Hi there Internet. Why yes, this here site has doled a lot of criticism toward JaVale McGee in the past X amount of time. While some of it has certainly been flagrant, it is not baseless.

However, one might counter that we have not given young McGee enough praise. This may be true and to that we will say this, he is a keeper… despite all the basketball disruption that his alter ego, I’m assuming his name is “Pierre,” has caused to the playpen of team functionality and trust. He’s not a bad kid. He is young, after all, but many times disappointingly young in comparison to some contemporaries. Still, no one said an investment in youth is easy, but it’s usually always worth it, especially given McGee’s athletic parameters.

Speaking of… let’s get back to that reported/tweeted rumor the other day from Jonathan Givony of Draft Express:

Sources say Washington & Phoenix have been the most active teams trying to trade up for Derrick Williams. T’Wolves want a “veteran big man.”

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Critique of the NBA often surrounds the narrative of one player dribbling around then shooting. But when you have a 20-year old athlete whose combination of speed and size is already superior to most at his position, you take advantage of his one-on-one skills. And when that player loves to pass and relishes in the assist while always being a threat to score, it’s called basketball. Flip Saunders is a basketball coach and he often knows exactly what to do with John Wall.

Spread sets usually seem reserved for late-clock situations, and mostly true for the instances in the video below. Still, with Wall they can be implemented at just about any point of the game, depending on his surrounding personnel and the defensive match-ups the Wizards might want to exploit, of course. This clip of four plays all occurred in two games against the Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz on the Wizards’ late March west coast road trip, and all came with around 70 seconds or less left in a period. Let’s watch…

Earl Watson, Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis… Sure, intimidating defenders they are not. But also, this is the NBA. Not many rookies can make these moves look so easy — an attack of the rim through trees, finding Yi Jianlian for a bounce pass in the paint, throwing the perfect lob to JaVale McGee, getting to the rim through a big man, making the basket, drawing a foul, and finishing with a muscle flex.

It’s a simple game that can be made even more simple with supreme athletes. And the spread set out of which these plays were run — sometimes with a man in the far right corner (Nick Young), but mostly with the guard extended on the right wing (Jordan Crawford)… depending on the shooting comfort spots of the respective players, I suppose — certainly has some more intricate options. But I won’t blame Wall’s teammates too much for standing around to watch him operate sometimes (as long as the guards remember to cover on defense, and as long as they’re always ready to receive the pass).

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Screen shots, commentary and links…

My column last week in the DCist got delayed due to my account, so it was posted this morning for you to kindly read. It’s all about how the “Our Time” motto worked out for the Virginia Commonwealth Rams, but not so much for the Washington Wizards. And as evident by the posters above from the crowd seen on television at VCU’s big win over Kansas yesterday, it was clearly a theme that resonated from when Rams coach Shaka Smart outlined it for his team at the beginning of their season. So a big congrats goes to VCU … go check out my DCist column … and the below screen shot captures how the ticket that I purchased in Las Vegas last July (while I was out there for the NBA Summer League) for the Kansas Jayhawks to win the NCAA national title feels.

Wizards-Warriors.

So the Wizards lost again on the road last night to the Golden State Warriors, 114-104, dropping them to 17-55 on the season and 1-35 on the road. The young, depleted Washington squad did not pay enough attention to shooters (Dorrell Wright went 5-11 from three-point land and Monta Ellis went 4-6) and were out-lasted by minor mistakes and a Warriors team with many more offensive weapons. Ten of the Warriors’ 11 3-point makes were assisted upon (Golden State missed 13 threes), while Washington went 4-16 from deep with all of those long buckets coming via assists.

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Randy Wittman seems to be a guy who likes to color within the lines. And sure there is an occasional twitch, a little jerk that sends his coaching marker beyond expectations – take for example his colorful exchange with JaVale McGee, which left both men red in the face.

But slip-ups like that, at the very least, let you know that the guy is human.

“Trust me, I don’t want to be standing here talking with you guys,” he said with a smirk before Wednesday night’s game versus the Golden State Warriors, filling in for Flip Saunders, who was with his ailing mother who recently passed away. Even with his disarming smile, you could tell that there was a fire in Wittman’s words, a communication of purpose. Such passion is expected from a man who has lived and breathed basketball since the ’70s, I imagine.

