Jordan Crawford heads back to Atlanta to play against the team that drafted him, while Chris Singleton returns home. He is from Canton, Georgia and played his senior season of high school at Dunwoody, right outside of Atlanta. As the Wizards prepare for game two on the season against the Hawks tonight, their first road game, we have three questions and three answers surrounding the two teams. TAI’s Rashad Mobley, Kyle Weidie, and Bret LaGree from the ESPN TrueHoop Hawks blog, Hoopinion… 3-on-3 is now…

1) Rashad Mobley: The Hawks lack a significant scoring threat off the bench, and Wizards are lacking a veteran presence in the back court to mentor/guide/spell John Wall. Jordan Crawford could be that bench threat for the Hawks, and Kirk Hinrich (when healthy) could play that role again for the Wizards. The draft pick part of the trade that brought Chris Singleton to D.C. notwithstanding, would Crawford and Hinrich be more effective on their old teams?

MOBLEY:  Crawford is still trying to figure out how his skill-set fits in the NBA, so I don’t know if that clarity would have come in Atlanta. But I do know that on opening night, Wall struggled to lead the Wizards on offense, and Hinrich could have steadied the team a bit.

LaGREE, Hoopinion: I think Hinrich’s perimeter defense will give the Hawks more value this year than Crawford’s ability to create a huge number of low-efficiency shots. Any of Atlanta’s five starters should be able to lead/carry the second unit for short stretches, though it remains to be seen how creative Larry Drew will get with the rotation to hide the lack of bench scoring.

WEIDIE: One part of Crawford provided Nick Young leverage this past summer (or a backup plan, depending on how you look at it). Hinrich did have shoulder surgery in the offseason that was suddenly revealed at the beginning of December (he will likely miss the first month of the season), but there’s no doubt that, if healthy, he would help the Wizards more — why do you think Atlanta paid so much for him in the trade? But the move was obviously made for reasons beyond individual usage, and the Wizards had time to afford an up-close glimpse at Crawford’s potential.

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Seeing that pro basketball fans are essentially suspended from the NBA due to squabbling amongst millionaires and billionaires, passing time might be aided by chronicling all NBA and team suspensions of the Washington Wizards since circa 1995. Why? Well, because we humans love stories about crime and punishment, and to most, the NBA lockout fits the bill for both.  So away we go (with old basketball cards to accompany on occasion)…

[Note: This listing is incomplete and unconfirmed for accuracy; information has been gleaned, copied and pasted from eskimo.com/~pbender and prosportstransactions.com with the understanding that all suspensions and fines might not have been publicized or reflected.]

1/5/95
Bernard King suspended by team for altercation with head coach at practice.

2/3/95
Washington suspended Kevin Duckworth for 3 games for not staying in good physical condition.

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Commentary, links, randomness…

Unfortunately, good people, John Wall tragically lost his right arm in Tuesday’s earthquake. (#Moment of Silence)

Seems like the Jerry Stackhouse owned by @n1coolguy didn’t fare so well either.

 But hey, Stackhouse has long been a fixer-upper … See? Good as new.

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Ok, a screen shot post. I don’t do these often enough,  here goes …

First, a disclaimer: Sometimes an opponent makes good, (relatively)unstoppable plays, and sometimes the defense isn’t up to snuff. Since defense wins championships, these screen shot posts tend to concentrate on the correctable defensive plays. So, sorry NBA millionaires if you are criticized and nitpicked too often. That just how it goes.

Because of the 8 pm start time, and then Duke-Maryland, I could only muster myself to re-watch the first half of last night’s Wizards-Bucks game, one where the Wiz lost 100-87. I’ll likely try to watch and chronicle the second half tonight, but I’m sure that a third quarter where, I believe, the Wizards had the same amount of turnovers as points (12), will be especially “fun” to watch. And yes, I realize this re-watching of Wizards defeats makes me seem a tad insane.

The Bucks are the Bucks. They are a playoff team, in the Eastern Conference … where sixth place is equivalent to “on the outside looking in” in the West. Still, no one thought the Wizards would really win last night. But they fought hard. They sorta tried. And as expected with this still young team, they more so got in their own way of winning than the other team. Although, do give Milwaukee credit.

{1st Quarter}

11:19 >> On the first play, Andray Blatche, bless his heart, acted like and NFL wide-receiver, perhaps Braylon Edwards. When the pass was coming he turned to make a move, and not when the pass was arriving. The ball was fumbled away — turnover #1 of 21, which was, of course, blamed on the passer, Mike Miller, in the stat book. This is one of the rare occasions where it isn’t always the passer’s fault.

