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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. Preseason Game No. 8, Washington Wizards at San Antonio Spurs; contributors: John Converse Townsend and Kyle Weidie.]
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Martell Webster offerings: a composed full court push to Jan Vesely.
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[Video scenes from Wizards practice on Monday, October 22. Randy Wittman, before training camp, said that his team needed to make some highlights... Well, here some are, kinda.]
Most Wizards fans have yet to be visually treated to Trevor Booker’s two stellar preseason performances because the powers-that-be felt showing Wizards preseason contests in Toronto and Milwaukee weren’t worth the money. It’s kind of a shame in a ‘games don’t count’ sense.
Averaging 19 minutes over two contests, Booker is putting up 17 points (.640 FG%), 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals a night. On Monday after practice, he credited pick-and-roll action for his 22-point performance against the Bucks on Saturday. Just imagine if “Cook Book” had John Wall to trade recipes with. In the video below, Booker powers down Martell Webster with a strong paint move and a lefty baby hook before getting crunk over himself. Enjoy.
[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. Preseason Game No. 3, Washington Wizards at Cleveland Cavaliers; contributor: Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It), who watched the game over bootleg Internet television.]
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Washington Wizards 99 at Cleveland Cavaliers 95 [box score]Stat of the Game: The Wizards shot more free throws than their opponent for once, 34 to 28, but they made just 23 of them (67.6% — ouch) while Cleveland made 21 (75%). Washington tallying 26 assists to 16 turnovers also somewhat helped. |
The Wizards matched-up against each other for two segments of 5-on-5 action in front of season ticket holders and media on Thursday night. That it was just the third day of training camp was clear, as jumpers on offense tended to clang and more experienced defense usually won out. A white team featuring A.J. Price, Bradley Beal, Trevor Ariza, Trevor Booker, Emeka Okafor, Cartier Martin, Brian Cook, Earl Barron handled a blue team featuring Jordan Crawford, Martell Webster, Chris Singleton, Jan Vesely, Kevin Seraphin, Shelvin Mack, Shavlik Randolph, and Steve Gray 32-14 — the white team won each scrimmage segment 16-7. Below are the video pixels and scenes.
In this first clip, Okafor gets a relatively easy post catch against Seraphin, turns, and hits a soft-appearing but slightly flat jumper over Kevin. It’s a shot Okafor needs confidence to take. On the inbounds, Booker puts defensive pressure on Crawford and Vesely. Booker is a big guy, but Crawford barely makes an effort to create space, and then he gets on Vesely because he doesn’t initially execute the tough pass. Once on the other end, Booker steps up to help with Crawford’s dribble penetration — Booker and Ariza together make an intimidating defensive combination. The clip ends with what appears to be a very poor entry pass from Crawford into the post (the play is obscured by a coach on the sideline). The blue team turns it over, Beal picks up the leftovers, and he takes it the length of the floor to draw an And-1 against Crawford.
Now a finable offense?
JaVale McGee flops versus Dwight Howard.
Flopping has become the fashioable conversation of distraction heading into this new, full season of NBA basketball. In all likelihood, there will be less time (and fine money) spent on flopping in year one than efforts spent on conversation leading up to implimentation. With that said, if I lived in Las Vegas and they had odds on which NBA player will be the first to get fined under the new rule, I’d take part. {Blake Griffin! … or wait, Anderson Varejao!!}
Otherwise, having any sort of rule is fine (but we’ll see about that anyway), and the decision to implement penalities after-the-fact (at least from the start), as opposed to during games, is also fine. This will allow the ultimate decision to be more consistent, instead of in the hands of whatever referee is judging whatever game in whatever venue on a nightly basis.
No Dr. Richard Kimble Gilbert Arenas being snide. No annual broken promises from Andray Blatche. (No one said they were willing to die for the Wizards at this year’s media day.) No DeShawn Stevenson talking swag and Abe Lincoln neck tats. No overabundance of smiles from Nick Young. No Ted Leonsis calling JaVale McGee ‘erudite.’ OK, so there was Jordan Crawford saying, “When it’s time to score, I score. I mean, that’s how it should be.”
