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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[Ex-Wizard Brendan Haywood is heading to the NBA Finals, and now he's finagled two hats to prove it.]

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

But the Heat are not there quite yet, they have to finish off the Chicago Bulls first. The Dallas Mavericks are your Western Conference champs. So congrats goes to Stevenson for the duration of his NBA career, going from potential high school-to-pros bust to staying relevant with hustle work, defense and knowing his role (for the most part … surely DeShawn’s collection of busted threes don’t fall into an “ideal” role; he was 5-21 from deep in five games versus the Thunder). Congrats goes to Haywood, the warmth of whose body eats up a majority of his 6-year, $55 million compensation. But hey, Dallas wasn’t going to get to the Finals without two serviceable bigs in Haywood and Tyson Chandler. Congrats goes to Butler, currently recovering from knee surgery, for being around — decent work in the regular season, and thanks for your positive attitude, but let’s be honest, the Mavericks are probably better if you remain out due to injury for the rest of the season (unless someone else gets hurt). And finally, congrats goes to Cardinal. Thanks to Trey Kerby, you will always be the most dad looking dad in the current NBA.

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This Skybox basketball card commemorates Darrell Walker‘s rebounding prowess as a guard for the Washington Bullets in the early 1990s. In ’90-91, Walker led all guards with 7.8 rebounds per 36 minutes, amongst those who played at least 15 minutes per game and achieved at least 400 rebounds. When strictly looking at per game stats, according to the search results at Basketball-Reference.com, Tyrone Corbin of the Minnesota Timberwolves averaged more rebounds per game as a guard, but he was more a swing-forward to Walker’s true ability to play the point. [Note: Rounded, both Walker and Magic Johnson averaged 7.0 boards per game in '90-91, but Walker was a fraction above Magic.]

In Washington Bullets/Wizards franchise history, according to BBR, only four guards have played in more than 60 games in a season, averaged over 25 minutes per game and over five rebounds per 36 minutes. Those players were: Larry Hughes (’02-03 to ’04-05), Michael Jordan (’01-02 and ’02-03), Darrell Walker (’88-89 to ’90-91) and Earl Monroe (’67-’68).

From the BBR database spanning from 1946-47 to the present day, only two NBA guards have appeared in more than 70 games, had a Total Rebounding Percentage (TRB%: an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor) above 13-percent and a Defensive Rebounding Percentage (DRB%) above 20-percent.

Those two guards are Jason Kidd (2006-07: 13.2 – TRB%; 20.8 – DRB%) and Darrell Walker (1989-90: 13.4 – TRB%; 20.4 – DRB%).

I mention all of this not just to put a classic basketball card of a guard yearning for a rebound on display, but to also note that this season’s Washington Wizards are the tied with the Phoenix Suns for the second worst DRB% in the entire NBA at just 70.6-percent. The Golden State Warriors secure an estimated league-worst 68.5-percent of the defensive rebounds available to them.

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[Shaw Rec. Center - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

In mid-September, ESPN.com contributor Tom Haberstroh made an attempt to determine the five worst players in the franchise history of each NBA team [ESPN Insider]. The requirements, along with the implementation of John Hollinger’s PER, were:

“… a player needed to have played at least 10 minutes per contest over the course of at least 100 career games with the franchise. Furthermore, we’ve added the “Bruce Bowen Corollary” to exempt players who started for championship teams.”

And the list of distinguished gentlemen for the Bullets/Wizards franchise:

And while a standard qualification is necessary to measure across all teams, it’s still subjective. Any of us could find other players just as bad, or worse, using the database of Basketball-Reference.com. Today, I’ll focus on bad shooting players in franchise history.

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[Editor's Note: Wizards games aren't just about basketball, they're about the whole fan experience. And Truth About It.nets bring you that experience from up close. Here's the debut edition of 'Under The Hoop' -- pictures and commentary by TAI photographer Adam Douglas from last Tuesday's match-up against the Charlotte Bobcats.]

7-Day Dray decided to play only seven minutes because he did not hustle back on defense after this shot.

“Who You Got?”

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This fan, or maybe he’s not a fan, aided by his lower-level seats near the Wizards’ locker room tunnel, took the necessary steps to make himself noticed at the Wiz-Knicks snow game on Saturday night.

Some might have approached this guy to take stock of what angle he was playing with his customized jersey. Was he simply stating the fact of Arenas’ plea? Is wearing the jersey of a guilty man an act of defiance? What does the bottom treatment a la Fred Flintstone’s moo-moo signify? Is he or is he not an advocate for Gilbert Arenas? All good questions. I’d like to think that the distinguished Dan Steinberg would have sought this fellow out for blog fodder. Me? I figured that whatever this guy’s jersey meant, it was best left unknown, like the Arenas situation itself.

Furthermore, scenes from pre-game warm-ups …

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{ flickr/wizardsdotcom }

Economy hurting newspapers in a dying industry? Well, when Mike Jones is afforded the opportunity** the spend a couple weeks in Chicago, and thus the ability to break through Gilbert Arenas’ media silence ice, we all see why true professionals need to be around for a long time. (And honestly, they’re not going anywhere, the platform/game is just changing).

Ok, enough of the digressive spiel. Jones has put together an epic* post on Gilbert Arenas’ nameless comeback tour.

* Well, epic to Wizards fans and those dedicated to the NBA, perhaps in hope that Agent Zero will make things a little less ‘boring’, and in a sense that Arenas has been on a media hiatus for a long time, with many probably not expecting him to talk again until September 28th’s media day.

** And who are we kidding? The Washington Times plays the dark horse to The Post in D.C. — the Rev. Sun Myung Moon must be a huge Gilbert Arenas fan. This, in my opinion, is a pretty big pull for Mr. Jones … even though he is an established piece of the main stream media.

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