Barkley works the Shake Weight, a Wizards ticket giveaway, commentary and links …

First, TAI is giving away two tickets to Wednesday’s game versus the Pacers (courtesy of StubHub). The seats are good (Section 101, Row L … behind the Wizards’ bench) and John Wall is good (as in he’s back and should be playing). You can win these two free tickets by being the first to email the correct answer to the trivia question I will post from the @Truth_About_It Twitter account at 11 am EST on Wednesday, December 29. The answer must be emailed to truthaboutit@gmail.com.

Also note: The Wizards are pulling something out of the Miami Heat’s playbook to get fans to arrive to games early (not sure if the idea actually originated with the Heat, but they did do something similar earlier this year). Starting when the doors open at 6 pm for Wednesday’s game versus the Pacers until 6:30, the Verizon Center will be offering food and drink discounts outside of section 107. [via @WashWizards]

WIZARDS-ROCKETS.

I’m not sure if it was his intended effect, but the technical Rocket’s coach Rick Adelman drew was the real “Game Changer” of Monday night’s loss in Houston … well, that and Chase Budinger. Up 10 points with about 10 minutes left in the game, a minute later the Rockets were able to cut the Wizards’ lead to seven via a JaVale McGee goal-tending call against Aaron Brooks. John Wall responded by jetting up the court, pulling a crazy, falling spin move in the paint, and somehow finding Josh Howard in the right corner for a jumper, putting the Wizards up 84-75 at the 8:48 mark of the fourth. It was time for Adelman to take his stand. The coach stomped and yelled in the direction of the referee, instigating a technical foul. Maybe he thought it was a charge against Wall (television replay seemed to indicate otherwise), maybe Adelman wanted to get his team fired up. Whatever the case was, it worked.

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Another day, another Wizards’ road loss. But unlike Sunday’s game in San Antonio, Washington actually had a chance to beat Houston. In a matchup of two teams going in opposite directions — Houston looking to win its season-best fifth consecutive game and get back to the .500 mark; Washington still winless on the road and losers of nine of their last ten —  the Rockets were nine point favorites. I mention the spread only because the Wizards beat the Rockets by seven points in Washington on November 10. Clearly, a lot has changed since John Wall recorded his first career triple double, as the Wizards have set a new standard for futility on the road (0-15 away from home this season; 16 straight road losses going back to last season, a franchise record).

Some observations from the loss:

