One way in which Ernie Grunfeld can be commended is that he found a situation relatively suitable for all parties, speaking of Gilbert Arenas too. And isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about? Should fans always feast on the blood of perfect-world trades and maneuvers? Or should they consider moves in their entirety? Maybe that last sentiment can only be reserved for special cases such as Arenas’ relationship with Washington, but that’s all we have to go off nonetheless.

Let’s go back to mid-November when I asked Arenas why he went from jersey No. 0 to No. 6 to No. 9…

You can’t really go through a proper rebirth unless you change cities, traditionally speaking in the professional sports world. And now that Arenas has found a warm place in Orlando outside of the rebirth canal, he has switched jerseys again, going from No. 9 to No. 1 in the spirit of Penny Hardaway.

Ted Leonsis implored people to re-embrace Arenas, insisted that his team wasn’t looking to trade to maligned former star. But that was more about feel-good marketing buzz, not the type of words that make decisions. We knew this. We knew it’d be easier for Leonsis to alter his sound bites when rebuilding efforts naturally can involve decisions on the fly.

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Before a trade even went down, and as legitimate rumors made their infiltration Friday night, I somewhat contemplated the departure of Gilbert Arenas from the Washington Wizards. It was vastly incomplete, but my point was that in D.C., Arenas will be remembered for both good and bad, but mostly for the good.

As the trade became official while I was scrambling to get to the Verizon Center for the Wizards-Heat game on late Saturday afternoon, I spurted off several reactions on Twitter, but I don’t consider them as being anywhere close to complete either. The departure of someone who was so ingrained into modern D.C. basketball culture, much less franchise history, is difficult to contemplate, especially so soon. Surely many, myself included, will digest Arenas’ tenure in Washington plenty in the future … and then regurgitate and digest again.

But until then, below is one digestive attempt I made on the trade after Ernie Grunfeld’s press conference, which was held just over 100 minutes before tip-off. I had the opportunity to write this for ESPN.com’s TrueHoop blog, where you’ll also find a brief analysis of both of Orlando’s blockbuster trades from respective Magic and Suns bloggers in the TrueHoop Network. So, check out what I have to say below and be sure and get the full picture at TrueHoop.

Mr. Opportunity

In his news conference regarding the trade, Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld spoke of the opportunity that presented itself. “Opportunities don’t come along that often in the NBA,” Grunfeld said. He later countered with, “People in this league will always want talented players, and Gilbert is a talented player.” That “always” for Arenas was evidently a closing window Grunfeld had to jump through on Dec. 18, almost two months before the NBA’s trade deadline. So why the urgency?

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Two initial thoughts upon hearing “strong” Gilbert Arenas trade rumors (via: Yahoo!, Orlando Pinstriped Post, Washington Post):

1) So what? If he’s traded, he’s traded. If he’s not, he’s not. Arenas has had a colorful past in D.C. that will always be remembered, mostly good … but it wouldn’t be colorful unless there’s some bad, and that will be remembered too.

Gilbert has come back relatively quietly this season (aside from emo acts, the fake knee injury, or shoe poop stories). Whether truly humbled, who knows, but he’s at least playing the part. The struggle with whether he should stay or go should now be released, regardless of if the rumors become true or not. People will surely struggle with how to remember him, many will dramatically paint broad pictures with broad brushes … just remember him.

It reminds me of a fight I once had with my girlfriend. It got pretty heated, and in a dead serious moment she looked up at me and said, “I hate to get all Mike Miller on you, but it is what it is.” And then the fight was pretty much over. I cracked up because she had the perfect way to break the tension, and get my attention, rending the conflict silly in the big picture. Then we moved on.

Otherwise, I know everyone would’ve liked to have that 2009 fifth overall pick and Ricky Rubio or Stephen Curry, but without Mike Miller, we wouldn’t have been able to add the absurdity of a repeated sports cliche as a way of moving on into the lexicon of this basketball franchise’s history and beyond. Thanks Mike Miller, thanks a lot.

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The Wizards take on the Raptors in Toronto tonight, still aiming to win their first road game of the year … and they’ll be doing it without Hilton Armstrong.

In a November 24 poll, when the Wizards were 0-6 on the road instead of the current 0-8, 33-percent of voters said the Wizards would notch their first road win tonight against the Raps. My dad recently told me that he thought the Wiz would get their first roadie in Sacramento — in that case, you’ll have to wait until December 8, when the Wizards would face the Kings with an 0-11 record on the road. The NBA: Where Amazing Happens.

Anyway…

Let’s look back and break down the play of the night from Monday’s game versus the Miami Heat. This one involves none other than Gilbert Arenas and Andray Blatche running a pick-and-roll, one where Blatche actually rolls to the basket. Imagine that.

