A D.C. pic, links, commentary, and whatever you want to call the other stuff…

TAI Recap: John Townsend implores Wizards fans to be more patient because a drastic turnaround next season is not out of the question; if Gilbert Arenas were rebuilding a team, he wouldn’t do it though the draft; Adam McGinnis has one of the rare photos captured from the baseline of Al Thornton’s massive dunk; pictures of Gilbert Arenas and Nick Young in a reunion among friends; Rashad Mobley relays that some young Wizards still don’t understand their role (after several seasons); and when it’s okay for JaVale McGee to dribble full court.

Here’s to NBA draft lottery luck in May for what’s been an excruciating winter for pro basketball fans in Washington. Below the jump, more must-read links…

[Hardy Playground, Washington, D.C. - Yearning For A Sunny Day]

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[Brentwood Park - NW Washington, D.C. - photo: K. Weidie]

My column last week in the DCist incited some reaction from ’round the web. It wasn’t my intention to incite, rather to simply convey thought-out passion through words, so I cannot find any fault in any passionate responses. Furthermore, I’d like to provide some bullet point thoughts below (and then some links).

• “Bold moves” was in reference to the on-court product and those who have a direct influence (players, coaches, basketball operations personnel, team doctors).
• “Bold moves” was not in reference to the surrounding bells and whistles and other shots of energy regarding the franchise, which are more than welcome — Midnight Madness, an alumni association, more attentiveness to stadium needs — but overall, those are mere distractions from the win-loss column.
• Trading Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas is not classified under “bold moves” … they were necessary moves.
• Other moves have been noted and appreciated for their forward-thinking manner — getting Yi Jianlian for essentially nothing, the 17th pick and Hinrich from the Bulls for minimal returns. But also, what would the rebuilding product look without the luck of the draft and John Wall? I shudder to imagine.
• However, this team, even in rebuilding mode, had some glaring inefficiencies that were easily observed long ago. And now, they clearly have had a detrimental effect upon the on-court product — most notably, a lacking inside presence (demonstrated by both offensive and defensive numbers) and lack of adequate outside shooting (the Wizards are in the bottom third of the NBA in both 3p%, .338, and 3pM/G, 5.4). Solutions to these areas are not found overnight, but more creativity could have been used in seeking stop-gaps for this season.
• Many people, such as myself, are not GMs … but it’s evident that these player personnel issues could have been better addressed while continuing to assume minimal financial risk for the future (if not less – see: OKC trade for Daequan Cook/18th pick from Miami in return for the 32nd pick).
• A post by Washington Post editors on Wizards Insider came close to insinuating that my DCist piece was calling for Flip Saunders’ job … not necessarily the case.
• Flip Saunders is a good coach. He hasn’t been provided with the best roster — or even a balanced roster (as Saunders has made subtle complaints to this point, before and after the Gilbert Arenas trade) — so much of the blame for current and past woes lies on the basketball operations side. But the jobs of both Saunders and Ernie Grunfeld are connected, as in Grunfeld hired Saunders. On June 19, 2003, the Wizards hired Eddie Jordan before bringing Grunfeld on board on June 30 (Grunfeld was released from his contract with the Milwaukee Bucks on June 29; on June 27, he traded Sam Cassell and Ervin Johnson to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for Joe Smith and Anthony Peeler) … So there are some sensitivities in which position begets the other. I’m not saying that a GM/team president ‘must’ make coaching calls, but it would help if he was in on the process, in the least.
• These are not easy decisions to make, they are “bold” decisions … but also ones which require due diligence and should not be a salve to a frustrated fan base.
• Then again, the fans have seen enough … Perhaps Grunfeld’s past record, before the Leonsis regime, is simply not as much of a factor when it should be.
• To put it another way, Flip Saunders is doing a decent job of developing some of his young players who are coach-able. Those who are not coach-able should be shown the door. But by whom? Should the responsibility of purging the team of unintelligent and unwilling players be tasked to the person who put them there in the first place? Maybe an individual is the best person to correct his own mistakes … I don’t know … but in this instance, that doesn’t seem to be the idea frame for a true rebuilding project.
• It’s not an outlandish opinion or reaction to say that certain aspects of the Wizards’ basketball operations team have gotten stale over the past seven years … but can you get rid of a GM/team president while keeping the coach? What will that do to the coach? Or the GM’s replacement?
• Again, these are not easy decisions to make, but at this point, speaking of Saunders specifically, there’s not a compelling reason to fire him in the middle of this season. As much conviction that Saunders might lack with a young team, it could be more detrimental to their development to have a shocking change of scenery as their effort in games, albeit losses, seems to be mounting … for most players at least.
• I have no problem with Groupon or with the fact that the team is using Groupon to get butts in seats — I actually think it’s a great idea — but sometimes “new age” sales tactics can be poked fun at. Oh well. Roll with the jabs.
• And yes, you do occasionally see ads for Groupon on this very site. Most of them are actually driven by Google AdSense (at least those you might see on the top-level banner or the long side banners). There are small Groupon “banners” to the right under the site’s top image and one at the very bottom of the right-hand side bar. These are simply generic Groupon place-holders which don’t necessarily display product-specific ads. Essentially, I would like to further “monetize” this site with Groupon offerings, but have personally fallen short on taking that next step. Content, not ads, is the goal. We are a small operation with day jobs. It happens.
• Ted Leonsis doing a great job and I applaud his efforts … but just as hard as rebuilding is on fans and those who cover the team, it will be just as hard on a very present owner who is trying in earnest to counteract negativity — “Pixels of Despair” — with uber-positivity.
• The bumps and bruises and tough times don’t just happen on the court … painful work now will hopefully pay off with an even better feeling about accomplishment in the future.
• But until then, we can beg to differ on certain aspects of the “process.”
• Read this, I wasn’t trying to confuse the author.

