The Night After The Wizards 2011-12 Season Opener:

The Day After The Night:

Andray Blatche just can’t help himself, literally, figuratively, and ways in between.

After the Wizards grabbing the mic to announce to a much-less-than-capacity Verizon Center crowd over the P.A. system:

“How y’all doing? This is your captain, Andray Blatche. On behalf of myself, my teammates, the whole Washington Wizards organization, we want to say we strongly appreciate y’all sticking around all summer. It’s been a long summer, and it’s a shortened season, but it’s going to be tough. And we’re going to need you guys, the best fans in the NBA, to be our sixth man. So in other words, let’s get this season started.”

Fairly good intentions (“best fans in the NBA” jokes aside; Blatche gets booed a lot by the paltry home crowds). Look, no one can question that Blatche is trying. He just doesn’t know how to try. So he continues to fall on his face while the franchise constantly running to defend him keeps looking silly in the process. After all, Ted Leonsis has only doled out one multi-year free agent contract in his brief tenure as team owner, to Blatche. This, of course, amongst other positive pixel puffery.

After the game, Blatche was equally putting on a show. He implored, to the media, mind you, that he wanted the ball more in the post.

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“Know your roll!”

Former Washington Bullet Ledell Eackles, as relayed in :07 Seconds Or Less by Jack McCallum, once wrote, “Know your roll!” on a chalkboard as a member of the Miami Heat, in an attempt to inspire the team. Yes, “roll” and not “role” — the irony easily realized if you know Eackles’ issues with rotundness during his playing days.

But in terms of NBA players “knowing their roles” on the court… What, exactly does that mean? No, really. Because I’ve never quite understood it past being pseudo-code for: ‘Some guys are trying to do things they are not supposed to be doing, nor are capable of doing.’ And maybe that’s enough, although all the talk about knowing roles can still be confusing.

A player knowing his role in basketball makes sense, at one level, as all positions in the game are free-flowing. Sure, you have point guards and centers, but even the lines between those have blurred over time. Basketball is not like baseball where action is often solely focused on one person throwing the ball to a sole person responsible for hitting it; there’s sharing in basketball. Have you been to Lob City yet? (And to a lesser extent, John to JaVale Township?) Nor is basketball like football, where assignments on both offense and defense are specifically outlined. Or even hockey, where one guy’s role is to mind the net, others are more specifically geared toward defense or offense.

Basketball, with its diluted assignments, can thus be confusing when it comes to roles. Positions 1-5 can all score within the offense, or at the drop of a hat with a sudden change in possession. Players do need to know some sort of role for team structure, but even saying that seems overly robotic, and counterintuitive to how fluidly equal the game of basketball is meant to be.

Whatever it all means, it’s no surprise that the young Washington Wizards have a lack of understanding when “role” talk makes its way to the airwaves, i.e., who should be following the offense more rigidly, who is able to improvise and ad lib, and at which point of the game, quarter, or shot clock all these players should be performing within their capabilities.

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[What does John Wall smell? - photo: K. Weidie]

Media members tend to attach themselves to keywords or catch phrases and then shape narratives around them. Guilty as charged. The Washington Wizards franchise has especially provided an abundance of excellent catch phrases over the years.

Recently, you have “pixels” via the web tech-savvy Ted Leonsis (and now, likely “erudite“). From Flip Saunders, we’ve had “Style over substance” as a JaVale McGee descriptor. Going back further, Gilbert Arenas helped popularize the term, “Swag.” Now most feel that word is overused, how oddly fitting.

“Just like Groundhog Day,” Antawn Jamison used to say. From “Get buckets son!,” via Oleksiy Pecherov to “I Love This Game!,” the NBA’s 90s motto that Gheorghe Muresan famously said in broken English over the television airwaves on draft night 1993, some phrases have been more relevant than others. And I’m failing to mention dozens of them, as they pertain to the Wizards.

It is unforeseen where Flip Saunders’ recent “popcorn players” parable/anecdote will fall on the spectrum, but it elicited one of the more revealing quotes from John Wall that I’ve heard. Because we all wonder, how exactly are stars like him wired? And while Wall’s words don’t exactly reveal anything about the inner workings of his neurology, they do show what he cares about: playing every basketball game like it’s his last.

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When a key deadline trade goes down between a playoff team needing help and a non-playoff team needing to rebuild, most feel bad for the veteran going to the losing situation —  Sasha Vujacic, Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, Mike Bibby, Maurice “Mo” Evans come to mind from this season. The secondary consideration, partially because he’s going to that losing team, is the young player who would gladly trade riding the bench during a playoff run for a chance to suit up for a team going nowhere. Jordan Crawford got that and more when he went from Atlanta to Washington. He got off to a hot start with a new team that he wouldn’t give up on, even when hindered by a back injury. He got that treasured green light, which is rare, even for a lottery team. But what happens when that green light ends?

