Sorry for the long title, but there’s a decent bit to cover here.

The Edict Under Which Ernie Grunfeld Works

We already know Mark Cuban is a pretty smart dude. To get that rich, you gotta be. But we never figured he was smart enough to pull one over on Ernie Grunfeld, the man who spent years honing his trade in the Big Apple. Not only did Cuban (and Mavs GM Donnie Nelson I suppose) get everything they ever dreamed of in a trade with Washington, but they also got the Wizards to pay them “cash considerations,” and they didn’t have to send the Wizards their trade exception in exchange for Fabricio Oberto, as was supposedly discussed.

If you’re the Wizards ownership in limbo, guess you gotta spend money and give away value to save money, perhaps for the sale of the team. With part of potential majority owner Ted Leonsis’ ’10-Point Rebuilding Plan’ being to always seek a “pick and a prospect,” we now have some insight that, perhaps, Grunfeld was working under edict of the Abe Pollin estate to cut costs no matter how much it might set the franchise back in the future. Abe’s dream of his team winning another championship has been put to rest, now the Washington basketball patriarch’s squad could be being dismantled just to appease the financial gain of those he left behind.

Sorry Wizards fans, the legacy of Abe Pollin still haunts the franchise. Not until Leonsis takes over can you rest assured that the team you love will be firmly headed in a positive direction, or at least open with fans on that direction, which would likely sooth baffled impatience in these current trying times.

Mark Cuban, a brilliant cat he sure seems like right now. But he’s also a goober. You know, the type who hams it up beyond necessity while being unfunny and cutesy enough to make you roll your eyes and think, “this” guy. Some of this is evidenced in a video interview Cuban did with Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. Sure, Cuban is probably a nice man, but he’s also annoying with a kitschy style of charm. Good for him, I suppose. He’s rich and most of us aren’t. He wins.

Mark Cuban On Brendan Haywood’s Media Knowledge

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Two of the three below are gone, the third on this Wizards Mount Rushmore might be gone by President’s Day. And that would make not one, but two banners needing to be removed from the 6th Street facade of the Verizon Center in 2010.

“Character, Commitment, Connection”

-Wizards 2009-2010 Season Motto

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.

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I managed to survive the recent heavy snowfall in D.C., and all the cutesy names people were calling it — #SNOMG, Snowpocalypse, etc. — but in the process, somehow found myself taking a little break from writing/blogging. But now I’m back, and hopefully a bit refreshed and motivated to keep on keepin’ on through the rest of this season nightmare.

Apologies if, at times, I tend to get a little negative/overboard on this site, or on Twitter (mostly Twitter) … and no, I’m not writing this as a reaction to JaVale McGee, via Twitter, dubbing myself, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, and Michael Lee of the Washington Post, “haters” after Friday’s game against the Magic, also suggesting that we should work for TMZ. (JaVale did this after re-Tweeting something that each of us had Tweeted, links below). Actually, I’m not reacting to anything anyone has said to me, just doing a little self-check here.

But back to McGee for second, I really don’t think anyone was “hating” on him, but rather commenting on game observations/understandably reflecting on frustrations. But if the feelings of young JaVale got hurt, then I suppose apologies are in order. I responded to his call-out with a couple Tweets of my own, nothing defensive, but mostly with a some classic music tracks. Others chose to remain silent with, perhaps, the intent of approaching McGee in person. All and all, it’s really a shoulder shrugging, no biggie situation. In other words, I could care less.

But back to my, at brief times, penchant for negativity (again, this is mostly on Twitter). It happens, oh well.  One must find a way to vent about witnessing frustrating, unacceptable effort while not going overboard … in addition to acting as a balance to the always positive light emitted from official team outlets (or the non-bias of main-stream media outlets). That’s what each of those entities are supposed to do, but speaking specifically in terms of the former, there are only so many ways to polish up a pile of crap before giving up because of the stink.

I’ll try to stay medium, but there’s no guaranteeing. Calling things like I see them, that’s why this blog is named Truth About It in the first place.

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This Wizards team has gone through a lot of adversity this year, some of it unimaginable. Poor them. People are dying around the world and not by choice. These guys get paid to play basketball. Suck it up.

More and more this team is playing like they just don’t care. It’s not the first time this has happened. Probably won’t be the last. But Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks seemed like more of a disgrace than efforts we’ve seen before.