“The effort has to be better, obviously,” said Wittman during his pregame presser. “It can’t fluctuate. […] To win in this league and be a winner in this league you can’t have fluctuations in your effort, energy, and desire playing. Chicago kind of took that out of us … they kind of took the will to win away from us and that can’t happen.”

He went on to say that effort — effort! – must be a point of emphasis for the team over the rest of the waning season.

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Golden State Warriors rookie Ekpe Udoh got off of the team bus on Wednesday night in Washington expecting to play against the agile Wizards frontcourt.  The scouting report his coaches gave him stressed the athleticism and versatility of  JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche and Rashard Lewis. Udoh knew that type of game would work in his favor. What Udoh did not expect: to hear Golden State coach Keith Smart tell him that he’d get his first NBA start.

“Man, coach just walked by me and whispered something, but I really didn’t hear him at first,” Udoh said after the 106-102 Warriors win with a big smile on his face. “Then he told me that I would be starting and I was just surprised, but I did my best to calm down and just be ready.”

After the game, Smart explained his rationale for starting Udoh over Andris Biedrins:

To his credit, Biedrins was a good sport about the benching, and instead of blaming the coach or even Udoh, his thoughts were very introspective: Read more »

[Editor's note: Ryan Gracia is majoring in sports communication and journalism at George Mason University and freelances for local sites of Patch.com. Some of his previous work for TAI can be found here and here. Below, Ryan recaps the droughts of let-down for the Wizards against the Warriors on Wednesday night.]

It’s safe to say the Wizards have been inconsistent this year. They lost at home to the Phoenix Suns by 18 points back on January 21, then bounced back the next night to pull out arguably one of the best wins of the season against the Boston Celtics (thanks to some missed shots that Celtic vets don’t miss often — but hey it was a win nonetheless). I’ll also remind you that the Wizards actually boasted a winning record at home (13-10 leading up to February), while nearing an unbelievably embarrassing feat of setting an NBA-record 30 straight losses to begin a season away from the friendly confines of the Verizon Center, going 0-25 before their first win against the Cleveland Cavaliers — who had just ended a 26-game overall losing streak of their own.

I know, that’s a lot to take in, but those inconsistencies throughout the season were on display Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors, and it set up quite an interesting matchup against the seventh-highest scoring team in the NBA this season.

Barely three minutes into the game, the 13-4 Washington advantage showing on the jumbotron must have been shocking even to the five Wizards players walking toward the bench following a timeout. Here’s why: Flip Saunders (or Randy Wittman in the case of Wednesday night’s game) wasn’t the pissed off coach calling the timeout following a big run.

Things then went back to normal when those players stepped back on the court. The Wizards allowed Golden State to make what was supposed to be an uphill battle of coming back from nine point deficit much too easy. They turned the tide to lead 18-16 from the time Stephen Curry hit a 3-pointer 12 seconds after the timeout to the point when Curry finished the run by hitting the free throw to complete a 3-point play barely two and a half minutes later. A 13-4 run in just over three minutes to start a game is nice — very nice after knowing that the Wizards were the team that completed the feat. But a 14-3 run (scored by only two players, Curry and Dorell Wright) in two and a half minutes? Well, I’d say that more than counters the run from the Wizards. Those three Wizard points, by the way, all came from the free throw line.

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ESPN’s John Hollinger and Chad Ford recently completed the latest edition of their ‘Future Power Rankings.’ (Found here, requires ESPN Insider). Like previous versions, they begin their rankings with the following introduction:

The Future Power Rankings are ESPN Insider’s projection of the on-court success expected for each team during the 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

Each of the NBA’s 30 teams received an overall Future Power Rating of 0 to 1,000, based on how well we expect each team to perform in the three seasons following this season.

In determining the Future Power Rating, Hollinger and Ford rated each team in five categories. The sum of those ratings = a team’s Future Power Rating. From the article, here is an explanation of each category:

PLAYERS (0 to 400 points): Current players and their potential for the future, factoring in expected departures.

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[Cartier Martin, with hand raised to the right, sets up behind the three-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.

MINS: 12.9
FG%: .366
3P%: .329
FT%: .800
STL: 0.4
BLK: 0.1
TO: 0.5
PF: 1.6
REB: 2.0
AST: 0.6
PTS: 4.5

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Here are some pictures I took during the Wizards’ summer league debut against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday … my favs (that I’ve yet to already post).