• Andray Blatche had a nice game, going 7-15 from the field and finishing with 17 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals. The rebounds were an encouraging sign, given Blatche’s seeming unwillingness to mix it up in the post against physical front courts. He also had a nice steal off an inbounds pass in the third quarter, which led to an easy layup. However, Blatche’s turnovers continue to be an issue: he had six TO’s last night, and is averaging close to three TO’s per game on the season. The bulk of these turnovers came on offensive fouls, as Rockets defenders simply stepped in front of several Blatche dribble-drives, and the contact (as usual) was not resolved in Andray’s favor after he put his head down.
• Blatche’s nightclub pal JaVale McGee had an uneven game. Epic Vale shot 1-5 from the field, and only played 24 minutes as the Rockets used a smaller, faster lineup in the second half. On one particularly miserable offensive sequence near the ten minute mark of the second quarter, JaVale secured the rebound after a Nick Young miss, missed a layup, grabbed his own miss, and then missed all of the rim on a second, fadeaway attempt. Phil Chenier called the last shot a “pass,” but I think he was being generous. But, McGee did work on defense and on the offensive glass; he had three blocks, altered several other shots, and grabbed four offensive rebounds. He also did a nice job staying in front of the Rockets’ guards when caught in the pick-and-roll.One ridiculous play: with about ten seconds left in the third quarter, McGee blocked an Aaron Brooks 3-point attempt, when it appeared that JaVale had no chance of closing out. Instead, McGee’s Wookie-wingspan prevailed. Also worth noting — JaVale led the team in plus/minus at plus-5.
• John Wall appeared to be unaffected by his ailing right knee, as he put a lot of pressure on Houston’s defense, both in transition and off the pick-and-roll. He finished the game with 13 points, five rebounds, six assists, and two blocks. Though he shot only 2-7 from the field, Wall got to the free-throw line 13 times. He also handled Kyle Lowry‘s physical defense well, countering with a combination of hesitation moves and pure speed. Wall’s defense on Aaron Brooks was solid, as Brooks did not look comfortable all night and only shot 5-15 from the field.
• Rashard Lewis started the game at small forward and led the team in minutes with 43. Lewis finished the game with 12 points, nine rebounds, and five assists on 6-16 shooting. He missed both of his 3-point attempts badly, but Lewis made some nice decisions with the ball, finding the open man with quick passes. Given the Wizards’ troubles with ball movement, the presence of experienced decision makers in Lewis and Josh Howard is encouraging.
• With regards to ball movement — it seemed to be a lot better last night, as the Wizards seemingly ran their offense quicker than in the previous two games. Note: Washington scored 80 points in each of the previous two games, so the bar was set pretty low.
• Kirk Hinrich turned in another good performance, with 19 points on 7-15 shooting and five rebounds. Fourteen of Kirk’s 19 points came in the first half. After it became abundantly clear that Nick Young could not guard Kevin Martin (Martin dropped 10 points on Nick in the first quarter), Kirk defended Martin fairly well. Martin finished with 20 points for the game. Outlier stat of the night: Hinrich had zero assists last night, this after averaging nine assists per game since December 15.
• Josh Howard (23 minutes) certainly looks to be taking over Al Thornton‘s (8 minutes) playing time. I can’t say this is a bad thing, given Thornton’s three-point shooting woes (3-20 from deep on the season) and inability to do anything other than shoot contested jumpers.
• Reason why the Wizards lost: they did not score in the last 2:40 of the game, and were outscored 32-20 in the fourth quarter. The three-point defense also failed down the stretch, as threes by Brooks and Martin sealed the game for the Rockets late.
• Only the Wizards’ team defense could make Shane Battier look like Kobe Bryant — Battier finished with 15 points on 6-7 shooting. Battier got into the lane repeatedly, and made several tough shots off the backboard. Somewhere, Daryl Morey was laughing his ass off.
• Kirk Hinrich’s black-eye is awesome. I wonder what color it will be next game.

People like to compare the hard times, and the glory, of one professional sports franchise to the next, especially the hard times. It seems to be an inherent need for humans make comparisons, however irrelevant they may be. Think of the females, and males, going out to a club or a bar who are unnecessarily judging each other by looks, good and bad. With so many pheromones in the air, the nightlife chase can be just as much of a sport. So when competition comes into play, we compare even more.

Are the Portland Trailblazers going through a more rough time than the Washington Wizards right now? Perhaps, because the expectation of their success was higher, but I don’t buy the excuse of getting spoiled by continued playoff appearances. Or the LA Clippers, the oft-compared West Coast counterpart of the Wizards? The toils of Los Angeles’ other team have been just as painful, except if Dan Snyder were the owner of the Wizards. Actually, Donald Sterling is probably worse than Snyder. Imagine that. What about the Houston Rockets? Had they come to grips that Yao Ming would never be the same only to have him suddenly gone for good as Wizards fans just experienced with Gilbert Arenas? At least Washington got … Rashard Lewis.

It’s hard to compare the strife of one team to the next because those situations have nothing to do with each other. They have to do with the fans and those in the affected city. So Washingtonians, raise a toast to Portlanders and Houstonians and some Los Angeleans, and vice versa, and also to all those maligned fans of other hapless franchises. And while you’re at it, raise a toast to China, where millions have perhaps lost a basketball icon in Yao … and are left with a currently injured Yi Jianlian to carry to torch. Before Saturday night’s game versus the Miami Heat, Yi spoke on the injury of his fallen comrade.

