In the past weeks, NBA TV has been showing top games from 2008-09. I happened to catch several, one being Tony Parker’s career-high 55 point game, which came on an early November night in Minneapolis. That’s right, Mike Miller and Randy Foye had the privilege of being on the court to witness. Naturally, I perked up to pay attention, and take some notes on what I observed of the two new Wizards.

Word of Minnesota’s offense slowing down at the unspoken decree of Al Jefferson (approved by Randy Wittman) were confirmed. But at least Big Al was willing to take charges, such early in the third quarter when Miller chose a horrible angle to close out on Michael Finley at the three point line. Miller had no balance, and his hands were neither active, nor high. The 35-year old Finley easily blew by, but lost focus during his open path and plowed into Jefferson for the offensive foul.

The very next time down the court, Miller found himself helping off Finley, who was again spotted up at the top of the key. Tony Parker was curling off a Tim Duncan ball screen on the wing, so yes, Miller had to help stop the penetration. But once the ball was kicked back to Finley, Miller hesitated on the close-out, letting Finley’s previous drive to the hoop get into his head. Finley only needed that split-second of space to start drooling. The wide-open three was easy money for a shooter like him. Miller was never in a good position to even give a half-hearted contest.

Clearly, Mike Miller is not too swift on his feet … but this is something we all figured. His defense might be an issue, but not because of a lack of effort.

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flickr/Roadsidepictures

I watched the Wizards take on the Timberwolves and Clippers in the Las Vegas Summer League long ago, but am just getting my notes/observations on those two games posted.

So in the spirit of better late than never, here goes ….

(Note: I still need to get my post up on the Knicks game and hand out the summer league grades … but only to the players who ‘count’ — Blatche, Young, McGee, Crittenton and McGuire.) Read more »

Between hitting up the John Legend concert Friday night, going out for some fresh oysters at Hank’s Oyster Bar on Saturday, followed by a night on the town (really, the oysters at Hank’s, especially the ones from Fanny Bay, BC, Canada, were awesome), and then getting trounced in softball on Sunday afternoon (honestly, I think the final score was 24-2), I didn’t have much time to dedicate to the Wizards this past weekend.

I was able to make it through the T-Wolves game Sunday night, and take notes on it, but fell into a slumber before I was able to watch the Wizards against the Clippers or Knicks, both of which, I understand, were much better efforts from the D.C. boys. Oh, and Andray Blatche didn’t play in either game. Nick Young sat out of Sunday’s game against New York as well.

I aim to watch both of the remaining games tonight and subsequently post notes/observations, and then hand out some summer league grades. But until then, here’s the big media dump on what others have said:

Wizards vs. T’Wolves

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With Washington sending Darius Songaila, Etan Thomas, Oleksiy Pecherov and the 5th overall pick to Minnesota in exchange for Mike Miller and Randy Foye being reported by Chad Ford of ESPN, and both Wizards beat reporters, Mike Jones of the Washington Times and Michael Lee of the Washington Post, it’s time to get some initial thoughts blogged out.

If I know Ernie Grunfeld, he’s not done. Hell, he better not be done.

The drama is kind of exciting, knowing the President of Basketball Ops I’ve come to trust probably has more tricks up his sleeve. Judging by the roster after the trade, we might be calling Gruns “Mr. Wizard” if he pulls off something else nice to make the team complete (more on ‘complete’ in a second).

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