Also imagine something else for a second … the Orlando Magic discussing a Vince Carter for Arenas swap with the Wizards, at least this is what’s being reported by the Orlando Pinstripped Post (h/t: Bullets Forever), also indicating that the trade could involve Blatche, Rashard Lewis and Daniel Orton as well. Read more »

Poor Vince Carter. Above, he can be seen shooting a basketball before a recent meeting between his team and the Washington Wizards in the District of Columbia. He didn’t play in said game against the Wizards, as Carter is wont to do — not play in games due to injury, that is.

Poor Vince Carter. He’s getting paid $17 million this year. He’s previously quit on a team from Canada according to some (Like A Bosh), he could keep his current team, the Orlando Magic, from winning a championship, and he seemed to be ever so slightly perturbed that the photographer taking these pictures, aka me, was taking these pictures.

“They’re supposed to be out here already?,” blabbered Carter to an assistant coach. I appeased the man by walking away upon detection of his annoyance at such a disturbance. Sorry Vince.

I guess it was just too much for Carter to stomach, as he is currently not exposed to opposing crowds aiming to thwart his jump shot attempts with noise. The soft clicking of photos being taken. From a distance. For a couple minutes. What a distraction. Poor Vince Carter. Read more »

No one likes moral victories. They aren’t supposed to happen in professional sports, at least not acknowledged. Moral victories? Those are for the college underdogs, the 15 or 16-seeds in the Big Dance.

But if you’re the Washington Wizards, fighting hard against the Orlando Magic to the point where the game was decided by a Gilbert Arenas missed runner in the paint (after being stuffed like turkeys on Thanksgiving night in Atlanta), you’ll take it as one to grow on.

“Well, we competed,” Flip Saunders said, almost reluctantly, after his team fell 100-99 in the waning seconds. “Had opportunities, I thought we could have very easily hung our heads when we got in the situation and got down 12, but fought back, had some great individual play.” The coach relented his answer before even being asked a question at his post-game press conference.

Wizards fans can only hope the players see the type of effort displayed against Orlando as more positive bricks in their project of rebuilding. Saunders had an excellent game plan and his players worked hard to implement it. But the little things made the difference on Saturday night, according to the Wizards’ coach.

“It’s just the little things,” Saunders noted. “We wanted to wrap [Dwight] Howard up, not let him get layups. We gave him too many layups.”

“I mean, he is a beast,” the coach later continued about the gargantuan Orlando center. “You know, you gotta grab him with both arms and try to hang on and hope that they call a foul and you don’t get hurt.”

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[Daniel Orton receives coaching instruction on his shot from Magic assistant Brendan Malone.]

Friday night after the Orlando Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111-100, Coach Stan Van Gundy was very upset about the brand of defense his team had played. The Magic led by as much as 18 points in the third quarter, but they allowed that lead to whittle away to eight points, and they never truly put the Cavs away despite the victory.   Here’s what Van Gundy had to say after that game:

“I saw very few good things defensively. We were terrible. Another 47-percent game. It’s the same old thing. With us right now, when the scoring is easy, we won’t guard, and that’s why we can’t put games away. We play one end of the floor at a time. So, we’re going to be in these challenges all the time.”

Last night against the Wizards, the Magic found themselves in a similar situation.  They jumped out to yet another big lead of 14 points, but in third quarter the Wizards shot 53-percent, and they even took the lead from the Magic.  If it weren’t for a big Dwight Howard putback toward the end, and a last second missed shot by Gilbert Arenas, the Magic could have easily lost the game.

Still, Van Gundy’s post-game comments (comments the media waited outside the locker room for over 30 minutes to hear I might add) were a lot more positive than they had been the previous night: Read more »

This is a Washington Wizards blog, and even though we have a segment entitled, “From The Other Side”, where we grab comments and interviews from the opposing locker room, we still try to make sure most of our content is Wizards-related.

However, there are instances when I get an audio or video clip that is too good to pass up regardless of whether it has anything to do with the Wizards or not.  Tonight happens to be one of those instances.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson and Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy have been engaged in a war of words during this Thanksgiving week. First, Jackson hinted that if that Miami Heat continued to struggle a “Van Gundy situation” could emerge and current coach Erik Spoelstra could be fired.  Van Gundy shot right back by saying Jackson was “inappropriate and ignorant” about what really happened in Miami.

After a morning shootaround in Utah yesterday, Jackson offered up a bit of an apology:

“It was an off-handed remark about if things continue to go poorly for Miami, what might happen.  But, obviously Stan felt that he had to say something. Unfortunately he got defensive about it. I didn’t mean to do that. I should apologize because I do know about his situation.  Stan was going home to be with his family and that was his reason for leaving. I have no idea about the rest of it; why he came back out after retiring and being with his family. But, that’s his decision and fine.”