It’s hard to hear Yi in the video below, but he says that the broken foot Yao recently suffered, ending his season and potentially his career, was pretty upsetting. But Yi says that Yao is also tough with a strong heart and that he doesn’t think he’ll just walk away from the game. When asked if he thinks Yao will come back, Yi says, “I hope so.”

[Note:  This is the second installment of "Player Lock", where we at Truth About It focus on one player for an entire game.  The first installment focused on Gilbert Arenas.]

Yi Jianlian had to be feeling the pressure Wednesday night.

It was Asian Heritage Night at the Verizon Center, which meant there was an increased number of Asian fans and media watching his every move.   Across the floor, there was a man from his native country in Yao Ming, who already draws his fair share of Asian fans wherever he goes, let alone in Washington D.C. on Asian Heritage Night.   To make things even more interesting, there were going to be millions of basketball fans back home in China, watching the country’s biggest basketball stars go head-to-head.

So I chose to dedicate this version of the “Player Lock” series to Yi, because I wanted to see if he crumbled under pressure, rose to the challenge, or was just indifferent to it all.  I got my first indication of how Yi was feeling about 35 minutes before game time when I saw him holding court in front of several members of the Chinese media.

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[Yao Ming & Shane Battier - K. Weidie]

Sometime during the second half of the Wizards’ 98-91 victory over the Houston Rockets last night, Ishmael Smith drove hard to the basket and scored on a layup. Shortly thereafter, one of the Wizards fans I follow on Twitter, tweeted the following:

“I have never heard of Ish Smith before this game. Now I have. I don’t like him.”

The reality is that before starting point guard Aaron Brooks went down with a sprained ankle earlier in the week, not many Wizards fan had any reason to know about rookie Ishmael Smith.  In fact, before I started doing research for last night’s game, I had no idea who he was either. But I should have.

Back in March of this year, Smith and his Wake Forest Demon Deacons, took on John Wall and the Kentucky Wildcats in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky ran roughshod over Wake Forest, 90-60.  Wall had 14 points and seven assists, while Smith struggled with just two points and four assists.

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What’s that buzzing in your ear? Or rather, what ‘s that wondrous melodic tone?

That’s people singing the praises of John Wall, who achieved his first career triple-double, in front of Magic Johnson no less, and led his team to a 98-91 victory over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night.

Wall totaled 19 points, 13 assists, 10 rebounds, six steals and only one turnover, and perhaps Wizards fans should thank John Stockton for that, who was not in attendance at the Verizon Center for the game. Flip Saunders said he recently gave Wall a 45-minute tape of Stockton and that he’d been watching it over the past couple days.

“All he came back talking about was how John [Stockton] was so deliberate, and how he played more under control, and I think John [Wall] tried to make a more conscious effort to do that tonight,” said Saunders.

Wall certainly played his most controlled game as a pro, and that was reflected in the play of his entire team. Well, except for Gilbert Arenas (5 points, 3 assists, 2 turnovers, 1-7 FGs) and Kirk Hinrich (10 points, 3-9 FGs, 6 turnovers, 2 assists). Without much help from them, Wall showed he could maneuver the offense and carry his team without two-thirds of what’s been touted as one of the best backcourts in the NBA by team management.

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[Hilton Armstrong with his last NBA team, the Houston Rockets.]

Hilton Armstrong you say? Hilton Armstrong I say.

The Wizards have signed him to a 1-year deal for the veteran’s minimum of $992,680. I suspected something might be up as I stood watching the conclusion of the Mavericks-Bucks game, awaiting the Wizards-Clippers game. Armstrong was exchanging pleasantries with Wizards personnel, including Flip Saunders and VP of basketball administration Tommy Sheppard, that were much beyond a “Hi, how ya doin’?” Not long after, news of the signing made its way around the gym.

How should you feel about Armstrong? Well, let’s read a bit of what others have written about him.

