“Drama, thy name is the Washington Wizards,” began a post by Joanne C. Gerstner on Off the Dribble, the New York Times’ NBA blog. The post is also titled, “Wizards Drama Continues.”

Drama again? This team certainly doesn’t need any more drama after all the unfathomable events of this season. What exactly is this drama that the NY Times speaks of?

A bizarre season already marred by the Gilbert Arenas gun incident took another ugly turn when coach Flip Saunders and starting center Andray Blatche engaged in a war of words.

A war of words? Boy, sounds dangerous. But in reality, the incident was nothing more than an intense discussion between coach and player. Something that happens at any level of basketball.

The  incident in dispute revolves around the exchange of words, among other extra-curricular activities, between Kevin Garnett and Blatche during last Sunday’s Wizards-Celtics game in Boston. Saunders, knowing Garnett, felt that Blatche should not have bought into Garnett’s bait. The coach’s point was that K.G.’s juices get flowing when his antics are acknowledged, as opposed to when he is ignored. Blatche’s defense to Flip was that he wanted to stand up for himself.

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After Tuesday’s game against the Rockets, James Singleton said, “After every game I go home and watch film. I look at more of the negatives than the positives because the positives are going to happen. But the negatives you want to keep to a small minimum.”

And while there isn’t any adjusting I can personally do for this Washington Wizards basketball team, these screen-shot posts tend to focus on the negatives for the same reason outlined by Singleton. The positives are going to happen because that’s what the Wizards are trying to do. I want to know when they weren’t trying. And away we go…

“This” guy.

THIS guy.

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A local scribe brought his two young boys to Friday night’s Wizards game against the Milwaukee Bucks. Both in the age range of four to six I would guess. Probably should have asked, but I was too curious about the dire appearance of their situation.

Plopped down on the floor against the cold white wall, limbs askew, the hoods of their coats over heads. The parts of their faces I could see looked to be some of the saddest in the building at the moment. Not as bad as their puppy just dying, but worse than being dragged to the ballet or church. The Verizon Center seemed like the last place in the world they wanted to be.

Other media members, those whose job is mainly to cover the Washington Wizards, joked, “You two look like how I’ve felt all season.” This comment, mind you, was made by two separate reporters independent of each other. Their situation had become an inherent punchline out of necessity. And this scene took place before the game even started.

“Gotta laugh to keep from crying,” said Caron Butler at one point earlier this year. He would later laugh all the way to Dallas. Others have had to stick with the same coping ability back here in the District.

“Don’t ever think it can’t get any worse, because it can,” is another quote from Flip Saunders after a late December home loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. It certainly did get much, much worse with guns and trades and perhaps culminating with Josh Howard’s season-ending knee injury as the steam arising from the cow pie, or in other words, the icing on the cake.

I wouldn’t classify Friday’s 102-74 loss to the Bucks, after just having lost to the same team in Milwaukee 100-87 two days earlier, as a continued digression. Those who know better knew there would be days like this with the current squad. It was, however, the worst effort since the trades, and piggy-backs upon what was perhaps the most boring home game of the year. It was Date Night at the Phone Booth, one can only imagine how many disappointed happy endings the piss-poor basketball game led to. Toward the end, the boo-birds were flying higher in the Verizon Center than they had all season. Hard to imagine them not killing any love birds in the process.

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Some people have a poker face.
Flip Saunders has a turnover face.

As previously mentioned in the last screen shot post of Wednesday’s Wizards-Bucks game, Washington had the same amount of turnovers in the third quarter as they did points. And that common number would be 12. For the heck of it, let’s chronicle each turnover (and a couple of other things) in screen shots and words.

It’s cold in Milwaukee. These turnovers are colder.

TURNOVER #1 – 10:04 >> You can’t see Randy Foye in his picture, but he is right behind the defender in the white circle.

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Ups and downs, lefts and rights, ins and outs. This has been a season of mixed results for Randy Foye. He’s gone from being a featured complimentary role player, to unchallenged starter after the suspension of Gilbert Arenas, to veteran on a mix-mashed team of youthful newcomers. The one constant surrounding Foye’s first season with the Wizards has been change.

If Andray Blatche is the longest tenured, active Wizard, that would make Randy fourth on the chart behind Nick Young and JaVale McGee. Foye is 20 months older than the former, 51 months older than the latter, and has played over 10-percent more minutes this season than the two combined. Randy started the year as the ninth oldest guy on the roster.