Prior to tonight’s Wizards/Magic game, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel and David Aldridge of NBA TV asked Coach Van Gundy to respond to Phil Jackson’s words:

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No John Wall, no Vince Carter as the Wizards put their 5-2 record at home to the test against the best team they’ve seen yet in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center. But without those two, there are still plenty of story lines for the holiday hangover matchup on NBA TV — JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche vs. Dwight Howard, Gilbert Arenas versus Jameer Nelson, Kirk Hinrich versus the sure-to-get-booed J.J. Redick (or Arenas and Hinrich guarding the other way around), and the opening night blowout in Orlando hanging over Washington’s head. Question is, will this game be any good? Exactly.

Let’s go to the pre-game video where Flip Saunders and Andray Blatche discuss:

• Flip talks about his team in general, playing against good opponents home and away.
• Blatche talks about what the team is focused on with the opening night loss in Orlando and the Thanksgiving night loss in Atlanta in mind, and how this Wizards team approaches Dwight Howard’s effect on defense.
• Flip talks about the progression of Nick Young and his role coming off the bench (note: the newly acquired Alonzo Gee will be starting at the three spot with Wall out due to a bruised left knee — he joins Gilbert Arenas, Kirk Hinrich, Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee in the starting lineup).

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My DVR knew what was happening. At some point very late in the game, it decided to stop recording the Wizards-Magic in favor of a show it’s programmed to record, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. In the process, the game as captured up to that point got lost in the DVR stratosphere, putting a halt to my ability to go back and further analyze the game visually.

Probably for the best though, re-watching the low-lights of a 112-83 blowout loss isn’t exactly the most productive thing in the world. In most senses, it’s a game that Flip Saunders and his team (and Wizards fans) should just forget and move on (but not without an intense film session, one would hope — after all, Washington has to face Orlando three more times this season).

But in other senses, there were some very concerning displays last night. The season’s debut of several players who have been with the team the longest represented nothing more than the status quo, which either means little progress was made by them over the summer to more closely connect to the game cerebrally, or that they just have a low capability/potential to do so in the first place. Observations on those players and their situations will surely come (and you can read some thoughts from Rashad already).

No, this post is dedicated to the only player who really played worth a damn Thursday night. When your average Joe looks at the box score, he might assume that Cartier Martin got all of his points in garbage time. No sir. One only needs to look at a huge block Martin had against Dwight Howard to know that’s not true:

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Sure, I pretty much said the Wizards would lose to the Magic on Thursday in my last post. But there’s always an ‘if’ … and Gilbert Arenas is just that. Coming into this season, I’ve been confident that Arenas would be healthy enough to be a very effective scorer. Some are concerned about his knee, but if the mystique of Tim Grover proves true, time off due to suspension only made the surgical repairs stronger, with more rest.

We’re talking about a guy who scored 45 points in a game last season — and 25 or more points in 10 out of 32 games, seven of those games coming in December when Arenas started to heat up. The Wizards went 4-6 in the win/loss column when Gil scored 25 or more … which I guess isn’t bad, considering.

No, instead of his offense, what I’ve wanted to see from Gilbert is if his defensive legs can prove something other than the norm, for him, especially after Flip Saunders has backed Arenas’ defensive capability so much. People are already afraid that the twists and turns will continue with Gilbertology. Hopefully, lingering groin and ankle injuries won’t contribute more of that feeling you get when the plane or roller coaster takes a sudden drop.

But if Gilbert is merely a bench ornament in Orlando, the name of the Wizards’ game will still be to out-trick the Magic with strong and dominant guard play — pressure bursts pipes and speed makes it worse. Hello John Wall.

An upset toppling like a good ol’ Pyramid Scheme in the new Amway Center isn’t beyond comprehension. What if Dwight Howard gets in foul trouble, or perhaps is moved by the spirit to pick up a couple of those ‘new’ technicals? Who else do the Orlando Magic have that can out-basketball the Wiz kids? Vince Carter? I imagine that Al Thornton is a threat to give him the ‘Melo Treatment (meaning the one time Thornton played stellar defense against Carmelo Anthony).

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The Washington Wizards held their last preseason practice at the Verizon Center on Tuesday afternoon before heading down to Orlando for Thursday’s regular season opener, a national television showcase against the Magic on TNT.

If you’re a Wizards fan, you might be losing sleep over the match-up nightmares Orlando specifically poses against Washington. Okay, never mind, you’re probably dreaming about John Wall — it’s good be distracted, for now. Plus, I imagine the coach of a rebuilding team is still slightly more concerned with how his own players follow his instructions than countering what a great team like Orlando does.

Of course, match-up-wise, we don’t know who Flip Saunders is going to start just yet, or if Gilbert Arenas will be available because of soreness in his ankle that caused him to sit out of practice on both Monday and Tuesday, which piggy-backed on a groin injury he experienced in the fifth preseason game against the Milwaukee Bucks that caused him to miss the last two games on the slate.

