[Ed. Note: Lukas Kuba is TAI's Czech correspondent for
everything Czech/Jan Vesely/Tomas Satoransky-related. —Kyle W.]

Vesely’s baby sister, biggest Wizards fan. How could anybody hate on Honza? (pic via Jan Vesely’s Instagram)

“Honza had a few challenges in front of him before. Whether in his sporting or personal life. He did overcome them all and I believe he’ll cope with this one successfully, too.”
—Jan Vesely’s Dad, Jan Sr.

In late June of 2011, captivated and transfixed by the whole Jan Vesely “Dunking Ninja” a k a “The Flying Czech” a k a “Blake-Griffin-Is-The-American-Jan-Vesely” buzz/euphoria both in the Czech Republic and in the Serbian capital of Belgrade (not to mention among the Wizards faithful), I embarked on a little foolish journey—I decided to revive my dead blog with a translated post of an interview Vesely gave to the Czech media, semi-hoping someone would read it and say “Good job man, I enjoyed this.” By the dawn of the morning in Washington, D.C., the DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg unearthed the post and wrote about it, saying “… and with the Wizards now putting much stock in their newest first-round pick, Jan Vesely, someone’s gonna have to start monitoring the Czech media. The natural outlet would seem to be the Luke Mellow basketball blog.”

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[D.C. Council: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the subs, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is on the table. Game No. 1, Washington Wizards at Cleveland Cavaliers; contributors: Adam McGinnnis, Rashad Mobley, and Kyle Weidie.]

How do you like your John Wall?… With glasses? Read more »

The pre-game post before the very first game of the 2012-13 season, Washington Wizards at Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, October 30, 2012.

Here to tell you what you need to know and give a prediction is Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It), Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20), and guest, Amin Vafa (@AminVafaNBA), who writes about the Wizards at Bullets Forever, about the Cavaliers at Cavs for SB Nation Cleveland, and about the NBA in general at Hardwood Paroxysm.

Wizards Starters:

A.J. Price, Bradley Beal, Trevor Ariza, Trevor Booker, and Emeka Okafor

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(picture via USA Basketball)

USA Basketball rolled into the nation’s capital this past weekend, taking part in a variety of World Basketball Festival events throughout the city. It all culminates with the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams facing off tonight at the Verizon Center against their counterparts from Brazil in a friendly exhibition. The men’s team held a “Hoops for Troops” practice on Saturday afternoon at D.C. Armory in front of 3,000 fans, many of them members of the armed forces. The team ran through 5-on-0 full court offensive sets, defensive drills, and had an intra-squad scrimmage. The special gathering had a “midnight madness” feel with a sprinkle of Wizards home game flavor. And, lest we forget, these are the best basketball players in the world going hard at each other; it was truly special to witness. (Additional coverage of this experience will be available in forthcoming posts.)

On Sunday, the men’s team held a practice at the Smith Center (George Washington University’s basketball arena), and it was briefly open to the media. The preparations are part of the USA Basketball tour that started in Las Vegas with this stop in D.C., along with appearances in Manchester, England and Barcelona, Spain, before ultimately arriving in London to defend their 2008 Olympic gold.

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[Antawn Jamison ponders the Wizards - photo: K. Weidie]

Tonight, the Cleveland Cavaliers travel to Washington for a marquee match-up between struggling teams and former rivals. Though Soulja Boy is not expected to be in attendance, Antawn Jamison will be, playing in his first game in Washington since he was shipped out. Both teams look to snap losing streaks. Three questions, three answers, from three of your favorite people– John Krolik (@JohnKrolik) of ESPN TrueHoop blog Cavs: The Blog, and TAI’s Sam Permutt (@sammyvert) and Kyle Weidie (@truth_about_it) — right now.

#1) You’re Antawn Jamison, consummate professional and former All-Star power forward. The NBA has decided to merge the Cleveland and Washington teams. You get to pick four other players (point guard, shooting guard, small forward, and center) to start alongside you for the new and improved Wizaliers team. Who are you running with? And even with this merger, how successful can the Wizaliers team be?  Are they a playoff team? Championship contenders?

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[Mr. Versatility]

During Hinrich’s introductory presser at the Verizon Center this past Monday, Chris Marks of Prince George’s Community Television asked him what position he thought would best fit him in DC.  Hinrich responded with a laugh:

Well we’re going to figure that out. I don’t know exactly.  I probably feel more comfortable playing the one, it’s a little easier.  But I feel I’m very capable of playing both positions and I think starting in training camp that’s going to be a challenge, trying to figure out exactly where I fit in and what I need to do to help the team.

This of course begs the question: Where does the Wizards’ factotum fit? (And is he a better PG than a SG?)

I headed over to 82games to find out.

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Remember in Rocky IV when the main character, also named Rocky, was training for a big fight in Russia? He was outdoors, chopping wood, running in the snow, fighting wild Russian wolves with both hands tied behind his back, and fueled by a three-day vodka-only diet (I think all of this happened, my memory is fuzzy).

Meanwhile, Rocky’s counterpart, the evil Dolph Lundgren, was training in the lab with robots and steroids, and robots on steroids.

I’m not sure who eventually won the fight, I just remember the speech that Rocky made at the end being a life changing experience. Not so much because of his words, but more because of the kick ass song that followed, “Hearts on Fire” by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.

What does this have to do with JaVale McGee? Well, he’s been putting in au naturale work just like Rocky.

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We’ve heard it from Ernie Grunfeld before, most recently in an interview by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever.

We were the first to make a move, so everybody’s following us (chuckles).

True, the Wizards were the first to strike when they landed Mike Miller and Randy Foye. But it’s hard to laugh, or continue to pridefully boast about the move, when the cream of the Eastern Conference crop keeps passing the Wizards by.

Let’s quickly go through what the top three teams in the East (Orlando, Cleveland and Boston), have done this off-season. Read more »

I was on a break outside the other day, catching some fresh Penn Quarter air, taking a stroll around Freedom Plaza, when this little kid came up to me, and said, “Hey Mister … don’t you know that the Wizards need another big man? Haywood, Jamison, Blatche, McGee, and McGuire aren’t going to cut it.”

“Easy lil’ fella,” I told him. “We’ll keep looking around to see if we can add someone else, but we feel comfortable about what we have currently and the depth of our ballclub.”

The kid then kicked me in the shin and ran away.

I suddenly woke up from my slumber and realized those weren’t my words, those were Ernie Grunfeld’s words. I had a mission …

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