One of the difficulties of working at a relatively new TrueHoop Network blog, as opposed to a major newspaper or a well-known website, is the ability to nail down good relationships with actual NBA players. Veterans like Michael Lee, David Aldridge and Marc Stein, have been around long enough to cultivate solid, trustworthy relationships with certain players, and they are granted more access because of their well-known employers (The Washington Post, NBA.com/TNT, ESPN.com). When you’ve only been around for only three years like I have it is more difficult–but not impossible.
My quest to get to know some of the NBA players a bit better has been even more difficult this year, because I mainly cover the opposing locker rooms (thus the title of this particular post). I see the Wizards players in passing, and if I’m lucky I’ll get a head nod or a “What’s up man?”, but nothing close to a substantive conversation that produces some juicy bloggable information. When I’m in the opposing locker room, the beat writers for whatever team is in town that particular night usually have a monopoly on those close relationships–as they should. Players are friendly to me, and they are willing to answer questions, but I can never really get over that hump where they are comfortable enough to truly talk to me–with one exception.
I first caught up with New Orleans Hornets forward, David West in March of 2009, when they took on the Wizards. I had seen him talking to Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson (Dr. Dyson is a minister, a professor, a radio talk show host, and he has written numerous books on race and cultural matters in this country. He’s also a frequent guest on the HBO Show, “Real Time With Bill Maher), and I wanted to ask him what they talked about. Before disappearing in the training room for treatment, West explained that he admired Professor Dyson, and he just wanted to finally meet the man. He thanked me for noticing, and we parted ways.
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{Wall vs. Paul - photo: K. Weidie}
I’ve been a Philadelphia Eagles for over 25 years. I’ve endured ups, downs, mediocrity and everything else associated with loving a team too much. But because I’ve lived in Washington for most of those years, and NFL League Pass is still a relatively new invention, I’ve seen more way more Redskins games than I have Eagles games — which means I saw plenty of Joe Gibbs in his heyday.
One of the staples of the Gibbs era was his ability to make halftime adjustments based on what the other team was or was not doing. Part of this ability was based on his stellar assistant coaching staff, and part of it was that Gibbs often paid attention to even the smallest of details.
New Orleans Hornets coach Monty Williams is from the Washington D.C. area (Oxon Hill, Maryland to be exact), so maybe he was somehow inspired by Gibbs last night, because his team’s second half play was key to the Hornets’ 92-81 victory.
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Published in
2010-11 Wizards,
New Orleans Hornets,
Rashad Mobley |
2 CommentsTags:
chris paul,
david west,
emeka okafor,
joe gibbs,
John Wall,
lester hudson,
monty williams,
New Orleans Hornets,
trevor ariza
Andray Blatche’s play is becoming a thorn in the Wizards’ side. Sure, he puts up numbers here and there. Sure, he’s only whatever young age people keep citing as an excuse. He’s also induced boos from the home crowd on more than one occasion … and for good reason.
I’ve seen grown men, eyes reduced to glowing red from rubbing in despair at his ineptitude on defense (and I wasn’t looking in the mirror). It’s an abomination to the game of basketball, I say. And that’s why I’m here, simply as a concerned person for the game. There will be more to dissect and observe about 7-Day Dray’s defense, but let’s take a look at the equivalent of 4,000 words about his bad help defense on a particular hand-off in Saturday night’s 92-81 Wizards loss to the New Orleans Hornets.
Blatche’s man, David West, is in hand-off mode to Rashard Lewis’ man, Trevor Ariza. Lewis is trying to stick his hand in there to keep this from happening … and maybe Lewis’ own defense got him a bit behind the 8-ball in this situation, but it looks like Blatche will need to help nonetheless.
Yet, Blatche has yet to move his feet in this next shot.
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Wizards player evaluations for ‘08-09 continue, up eighth is Andray Blatche. My thoughts are below, you can check on the full report on Bullets Forever.
[Previously: Oleksiy Pecherov | Juan Dixon | Etan Thomas | Javaris Crittenton | JaVale McGee | DeShawn Stevenson | Nick Young]
flickr/wizardsdotcom
DMX’s “Here We Go Again,” is the first song that plays in my head when contemplating Andray Blatche. Of course, DMX’s career went the way of the gutter with a litany of charges, crack-induced federal agent impersonating, car-jacking attempts at JFK, and jail time. Evidently Earl Simmons is trying to find the lord now. Andray has certainly been through the fire, but people are still waiting for his first coming, much less a resurrection.
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