Crawford arrived in Washington at February’s trade deadline along with the 18th pick of the 2011 draft and a good veteran influence in Evans. In exchange, the Wizards gave up Kirk Hinrich (owed $8 million next season) and Hilton Armstrong. They also got the unexpected bonus of a money-saving buyout of Mike Bibby, who also came with Crawford and Evans from Atlanta. Because of a knee injury to Nick Young, he suddenly found himself going from the 12th or 13th man on the bench to full-time starter by his seventh game with the Wizards. He ended up starting his final 17 games in Washington, out of 26 total games with the team. The carefree Wizards bunch went a respectable 7-10 in those last 17 games, during which Crawford averaged 20 points, 3.6 rebounds, 4.9 assists (to 3.1 turnovers), and 1.3 steals. Pretty impressive for the 27th pick of the 2010 draft.

But what’s a constant green light scenario without some wrecks and gridlock? Specifically speaking, Crawford’s intriguingly erratic and promise-filled offense comes with the caveat of him shooting  .394 from the field on 19.5 attempts per game in 40.7 minutes per contest. Volume shooting like that can get you beat. He also shot .280 from three (1.2 makes per game), and .877 from the free-throw line (3.8 attempts per game).

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{Mustafa Shakur scores his first NBA points. -Photo: K. Weidie}

Hours before taking on the Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics on Saturday, it was a given that Mustafa Shakur would likely suit up for the Washington Wizards and get his first NBA minutes. Tell Shakur the same thing that Saturday morning and he wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, he didn’t even believe his agent when he told him that he was being called up to the big time that day from the D-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

This wasn’t Ernie Grunfeld going after the same old stale veterans in a pinch. This was a legitimate prospect yearning for a chance and getting one from a rebuilding team … and the move was certainly not performed as a cursory, ‘We need to meet a roster minimum.’ Rather, it was a ‘Get ready to play kid … Kirk Hinrich is out and there’s no way we can exhaust John Wall with a ton of minutes.’

Shakur was inserted into the lineup at the 4:26 mark of the first quarter, after Wall picked up his second foul and with the Wizards down 24-11. By the time Wall was inserted back into the game at the 9:50 mark of the second quarter, the Wizards had held off Boston domination, keeping their deficit to a manageable 11 points. The Wizards were down 68-62 when Shakur checked in with 2:40 left in the third quarter and by the end of the period, Washington was only down 72-70. Shakur finished the game with five assists, zero turnovers, five points on 2-4 shooting, two rebounds and two blocked shots. His plus/minus of plus-6 was second highest on the team next to Cartier Martin’s plus-8.

“I thought he played great … could have been player of the game,” said Flip Saunders when I asked him about his impressions of Shakur after the 85-83 Washington win. “Here’s a guy coming in, doesn’t really know much of our offense, and [he] made a couple plays for himself … looked like he belonged out there, was comfortable, defended pretty well, and got it to a manageable situation. [...] When you’re down and you’re putting in a guy who just got off the plane, you wonder ‘Where are we going to go with this?’ We simplified things and he made some good plays.”

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Marcin Gortat’s head is pretty stoic for the position that it’s in.

This was one of those weird times when some huge official arena flash went off while I was taking a picture … came out kind of cool though.

Before getting weirdly entertained by a white man from Iowa wearing Oakleys, in a January 20 chat on ESPN.com, John Hollinger wrote about Nick Young, when not even specifically asked about Young:

“But Nick Young is making a real case for MIP votes. And I find it weirdly entertaining to watch Kirk Hinrich constantly fiddle with his glasses.”

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It’s struck me as odd when recently, before being traded to Orlando, Gilbert Arenas deferred to Josh Howard as a more vocal leader on the Wizards than him. Yes, the same Josh Howard whose past record will almost cause more scoffs than Arenas’ … the same Josh Howard who has played all of five games in a Wizards uniform since arriving via trade back in February, compared to Arenas, who appeared in 357 total regular season games with the franchise since being signed to D.C. by Ernie Grunfeld in August of 2003.

After a home game against the New York Knicks on December 10, Arenas was asked about the then forthcoming return of Howard.

“It’s going to help more in the locker room and on the bench because, you know, he has a strong voice. You know, I usually don’t say anything, but he’s more of a vocal person. So when we have those lulls like we did in the third [against the Knicks], he’s going to speak up,” he said.

When I asked Howard about needing to fill the role of vocal leader after the Miami game on Saturday, he said, “It’s different for me. I mean, I haven’t did this in a long time as far as college, and I led by example in Dallas as far as my play on the court. As far as being vocal, I have to remind myself that I can speak.”