“From what happened before, you’ll know our starters 10 minutes before the game. That’s our new policy,” the coach quipped on Tuesday. ‘Before’ being when Arenas lied about soreness in his knee.

But the three-guard lineup isn’t necessarily the concern in this instance — it’s how Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee will be able to match-up with the inside/outside combination of Rashad Lewis and Dwight Howard. Blatche, who already floats away from the basket too much on offense (for a team that will be desperate for paint scoring), might find himself playing even more away from the basket in keeping track of Lewis on defense.

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While Andray Blatche will be celebrating his 24th birthday a bit early this evening, there are a couple former Bullets/Wizards who are actually turning an additional year in their lives on today’s date, August 18. Now, these aren’t franchise greats by any means — in fact, one didn’t make it to 60 games in Washington and the other came just short of 100 games — but both hold places near and dear to the fun-loving hearts of those who have suffered with this futile team.

So here goes …

[image via DC Sports Bog, David Bergman - AP]

Isaac Austin turns 41 today. Yes, the same Ike Austin who the Wizards traded for in August 1999 in exchange for Terry Davis, Jeff McInnis, Tim Legler and Ben Wallace. Austin was fresh off a 49-game 1998-99 campaign with the Orlando Magic where the center shot 40.8-percent and averaged 9.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.7 blocks and 2.3 turnovers during 25.7 minutes per game … I guess those numbers were impressive to someone at the time. His 6.7 points and 4.8 rebounds he averaged in 19.9 minutes over 59 games with Washington in 1999-2000 (hey! his REB% improved! — 10.9 to 13.8)  earned him the famed Ike Austin Cheese Boot and being made fun of years later for loving donuts. Austin was traded to the Vancouver Grizzlies for Obinna Ekezie, Felipe Lopez, Cherokee Parks and Dennis Scott in August 1999.

But don’t feel that bad Wizards fans. In a sense, Magic fans should feel worse, even though they did pawn Austin off on the Wiz (like I said, “in a sense”). In ’95-96 the Magic won 60 games and made the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the Chicago Bulls in a 4-0 sweep. Then Shaq bolted for L.A. and left Penny Hardaway all on his own.

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A D.C. picture, links and commentary …

[Howard Theater - 620 T St. NW - Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

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By now you may know that JaVale McGee has been cut from Team USA … and it also served as another example of news coming directly from a player, via Twitter. This is somewhat disappointing (him being cut, not that word came by means of Twitter). Many signs/media reports gave you the feeling that McGee would at least be taken to Europe to participate in training and exhibitions leading up to the FIBA tournament in Turkey, and it would have been good for his development. Then again, maybe he didn’t want to go, knowing he wouldn’t make the final 12. Or perhaps the team thought it would be best for him to train stateside under the direction of the franchise. Regardless of the reason, a lot of eyes, D.C. and beyond, will be on McGee in 2010-11 because of this Team USA experience. If he becomes more of a student of the game, he can really be special.

Dan Steinberg conveys pretty much the gist of the Redskins’ Brandon Banks doing the John Wall dance after scoring a punt return touchdown in their exhibition opener against the Buffalo Bills. Banks did the dance in front of his boy from Raleigh, John Wall, no less.
[DC Sports Bog]

Even the website of a Lexington, Kentucky NBC television station is covering Banks doing the John Wall dance.
[Lex18.com]

Which makes me wonder … how many corny television montages of various folks doing the John Wall dance are we going to see this year? Probably can’t be more than the number of media members who attempted the famed Albert Haynesworth conditioning test themselves.

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Flip Saunders took an unusually long amount of time to get to his press conference after Saturday night’s 109-95 loss to Orlando. Wait, strike that, nothing has been “usual” this season, or rather consistent when it comes to how long the coach takes to get from locker room to media room.

It’s just that on Friday after the 105-99 loss to the Hawks, Flip was at his podium seat and ready to answer questions before anyone knew it. The only initial witnesses were cameramen and perhaps one, two at the most, members of the media.

Saturday the healthily attending media waited and waited, humorously speculating on what the coach could be doing. Others, myself included, looked at the box score, calling out numbers of note and then applying the proper reactionary facial expression. All of this is leading to a story about Shaun Livingston, trust me.

When Flip’s presser finally concluded, the media scrambled toward the locker room knowing it could be relatively empty. One of the games few positives, Andray Blatche, was already dressed and talking in the hallway amongst his post-game posse, meaning that pickings could be slim.

What players would be left? Only Al Thornton, JaVale McGee, Alonzo Gee and the two point guards, Randy Foye and Shaun Livingston. Gee didn’t garner any media attention and McGee was able to escape while Thornton was being questioned.

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