The Washington Wizards open the season at home versus the New Jersey Nets this evening. Seems weird that it’s already here. Even after all that lockout deliberation, it kind of crept up on me. It’s a quiet December 26 Monday in D.C., and that has something to do with it. But I’m now more realizing that tonight is like a starting gun, once this game is played there will be no looking back. Three questions from Adam McGinnis, new dad Rashad Mobley, and myself, Kyle Weidie… and three answers from those same people. This is 3-on-3… Leggo.

Adam McGinnis: Kris Humphries was noted as the most disliked player in the NBA by Forbes.com, and was booed relentlessly in his preseason debut at Madison Square Garden. How do you think Wizards fans will treat him in the season opener? 

McGINNIS: Kim Kardashian’s well documented record of public manipulation should bring the brunt of public contempt on her, not a random NBA forward like Kris Humphries. However, Team Kardashian’s campaign to make Kim the victim and Humprhies the evil one is showing prosperous signs. J.J. Reddick, Lebron James and Kwame Brown are all opposing players that the Wizards home crowd loves to boo (sans Blatche of course); Humphries’s situation lacks the circumstance of those three, so I seeing Wiz fans ignoring his existence.

MOBLEY: Humphries will certainly be booed, but only because D.C. fans saw New York Knicks fans do it first. This, of course, is assuming tonight’s Verizon Center crowd will be large enough to summon that type of emotion.

WEIDIE: There might be faint smatterings, but I don’t think anyone cares much. Seems silly that the poll was not based in the opinion of true basketball fans, but I get it… Paparazzi-type B.S. Otherwise, I don’t think the demographics of basketball fans in D.C., as opposed to NYC, care much about the trials of the Kardashians. But what do I know?

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The New Jersey Nets had a road record of 3-16 going into last night’s game against Washington, and although that is not quite as bad as the 0-17 road record the Wizards are sporting, it still is not something to be proud of at all. Avery Johnson might not have been able to coach his team to a successful road record, but prior to the game, he laid out a blueprint on how it could be done:

So let’s break down what the Nets did against the Wizards Friday night using Avery’s formula:

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Each game brings countless stories, instances and things to digest. The Wizards’ 97-77 win over the New Jersey Nets on Friday night was no exception. Surely you’ll hear about the team learning from a battle between buffalo and lions shown to them by Flip Saunders, or about Rashard Lewis’ compete game (16 points on 5-11 shooting, 3-6 from three, 13 rebounds, six assists, three steals, a block and zero turnovers), or about Nick Young tying his career high five assists, or John Wall’s nine assists to zero turnovers, or JaVale McGee’s five blocks in the first half (six on the night), or the Wizards’ jovial pre-game routine and loose attitude in the midst of losing. Anything of the sort, in multitudes. But I’m here to talk about our friend Andray Blatche.

It’s a simple game … or at least it can be. And for all the transgressions we may point out about Blatche, and deservedly so, sometimes you got to point out the good things he does. And maybe we should get extra excited about Blatche doing the simple, little things. These are the small victories with him … something to believe in (even though, let’s be honest, at this point there’s no reason not to believe that the feeling could be fleeting). Nonetheless, through roller coaster haircuts and radio air-clearings with Mike Wise, let’s take a look at couple photos I took during the Wizards-Nets game that highlight something rather simple from Mr. Blatche.

Blatche certainly seems to be setting a good screen here … he doesn’t have a reputation of always doing so, at least according to Gilbert Arenas’ departing critique of the Wizards’ big men. But then again, who can believe what Arenas says?

And John Wall seems to be doing a good job of using Blatche’s screen. So what’s Brook Lopez doing? Well, he’s playing off Blatche, a known shooter, and throwing his concentration toward Wall without Devin Harris. I bet you expect Blatche to pop out around the three-point line for a jumper, don’t you?

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Not long after Washington Wizards fans started making preseason plans and deciding what they would do in their down time until training camp leading up to the October 5th 2010-11 preseason opener, the AP’s Brian Mahoney Tweeted that Brook Lopez of the New Jersey Nets would be pulling out of the FIBA World Championships as he continues to recover from mono. His replacement? JaVale McGee.

Now, it’s unclear if this means that McGee has made the final roster of 12 players, or if he’s just replaced Lopez amongst the cut of 15 that now includes Chauncey Billups, Tyson Chandler, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay, Eric Gordon, Danny Granger, Jeff Green, Andre Iguodala, Kevin Love, Lamar Odom, Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, in addition to McGee.