Otherwise, 2012 Washington Wizards Media Day was rather tame, but wouldn’t you expect that to be a good thing? Ted Leonsis didn’t even speak at this year’s media day. Now that’s tame. This season, headed into training camp, the focus has shifted more toward basketball. And it’s propelled by what Randy Wittman hopes has been a summer of truly ‘good‘ workouts. No, these aren’t the blog-worthy Wizards from when you first started hearing about blogs, but what they say in preparation for the season can be just as noteworthy. Pictures from media day have pixelated, now here’s just a sampling of the words (and faces).
Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).
You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of#WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run.
TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.
[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. Click here for cumulative DC Council 3-star ratings over the course of the season. Game 61 contributors: Markus Allen, Arish Narayen, and Kyle Weidie (@truth_about_it).]
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This past week has been a blur, mostly because I’ve been oddly feeling under the weather… in a haze of a head cold that won’t quit. It also might be the Wizards. Have I mentioned how this 2011-12 NBA season can’t be over soon enough? A week? These past several years of the Washington Wizards franchise, one that can’t stop finding ways to top itself in futility, has been a blur. Actually, they’ve been bottom-feeding for a while, so nothing should surprise, even almost breaking the all-time franchise low for points scored in a game (64), which happened to be set less than 100 days ago.
After getting embarrassingly demoralized, 103-65, by the New York Knicks in their only appearance in Madison Square Garden this season, Washington has now collected 223 losses since falling to the New Jersey Nets on opening night of the 2008-09 season. There are just 82 wins to show for it. During the calendar of those previous three NBA regular seasons and including this fourth, lockout-shortened one, Wizards fans have experienced a loss every 2.8 days, a win every 7.5 days of a season.
But the key number from Friday night’s defeat: 22. The Wizards made 22 field goals, a franchise low, and committed 22 team turnovers, while the Knicks had 22 assists. How should fans respond to such ugliness? How can they? They can’t.
It’s not about this team losing to those Knicks in that manner on whatever night while being heckled by New York fans, media members and players alike. There are mitigating circumstances. Over the past eight games the Wizards have trotted out the youngest starting lineup in franchise history. The hard sell of the team and its television broadcast partners won’t let anyone forget.
It’s been about three weeks since the Washington Wizards, Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets collaborated to exchange parts. The Wizards gave up Nick Young, JaVale McGee and Ronny Turiaf and got Nene, Brian Cook, and a 2015 second round draft pick belonging to the New Orleans Hornets (via the L.A. Clippers) in return. Los Angeles received Young in exchange for Cook and the second rounder, and Denver received McGee and Turiaf in exchange for Nene. The Nuggets soon thereafter waived Turiaf, who then signed with the Miami Heat. To check in on the aftermath of this trade, I turned to some authorities for the involved franchises for commentary. Nick Flynt (@ClipperBlogNick) of ClipperBlog, Jeremy Wagner (@RoundballMiner) of Roundball Mining Company, Sean Fagan (@McCarrick) of Bullets Forever, and Kevin Arnovitz (@KevinArnovitz) of ESPN.com/TrueHoop drop some knowledge on the Clippers, Nuggets, Wizards and Heat respectively. Read on…
Intro: The Clippers had to know what they were getting with Nick Young, right? In 1,211 minutes with Washington this season, Young had a FG% of 0.406 and an eFG% of 0.468; he also picked up 1.4 assists per 36 minutes. In his hometown of Los Angeles, Young’s FG% has dropped to 0.373, his eFG% to 0.444, and his assists/36 to 1.0. With a nice recent run of eight wins to one loss (vs. the Lakers), the Clippers are 9-4 since Young made his debut (although, 0-3 when Young starts). So… how’s that trade working out? (Bonus if you miss Brian Cook.)
Across The ESPN TrueHoop Network