[Editor's note: Below is the debut guest post of Arish Narayen. Arish is 23-years old and is currently in his second year at the University of Maryland School of Law. Arish has always been a basketball fan, especially of the Terps, but became enamored with the Wizards around the time Gilbert Arenas was hitting game winning shots and stealing game five from the Bulls in Chicago in the 2005 NBA Playoffs. The Wizards have gone nowhere but downhill from since, but somehow Arish has stuck around ... and now he wants to write about the Wiz for Truth About It.net. Go figure.
Check out Arish's debut below as he analyzes the Wizards' attempts to fill their potentially open small forward/wing position. Mike Prada has a quick breakdown of several wing candidates on Bullets Forever, but check out what Arish wrote too -- he worked on this post over the course of several days and goes in-depth statistically on a handful of players the Wizards are rumored to be interested in ... although Arish does use the much too vaunted 'Win Shares' stat that I recently went on a Twitter-rant against. I won't hold that against him. After all, the stat isn't good for nothing, it's just not all what it's cracked up to be. -Kyle]
[Editor's note: Check out the debut of new TAI author, John Townsend. Read more about that John at the bottom of this post, but first, check out his piece about another John. -Kyle]
America always seems to need an enemy, whether they’re found in politics (terrorists!) or in sports (referee Dan Crawford for Mavericks fans). Sure, there are times when our criticism of these villains is justified (British Petroleum), but just as often it is not (Steve Bartman).
The most celebrated, captivating products and people are the most polarizing as well. We should expect this, especially considering the amount of time, money, and hopes being invested. This all brings me to John Wall – savior or setback? The question was never will the Wizards select John Wall, but instead what will happen when they do.
photo courtesy of thomasbeisner's Flickr
The debate over whether or not John Wall is the answer in Washington, DC is groundless. John Wall isone part of the solution to a greater basketball challenge.
{ Jordan smokes 'em if he's got 'em - flickr/simplistic.designs }
I’m not a ‘huge’ fan of Michael Jordan, and I definitely don’t hate him. When he was beating the Lakers and Blazers for a ring when I was 11 and 12, I was like, “Oh cool! It’s MJ!” When he was taking down Chuck Barkley, my sentiment was “may the best man win.” When Jordan came back, I rooted for the Sonics and Jazz because I thought the Bulls had won enough, it was time for someone else. Finally, when Jordan was a Wizard, I initially thought his presence would be good, then responded to his departure with shock/surprise, and ultimately, became apathetic toward his presence in DC.
Ok, now that my Jordan fandom disclaimer is out of the way …
Jordan’s HOF speech has been called petty, uninspiring, disparaging, vicious, and strangely bitter by Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski. He was called a clown, and vicious again, by FanHouse’s Terence Moore. Ken Berger of CBS Sports dubbed Jordan “ruthless,” and called him a “competitive sociopath.” In his Twitter one word description of each HOF entrant’s speech, The Washington Post’s Michael Lee used “cruelty” in reference to Jordan. J.E. Skeets of Yahoo!’s Ball Don’t Lie twittered that MJ’s speech was a bad idea, and akin to “finding out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were crackheads.” Joshua Lobdell of The Inquisitr called Jordan petty (again), and a disgrace, even going so far as to say, “a large part of Jordan’s legacy has been forgotten” as a result. Tim Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell called the speech “tacky, vitriolic, and unnecessary” … but Tim also recognizes that Jordan’s shots were “footnotes of his mythology,” and calls on us to better recognize the David Robinsons of the world (a more than valid request). And finally, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm calls Jordan a jackass, but has a great piece highlighting that such actions from Jordan are nothing new … although Moore does claim that, “Ron Artest probably has more going for him than Michael Jordan as far as a complete life goes,” and challenges readers to wrap their brains around that assertion. Not worth trying.
On draft night, there were many frustrated rumblings on Bullets Forever over Ernie Grunfeld failing to land (or go after) Vince Carter. Not only that, but Carter was allowed to go to the reigning Eastern Conference champion Orlando Magic.
With Hedo Turkoglu opting out, unlikely to return to Orlando, who knows if the Magic will be better off with Carter … many assume yes. I’ll be curious to see if Stan Van Gundy uses Carter similarly within the offense as he did Turkoglu, creating for others off the high pick and roll.
On the eve of Mike Miller and Randy Foye becoming distinguished gentlemen for the Washington Wizards, I’d toiled over a ‘should the Wizards trade Brendan Haywood post‘. It began …
on a mission (question mark) - flick/Keith Allison
“Everyone likes Haywood.
Hell, I like Haywood (now), and recently challenged someone to name five better ‘Centers’ in the East. They couldn’t.
