Grunfeld, circa 2000 NBA Playoffs, East 1st Rd. Gm. 5 vs. Indiana

Look at this young gent. Suave, classy … proper descriptors of this Ernie Grunfeld that your grandma could easily roll into one by saying, “He looks like such a nice boy!”

Now the goings-ons ’round the Wizards web

Candid Gil

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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.

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I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, almost since Eddie Jordan got fired from his gig with the Wiz. Well, now that he’s at the helm of the Philadelphia 76ers, this is an appropriate time as ever to publish.

My feeling is that a majority of Wizards fans think Jordan was unjustly fired (or at least weren’t dancing in the streets when he departed), and that even more wish him well.

Count me among both of these groups. Although, when he was terminated, I wasn’t like, “OMG! What an injustice!”

I was more disappointed with the entire landscape of the team, and later resigned to it just being ‘one of those things’, and in the end, maybe it was best that both parties moved on. But we’ll never really know.

In any case, here goes my tribute to Jordan’s basketball career (to date).

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Wizards player evaluations for ‘08-09 continue, up third is Etan Thomas. My thoughts are below, you can check on the full report on Bullets Forever.

[Previously: Oleksiy Pecherov | Juan Dixon]

What can I say about Etan Thomas’ season? Well, at least he has intelligence and social involvement to fall back upon.

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I watched most of the Wizards game before heading out for the night. They simply didn’t entice me to stay with their lack of energy, effort, and patience/ball movement on offense. So, watching the rest of the game on Sunday, I pick the game blog up here:

5:00 left in the 3rd, the Wizards are down 13 on the road….do they have what it takes?

Well, to start off, Songaila is scrapping, in the paint on the floor, in the midst of a fray of humanity, and comes away with the ball for an assist from his back to Caron Butler for a dunk. 72-61 Bucks.

4:16: Wiz get another turnover….Butler jets down the court, goes straight under the rim, puts Charlie Bell on his back and becomes a very easy target for a pass from Mike James. 73-63 Bucks.

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Some will tell you that Michael Redd killed the Wizards with his All-Star play, especially that huge three he hit to put the Bucks up 93-89 with 1:20 left (Dominic McGuire got caught on a screen and Andray Blatche didn’t help like he was supposed to).

Some will tell you that Andrew Bogut was a heavy-weight in the paint with 18 points and 10 boards (sure he was trouble, but at times, the Wizards guards focused on him too much, losing sight of perimeter assignments).

I will tell you that the #1 problem in my book was one which has consistently plagued the Wizards’ defensive efforts for years: backcourt defense. During crucial moments of the game, it seemed that either Luke Ridnour or Ramon Sessions were getting their way against the likes of Javaris Crittenton and Mike James.

The ball handling duo for the Bucks combined for 14 assists and only 2 turnovers (both on Ridnour, who had 10 of the assists). The quick offensive movement they spawned was contagious to their teammates…..and it was the poor down-the-stretch defense of the Wizards which helped thwart any easy chances to be had on offense.

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Ok….I’m not one to throw in the towel, but I couldn’t help feeling as I watched the Wizards-Bucks game that a win would be a bonus, and not anything to expect. I don’t want to get into deep analysis on the game three loss, so here are some bulleted observations:

• Andray Blatche is getting his fair share of chances and is not taking advantage of them.

• He severely lacks blocking-out fundamentals — Somebody teach him….PLEASE!! Tony Massenburg? Wes Unseld?
• Blatche is trying to do too much — I’m not sure what needs to happen for Andray to let the game come to him.

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Bridge to Nowhere in Milwaukee? flickr/Zack K

NEW FEATURE: Andray Blatche Threat Level Color Coded Alert System.

Ok….I’m glad they’re starting Andray Blatche (Etan Thomas is out with an ankle….Michael Redd is also out for the Bucks with an ankle). I still got hope for the kid and this time, it’s hope that this elevated status, and past poor performance of course, drive him to succeed.

If I could think of the perfect two words to describe Scott Skiles, it would be ‘piss ant’

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In anticipation of tonight’s game against Milwaukee, I covered the recent history between the Wiz and Bucks earlier…..now it’s time for some blogger Q&A. Jeramey from The Bratwurst Milwaukee Bucks Blog was kind enough to answer a couple questions about his team. Like to hear it? Well, here it go…..

flickr/compujeramy

1) Yi Jianlian is gone…..what kind of effect do you think he had on the Bucks’ bottom line? In this economy, it surely couldn’t hurt to have the support of a billion Chinese. Or….are you satisfied with Richard Jefferson and thought that the Bucks drafted Yi with the intention of trading him the whole time?

Not as big as you would think, judging from what I’ve heard. First off, if he made the team worse here (and he arguably did) he severely limited their revenue generating potential here stateside. Second, the huge numbers you saw reported for viewers in China have been highly debated. Finally, knock-off products are a huge problem in China, severely limiting the revenue generating potential for merchandise.

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So What Does Milwaukee Think of Arenas……and D.C.?

To make it clear, I’m not here to bash Milwaukee. After Gilbert’s recent comments in regard to Brew City (covered here in Part I: Gilbert Arenas doesn’t like Milwaukee, and that’s good for the NBA), the citizens of that good land naturally were driven to rebut DC’s Agent Zero.

Milwaukee, tell us how you really feel:

OnMilwaukee.com Blogger, Jeff Sherman, comes to the defense:
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