Ask anyone about Randy Foye the player and they will probably say something along the lines of, “Well, not really a point guard, not really a shooting guard,” and then politely follow with, “He’d make a nice combo guard off the bench for some team, perhaps playing alongside another play-maker.” This is probably the role envisioned for him from last June’s trade and into October’s training camp. PlayFoye alongside Gilbert Arenas or Mike Miller and watch the magic happen. The magic didn’t happen.

Randy’s early-on issues were only partially a result of his deficiencies as a player. He was trying to fit into a new system next to new teammates, who in turn, were trying to do the same themselves.

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I managed to survive the recent heavy snowfall in D.C., and all the cutesy names people were calling it — #SNOMG, Snowpocalypse, etc. — but in the process, somehow found myself taking a little break from writing/blogging. But now I’m back, and hopefully a bit refreshed and motivated to keep on keepin’ on through the rest of this season nightmare.

Apologies if, at times, I tend to get a little negative/overboard on this site, or on Twitter (mostly Twitter) … and no, I’m not writing this as a reaction to JaVale McGee, via Twitter, dubbing myself, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, and Michael Lee of the Washington Post, “haters” after Friday’s game against the Magic, also suggesting that we should work for TMZ. (JaVale did this after re-Tweeting something that each of us had Tweeted, links below). Actually, I’m not reacting to anything anyone has said to me, just doing a little self-check here.

But back to McGee for second, I really don’t think anyone was “hating” on him, but rather commenting on game observations/understandably reflecting on frustrations. But if the feelings of young JaVale got hurt, then I suppose apologies are in order. I responded to his call-out with a couple Tweets of my own, nothing defensive, but mostly with a some classic music tracks. Others chose to remain silent with, perhaps, the intent of approaching McGee in person. All and all, it’s really a shoulder shrugging, no biggie situation. In other words, I could care less.

But back to my, at brief times, penchant for negativity (again, this is mostly on Twitter). It happens, oh well.  One must find a way to vent about witnessing frustrating, unacceptable effort while not going overboard … in addition to acting as a balance to the always positive light emitted from official team outlets (or the non-bias of main-stream media outlets). That’s what each of those entities are supposed to do, but speaking specifically in terms of the former, there are only so many ways to polish up a pile of crap before giving up because of the stink.

I’ll try to stay medium, but there’s no guaranteeing. Calling things like I see them, that’s why this blog is named Truth About It in the first place.

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This Wizards team has gone through a lot of adversity this year, some of it unimaginable. Poor them. People are dying around the world and not by choice. These guys get paid to play basketball. Suck it up.

More and more this team is playing like they just don’t care. It’s not the first time this has happened. Probably won’t be the last. But Wednesday night’s game against the New York Knicks seemed like more of a disgrace than efforts we’ve seen before.

I’ve said that Ernie Grunfeld can’t make drastic change fast enough. The associated anxiousness continues to mount by the day and will continue to do so up until the February 18th trade deadline, unless something happens before then.

When it goes down, how will I find out? Twitter? Text? G-Chat? Will Ric Bucher’s shiny doll hair pop up on my HDTV to tell me that it has all come to an end? Will I wake up one morning to find Marc Stein whispering in my ear, “Caron Butler for Marcus Camby and Antawn Jamison for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, both straight up” followed by him punching me in the mouth?

These are the things that haunt my slumber and twist my stomach. And they all feel plausible.

Ok, back to the Knicks game. Even though they clearly started to lose the game in the third quarter, I was pretty incensed when watching the fourth quarter “melt,” as Flip Saunders called it.

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{Sam Cassell measures Earl Boykins next to a kid}

The Wizards have found a lot of ways to lose games this season. Monday’s 99-88 loss to the Boston Celtics wasn’t as disheartening as most of them. So, I guess you can chalk up another moral victory on the penitentiary walls of your Washington Wizards basketball fandom. Congrats.

Most fingers are pointing toward the fourth quarter and justifiably citing it as the main culprit. In the period, the Wizards only mustered 10 points to the 25 of the Celtics. Rasheed Wallace scored eight points by himself, and combined with Tony Allen, the duo put up 14 points and seven rebounds in the final period. Starters Paul Pierce (ankle injury) and Kendrick Perkins didn’t play in the last 12 minutes and Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett only played six minutes apiece in the fourth.