I’ve said that Ernie Grunfeld can’t make drastic change fast enough. The associated anxiousness continues to mount by the day and will continue to do so up until the February 18th trade deadline, unless something happens before then.

When it goes down, how will I find out? Twitter? Text? G-Chat? Will Ric Bucher’s shiny doll hair pop up on my HDTV to tell me that it has all come to an end? Will I wake up one morning to find Marc Stein whispering in my ear, “Caron Butler for Marcus Camby and Antawn Jamison for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, both straight up” followed by him punching me in the mouth?

These are the things that haunt my slumber and twist my stomach. And they all feel plausible.

Ok, back to the Knicks game. Even though they clearly started to lose the game in the third quarter, I was pretty incensed when watching the fourth quarter “melt,” as Flip Saunders called it.

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Crittenton most definitely on the trade block

The Washington Post’s Michael Lee first tweeted almost a week ago, “Interesting angle w/Crittenton suspension. He could become a viable/valuable trade chip by Feb. 18 since a team won’t have to pay him.”

And we figured as much since the previous day, in his press conference addressing the Arenas/Crittenton suspensions for the rest of the year, Ernie Grunfeld indicated that there were no restrictions in discussing a trade of either with another team.

On late Tuesday, ESPN’s Chris Sheridan reported the same thing, with a couple more details.

#FreeMikeJames

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It was one of those “it is what it is” games. The Wizards gave effort and got beat by a very good team, falling 115-103 to the champion Lakers. Flip Saunders told his players that if they would have played with the same effort against the Heat and the Clippers, they would probably be looking at four wins during the now complete season long six-game homestand instead of two.

The second quarter was where the match was lost. Los Angeles put up 30 points, the Wizards put up 15. Otherwise Washington outscored L.A. by three. In the second, and for pretty much the entire game, the Lakers resembled the time-tested analogy of a well-oiled machine. Even though they were 1-7 from three in the period, they shot 56% on 14 made field-goals, got three steals, two courtesy of Shannon Brown, and shot 9-11 in the paint.

Meanwhile the Wizards turned the ball over seven times leading to nine Lakers points and only got one assist. They also gave L.A. six second-chance points in the second. Instead of a well-oiled machine, the Wizards played like they ate butter drenched popcorn for a pregame meal. Unforced turnovers served as the calling card of the hapless.

Wizards 2nd Q Lineups

>> time on court together, points scored-points given up (turnovers in parenthesis)

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As you can imagine, it’s not fun to be in the locker room after a losing effort, especially after the poor showing the Wizards gave to their home crowd on Friday night. But if you like watching people and their mannerisms as I do, being in a room full of divided millionaires is great fodder for the brain, but not so much for Wizards fans.

Enough of the train-wreck analogies and how their imagery seems too painful on the eyes, yet unavoidable to watch. No, these 2009-10 Washington Wizards are like a ship going down in deep waters. The vessel is sinking fast and everyone wants to bail.

I’m not going to claim the post-game emotion was more distraught after the 112-88 loss to Miami than it has been for any of the other 28 losses this season, but it certainly was one of the most interesting, at least in terms of home games since I’m not a traveling blogger.

The post-game scene made it clear that Caron Butler going rogue on Flip Saunders was just a microcosm of an entire team trying to read the same old, tattered book, but with everyone turned to different pages.

I don’t want to portray that players are at odds with each other or that others have stopped listening to Coach Saunders. That is not what I witnessed, although I can’t speak for what goes on behind closed doors and in the minds of individuals.

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Ready for a sports cliché? Wait for it …. wait for it …. here goes …. “Games are not won or lost on a single play.”

Not exactly comforting to Wizards fans. Definitely not comforting to certain players in the Wizards’ locker room. Especially not comforting to head coach Flip Saunders.

After overcoming just 15 assists to 14 turnovers for the game and a seven point deficit with a minute left, the Wizards fell short by just one point to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night. Down 94-93 with 6.7 seconds left, just after Brendan Haywood drew a huge charge call on Dirk Nowitzki, Caron Butler had the ball in his hands to win the game, either with a shot or a pass to a teammate.

After receiving the inbounds pass, Butler halted any previously set up process and dwindled clock with unproductive bounces of the ball, something you can’t exactly afford when you’re down. He drove left against Shawn Marion into the strong side help of Jason Kidd. With good defense quickly closing up the lane, Butler threw up the only shot he could muster, a weak, fading attempt that was sent back in his direction by Marion. Game over. Fans were left baffled.