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Most know about the time Ernie Grunfeld spent in the New York Knicks front office. And many probably have an idea that Madison Square Garden was Grunfeld’s home court for the final four seasons of his nine year NBA playing career. But did you know that Big Ern was on the floor the night Patrick Ewing made his NBA debut?

After playing his first two seasons in Milwaukee, and his next three with the Kansas City Kings, Grunfeld began his tenure in NYC in ’82-83 with the likes of Bill Cartwright, Bernard King (Grunfeld’s teammate at Tennessee), Paul Westphal, and one of my all-time favorite NBA names, Rory Sparrow. Grunfeld was 10th in minutes per game on a Hubie Brown led, 44-win Knicks team that made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals. But the Philadelphia 76ers, with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Mo Cheeks, swept the Knicks, advanced to beat Sidney Moncrief‘s Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, and swept the LA Lakers to win the ’83 NBA title.

Grunfeld and the 47-win Knicks fell short in the ’84 playoffs as well. This time going down in seven games to the Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and the Chief Robert Parrish. Just as the 76ers did the previous season, the Celtics subsequently beat the Bucks in the East finals, and won the ’84 NBA championship, taking the Lakers in seven.

Tough times found the Knickerbockers in ’84-85. Cartwright missed the entire season and King only played 55 games. Not even Darrell Walker, in his second season and averaging a career-high 13.5 ppg, could help. A mere 24 wins and a frozen envelope later, Patrick Ewing magically landed in the Big Apple.

Fast forward to the night of October 26, 1985, the official arrival of the John Thompson-groomed Georgetown product in New York. I just happened to be watching NBA TV the other day and caught a replay of Ewing’s first game ever. The Knicks were up against the familiar 76ers, featuring Malone, Cheeks, a stout Charles Barkley, Dr. J, and one of my favorites, Sedale Threatt.

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Like user ooba on Bullets Forever, I attended the Flip Saunders meet-n-greet with season ticket holders at the Verizon Center on Wednesday night. I didn’t intend on going (nor did I really know about it), but my boy Donte invited me that day, so big thanks to him.

Luckily, I had the room bugged beforehand so I could get some prime quotes from Flip … well, if ‘bugged’ means a small recorder I happened to have with me.

It’s kinda funny, I didn’t mean to be the sneaky blogger recording people’s conversations, or a coach talking to a practice court filled with 200-250 people (not sure if I’m a good crowd estimator or not), but like ooba, I just want to relay interesting team news, notes, and Et ceteras to those who weren’t able to attend.

Of course, one must wonder if Saunders was more candid speaking in front of fans, working under the assumption that no one was ‘covering’ the event, than he would have been with members of the main-stream-media.

Then again, unlike MSM types, I’m actually a fan of the team.

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[image via Gilbertology]

Tony Kornheiser will turn 61 on July 13th. Fully entrenched into his sixth decade, we can only hope that Tony has been given a shingles vaccine, the CDC recommends it.

Kornheiser shares a birthday with Spud Webb, boxer Michael Spinks, Harrison Ford (who is six years older, but about 6o years better looking than Tony — self deprecating joke that TK would make alert), was born on the exact same day as Aunt Viv from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (the second one, after the first one left due to difficulties with Will Smith), and fittingly, shares a b-day with some fella from Queens named Dick Bunt, who played for both Kornheiser’s Knicks and Baltimore’s Bullets.

Life expectancy has increased in recent years. If it were 1935, Tony would be reaching the age where he would be expected to pass. Not so these days. That’s why some are proclaiming that 60 is the new 40.

So hey Tony, turning 61 is not all that bad, just as long as you’re following MSN’s 12 steps you must take at age 60. Although, according to Kornheiser’s On The DL Podcast with Dan Levy, he’s not closing in on a retirement date, he’s looking for another job.

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Ya’ll remember Brian Cardinal?

He was on the Wizards for all of 15 minutes (literally, he saw 15 total minutes of court time in a Wiz uniform)….scoring four points and pulling down five boards over five games. And that was the only action on the court he saw for the entire 2002-03 season.

The Wiz got him in September ’02 when Michael Jordan traded Rip Hamilton, Bobby Simmons, and Hubert Davis to the Pistons for Jerry Stackhouse, Ratko Varda, and Cardinal…..that really worked out. Nice move for the future MJ.

In the present day, people are all like, “Oh, Brian Cardinal looks like a dad,” or “Brian Cardinal looks like an abusive husband.”

Get off his jock. First of all, my dad don’t tweet….and you can pretty much take any 6’8″+ white dude, and dub him as a potential abusive husband, as long as he doesn’t look absolutely goofy like Gheorghe Muresan or Walter Herrmann.

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