The Celtics bench came alive to save the day. Otherwise, Boston looked sloppy and old. Cherish that 2008 championship Celtics fans, it will be the only title you see from your current squad.

Meanwhile, the Wizards managed just one assist while making only two their last 18 shots of the game.  Of course, they just had one assist to eight made field-goals in the third quarter. At halftime the Wizards had 13 assists on 18 made field-goals. So, if you don’t feel like doing math, they only had two assists to 10 made FGs in the entire second half and 15 assists to 28 FGs for the game.

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This fan, or maybe he’s not a fan, aided by his lower-level seats near the Wizards’ locker room tunnel, took the necessary steps to make himself noticed at the Wiz-Knicks snow game on Saturday night.

Some might have approached this guy to take stock of what angle he was playing with his customized jersey. Was he simply stating the fact of Arenas’ plea? Is wearing the jersey of a guilty man an act of defiance? What does the bottom treatment a la Fred Flintstone’s moo-moo signify? Is he or is he not an advocate for Gilbert Arenas? All good questions. I’d like to think that the distinguished Dan Steinberg would have sought this fellow out for blog fodder. Me? I figured that whatever this guy’s jersey meant, it was best left unknown, like the Arenas situation itself.

Furthermore, scenes from pre-game warm-ups …

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It was one of those “it is what it is” games. The Wizards gave effort and got beat by a very good team, falling 115-103 to the champion Lakers. Flip Saunders told his players that if they would have played with the same effort against the Heat and the Clippers, they would probably be looking at four wins during the now complete season long six-game homestand instead of two.

The second quarter was where the match was lost. Los Angeles put up 30 points, the Wizards put up 15. Otherwise Washington outscored L.A. by three. In the second, and for pretty much the entire game, the Lakers resembled the time-tested analogy of a well-oiled machine. Even though they were 1-7 from three in the period, they shot 56% on 14 made field-goals, got three steals, two courtesy of Shannon Brown, and shot 9-11 in the paint.

Meanwhile the Wizards turned the ball over seven times leading to nine Lakers points and only got one assist. They also gave L.A. six second-chance points in the second. Instead of a well-oiled machine, the Wizards played like they ate butter drenched popcorn for a pregame meal. Unforced turnovers served as the calling card of the hapless.

Wizards 2nd Q Lineups

>> time on court together, points scored-points given up (turnovers in parenthesis)

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As you can imagine, it’s not fun to be in the locker room after a losing effort, especially after the poor showing the Wizards gave to their home crowd on Friday night. But if you like watching people and their mannerisms as I do, being in a room full of divided millionaires is great fodder for the brain, but not so much for Wizards fans.

Enough of the train-wreck analogies and how their imagery seems too painful on the eyes, yet unavoidable to watch. No, these 2009-10 Washington Wizards are like a ship going down in deep waters. The vessel is sinking fast and everyone wants to bail.

I’m not going to claim the post-game emotion was more distraught after the 112-88 loss to Miami than it has been for any of the other 28 losses this season, but it certainly was one of the most interesting, at least in terms of home games since I’m not a traveling blogger.

The post-game scene made it clear that Caron Butler going rogue on Flip Saunders was just a microcosm of an entire team trying to read the same old, tattered book, but with everyone turned to different pages.

I don’t want to portray that players are at odds with each other or that others have stopped listening to Coach Saunders. That is not what I witnessed, although I can’t speak for what goes on behind closed doors and in the minds of individuals.

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

Kevin McHale once told Randy Foye, “Anything [Dwyane Wade] can do, you can do.” I doubt Wade would have come up short in three crucial game situations as Foye did in Chicago, but the team and fans are finding out that the 26-year old might be worth keeping after this season. He has stepped up his play in Gilbert Arenas’ absence, and has proven to be a high character guy.

Not counting the blowout in Cleveland (because the Wizards were going through mental shock from the last-minute indefinite suspension of Arenas and Foye didn’t even start), in the seven games Foye has filled in as the Wizards’ starting point guard, he has averaged 18.6 points (.438 FG%), 7.1 assists, 1.9 turnovers, and 3.3 rebounds per game.