No, games aren’t won or lost on one play, but when it came down to one play, why did Washington screw the pooch in between taking it out for a nice seafood dinner and never calling it again? There must have been a better way for the Wizards to court their first three-game win streak of the year. Perhaps being on the same page as to how the final play was to be executed would have helped.

Flip Saunders wasn’t baffled. He was down right pissed, at least for the two minutes of his terse press conference. When asked about the game’s final play, Saunders said, ”That wasn’t the play we were supposed to run.” He reaffirmed his previous statement and followed with, “It’s not what was designed,” when asked how the play was supposed to be run.

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Of mice, of men … the Hawks were the predator and the Wizards were the prey. Early, both teams were cold. I’ll concur with a comment of Wiz broadcast TV HOFer (or at least he should be if he’s not … if that type of thing exists), Steve Buckhantz, who said that unlike versus the Pistons, the Wizards started against Atlanta with energy. They just couldn’t buy a basket, and neither could the Hawks in the beginning.

The Wizards should have felt at home though, the Phillips Arena looked dwarfed by the Verizon Center in capacity. After getting down by as many as 22 points, 40-18 with 3:43 left in the second quarter, the Wizards made the game competitive, getting as close as two points, 66-64, with 11:41 left in the game. But they never could get over a seven point hump late in the fourth quarter.

The Wizards were bested by only 43.5% shooting from the Hawks and a couple ineffectual turnovers. They lost to the better team, and not necessarily because of lack of effort, but because they are not very good.

It’s worth observing that their reason to play inspired basketball has drastically dwindled. If two things plague this team most, one is lack of discipline, which is on the account of the players inconsistently following Flip Saunders’ game plan and often free-styling at crucial points of the game. The second is that the Wizards are not hungry, as in, ‘Did you see D-League call-up Mario West hustle his ass off?’ West had four offensive rebounds in 12 minutes.

As a team, the Wizards don’t know how to play like the Mario Wests of the world, many evidently comfortable with the status quo. Someone tomorrow will take solace in the fact the Wizards fought back from a deficit the size of Jim McIlvaine‘s jersey number. That same someone has started out the decade rooting for moral victories.

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With the latest goings-ons with Andray Blatche, I naturally was curious as to what two of the franchise’s more veteran players thought of the situation. Both Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood have played with Blatche for his entire career. So, it was worth asking them their opinion of the progress, especially maturity-wise, that Andray has made so far this season, and how big of a setback this latest one-game suspension for complaining about shots, among other things, was for the 23-year old, i.e., are those such as myself and Mike Jones overreacting to this most recent incident.

After the Pistons game, I posed some questions to each. One answered like a team captain, saying Blatche has got to “grow from it, and it’s not a time to really chastise him and dwell on it,” and also indicating that he would talk to Andray about it on the plane to Atlanta.

The other answered like … well, like he really didn’t want to answer. Just watch.

[Note #1: From the description above, you can probably figure out who was whom. It's worth noting that after I turned off the camera, Haywood said to me (half-jokingly), "I'm a vet, you're not going to get me like that."

I wasn't really trying to "get" Haywood, but I can certainly understand him taking a guarded approach with the media, especially in these times, and especially when some goofy white dude is following him a Flip Camera. To Haywood's credit, he also indicated he would speak with Andray on the plane.]

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Well, the Wizards lost again on Sunday, nothing new. Thing is, they actually looked decent, as they did on Friday, but shot themselves in the foot, if you will, with 19 turnovers. By the way, go read this interesting piece on True Hoop regarding the NBA and gun-play analogies.

Stepping back, it’s still hard to fathom how surreal the deplorable state of the franchise is. Whether it’s Gun-Gate related or not, every day more of the shit show emerges from the sewers, literally. Tales of Gilbert Arenas taking a dump in the shoe of Andray Blatche … I mean Christ, how immature can you get?

Let’s see, what else? Caron Butler, while off games are okay, is still a quandary — hey, Caron wanted to be “the man” and then got all sad with his second fiddle when Arenas returned, but now that Arenas is gone again …

Of course, unfortunately it seems that Caron’s definition of being “the man” involves taking bad shots and halting ball movement. I don’t mean to unfairly pick on Butler, but again, for someone who all but rested his laurels on defensive improvement before the season, it was interesting, as pointed out to me by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, that on Friday against the Magic, Butler was matched up against Matt Barnes while the just returning Mike Miller had to take on Orlando’s big gun, Vince Carter.