And remember, Ernie Grunfeld is likely not done dealing … especially judging by his quote in USA Today: “We might get out of (the draft) altogether. Very seldom do you get a 32nd pick who’s going to come right in and help a veteran ballclub.”
Of course, this could mean drafting someone and selling them for cash (as the case with Billy Walker to the Celtics last season), or packaging it with Mike James’ expiring contract for some sort of help down low (please be the latter, please be the latter).
Mike Miller has a monkey … or at least he used to.
Back when he was with the Orlando Magic, Miller had a Java Macaque, which is one of those tiny lil’ monkeys that’s almost like having a kid. Miller would change its diapers, attempt to wean it off the bottle and onto people food, etc.. The monkey, Sonny, had his own mini-playground and would sleep in the bed with Miller every night. The story on the Orlando Magic website even says that Java Macaques can grow to have the intelligence level of a six year old human baby … strange.
But alas, don’t expect to see ‘Sonny’ at Ben’s Chili Bowl or sitting on Abe Lincoln’s lap any time soon. True Hoop’s Henry Abbott, who wrote about Miller’s monkey long ago for HOOP magazine, reported on TH in December of 2007 that Miller had to let Sonny go because he was trying to raise two real babies, his sons Mason and Mavrick.
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).
Ernie Grunfeld held a 2 pm presser this afternoon …. nothing ground-breaking. It can basically be summed up by:
“Hello press, we will be potentially drafting a player on Thursday and I’m not tipping my hat, but we’re going to do what’s best for the team.”
However, in the spirit of providing those who could not afford to listen to the WashingtonWizards.com streaming video-cast of the presser, I’m providing a bulleted account (before the video and sound cut off for me with about two minutes left).
Oh, and the ‘reporters’ asking questions didn’t have mics …. so that was kind of annoying. If only Dave Johnson were around to eloquently work the room like he did for Flip Saunders’ meet-n-greet night.
Some of these are quotes, and some are paraphrased thoughts/ideas/statements of Grunfeld. Evidently the Wizards website will have a complete video posted later today. Until then ….
On preparing for the draft: “You always have to assume you’re going to [keep the pick].”
The Wizards are still having conversations on what the pick can bring them in a trade.
5 or 6 players will be available the draft … they really like 3 or 4.
Grunfeld seen Rubio twice in person and has a “real good handle” on his ability, but doesn’t want to get into any specifics about him (or any other particular player in the draft).
On workouts: “Bringing players into your own building is just a process … if one doesn’t come in, it doesn’t meant you’re not going to take him, or you’re not familiar with him.” (Grunfeld cited that JaVale McGee did not work out last year.)
Grunfeld doesn’t put much stock in workouts (especially in terms of if a player works out against others or not). He sees them as an extra opportunity to see the players’ skills and meet them.
On the quality of the draft: “[This is] one of the strongest PG drafts in a long time … [they] could makeup half the lottery.”
Teams that are ready to complete now are in a different mode (as far as cutting salary via trades around draft time) … the Wizards are obviously in a ‘compete now’ mode.
Grunfeld likes his core, he’s trying to put a solid team around Gilbert, Caron, Antawn, and Brendan.
On the team he has: “We’re a pretty deep team and we feel like at the 5 spot, we can get a pretty solid player.”
On the salary cap: “We’ve been over the cap … the pick is slotted in, we’ve had it in our budget for years already.” (thought this was a curious statement – he could have misspoke, I could have misheard)
On if he and Flip are on the same page in terms of what they want to do: “Exactly on page 1.”
Antawn Jamison is out of his cast from ankle surgery and will begin running next week.
DeShawn Stevenson is still not full speed from back surgery but he’s been working with trainers on a daily basis.
On ‘The Plan’: “I’m going to do what’s best for this team short term and long term.”
Grunfeld doesn’t know why rumors that the Wizards looking to cut salary are out there, and says “that’s not the case.” He then referred to the opportunity the Wiz had to shed salary at the trade deadline.
On roster size: “When I played we had 11 players on the roster and we did okay.” Grunfeld doesn’t know how many players the Wizard will have on the roster.
On moving up in the draft: “We’ve had some conversations about the possibility of moving up in the draft.” (among every other scenario, of course).
On his mood this week: “Usually I’m in a pretty good mood [around draft time] because this is all about preparation.” Grunfeld went on to say that there won’t be any arguments on who to take in the waning minutes. They have their order pretty much figured out and will go with the best available.
But, I wanted to take pause to remember Pete Maravich. June 22nd being his day of birth, The Pistol would have been 62 today had he not passed away in 1988 at the age of 40.
I’ve embedded a couple great YouTubes of Maravich below. Neither currently have sound, so I’m making some recommendations on what to listen to while watching the Pistol do his thing.
