Posts tagged ‘leandro barbosa’

Jordan Crawford was traded today, ya heard? A former 24-year old rebuilding chip was jettisoned to Boston for a couple 30-year old NBA vagabonds, Leandro Barbosa and Jason Collins. #SoWizards? Perhaps. Here’s the rundown of reactions from the TAI crew…

Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It):

It really is a shoulder shrugger (and a head-shaker). I mean, I care. I’ll miss Jordan Crawford. I wish he would have been a better player. I wish that the relationship between him and the franchise didn’t go down in such an epic, flaming bag of shit. But it did. Fighting off the desire to not overreact, but something is amiss with how this team handles players (not all players, mind you). Everyone in the league seems to know it and the owner seems completely oblivious to it. I’ll reiterate: During the time that Ernie Grunfeld has led the Wizards (since the ’03 Summer) only one NBA team has more losses than the Wizards: the Minnesota Timberwolves, with 482 losses to Washington’s 475. But now, Ernie is evidently doing exactly what Ted wants. So there’s that.

Crawford certainly did his part to wear out his welcome—an estimated 80 percent part, I’d say. In return for the diminished asset, the Wizards save a little bit of money. Nice, but certainly not part of the plan. The Theodore Unit wanted to develop young players who could either be used as trade pieces or as pillars for the rebuild. Instead, they are giving them away. On the other hand, Crawford was good, but he was not a system player. He wasn’t about quick ball movement, and he was rarely conscious about offensive spacing. He knew how to fire up shots with confidence, and he had the ability to drop fancy, no-look passes when his teammates weren’t ready. Hardly useful in terms of winning.

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(picture via USA Basketball)

USA Basketball rolled into the nation’s capital this past weekend, taking part in a variety of World Basketball Festival events throughout the city. It all culminates with the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams facing off tonight at the Verizon Center against their counterparts from Brazil in a friendly exhibition. The men’s team held a “Hoops for Troops” practice on Saturday afternoon at D.C. Armory in front of 3,000 fans, many of them members of the armed forces. The team ran through 5-on-0 full court offensive sets, defensive drills, and had an intra-squad scrimmage. The special gathering had a “midnight madness” feel with a sprinkle of Wizards home game flavor. And, lest we forget, these are the best basketball players in the world going hard at each other; it was truly special to witness. (Additional coverage of this experience will be available in forthcoming posts.)

On Sunday, the men’s team held a practice at the Smith Center (George Washington University’s basketball arena), and it was briefly open to the media. The preparations are part of the USA Basketball tour that started in Las Vegas with this stop in D.C., along with appearances in Manchester, England and Barcelona, Spain, before ultimately arriving in London to defend their 2008 Olympic gold.

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The Wizards and Pacers face off tonight in Washington for the third time in about two weeks. Indiana is coming off an emotional 112-104 comeback victory over the New York Knicks in Indiana last night, and the Wizards are coming off an emotionless effort at home against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday. For tonight’s 3-on-3 we have Tim Donahue (@TimDonahue8p9s) from the ESPN TrueHoop Pacers blog 8 Points, 9 Seconds, along with TAI’s Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It). Let it begin…

#1) What stat and what player will most determine the outcome of this game?

DONAHUE: Oscar Wilde says, “Talent borrows, genius steals,” so I’m going to shamelessly steal from Kyle Weidie’s response to a similar question from the last Pacers-Wiz 3-on-3: Offensive Rebounding. In the first matchup, the Pacers grabbed 11 of the 19 boards off their offensive glass in the second half, when they outscored Washington 54-32. In the second one, the Wiz stayed close by grabbing 38-percent of the rebounds on their offensive end. The player most likely to influence the outcome of this game is two of them: George Hill and Leandro Barbosa. They are the barometers of the Pacer bench.

MOBLEY: It sounds simple, but its all about rebounding. The final boxscore from the last Pacers/Wizards game shows the Pacers had the advantage 40-35. But in the second half of the game (when the Pacers outscored the Wizards 54-32), Indiana had a 26-11 rebounding advantage. Roy Hibbert had nine rebounds in the second half and David West had four — three of which were kept the Wizards from taking the lead in the last minute. With Nene and Booker likely to be out again, the Wizards will need collaborative rebounding effort, while the Pacers could (and should) exploit the Wizards’ replacement frontline.

