GQ’s September issue? Nope. They did for Vogue … and guess what Washington Wizard happens to be in the September issue of Vogue. Why, Yi Jianlain no less.

First, let’s get a couple things out of the way. Yes, my lovely girlfriend once took me to see the ‘September Issue’ movie (Remember when Caron Butler said he didn’t have to ‘justify his thug’ when he went to see the ‘Sex and the City’ movie … Yea, that thing, I guess.) And yes, the same lovely girlfriend bought this year’s September issue of Vogue featuring Yi.

The piece, featuring him posing with several celebrities (with Pharrell on his page, other pages feature the likes of Usher, the Olsen twins, Naomi Watts, Dakota Fanning and Christina Ricci), amongst inter-spaced models, is supposed to be about ‘Fashion Night Out,’ which, as explained to me, is when fashion stores in Manhattan stay open late (other cities do this too), celebrities/models make appearances, and people shop.

Of course, I’m not quite sure what the idea is for Yi. Is he to shop in a generic NBA uniform? Why doesn’t he get to dazzle in high fashion like the others? (For what it’s worth, the spread features one other athlete in uniform, Henrik Lundqvist, goalie for the New York Rangers … but he looks like he was dipped in a vat of cologne and boofed with a high-tech blow drier, with a smirk to boot. Yi just looks like he’s making a face that’s officially endorsed by the Chinese government.)

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STOP:

First go read part one of my piece on Nolan Ricahrdson, then read below …

Richardson understands he signed up for full-on rebuilding mode, in the WNBA, and seems dedicated to getting Tulsa off to a good start. But his personal transition to coaching the women’s game has also been a challenge.

“In the female game, it’s more patterned. A goes to B, B goes to C, you know, pick and pop and those kind of things,” Richardson told me. “In the male game, it’s more you can get after people like we did at the end there where we got into our scramble defense. We normally do a lot of that with the men’s game, in the women’s game you can’t play that way.”

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[I have to thank Rashad Mobley. He was the originator of 'Hey, Nolan Richardson is coming to town,' idea, which so happened to be the same night President Obama decided to head down the street to the Verizon Center for a Washington Mystics game against the Tulsa Shock. Rashad tackled the evening in the midst of the President and let me cover Coach Richardson, who was kind enough to speak with me for a considerable amount of time after the game. Thus, part one of my piece is below, and part two will follow.]

Nolan Richardson coached his final game as head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks on February 27, 2002, an 89-83 loss to Mississippi State on the Bulldogs’ home court. It was a night where 35 points on an efficient 10-18 FGs (7-12 3PT) from Arkansas’ Jannero Pargo couldn’t overcome the efforts of Mississippi State’s Mario Austin and Derrick Zimmerman. In my days working with the men’s basketball team in Starkville, Mississippi, I witnessed Richardson solemnly walk off the court that night and knew it would be the last game he coached for the Razorbacks. It was the end of an era. Flash-forward to almost eight and a half years later …

Now Richardson is much grayer. He’s more calculated and comfortable than my memories of watching him patrol the Southeastern Conference sidelines. But he still has the zest, backed by the experience of a ring he wears representing each of the JUCO, NIT & NCAA national championships he has won as a coach (he’s still the only one to do so). In the coach’s box of the WNBA, the 68-year old clearly gets joy from instruction and spry interactions with the referees, on top of relishing his foray into women’s basketball. I should know, I was afforded the opportunity to sit on press row, mere feet from Richardson as his Tulsa Shock were in the District of Columbia to take on the Washington Mystics on the first Sunday of August, with President Barack Obama in attendance no less.

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Once, when asked about what his team would look like in the coming season, whether it would be more offensively minded, and how it would keep up the intensity on the defensive end, Flip Saunders said:

Well, defensively, the team always takes the personality of their players. The players we have here … are very defensive oriented. The strength of this team from a defensive aspect – how hard they play and how aggressively they play won’t change. What will change is the changing defenses we’ll use, being able to change the tempo of the game will full-court pressure, half-court traps and defenses. Offensively, like our defense, we will always stay aggressive. I always want my teams to attack, and so we will look to push the ball more and score more out of our fast break.

