Kalorama Courts – NW Washington, DC – Photo: K. Weidie

Well, the season is here. No big, blow ‘em out preview from the TAI crew. We’re just here to offer continued coverage of the hometown pro basketball team as we usually do, and more. The site is entering its sixth season, by the way. So leggo…

On October 9, www.Bovada.lv released estimated win totals for every NBA team, or their over/under. The Washington Wizards stood at 31.5. About a week ago, TAI threw up a poll of various over unders, including:

• O/U on John Wall PPG, 68% took the over on 17 points;
• O/U on John Wall APG, 56% took the over on 8.5 assists;
• O/U on Nene PPG, 63% took the over on 14 points;
• O/U on Nene RPG, 53% took the over on 7.5 rebounds;
• O/U on Jordan Crawford PPG, 56% took the over on 12.5 points; and
• O/U on Bradley Beal PPG, 72% took the over on 12.5.

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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. 7, Washington Wizards at Miami Heat (in Kansas City, MO); contributors: Adam McGinnis, Rashad Mobley and Kyle Weidie.]

Jordan Crawford can pass? Yes, Jordan Crawford can pass… to Jan Vesely, a GIF.

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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.]

Cook Book Strong.

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.

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[Randy Wittman contemplates the next move.]

You don’t want to infer too much from a single preseason game that you’re not able to watch live and can only follow via box score and play-by-play action. Training camp just started less than a week ago (even if a bunch of guys were training in D.C. up to a week before then). Still, the Wizards faced the Bobcats in Charlotte on Sunday afternoon without John Wall (knee), Nene (feet), Emeka Okafor (rest), Trevor Booker (hamstring), and Jannero Pargo (ribs). Okafor’s last game action was in February with New Orleans, and aside from a dislocated finger about 10 days ago, was presumed to be fully ready. Instead, the Wizards started A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Trevor Ariza, Jan Vesely, and Kevin Seraphin, and although I’ll once again give another reminder that it was just one preseason game, some of the numbers in a 100-86 loss to the Bobcats reflect some of the exact preexisting concerns going into this season.

Positives and Negatives.

Kevin Seraphin’s scoring touch continues. He was 5-for-11 with 11 points at halftime, but didn’t score again after that, missing three shots in the second half (from 10 and 11 feet and one attempt at the rim). He’ll also need more than four rebounds in 28 minutes.

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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.

Beal And-1

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.

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Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

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.

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Numbers, via Flick user mervynchua

People like to rank things and then argue about them.

In a world defined by — and dependent on — math and structure, maybe debating numerical assignments given to people, things, movies, etc. in nonsensical manners makes us feel human.

It’s a tame way of bucking the system (except when said debates lead to fights). Rankings and such especially hold immeasurable value in the sports and entertainment world, as they’re often cycled and recycled in a regurgitation of pixels. But also, comparisons are, well, sort of fun.

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ShareBullets… links, commentary, irreverence… and the team used to be call the Bullets.

>> Chris Webber played a single season in a Wizards jersey (1997-98, the rest were a Bullets jersey), and I documented this fact by recently purchasing a replica from Joint Custody, a vintage store in D.C.’s Adams Morgan. Somebody on the Twittermachine tweeted at me that Webber was “one of the worst Bullets ever.” Not quite.

Turning to Basketball-Reference.com, narrowing down a list those who have played at least 2,500 minutes in a Bullets/Wizards uniform and then ranking them by the worst Win Shares Per 48 Minutes, these would be your 10 worst of all-time:

1. Fred Carter >> 0.11 WS/48
2. Slick Leonard >> 0.11
3. Jordan Crawford >> 0.15
4. A.J. English >> 0.17
5. Mitchell Butler >> 0.20
6. Dominic McGuire >> 0.25
7. Doug Overton >> 0.26
8. Tom Hammonds >> 0.32
9. Juan Dixon >> 0.34
10. Jarvis Hayes >> 0.37

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John Wall’s summer league feet game.

Things I learned/witnessed at summer league in Las Vegas, in bullets:

• On Day 1, Chris Webber, an analyst for the games on NBA TV, broke out his pleated cargo shorts. It was a tough day for all of us.

• Bradley Beal can block shots… he averaged one per game over five contests in Las Vegas. Chris Singleton also threw his body around a bunch (“I feel like it’s going to help Chris Singleton out a lot,” said Shelvin Mack about the summer league 10-foul limit during Wizards mini-camp prior. “You know, he likes to foul, so he’s going to play a lot longer, so it’s good for us.”). This clip shows Beal blocking, or rather, thwarting a lob attempt off the backboard, and then Singleton diving over the first row of chairs for the loose ball:

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In their fifth and last summer league game, the Wizards beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 78-75, to leave Las Vegas with a 3-2 record. TAI’s Adam McGinnis from behind the television and Kyle Weidie, courtside in Sin City, take you through The Reaction. But first: a smooth Bradley Beal drive near the end of the third quarter…

M.V.P.

Bradley Beal might not have wowed in Vegas with high scoring outputs or super flashy highlight packages (he didn’t drop 35 like Josh Selby, but averaging 17.6 points over five games isn’t bad), but the Washington faithful can rest assured that he did not disappoint. Beal displayed the consistency on both ends that the Washington franchise has sorely lacked at the shooting guard position for years, and Beal is only a teenager. His effective style was showcased against the Milwaukee Bucks in the Wizards’ summer league finale. Beal finished with a team-high 18 points (7-for-13 field goals), six rebounds, two blocks, one assist, and one steal.

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