After getting past your digestion of Arenas’ claims that he usually doesn’t say anything, move on to the leadership conundrum. Back when Eddie Jordan was the Wizards’ coach, it seemed, and validly so, that he didn’t see Arenas as a team leader. Stories later mutated with one side saying he never wanted to be a leader and the other saying that a certain subject didn’t want to lead. Or vice versa. The story could never get itself straight.

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Before Tuesday night’s thrilling OT victory over the 76ers, I gathered up comments from JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche, Hilton Armstrong, Cartier Martin, Trevor Booker and Al Thornton about the Thanksgiving Holiday. I asked the players what they were thankful for, what food they would serve at dinner, about their fondest memories of the holiday growing up and got them to provide a short greeting to the fans.

Since the team is in Atlanta for a game against the Hawks tonight, they will eat a meal together Thursday afternoon. Thornton, who hails from Georgia, will be able to spend some time with his family and friends.

Enjoy the video and everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Before tonight’s Wizards-Grizzlies game, I briefly spoke with Andray Blatche about his All-Star ballot “snub” — JaVale McGee, Gilbert Arenas and John Wall made it, the Wizards’ most capable low post scorer and the face of many Monumental Sports & Entertainment banners didn’t (at least three players from each NBA team have to make the ballot, by the way). Here’s what Blatche had to say:

For Blatche’s response to recent comments made by ESPN.com’s David Thorpe that he is “the laziest great talent guy in the league,” head to the Washington Examiner.

[Shaun Livingston shows no fear going against the JaVale McGee tree.]

[Livingston ended up missing the tough shot ... but man, he and McGee are some lengthy dudes.]

Along with “no cheering in the press box”, and “no soliciting autographs from the players”, one of the rules of game-attending media says that we aren’t supposed to openly root for players. We are supposed to be as objective as possible so we can freely vacillate between criticism and praise, without worrying about offending our own sensibilities.

In three years covering the NBA, I think I’ve done a stellar job of obeying all of these rules.  I’ve slipped up a few times and pumped my fist, but I catch myself before anyone can see me.  I’ve  praised and criticized players and coaches (most recently Flip Saunders) with a clear conscience, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. And lest we forget, basketball writers tend to be basketball fans too.

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Whether you’re in the NBA or not, what you eat and how your body reacts is kind of a big deal … but especially if you are in the NBA, or any other type of athlete. Just this season, we’ve seen Al Thornton playing with more hustle and explosiveness, partially due to his summertime consumption change of cutting beef, chicken and pork out of his diet. On the other hand, we’ve seen Andray Blatche struggle to get in playing shape, seemingly more than he should be after suffering a broken foot in June, due to his dabbling in late-night snacks.

Gilbert Arenas is a third case on the team, at least in terms of playing weight and getting into full game shape. Most of Arenas’ setbacks can be attributed the groin and ankle tweaks he experienced in preseason, which also caused him to miss the first three games of the regular season. When asked about how his knee felt after Wednesday’s home game versus Houston, Gilbert scoffed, “I haven’t had a knee problem for a year and a half now, so I don’t know why people keep asking about it.”

But otherwise, as John Townsend noticed in his ‘Player Lock’ on Arenas, he doesn’t exactly look physically comfortable on the court just yet, and that’s to be expected … as Arenas himself has admitted that he’s probably about 10 pounds overweight.

“Gil’s still a long ways away,” said Flip Saunders after Wednesday’s game. “He needs to lose some weight and he needs to just get practice time on the court to get his legs under him. Because when you don’t shoot well, he’s not shooting well, you don’t have your legs under you as much. Give him credit, he worked hard on the defensive end –tried to work — so it’s going to be a work in process. But what we can’t do is we can’t put him in situations where we start playing him too many minutes because we don’t want him to have any kind of an injury.”

Before talking to him about pooping in shoes, which, believe it or not, is a result of what you eat, I briefly spoke with Arenas about losing weight. I started by asking him if he’s changed his diet to facilitate weight loss, Gil went in his own direction, indicating that he’s not completely willing to buy that he needs to lose weight, or that he’s overweight. And on regaining basketball shape, Arenas says he still doesn’t completely trust his ankle and is weary of it becoming a lingering injury.

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Plenty of professional athletes pull pranks. Plenty of regular people pull pranks. Gilbert Arenas didn’t invent the prank, he just was, perhaps, the best at it — the most prolific … because he’s a professional athlete.

Arenas’ varied pranks are infamous, and for a recent spell due to a horribly failed prank with guns that wasn’t really a prank, they became blemishes open for all armchair psychologists to analyze to their core, from a distance.