LINKS!

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Some leftover pictures, commentary, and links at the bottom…

Kevin Seraphin.

At some point during the Celtics game, mid-third quarter, John Wall expressed dismay about a questionable call that didn’t go the Wizards’ way … that’s a $50 fine face, perhaps.

On Boston’s subsequent out-of-bounds play, Wall did what he usually does in bouts of heightened emotion, good or bad … he pulled his shorts up.

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A Photoshop, links and commentary…

Who knows if it’s true … who cares? This isn’t a gossip site. All I know is that someone on Twitter directed me to some site called MediaTakeout that is relaying gossip about DeShawn Stevenson possibly being illegally married to two women at the same time. There’s really no “evidence” as the site advertises, aside from a 2003 marriage certificate to the supposed first wife, which neither proves he is still married to that woman nor married to another. Basically, all this is a bunch of noise (and the story looks to be from early December 2010, but you won’t be stopping me if you’ve already heard). So what do we do with noise sometimes? Why, we stuff it in the Photoshop Machine, ignore the fact that we have a hand in spreading the gossip (once it’s on the Internets, there’s free-reign captain), and come out with the below hypothetical.

Just what if, instead of Abraham Lincoln, Stevenson got a tattoo of Joseph Smith, Jr. on the front of his neck, founder of Mormonism and, of course, polygamist. It just might be a scenario meant for itself.

Another question worth posing … does this provide new nickname fodder for Stevenson? Big Love? Should we call him a regular Bill Pullman? These are the questions to which there are no known, or right answers. That’s life (for DeShawn Stevenson … “Mister 50 (percent)” … Hey! Double entendre!). Now go read some links. Read more »

A GIF, commentary and links …

[Consecutive wins for the Wizards? Al Thornton approves.]

