John Wall’s summer league feet game.

Things I learned/witnessed at summer league in Las Vegas, in bullets:

• On Day 1, Chris Webber, an analyst for the games on NBA TV, broke out his pleated cargo shorts. It was a tough day for all of us.

• Bradley Beal can block shots… he averaged one per game over five contests in Las Vegas. Chris Singleton also threw his body around a bunch (“I feel like it’s going to help Chris Singleton out a lot,” said Shelvin Mack about the summer league 10-foul limit during Wizards mini-camp prior. “You know, he likes to foul, so he’s going to play a lot longer, so it’s good for us.”). This clip shows Beal blocking, or rather, thwarting a lob attempt off the backboard, and then Singleton diving over the first row of chairs for the loose ball:

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[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 15 contributors: Rashad Mobley and Adam McGinnis with first-hand coverage, and Kyle Weidie watching from afar.]

Score

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[Mike Wise and Pam McGee - photo: K. Weidie]

When the basis for an article is interviewing a mom about her son, you know what’s bound to happen: irrationality entrenched in unconditional love. No big deal, it’s to be expected. But when the Washington Post’s Mike Wise loads his pen with the ink of JaVale McGee’s mom, Pamela, talking about her son: a media firestorm fueled by irrationality. Oh what, if anything, will Ted Leonsis’ blogging fingers say about these maternally induced pixels, seeing that through the conduit of Wise, Pamela calls out his coach and his franchise? The Wizards may wind up miffed because of Wise’s article, but they certainly can’t be surprised. Difficulties with JaVale McGee’s mom — the “Little League parent,” Wise calls her — are well-known throughout the organization.

She calls out Flip Saunders for “throwing JaVale under the bus” in criticizing his recent backboard dunk, a feat she says was done to “break up to monotony” of losing. (Does she realize how much Saunders bites the bullet to defend McGee already?) We also know that Flip didn’t even take McGee out of the game because of that dunk against Houston. He played the next five minutes of the third quarter and about the first three minutes of the fourth… before getting the hook for completely losing track of Jordan Hill for a points and then subsequently shooting a bad jumper.

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Best of Wizards/basketball-related links, in bullets. But first, John Wall’s glasses help him and DeMarcus Cousins see into the future…

John: “I see the future, and I’m going to have my own candy bar.”

DeMarcus: “I want to be a candy bar for Halloween in my future.”

John: “That guy in front of me has a sneeze in his future.”

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Note: Rashad Mobley is in Los Angeles for the 2011 NBA All-Star Weekend festivities following the entertaining activities of John Wall and JaVale McGee as they put their great individual talent on display to the world.  He covered the Rookie-Sophomore Game, the All-Star practice, and last night, the Skills Competition and the Dunk Contest…

When John Wall set the NBA Rookie-Sophomore game record with 22 assists on Friday night, he gave NBA viewers all over the world a glimpse of his limitless potential. JaVale McGee had that same opportunity on Saturday night and he showed NBA fans some creative dunks that had not been seen in quite some time, and in a couple cases, ever.

First up was Wall and his brief Skills competition appearance.  Earlier in the weekend, Wall informed Washington Post writer Michael Lee that he expected the passes to be a problem for him, and that turned out to be a prophetic statement.  His initial chest pass rattled in and then back out, and Wall had to run back and try again.  After hitting the jumper on his second attempt (where I fully expected him to struggle), Wall then took two attempts to complete the outlet pass.  His time of 39.3 seconds in the first round was not good enough to advance — however, it was good enough to beat last place Chris Paul, who finger-rolled and missed a point blank layup. Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors ended up defeating Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the final with a time of 28.2 seconds.

Next it was JaVale’s turn to shine, and he seized his moment and then some.  For his first round dunk, he aligned two baskets right next to each other, and dunked on them both in with two separate balls.  It took him several tries to get it right, but once he did, he was awarded with a perfect score of 50.

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During last Friday’s Washington Wizards win over New Jersey Nets, Comcast’s Chris Miller had an in-game interview with JaVale McGee’s mother, Pamela. The questions centered around her thoughts on JaVale being selected for the All-Star dunk contest. She talked about how proud she is to see his growth as a basketball player, his love of dunking, and shared a story where JaVale touched the top of backboard in street shoes at his pre-draft workout for Cleveland. Hilarity ensues at the 1:08 mark of video when Pam interrupts her backboard story to yell this to a passerby:

“Hey dude, we’re on TV … We’re on TV dude!”

There’s no video of the funny exchange, only audio while highlights of JaVale are shown, so the identity of the interview interrupter is unknown, but Gheorghe Muresan is sitting in the background. Miller later tries to prod Pam, a former WNBA player and Olympic champion, into revealing if she would be involved in any of McGee’s dunks. She coyly indicated that she would be on-hand for the festivities, but stopped short from officially announcing her participation.

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