Posts tagged ‘brian cardinal’

[Ex-Wizard Brendan Haywood is heading to the NBA Finals, and now he's finagled two hats to prove it.]

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

But the Heat are not there quite yet, they have to finish off the Chicago Bulls first. The Dallas Mavericks are your Western Conference champs. So congrats goes to Stevenson for the duration of his NBA career, going from potential high school-to-pros bust to staying relevant with hustle work, defense and knowing his role (for the most part … surely DeShawn’s collection of busted threes don’t fall into an “ideal” role; he was 5-21 from deep in five games versus the Thunder). Congrats goes to Haywood, the warmth of whose body eats up a majority of his 6-year, $55 million compensation. But hey, Dallas wasn’t going to get to the Finals without two serviceable bigs in Haywood and Tyson Chandler. Congrats goes to Butler, currently recovering from knee surgery, for being around — decent work in the regular season, and thanks for your positive attitude, but let’s be honest, the Mavericks are probably better if you remain out due to injury for the rest of the season (unless someone else gets hurt). And finally, congrats goes to Cardinal. Thanks to Trey Kerby, you will always be the most dad looking dad in the current NBA.

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This is Mike Bibby, son of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 32-year old member of “Team Dime” and post-game interview backwards hat wearer. Such an unwilling member of the Washington Wizards Bibby was, that on Monday he surrendered a scheduled payment of $6.2 million dollars for the 2011-12 season so he could relinquish hammer and hard hat contributions to Ted Leonsis’ rebuilding project. The Washington team owner subsequently called it, “a piece of unexpected and positive news for our franchise.”

Bibby might have avoided giving his only post-game home locker room interview as a member of the Wizards after a loss to the Dallas Mavericks last Saturday night had I not stopped him as he made his way toward the exit; most other members of the Washington professional basketball press corps were busy giving their attention to another member of Bibby’s now former team. In his answers, Bibby referred to the young Wizards team more as “they” than “us” — understandable, supposedly.

In the exclusive video below, Bibby talks exclusively to those allowed access to the Wizards locker room and answers a question, exclusively asked by someone else,  about getting into the scoring record book for the Washington Wizards, in a less than exclusive manner (as I’ll soon explain).

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Andray Blatche does some good things, he does some terrible things … on the basketball court and off. He also has mounting armies of detractors and slightly less factions of defenders, who usually elect to stand on the tippy-toe of one leg in their staunch defense.

I suppose that as long as Andray Blatche is around doing Andray Blatche things, people will around to criticize and point those things out, myself included. Although, admittedly, I should be more fair in pointing out the positive things he does, i.e., I probably should not have taken a shot at him in a post about Darrell Walker’s rebounding ability. Oh well. We want Blatche to succeed, we really do, but he seems to try hard at not making that want possible through not always trying hard … you know what I mean?

His positives get over-shadowed by his negatives, by far. But that’s the bed he makes … he’s not the next Gilbert Arenas, but he is. Only Blatche can shut his critics up, not the critics themselves nor his defenders. These are the facts, just like it’s a fact that many other NBA players do not respect Blatche. Taken from something TAI’s Rashad Mobley wrote after the Wizards lost to the Chicago Bulls in Washington on Dec. 22:

“But the strongest indictment of the Blatche’s play on this night did not come from any writer, blogger or coach, but from the other locker room. As Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau finished his postgame comments and the media filtered into the visiting quarters, there was a conversation between two Bulls players about the play of Blatche.  One player observed that he played with “no feeling” during the game, and the other player said, matter-of-fact, that Blatche has always played that way throughout his career.

One player involved in that conversation left the locker room before I could follow up with him, the other declined to elaborate any further on the record.  Still, their feelings about Blatche’s lack of effort in defeat were crystal clear.”

Blatche has made Wizards fans gasp at his play plenty of times … but isn’t it about time someone from the opposing bench gasps, and not laughs, at Andray? I think so. Let’s go to the video tape … keep your eye on the Mavericks bench and your ears in tune to what the last suited gentlemen to the left is doing, the one right next to balding Brian Cardinal.

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When the DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg was in Vegas, he tweeted the question:

“Is mike miller the wizards’ best white player since….gugliotta?“

Dan later followed up in a Sports Bog post saying:

I was asking some of the other media members who would be the answer to this question: “Mike Miller is the Wizards/Bullets best white player since…..” There was no consensus. I will keep working on this. In a purely jesting, non-offensive way.

Steinberg’s nomination of Tom Gugliotta seems like a choice with which most of Wizards nation could concur. But thinking back, the organization hasn’t exactly had a history of illustrious contributions from the white man on the basketball court.

All of this got me thinking … and research would have to respond to these thoughts.

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[image via Gilbertology]

Tony Kornheiser will turn 61 on July 13th. Fully entrenched into his sixth decade, we can only hope that Tony has been given a shingles vaccine, the CDC recommends it.

Kornheiser shares a birthday with Spud Webb, boxer Michael Spinks, Harrison Ford (who is six years older, but about 6o years better looking than Tony — self deprecating joke that TK would make alert), was born on the exact same day as Aunt Viv from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (the second one, after the first one left due to difficulties with Will Smith), and fittingly, shares a b-day with some fella from Queens named Dick Bunt, who played for both Kornheiser’s Knicks and Baltimore’s Bullets.

Life expectancy has increased in recent years. If it were 1935, Tony would be reaching the age where he would be expected to pass. Not so these days. That’s why some are proclaiming that 60 is the new 40.

So hey Tony, turning 61 is not all that bad, just as long as you’re following MSN’s 12 steps you must take at age 60. Although, according to Kornheiser’s On The DL Podcast with Dan Levy, he’s not closing in on a retirement date, he’s looking for another job.

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Wizards player evaluations for ‘08-09 continue, up third is Etan Thomas. My thoughts are below, you can check on the full report on Bullets Forever.

[Previously: Oleksiy Pecherov | Juan Dixon]

What can I say about Etan Thomas’ season? Well, at least he has intelligence and social involvement to fall back upon.

Etan’s 2008-09 wasn’t nearly as tragic as his previous season, at least he saw the court (for all of 306 minutes over 26 games). Then again, working his way back from open heart surgery only to go down with a torn knee ligament in mid-January seems pretty devastating. Then again, again, at least he didn’t have to toil through the remainder of a miserable year. Although, if you ask Etan, he surely would have been glad to do so.

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Ya’ll remember Brian Cardinal?

He was on the Wizards for all of 15 minutes (literally, he saw 15 total minutes of court time in a Wiz uniform)….scoring four points and pulling down five boards over five games. And that was the only action on the court he saw for the entire 2002-03 season.

The Wiz got him in September ’02 when Michael Jordan traded Rip Hamilton, Bobby Simmons, and Hubert Davis to the Pistons for Jerry Stackhouse, Ratko Varda, and Cardinal…..that really worked out. Nice move for the future MJ.

In the present day, people are all like, “Oh, Brian Cardinal looks like a dad,” or “Brian Cardinal looks like an abusive husband.”

Get off his jock. First of all, my dad don’t tweet….and you can pretty much take any 6’8″+ white dude, and dub him as a potential abusive husband, as long as he doesn’t look absolutely goofy like Gheorghe Muresan or Walter Herrmann.

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