ESPN.com’s John Hollinger, prior to the 2009-10 season: Read more »

Sixteen losses in a row and counting. The Wizards showed some bright spots in Tuesday night’s loss to Houston, such as JaVale McGee. Actually, he was pretty much the only bright spot. Well, James Singleton played okay.

Andray Blatche’s 31 points, 10 rebounds, four steals, three assists and three blocks you say? Well, when you play 41 minutes and receive the ball ALL. THE. TIME. (he took 23 shots) you are supposed to put up those numbers. He still has too much Tin Man in him … no heart … especially when it comes to rebounding toughness.

The Wizards mostly showed that they did not deserve to win. I’m sure some are saying, ‘Hey, those guys competed without Foye, Thornton, Gee, etc.’ But the Rockets also competed without Kevin Martin, Shane Battier and Jared Jeffries. Plus, the Wizards were beaten by Chase Budinger. Enough said.

Nonetheless, below are the notes and observations I took/made as I watched the game on delay at my leisure.

Note: Starters: Livingston, Young, Miller, Blatche & Oberto — 25th different starting lineup, 21 wins … something to be said about that ratio.

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Okay. It’s not worth playing the “what if” game with Jermaine Taylor. You do remember Jermaine Taylor, right?

Jump back to June 25, 2009, the night of the NBA Draft and “this guy’s” (me) birthday. Oh yea, Michael Jackson died that day too.

Draft night was a bit anti-climactic for Wizards fans. They were already having paper goodness dreams of Randy Foye and Mike Miller teaming up with the Big Three, et al., also knowing that there was no way fan draft darling Ricky Rubio could slip to the departed fifth pick. Oh, wait …

In any case, pick #32 was worth paying attention to. Would the crafty Ernie Grunfeld, a man seemingly able to load his team with win-in-the-now veterans and promising youth (now with fleeting promise), find another second round gem a la Michael Redd?

“Anything is possible!!” Grunfeld screamed from the draft war room. “Loading up the pump, I’m loading up the Uzis, I’ve got a couple of M-16s, couple of nines, couple of joints with some silencers on them, couple of grenades, got a missile launcher. I’m ready for war,” said Grunfeld, quoting Kevin Garnett under the tutelage of Flip Saunders. [Note: Grunfeld did not say any of this.]

And as the picks passed, DeJuan Blair became that “OMG HE’S SLIPPING!!” possibility. After the Sacramento Kings selected Jeff Pendergraph, Wizards fans began to lick their chops, rub their hands together, pat each other on the back, and light celebratory cigars. Time to emerge triumphantly from the bunker boys, one of the best rebounders in the history of college basketball, an area where the Wizards so desperately needed help, was right there for the taking.

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After Tuesday’s game against the Rockets, James Singleton said, “After every game I go home and watch film. I look at more of the negatives than the positives because the positives are going to happen. But the negatives you want to keep to a small minimum.”

And while there isn’t any adjusting I can personally do for this Washington Wizards basketball team, these screen-shot posts tend to focus on the negatives for the same reason outlined by Singleton. The positives are going to happen because that’s what the Wizards are trying to do. I want to know when they weren’t trying. And away we go…

“This” guy.

THIS guy.

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On Christmas day, Yahoo’s Marc Spears reported, according to at least one NBA executive, that the Wizards were “open for business.” Of course, this could simply mean that Ernie Grunfeld has fielded a call, or made a call, and has had a discussion involving the potential possibilities past “hello.” You know, pretty much doing the job a general manager of a team falling way below expectations should be doing in gauging the value of his players.

No biggie and certainly to be expected despite the initial judgement phase of 20 games being extended to 40 games by Flip Saunders, which is probably a reflection of Grunfeld’s thinking … or at least the message the team president of basketball operations wants to convey to the media and the players.

Spears also reported that Gilbert Arenas is on the table and that the Wizards think highly of JaVale McGee and are unlikely to include him in a deal unless the pot is really sweet.

