[Cartier Martin, with hand raised to the right (20), sets up behind the 3-point line.]

“Not as terrible as one would expect,” reads one of only two IMDb user reviews for The Cartier Affair, the 1984 made-for-TV movie Wizards G/F Cartier Martin was named after.

The weighted average of this romantic crime comedy starring the Hoff, Joan Collins, and Telly Savalas sits at a 4.9 (out of 10). 19.4% of voters rated it a 10, 20.9% rated it a 5, and the remaining votes were scattered across the scale. The Cartier Affair was best enjoyed, on average, by males aged 18-29 and females aged 45 and older – rating the flick a 7.4 and an 8.5 respectively. Digressing no further (because this demographic inspection is only mildly interesting to me and not applicable to my hoops analysis), the critique “not as terrible as one would expect” applies to Cartier Martin, too.

At first glance, his career stats (in 51 total NBA games with the Bobcats, Warriors, and Wizards) don’t pop off the page. Read more »

[Editor's Note: Wizards games aren't just about basketball, they're about the whole fan experience. And Truth About It.nets bring you that experience from up close. Here's the debut edition of 'Under The Hoop' -- pictures and commentary by TAI photographer Adam Douglas from last Tuesday's match-up against the Charlotte Bobcats.]

7-Day Dray decided to play only seven minutes because he did not hustle back on defense after this shot.

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The Wizards are about to play the team, and the player, against whom Gilbert Arenas injured his knee.

This same team, the Charlotte Bobcats, and their home court, is where Antawn Jamison took, and missed, his last shot as a Washington Wizard, which also happened to occur in Jamison’s home state.  Had he made the shot, the game would have gone into overtime. Instead, the Wizards lost.

Tonight, those Bobcats play the Wizards with a chance to give them their worst losing streak in franchise history … 14 games.

Ain’t life grand? But hey, Gilbert Arenas is free.

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As a player, Andray Blatche didn’t do anything particularly egregious in his seven minutes of action on Tuesday night, which, for the record, is only about 0.0007 of seven days. But as a person, as a teammate, that’s a different story.

Actually, Blatche didn’t do much of anything, especially rebounding, of which he achieved zero compared to 11 boards by the Charlotte Bobcats, seven offensive, while he was on the floor.

Andray took some shots, five of them, making two. None of them were absolutely terrible, aside from not really following Flip Saunders’ edict to drive to the basket as the Bobcats seemed to be able do with ease. Blatche did drive to the hoop once for a dunk. Ironically, late in the game that basket was displayed on the Verizon Center jumbo-tron as the Volkswagen “Drive of the Game.”

Blatche’s worst shot came right before Flip took him out the game. But Saunders, at least according to him, didn’t intend to call out Andray for taking ill-advised shots.

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Today the Wizards signed Shaun Livingston to a 10-day contract. Yes, that Shaun Livingston. The once Magic Johnson-esque prodigy who devastatingly injured his knee in just his third season in the NBA. On February 26, 2007 at the 8:10 mark of the first quarter, Livingston went up for a fast-break layup and came down awkwardly on his left leg, tearing his ACL, PCL, MCL and lateral meniscus. He also dislocated his patella and tibia/femoral. Ridiculously painful sounding doesn’t even come close to describing. Seeing it happen is even worse. I’m not going to even link the video.

But get this weird, connected sh*t. Not a week after Livingston’s injury, on April 4, 2007, Gilbert Arenas originally injured his knee against Gerald Wallace and the Charlotte Bobcats. Guess who Livingston’s then team, the Los Angeles Clippers, were playing on his fateful night. You guess it, the Charlotte Bobcats.

Video evidence confirms that at the time of Shaun’s injury, Wallace was on the court, but on the other end — remember, it was a fast-break opportunity for the Clippers. But do not forget that Wallace was on the court making contract with Josh Howard when he originally injured his ankle in 2008.

It would be really weird if Howard suffered his recent knee injury against the Bobcats and not the Chicago Bulls. However, guess who checked in for Livingston after he got hurt? Wizards assistant coach Sam Cassell. Exactly. Weird sh*t.

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On one hand, you have arguably the best game of the year. Dallas is the only other in contention (even though the win against Cleveland was nice, it wasn’t the best).

On the other hand, you have arguably the worst … but there are far more in the conversation (Indiana, Oklahoma City, San Antonio).

Part of me wants to vote for the loss to Charlotte as worst because it’s still fresh. And then there’s this:

Charlotte’s 1st Road Win

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Saturday night was a pick-your-poison game for the Washington Wizards, there was a myriad of reasons for their 92-76 loss against the Charlotte Bobcats. When people look back on this game, they’ll wonder how the Wizards managed to look so good in Friday night’s post-Thanksgiving win in Miami, but then came out at home the next night like a grandpa loopy on leftover tryptophan trying to dribble a basketball with gloves on. The Bobcats stuffed the Wizards like turkeys from the time the oven was turned on to when the dishes were being done and put away.

The problems: Some may cite continued offensive woes. One fan so eloquently exclaimed, “Hey Flip your offense [insert non-complimentary word]!,” as the masses exited the Phone Booth with four minutes left and the Wizards down more than twenty. Others (pretty much every player who talked in the locker room after the game), continuously regurgitated the theme of energy (or lack thereof). Energy seems to be the biggest obstacle facing the Wizards, especially since no one knows how to interject it upon this team of feigning hope.

But the Wizards’ issues can be broken down by quarter as well. Let’s take a look:

1st Quarter

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flickr/kris247

When the San Antonio Spurs asked Ernie Grunfeld what it would take to get the 5th pick in June 25th’s draft, Grunfeld simply responded, “Manu Ginobili,” or so goes the purported story relayed by the Washington Post’s Michael Lee.

Despite Ginobili’s old age and injury issues, sounds like a pretty absurd counter request (assuming only expiring contracts/low value players would accompany the pick) for one of the top gamers in the NBA. Spurs brass certainly would not expect to give up one of their top three stars for a pick in what most are saying is a down draft.

Grunfeld is not ridiculous, nor is he stupid. He’s just playing hardball knowing the pick will only increase in value heading up to the draft. Case in point would be the hype surrounding Stephen Curry and interest from the Knicks to possibly trade up to get him (amongst Wizards’ threats to draft Curry themselves). Whether Grunfeld’s old team would deal with him might be another story.

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A great man once said that a picture is worth a thousand words…I could be wrong, but I think that great man was Jesus.

And, my game blogs, which have become noticeably sparse, tend to be very, very lengthy.

So, in lieu, I present what went down last night via screen shots.

Enjoy America.

Oh yea, part one of this is on Bullets Forever……go there first and then come back here.

U dead cat.

Hey you!….jerk Wizards fan (pointing to myself in mirror)….What, you have nothing to look forward to? (aside from the season ending)

Oh…I forgot, you’re all jazzed about Gilbert Arenas playing on Saturday. Keep it in your pants hot shot, that’s a ‘believe it when you see it’ situation.

I’m not talking three days from now, I’m talking TONIGHT!

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