And on whether he would try to evolve a player into a superstar or continue with the teamwork mentality:

In Minnesota, even though we had a great player in Garnett, the team was built on team play. I look for this team to continue that. This team will move the basketball, become a high-assist, low-turnover team playing a very aggressive style.

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While Andray Blatche will be celebrating his 24th birthday a bit early this evening, there are a couple former Bullets/Wizards who are actually turning an additional year in their lives on today’s date, August 18. Now, these aren’t franchise greats by any means — in fact, one didn’t make it to 60 games in Washington and the other came just short of 100 games — but both hold places near and dear to the fun-loving hearts of those who have suffered with this futile team.

So here goes …

[image via DC Sports Bog, David Bergman - AP]

Isaac Austin turns 41 today. Yes, the same Ike Austin who the Wizards traded for in August 1999 in exchange for Terry Davis, Jeff McInnis, Tim Legler and Ben Wallace. Austin was fresh off a 49-game 1998-99 campaign with the Orlando Magic where the center shot 40.8-percent and averaged 9.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.7 blocks and 2.3 turnovers during 25.7 minutes per game … I guess those numbers were impressive to someone at the time. His 6.7 points and 4.8 rebounds he averaged in 19.9 minutes over 59 games with Washington in 1999-2000 (hey! his REB% improved! — 10.9 to 13.8)  earned him the famed Ike Austin Cheese Boot and being made fun of years later for loving donuts. Austin was traded to the Vancouver Grizzlies for Obinna Ekezie, Felipe Lopez, Cherokee Parks and Dennis Scott in August 1999.

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Man, the NBA rookies are having fun. But they deserve it. It’s basketball, basketball, basketball all day for them. And then all those obligations, which, pertaining to John Wall (the most extreme case this year), have been aptly depicted by the Washington Post’s Michael Lee. Hard-work stuff, truly. So, they get paid millions and scrutinized by those who can’t do what they do. Pfftt … “reporters.”

Anyway … part of all this is why watching these guys have fun is so much, well, fun. So let’s take a look at some fun the rooks had while on their photo shoot Tuesday in New York.

First, we have John Wall messing around with his bro DeMarcus Cousins, playing some one-on-one:

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A D.C. pic and some links …

[500 block of Florida Avenue NW - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

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Andray Blatche won’t officially turn 24 until Sunday. Yes, he’s just 24. And like many people any age, ‘Dray is ready to party. And that party is going down Wednesday night.

This year, according to the flier below, Dray will be appearing in uniform, along with Lil’ Dray (wearing backwards red cap to the lower left), and several others, many of whom are listed on the promotional material. E. Taylor, Taz Wube, Rashad Jenkins, Serge Sejour, Todd Hamilton, DJ Quicksilva and Rara The Party Starter … they’ll all be there.

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In case you weren’t aware, John Wall did things today … while in New York for NBA rookie orientation and a photo shoot, etc.

First, let’s watch a video of Wall being asked by some guy to choose between several different paired options at the photo shoot. [via @NBA] The most surprising: he chooses ‘to receive’ over ‘to give’ … maybe he doesn’t like to doling out assists that much after all. Here are some of his other choices:

• Chocolate over vanilla.
• The beach over the city.
• Text (always) over phone calls.
• Lil’ Wayne over Jay-Z.
• Internet over T.V.
• Appetizers over desserts.
• Fact over fiction.
• Defense over offense.
• Ricky Bobby over Ron Burgundy.

I’ll give Wall the benefit of the doubt on taking Lil’ Wayne over Jay-Z because he’s young. But Ricky Bobby over Ron Burgundy? Blasphemous. Okay, let’s watch …

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