Common sense would say that, since Team USA was already thin at the center position, McGee will straight up replace Lopez. But what’s common sense worth anyway? Team director Jerry Colangelo has said that they might take a couple of extra players with them as they travel to Europe before the tournament. Team USA is scheduled to play exhibition matches against Lithuania on August 21 and against Spain on August 22 (both to be held in Madrid, Spain). They will play a final exhibition game against Greece in Athens on August 25 before arriving in Turkey, which is kinda in both Europe and Asia … Eurasia, for the FIBA tournament the next day, which is essentially when Colangelo will be required to submit an official roster of 12.

But first, McGee will report to New York City by next Tuesday, August 10, for continued training with the team, including an exhibition game against France on Sunday August 15 at 1 p.m. (EDT) at Madison Square Garden. Yi Jianlian and the Chinese team will take on Puerto Rico following the USA-France game.

So, it’s yet to be seen if McGee will be afforded the opportunity to play in for real, for real international competition … but in the least, we’re guaranteed to see several more scenes like the one below — McGee being mentored by a great NBA vet and training against some of the top talent in the world. In the basketball doldrums that’s usually the entire month of August, the bare minimum scenario is a pleasant surprise that’s more than Wizards fans could ask for.

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Sebastian Pruiti, founder and editor of NBAPlaybook.com and NetsAreScorching.com, has had the opportunity to watch Yi Jianlian for the past two seasons and in a conversation with Truth About It, said:

Yi is an incredibly inconsistent player.  There are days where he looks like he finally solved the puzzle and will turn into a pretty solid offensive player and then the next game he will go 2-15 from the field.  Something he has always been ripped for was [his] lack of aggression, and last year he tried really hard to dispel those thoughts…maybe too hard.  Most times he made the catch he wouldn’t even look for the shot and he’d put the ball on the floor, but teams started to pick up on it.  If he can find a happy medium he might do pretty well offensively.

On the defensive end though, he is absolutely lost.  That is part of the reason I think the Nets traded him besides the cap relief.  I don’t think he would have got much minutes this upcoming year, just because Avery wouldn’t allow his terrible defense to hurt the Nets.

That isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of the 22 (or is it 24?) year old stretch four.  To sort out any misconceptions and better determine Yi’s worth, it’s time for another installment of CHECK MY STATS, unofficially sponsored by Synergy Sports Technology.

OFFENSE

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After a horrible start, the Wizards, a rather dysfunctional team themselves, came back to beat the New Jersey Nets, the worst team in the NBA. Good for them. For the 81-79 win, Flip Saunders need the 5’5″ Earl Boykins, a mid-November pick-up, to hit a jumper with 0.4 seconds left. Jarvis Hayes, a former Washington Wizard, badly missed a shot at the buzzer for the Nets.

The secondary storyline to the Earl of Last-Second Heroics is the fact that not one of the Wizards’ starters, Randy Foye, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood, scored in double figures, something that hasn’t happened to an NBA team so far this season and perhaps beyond.

The starters combined to shoot 15-42 from the field and not one of them finished with a positive plus/minus (-14, -1, -7, -11 and -5 respectively in the previously given order).

Other the other hand, the reserves, Boykins, DeShawn Stevenson, Nick Young, Andray Blatche and Fabricio Oberto, were responsible for 43 of the Wizards’ 81 points. Boykins (15), Young (10) and Blatche (14) were the double-figure scorers for Washington and each reserve finished with a positive plus/minus (+17, +4, +7, +13 and +7 respectively in the previously given order).

So in a season where just about anything has happened on and off the court, Wizards fans, the ones who are left, have been exposed to yet another new adventure. At least this time their team won. Read more »

We’ve seen the dunking prowess of the lengthy JaVale McGee …

But did you know that last year, in only 75 games and 1,143 minutes, McGee dunked more than an entire NBA Team?

JaVale McGee … 80

San Antonio Spurs … 73

• 42% of McGee’s FGs were dunks.
• His 80 dunks were good enough for 29th in the NBA and 5th among rookies, after: Brook Lopez, Greg Oden, Jason Thompson, and Marreese Speights.
• He finished 8th in the league in ‘Minutes Per Dunk’ – 14.65 – after: Shaquille O’Neal, Ryan Hollins, DeAndre Jordan, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Greg Oden, Dwight Howard, and Andrew Bynum.
• Source: Roto Evil via 82games.com

But that’s not all…

JaVale, amongst playing a Transformer and Wolverine, has a staring role in his own movie short. What exactly it’s about is left for the viewer to interpret.

Summer of Epic Vale?

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