I don’t exactly want to say this podcast was “fun” to record, but it was therapeutic to talk about all aspects of this Gilbert Arenas situation with two well-thought and highly knowledgeable people, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and Bethlehem Shoals of Free Darko and as of today, AOL’s NBA FanHouse.

Below is the run down of what we discussed, as ripped from what Mike wrote on Bullets Forever, and a link to play the podcast. Enjoy (I guess).

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Prada: We spent an hour plus talking to one of the leading NBA bloggers of all time, Bethlehem Shoals from Free Darko and (formerly) Sporting News. Shoals is also an author of The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats and Stars In Today’s Game. The forward to that book was written by none other than Gilbert Arenas.  Shoals has also written extensively about Arenas for Free Darko and The Baseline (you could say Arenas is the most “Free Darko” player in the NBA), so he feels the pain of this story as much, if not more, than us Wizards fans.

What did we end up talking about?  It was a long discussion, but we hit at several of the key issues, namely: Read more »

On this edition of the Dagger Report, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and myself are joined by Mike Jones, currently the Wizards beat reporter for the Washington Times, and Jimmy Toscano of Celtics Blog.

With Mike, we discuss:

• Dealing with Gilbert Arenas in general and the exclusive he got with him this summer;
• His reaction when Arenas called the media “lazy”;
• Developing a rapport with players as a reporter;
• The current state of the Wizards and Arenas playing with a “video-game mentality”;
• The path Mike took to covering the Wizards at the Times;
• The back luck he faced on his first day on the job, covering a Wiz game in Cleveland … of all places;
• His next move as the Times has decided to cut its coverage of sports;
• The changing media landscape, its affect on local and national sports coverage, and the presence of blogs.

With Jimmy, we discuss:

• His foray, like Mike Prada and myself, into the locker room to cover an NBA team up close as a blogger;
• How Brian Scalabrine recognized Jimmy as a new face amongst the media and took the time to ask him his name, among the other characters of the Celtics locker room;
• The progression of Garnett’s knee, the statistical production of Paul Pierce, and the Celts in general.

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Episode #4 of the Dagger Report (a Washington Wizards podcast) is here.

This week, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and I talk about the ways and means of Gilbert Arenas amidst early season struggles. To join us for his conversation, which was recorded on Sunday evening, is Jake Whitacre, contributing editor at Bullets Forever and managing proprietor of Gilbertology.net.

The second segment, recorded on Saturday afternoon, features Jordan Sams of SB Nation’s 76ers blog, Liberty Ballers. Here, we discuss Eddie Jordan’s first year in Philly and the troubles of the Sixers (which aren’t as bad as those of the Wizards).

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In this week’s Dagger Report, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and I talk about the Wizards’ early season struggles, and how they derive from the sub par play of Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler, the arrival of Earl Boykins … and of course, injuries.

And since the Wizards play the Detroit Pistons in D.C. tomorrow night, we caught up with Brian Packey of the SB Nation Pistons blog, Motown String Music. Brian, who evidently attended high school with JaVale McGee, drops some Pistons knowledge on us, reveals Epic Vale’s old nickname, and gives us some insight on the Pistons’ coaching situation past and present.

Enjoy.

Episode 3: The Dagger Report – Washington Wizards podcast

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First action item: ESPN CHAT

I’ll be chatting/answering questions about the Wizards on ESPN.com today along with J.A. Adande.

The session starts at 2 pm EST, you can click here to go to the live chat page.

Second action item: PODCASTING

Mike and Jake of Bullets Forever, along with myself, took part in a Wizards variety show/preview Podcast with Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm … which is part of the ESPN TrueHoop Network and one of the premiere general NBA blogs on the web. It gets slightly choppy a couple times with a delay, and I actually got cut off from the conference call twice … hey, those are the breaks. But the Podcast was a lot of fun to do and may thanks goes to Matt for putting it together.

One thing I’d like to clear up … when I got cut off the second time, after I was dialed back in, Matt made a joke about how he was telling Mike and Jake that they were better bloggers than me. Then you hear a voice say “I don’t agree.” That wasn’t me in some LeBronsian moment of self-touting douche-baggery (as sometimes it was hard to tell who was talking). That was actually, I believe, Mike Prada. And I would, in turn, like to disagree with Mike. He has built an absolutely stellar community of Wizards fans … I mean, Bullets Forever is ‘the’ original Wizards blog. Although on occasion Mike and I don’t see eye-to-eye, I always enjoy his analytical train of thought and reasoning. Mike and the whole crew at BF do absolutely excellent work.

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