And then there’s pooping in someone’s shoe, an act that added a somber twist to Arenas’ locker room gun affair and his history of egregiousness excused by a franchise. Or in the least, it was Gilbert’s most memorable prank, which went from the punchline of comical stories among those in the know to something that was used to further indict Arenas’ character.

The proper term, kids, is defecation … in verb form: to defecate. And it was first properly used in reference to Arenas and victim, Andray Blatche, by Mike Wise and Michael Lee of the Washington Post in January 2010:

“Former Wizards coach Eddie Jordan and his staff privately intimated they felt undermined by Grunfeld when it came to matters of discipline with Arenas. Arenas, a notorious practical joker, often crossed the line of acceptable decorum. The example often cited was how Arenas once defecated in teammate Andray Blatche’s shoe during Blatche’s rookie season. His behavior often went unchecked and unpunished, said a former team employee on condition of anonymity.”

Early 2010 Internet yuks and blogging gold were the mostly innocent results of the newly divulged information about an act that occurred in 2005/06. And then the story remained relevantly dormant and unmentioned by all parties involved and aware … until recently.

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What most impressed me about John Wall in his debut? His leadership. In fact, I wrote a whole piece about it for ESPN’s Daily Dime … and I’ll link that at some point soon. I’ll also have a bunch of pictures as I sat on the baseline to catch the experience of the game. There will be a bunch more to come on Wall and the Wizards, but until then, there’s a video below of post-game interviews featuring Flip Saunders, Sam Cassell, and of course, Wall (who was rather hard to get to … there was a TON of media in a small, concentrated area trying to interview him. To call it a circus wouldn’t exactly do it justice.) As usual, enjoy.

It’s tough to truly remember Antawn Jamison’s time in D.C., yet hard to do it enough. Wish I were around to cover him when times were good, but this year had to happen. Still, Antawn did it with dignity. He did it with class, emulating the owner he looked up to so much. An owner whose family is making a classy move with a free “Living for the City” Stevie Wonder concert for some of the people touched by Abe Pollin’s spirit for his community. Antawn was the Gentleman Jamison. He deserves an Unsilent tribute. Hence, Jack Kogod (aka Unsilent Majority) of Kissing Suzy Kobler, and occasional Wizards correspondent for Mr. Irrelevant,  (not to mention that he sits in some really good season tickets for a ton of Wizards games), agreed to share his thoughts. Here’s what @Unsilent had to say:

>>>>>>>>>

I miss Antawn Jamison more than I thought I would. When the house cleaning commenced I thought it would be Caron Butler I missed the most, but I was wrong. Of course I’m wrong a lot. I was wrong in my belief that the Wizards  should have held on to the fifth pick in the ’04 draft to select Luol Deng (although I couldn’t be too upset with any trade that sent Jerry Stackhouse packing), and I was wrong to think that Jamison wasn’t the right guy at the right time. It only took one season for him to prove me wrong. Jamison made his All Star Game debut in that first season, and he helped lead the Wizards on a fantastic turnaround. The Wizards won their first playoff series of my lifetime that year, and that wouldn’t have happened without Jamison.

A lot changed in the years between the ’05 playoffs and the ’10 trade deadline, but Jamison never did. Throughout his time in Washington he was the most consistent player on the team, and one of the most reliable performers in the entire league (defensive shortcomings notwithstanding). There is a reason why Abe Pollin considered Jamison to be the Wes Unseld of the modern Wizards, because he have all of himself to the organization. I hope for nothing but the best from Jamison, just short of winning a ring of course. Afterall, he is a Cav now.

Doing some spring cleaning while watching the NBA playoffs on Sunday, I found myself ripping off covers of old ESPN The Magazines and trashing the rest, but not before quickly flipping through to make sure nothing was keep-able.

Times were different in December 2007. Well, not so much for Wizards fans. The turmoil was just getting started with the news that Gilbert Arenas would be having a second surgery on his knee just two weeks old. That December 3rd edition of ESPN The Magazine ironically had part of an NBA advertisement featuring a picture of Arenas and the words, “Where I’m back happens.”

In that same edition, which had Terrell Owens giving Tony Romo ‘bunny ears’ on the cover (Jason Witten was in the picture too), was the above ‘Got Milk?’ advertisement featuring two former Dallas Mavericks, coach Avery Johnson and player Josh Howard.

December 2007 represented some of the last days of NBA harmony for each Howard and Johnson. The Mavericks as a one-seed lost to the eight-seed Warriors the previous Spring, an ’06-07 season where Howard also represented the Mavs in the NBA All-Star game. But from there, it would go further downhill.

The Mavs finished ’07-08 as a seven-seed in the West, losing to the New Orleans Hornets in the first round. Johnson was fired days later. Howard would subsequently go through a tumultuous six-month span in 2008, including some off-court incidents that severely damaged his public image.

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