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Mike Dunleavy is definitely no longer a Pacer; Andray Blatche is barely a Wizard; But, I still love this pic… Andray kicking it with Tyler Hansbrough’s chin.

[photo: K. Weidie, Truth About It.net]

The trade deadline came and went one week ago today, and even though they didn’t land Dwight Howard, the Wizards and the Pacers made moves to get better — and those moves coincidentally involved two members of the Brazilian National Team.  Pacers team president Larry Bird said the addition of Leandro Barbosa, “added depth and scoring off the bench and will help us as we make our run to the playoffs,” while Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld said Nene is a “versatile player who will bring experience and a physical presence to our frontcourt … a strong rebounder, tough defender and a fierce competitor.”  Barbosa had 12 points in 18 minutes in his first game as an Indiana Pacer on Tuesday night, while Nene scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in just 31 minutes in his first game as a Wizard last night. The two Brazilians will go head-to-head (presumably not against each other) tonight at the Verizon Center, but before they do Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh) from the SB Nation Pacers blog Indy Cornrows, Jared Wade (@jared_wade) from the ESPN True Hoop Blog Eight points, Nine seconds, and yours truly, TAI’s Rashad Mobley (@rashad20), will give three answers to three questions… Read more »

Here we go again… Tonight’s Wizards-Raptors game is the third of four meetings between the two clubs. Washington and Toronto have split the 2011-12 series thus far, each team celebrating a decisive victory over the other — the average winning margin is 16 points. Although the Torontonians have been more successful on the road (5 wins) than the D.C. locals have been at home (3 wins) this season, the Raptors haven’t won a game at the Verizon Center since 2009. Consider heading to the game if you have a couple of hours to kill tonight: tickets can be scored for a buck! Raptorholic Sam Holako (@RapsFan) of ESPN TrueHoop/Raptors Republic joins TAI’s John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) for tonight’s 3-on-3 roundball roundtable. Three questions, three answers starts now…

#1) Fact or Fiction: Rashard Lewis will score four or more points tonight, joining Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce as the only players in NBA history to have scored at least 15,000 points, grabbed 5,000 rebounds and hit 1,500 three-pointers in their careers. [UPDATE: Lewis is out versus the Raptors due to what is being called a sore right knee; Chris Singleton replaced him in the Wizards starting lineup.]

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Debating which is worse, wasting two and half hours watching that putrid Wizards defensive performance against the Toronto Raptors in a 127- 108 rout, or trying to figure out what to write for a game recap. Both seem like torture for a Wizards fan, but I will at least try a bigger literary effort than Andray Blatche does at defense. The Wizards team wore red shoes, headbands, and warm ups to honor World AIDS Week, although it was pretty symbolic of the matador D that they unveiled in Canada Wednesday evening.

The Wizards did their usual roadkill performance in remarkable fashion by giving up 72 points on 32 made FGs — in the first half! With the Magic, Celtics and Hawks already destroying the Wizards this season, you could at least counter that those are playoff teams. Not the case with a sub par 6-11 Raptors team, the Wizards were lucky to hold them under 140 points.

The Raptors did shoot a blistering 67% in the first half, yet, most of them were dunks, fast-break lay-ups and easy buckets around the hoop.  Thirty of the Raptors first 40 points came in the paint (62 for the game), and they tallied 50 points in the first 17 minutes of the game, ending up with 32 fast break points. Toronto also crushed the Wiz 52-30 in rebounding.

Andrea Bargnani looked like the version of Dirk Nowitzki everyone thought he could be when the Raptors drafted him first overall in 2006. He threw down facial dunks, grabbed offensive boards at ease, and flowed in any jumper he wanted at will. DeMar Derozan did a ‘Bo Kimble at Loyola Marymount’ impression, Leandro Barbosa was Tim Hardaway in Run TMC, Jose Calderon put on a ‘Fat Lever with the Nuggets’ play-making act, and Jerryd Bayless was, sigh … you get the picture.  But let John Wall paint it for you: Read more »