Ok, what else? Well, Mike Miller is turning into Mr. Glass, aggravating his calf muscle against New Orleans on Sunday. He’s supposed to get an MRI on it Monday … and the saga of woes with the Wizards’ training staff and team doctors continues. It also says a lot that the Wizards are seemingly so dependent on Miller for ball movement (see Brendan Haywood’s quote below).

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[Note: Obviously I would have liked to post this piece pertaining to Friday night's win against the Magic, the first home game after Gilbert Arenas' suspension, before Sunday's game against the Hornets ... but life happens and time is my enemy.]

Gilbert Arenas’ corner locker sat relatively empty. A couple pairs of shoes, straightened, likely by someone other than Arenas, a rubber training/physical therapy band, and an autographed basketball card of Sam Cassell taped to the back wall were all that remained. Lonely stood the area of the locker room where the media used to congregate, waiting and salivating for Gilbert to preach in his unfiltered, matter-of-fact, unguarded superstar kind of way. Not that night. Maybe not ever again.

Before the Wizards faced the Magic on Friday evening, those around the Verizon Center spoke of Gilbert in the past tense. Understandable since the banner outside of the arena featuring Arenas was removed, his jerseys taken off shelves of souvenir stands, and his image scrubbed from promotional videos and the WashingtonWizards.com website. A dramatic reaction from the franchise or a necessary message to Arenas and fans? It’s not like Gilbert’s image was completely purged. There’s still a framed photo of Arenas in the media lounge. Several pictures of him are still prevalent on a wall collage right outside of the locker room. But I can’t help but think the actions taken were more grandstanding in mind than reason, especially when a local news station was so conveniently there to film the banner removal.

Meanwhile, in the locker room before tip-off, the scene was business as usual. Antawn Jamison was getting himself hype by dancing and signing to his ipod like he usually does. When I asked Mike Miller about his new haircut, DeShawn Stevenson jokingly chimed in, “That’s Mike,” going on about how he’s known Miller since they were teenagers, when Miller had short hair and diamonds in each ear. Stevenson also spoke of a recruiting trip he took to the University of Florida when Miller was there. He said he knew right away he didn’t want to go there because Billy Donovan, whom he described as “strict as a [blank],” made him run suicide drills as a high school senior. One might chuckle, thinking Stevenson could have used some structure in his life back then, but that’s the past and I’m not here to judge … at least this time. Other Wizards were going through their usual routine, getting ready to do their job and play the game they love. The scene was less somber than what I expected, if at all.

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Brendan Haywood

On needing a win …

“We’ve dug a hole enough, one that seems like it’s too big, but it’s not because we’re going to keep fighting, we going to keep chipping away, and hopefully we’re going to make this playoff push.”

Mike Miller

On passing instead of shooting …

“Believe me, I hear the fans telling me to shoot more, whatever, but you know what? Passing the ball and getting the ball poppin’ is something that when you see gets going, it’s like a domino effect. Once it gets poppin’, if you saw tonight, we got it going early, and now everyone wants to do it. And it’s fun basketball. That’s how you’re supposed to play and it’s fun to win.”

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Ok, maybe “argue” is a strong word. Perhaps it was a disagreement … a contention … a discussion … a conversation. Whatever it was, Brendan Haywood and Antawn Jamison certainly weren’t on the same page regarding defense for a moment toward the end of the second quarter against the Cavs on Wednesday.

I couldn’t quite hear all of the audio that goes with the scene above, I just know it began with a quizzical point by Jamison followed by Haywood putting his hands in the air in a defense manner and saying “I don’t know,” several times before getting his ‘I DO know’ point across. The players then moved on with the basketball game.

Now, I don’t profess to know much about the scheming and assignments in Flip Saunders’ defense. So, let’s take a screen-shot look at the play in question.

The Wizards seem to be in a match-up containment zone looking thing. Boykins is playing in the passing lane, facing West, but not up on him. Haywood steps out, seemingly to contain West.

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{Scenes from last night in Cleveland}

I couldn’t exactly get inside the brains of the Washington Wizards, but my imagination did.

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