To start, John Wall.

This is how you avoid having the ball hit you in the face after a pre-game dunk.

Corsley Edwards gets up.

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[Editor's Note: For all of you sneaker heads out there, Adam Douglas, Truth About It.net photographer, got some shots of what the Wizards and Warriors were sporting last Tuesday night. Also check out Adam's previous edition of NBA Kicks, Wizards vs. Bulls.]

{Stephen Curry}

{Anthony Morrow}

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{Andray Blatche vs. Gene Banks}

{Don Nelson … heartburn or tummy want scotch?}

{The ball waits for Earl Boykins}

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[Editor's Note: Andy Orfalea is a Wizards fan all the way out in California, but attended school back East where he majored in English at Boston College. He attended Friday night's Wizards game in Golden State, his account is below.]

I knew it. I knew the Wizards just needed my presence to turn this thing around. Watching from the top level at the Oracle, I didn’t like what I saw upon entering. Andray Blatche was f&%$ing around in warmups, something I’ve noticed about him since he was drafted. Javale Mcgee was chucking the bull off the backboard, Gilbert was throwing up brick after brick. As usual, the only two Wizards who appeared aware of their current six game losing streak were Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler. After Blatche botched a left hander in lay-up lines, Caron walked up and smacked him in the head. The leaders of the team won this game tonight. After the opening tip, the team played hard and with a sense of urgency. Two things that are all they really need.

Playing hard is something I attribute to one big man in the middle. Brendan Haywood has amazingly worked himself into a position where I was actually calling for him at the end of the game. Blatche was playing down the stretch and when the Warriors cut it to three, Flip finally decided this was an important game and inserted Haywood. B-Hay, the most recent blogosphere victim, provided much needed inside toughness for the Wizards. Almost before the fireworks of others, I really have to give him his props.

Now, an important point in recapping the game. Let me describe a little scene after the game in the halls of the Oracle. I walked out of our section with my Caron Butler Wizards #3 jersey, clapping it up. I also had my Redskins hat on, keep in mind they somehow beat the Raiders on Sunday. Anyways, as I clapped it up a Warriors fan said, “Hey man you got a lot of nerve wearing all that Washington sh*t.” I didn’t say anything back because I was so joyed over the victory, but it did pop into my mind to say “Hey man, you have a lot of nerve wearing that Warriors gear because that’s one of the worst teams I’ve ever seen play.”

One perspective that needs to be provided to fans who didn’t watch this game, I’ve never seen more inept defensive ball club than the Golden State Warriors. Gilbert tip-toed his way to 43 and 13. He had to do nothing more than beat his initial man and it was over, honestly. All other men in yellow just gaped at the defender who got beat, not thinking once about helping, fouling or really doing anything. I imagine Don Nelson holds team meetings with a bottle of gin and a loaded gun. When a team member raises his hand and asks about defense, Nelson picks up the loaded gun, gets a crazy look in his eye and says “back to the offense now…”

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I guess the pressure of a $111 million contract can hang over one’s head when they are injured or aren’t performing well. Must be nice … most would love to be called “Mister $111 Million.”

The idea of contract money being a burden to Arenas seems silly to the common man, and such silliness unfortunately led to Gil putting undue pressure on himself. Can anyone blame him for signing? Can anyone blame him for being injured? Not at all. But I suppose it’s a valid concern when blowhards like Tony Kornheiser spit their ignorant rhetoric. Kornheiser doesn’t go to Wizards games (maybe he watches him), and he doesn’t talk to Gilbert Arenas.

Not to turn Arenas’ 45 into a rant against Kornheiser and those alike. They are entitled to their opinion. But when their imbalanced analysis lacks compassion, patience and reason, it’s hard to take their thoughts on the matter seriously … and that’s why I don’t.

I’ve been hard on/disappointed with Arenas myself in the past. And the patience of Wizards’ fans has been tested for years. But what’s a little more in this holiday season? Gilbert Arenas is not a bad actor and he doesn’t want to let people down … not reasons to pepper him with “worst person in the world” comments as if he were Latrell Sprewell.

At basketball value, 45 points is just a small, but desperately needed, bonus. Some are calling it a breakout, but it doesn’t mean much unless part of a sustained run. But hey, it’s a start, and the beggars of Wizards Nation are in no position to be choosers.

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