Of course, give any player more minutes and his numbers will go up. Foye has averaged 38:40 minutes over his last seven compared to 17:39 over his first 32 games. To put his latest stats in perspective, it’s best to compare his numbers per 36 minutes between the defined pre- and post-Gilbert Arenas eras [note: Foye's one missed game came November 14th against the Pistons; he had a sprained ankle].

Here are Randy’s per 36 numbers over the recent seven-game span with the amount of change from his first 32 in parenthesis: Read more »

Of mice, of men … the Hawks were the predator and the Wizards were the prey. Early, both teams were cold. I’ll concur with a comment of Wiz broadcast TV HOFer (or at least he should be if he’s not … if that type of thing exists), Steve Buckhantz, who said that unlike versus the Pistons, the Wizards started against Atlanta with energy. They just couldn’t buy a basket, and neither could the Hawks in the beginning.

The Wizards should have felt at home though, the Phillips Arena looked dwarfed by the Verizon Center in capacity. After getting down by as many as 22 points, 40-18 with 3:43 left in the second quarter, the Wizards made the game competitive, getting as close as two points, 66-64, with 11:41 left in the game. But they never could get over a seven point hump late in the fourth quarter.

The Wizards were bested by only 43.5% shooting from the Hawks and a couple ineffectual turnovers. They lost to the better team, and not necessarily because of lack of effort, but because they are not very good.

It’s worth observing that their reason to play inspired basketball has drastically dwindled. If two things plague this team most, one is lack of discipline, which is on the account of the players inconsistently following Flip Saunders’ game plan and often free-styling at crucial points of the game. The second is that the Wizards are not hungry, as in, ‘Did you see D-League call-up Mario West hustle his ass off?’ West had four offensive rebounds in 12 minutes.

As a team, the Wizards don’t know how to play like the Mario Wests of the world, many evidently comfortable with the status quo. Someone tomorrow will take solace in the fact the Wizards fought back from a deficit the size of Jim McIlvaine‘s jersey number. That same someone has started out the decade rooting for moral victories.

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Well, the Wizards lost again on Sunday, nothing new. Thing is, they actually looked decent, as they did on Friday, but shot themselves in the foot, if you will, with 19 turnovers. By the way, go read this interesting piece on True Hoop regarding the NBA and gun-play analogies.

Stepping back, it’s still hard to fathom how surreal the deplorable state of the franchise is. Whether it’s Gun-Gate related or not, every day more of the shit show emerges from the sewers, literally. Tales of Gilbert Arenas taking a dump in the shoe of Andray Blatche … I mean Christ, how immature can you get?

Let’s see, what else? Caron Butler, while off games are okay, is still a quandary — hey, Caron wanted to be “the man” and then got all sad with his second fiddle when Arenas returned, but now that Arenas is gone again …

Of course, unfortunately it seems that Caron’s definition of being “the man” involves taking bad shots and halting ball movement. I don’t mean to unfairly pick on Butler, but again, for someone who all but rested his laurels on defensive improvement before the season, it was interesting, as pointed out to me by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, that on Friday against the Magic, Butler was matched up against Matt Barnes while the just returning Mike Miller had to take on Orlando’s big gun, Vince Carter.

Ok, what else? Well, Mike Miller is turning into Mr. Glass, aggravating his calf muscle against New Orleans on Sunday. He’s supposed to get an MRI on it Monday … and the saga of woes with the Wizards’ training staff and team doctors continues. It also says a lot that the Wizards are seemingly so dependent on Miller for ball movement (see Brendan Haywood’s quote below).

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I started tinkering around with this trade idea last Wednesday, but never followed up with publishing a post. Today, with Yahoo!’s Marc Spears reporting that the Utah Jazz could face a roster shake-up and Mike Jones, of Mike Jones Sports, reporting that multiple Wizards have asked to be traded, i.e., more than just Mike James, it seems like an appropriate time to float this proposal out there. And no, this is not like Bill Simmons’ silly Utah-Washington-Cleveland idea where the Wizards would lose Haywood, Jamison, Butler and James and only get Shaq and Boozer in return … although my idea is almost as drastic.

So here goes …

Utah has the Carlos Boozer issue hanging over their head, the desire to remain cheap, and is a decent team unwilling to take a big step backwards.

Washington is not in a good way. If you read this blog site, you know this. Shot out to any readers in the Philippines who know this (they really, really like the NBA over in the Phillippines).

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