Two wins in a row from the Wizards for the first time all season, albeit both at home where they are a much better team, is a sign of progress, especially when one of them is against a very strong Utah Jazz squad. But that first win came against the Toronto Raptors this past Saturday, a grind-it-out affair against another bad team. Ryan Gracia, a current junior at George Mason University studying journalism and sports communication, has followed the Wizards for years, and his family has also long held season tickets. Ryan attended Saturday’s game versus Toronto and below writes about a play that created a winning spark. And below Ryan’s write-up, some suggested links to read.

The Play That Created A Spark.

by Ryan Gracia

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Figured a picture of Pookie via New Jack City was apropos considering the title of this post that features commentary and links…

But, unrelated, here are some pictures of Wizards…

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Commentary and links …

You’ll often hear NBA coaches, especially Flip Saunders, exclaim (perhaps complain) about two things in explanation of their team’s faults: injuries and lack of practice time. Well, with three days off since their last game, along with the report that all 15 Wizards practiced for the first time this season yesterday, there will be little room for excuses as the team travels to Philadelphia tonight to seek their first road win of the season against the 76ers. Stay tuned …

Playing Down Defense?

On Monday the Washington Post’s Michael Lee had a good story about the Wizards’ improved defense since the Gilbert Arenas trade. Now, I’ll take a look at an additional level of defensive statistics.

As Lee wrote, before the trade the Wizards were giving up 105.8 points per game and after, 91 points per game. Since different opponents play at a different pace, thus the possessions in a game will fluctuate, we’ll look at points scored per 100 possessions* as a more balanced factor. Before the trade, the Wizards gave up 109.8 points per 100 possessions, and 96.7 after. So, the difference in pre- and post-trade points per game is 14.8; the difference in points given up per 100 possessions is 13.0.

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[Ed. Note: Below is something I wrote about Rashard Lewis' debut for the December 23 edition of ESPN's Daily Dime ... then some must-read links.]

In his Washington Wizards debut, Rashard Lewis performed about as expected for a 31-year-old 3-point-shooting wing player who just got traded from a championship contender to a rebuilding team. In 22 minutes off the bench, Lewis scored eight points on 4-for-10 shooting (0-for-5 from 3) with three rebounds, one block, an assist, two turnovers and five fouls.

The biggest challenge for Flip Saunders is how to integrate Lewis into a team that’s also just welcoming Josh Howard back into the mix after offseason knee surgery. Saunders is not only getting to teach his young team — a lot — but he’s also getting to experiment.

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Some pics, commentary and links …

First, congrats goes to Tom Yi for winning two lower-level tickets to tomorrow’s Wizards-Heat game thanks to StubHub. Tom was the first to respond via email with the correct answer to the following Twitter Trivia question: “Name the last Washington Wizard to achieve 20 or more rebounds in a game.”

The answer, along with other Wizards/Bullets who have achieved a 20-plus rebound game since the 1986-87 season, can be found courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com.

Tom writes about his Wizards fandom: Read more »

A D.C. pic, Wizards memories, and links …

[Takoma Recreation Center - NW Washington, D.C.]

On Wednesday, TAI held another ticket giveaway (courtesy of StubHub), this time involving four suite tickets to next Tuesday’s Wizards-Lakers game. A winner was randomly chosen from all those who left comments about their favorite Wizards memory on the TAI FaceBook page. It was kind of a random means to give tickets away … I almost asked some lame question like ‘name your favorite current Wizard’, but instead went with the memory concept, which seems equally generic. Whatever, I was just trying to find a pool of people to give free tickets to, right?

Well, as it turns out, I had a lot of fun reading the favorite memories of various Wizards fans — not surprisingly, most of them involved Gilbert Arenas. But what’s not a lot of fun is only being able to award the tickets to one person. But it is what it is as Mike Miller would say … so a congrats goes to Devin Krotman, who was chosen at random amongst all those who entered. Devin’s favorite Wizards memory is below, along with some other select memories of entrants. Thanks to all for taking time to share.

Devin Krotman

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