Again, it’s no shocker that everyone is pretty much available … for the right price, which is a pretty big caveat.

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{via Sports Illustrated Vault}

An unfortunate part about being a Wizards/Bullets blogger and only 29 years old (and only having moved to DC in 1990), is that timing has deprived my memory and knowledgeable grasp of franchise history. But we all depend on people before us to tell the stories we don’t know. The more accounts there are, the better depiction we get of what actually transpired. This is what’s so great about team blogs, or “sites” maintained by sources which not apart of main stream media. They provide a more in depth view from wider angles, making the lore that much better for the future.

For my last birthday, a friend gave me ‘The Great Book of Washington, D.C. Sports Lists‘, written by Andy Pollin and Leonard Shapiro and published in 2008. These two guys have an insanely close relationship with sports in the city I love, and they turned to even more brilliant minds for assistance when composing their lists. While the book doesn’t exactly satisfy my desire for Bullets history tid-bits (to be expected in a Redskins town), it comes highly recommended for its Washington sporting facts, which are considered mostly minutia by ‘official’ historical accounts, but extremely savory to serious fans.

In reading, which I still continue to do, some lists twice, I came across some eyebrow raising commentary regarding the relationship between Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I previously had little knowledge of Hayes outside of him being a great player, and a member of the ’78-79 championship team. I simply haven’t taken the time to dive into research about him as I’ve done for more contemporary figures during my fandom period (such as Kevin Duckworth, Robert Pack, Larry Stewart, Scott Skiles, and Haywoode Workman).

Hayes and Unseld appear on three lists together: Read more »

It’s popular to associate the Wizards’ second round pick with pictures of cash these days.

straight cash homey - flickr/Steve Wampler

For the second year in a row, the Washington Wizards sold their second round draft pick. Good move? Bad move? It’s Washington Wizards Point, Counter-Point.

[previously on Point, Counter-Point: Why Didn’t The Wizards Get Vince Carter?]

Point

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Some links as I waste my Sunday away, preparing for a couple game sevens, wearing my smelly, dirty homemade Ron Artest shirt, hoping for a Rockets win, or two close games in the least.

This past week, the Washington Post hosted a roundtable of Wizards bloggers. Each blog weighed in on what the team should do at a given draft position. Pretty cool when you think about it … MSM and Bloggers hanging out and stuff.

Pick #1: Keith McMillian, Washington Post
Pick #2: Truth About It.net (this place)
Pick #3: Wizards Extreme
Pick #4: Bullets Forever
Pick #5: WizzNutzz

Misunderstanding Media
Detroit Pistons blog, Full Court Press (on mlive.com), cited four paragraphs from the Bullets Forever contribution on Wizards Insider. Problem being, author Dave Dial failed to accurately represent that it was a blogger roundtable. He quoted three paragraphs written by the Pradamaster of Bullets Forever and one from Michael Lee of the WaPost without distinguishing the two authors. Dial also led with, “The Washington Post’s ‘Wizards Insider’ gives more credence to the fact that if the Wizards do not land in the top two picks they will look to trade the pick,” which is inaccurate. Yes, it is well known that Ernie Grunfeld sees the pick as an “asset”, i.e., trade-bait. However, the roundtable was speculation, and not necessarily an official team report as Dial’s use of the word “credence” seems to implicate.

We all make mistakes, and this really isn’t that big of a deal. But still, Dial clearly cut some kind of corner by not taking the time to fully understand the nature of the Wizards Insider piece.

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As I’ve stated, Ron Artest was unjustifiably tossed from Friday night’s game against the Lakers, which has since been downgraded to a flagrant 1.

The best part about Arest’s ejection wasn’t the quiet exit, but in the midst of slapping dejected fives to anything that moved, Ronnie tossed one the cheerleader’s way, via her pom-pom, and moved on in a matter of fact manner.