Seeing that pro basketball fans are essentially suspended from the NBA due to squabbling amongst millionaires and billionaires, passing time might be aided by chronicling all NBA and team suspensions of the Washington Wizards since circa 1995. Why? Well, because we humans love stories about crime and punishment, and to most, the NBA lockout fits the bill for both.  So away we go (with old basketball cards to accompany on occasion)…

[Note: This listing is incomplete and unconfirmed for accuracy; information has been gleaned, copied and pasted from eskimo.com/~pbender and prosportstransactions.com with the understanding that all suspensions and fines might not have been publicized or reflected.]

1/5/95
Bernard King suspended by team for altercation with head coach at practice.

2/3/95
Washington suspended Kevin Duckworth for 3 games for not staying in good physical condition.

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Links, commentary, and this …

S.W.A.G.

Rod Strickland recently broke down the swagger of John Wall, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans for Benjamin Hochland of the Denver Post:

“They’re different. J-Wall is the most outgoing. D-Rose has an inner swagger. He’s not a rah-rah, big-time emotional dude, but you’ll see him clenching his teeth. Tyreke’s, you can see it, as well. It’s not as blatant as J-Wall’s, but you can see it in his run, when his swagger is really getting there.”

[...]

“[Wall] was a lot more vocal than the other two from the beginning — he came in and there was no question who the leader was,” Strickland said. “We had to tone him down.”

Less Stormy Seas

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[Wizards 2010-11 Player Preview Index: Gilbert Arenas, Hilton Armstrong, Andray Blatche,
Trevor Booker, Kirk Hinrich, Josh Howard, Yi Jianlian, JaVale McGee, Kevin Seraphin,
Al Thornton, John Wall, Nick Young.]

The Intro.

-by John Townsend

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past three months — no, three years — there is no way you haven’t heard of John Wall. If you’re still under that rock, well congratulations for making it as far as the internet.

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ESPN.com currently has this “Franchise Five” feature going on for all NBA teams. Basically, they have an interactive page where visitors can vote for the “best” player in franchise history at each position (PG, SG, SF, PF, C).

Here are the candidates:

Point Guard:
Gilbert Arenas, Rod Strickland, Archie Clark, Kevin Porter and Michael Adams

Shooting Guard:
Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Jeff Malone, Phil Chenier, Kevin Loughery and Don Ohl

Small Forward:
Bernard King, Caron Butler, Bob Dandridge and Calbert Cheaney

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Click here for part one of the TAI Basketball-Reference.com statistical research assignment, featuring a search for what opposing player has scored the most off the bench against the Wizards/Bullets since ’86-87 and the observations of Arish Narayen and Adam McGinnis. Part two, with my second search example and the findings of John Townsend and Rashad Mobley, is below.

[The Number Cruncher - Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

For my second quick example using BBR’s database, I selected the “Team Season Finder” and ran a simple search to see which Bullets/Wizards team averaged the most assists per game in the shot clock era (starting in 1954-55). (Click here for the full results.)

The ’89-90 Bullets averaged 27 assists per game. Darrell Walker led the team with 8.0 per game, John “Hot Plate” Williams was second with 4.7 per, and Bernard King was third with 4.6 assists per game. That year, the Bullets finished fourth in the NBA in total assists, and they were the only team in the top 11 in total assists that did not make the playoffs. The ’89-90 Bullets finished 31-51.

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On April 22nd, I held a Wizards trivia contest to win one of two copies of Stumbling On Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports by Dave Berri and Martin Schmidt, or some Wizards swag … which, as you can see from the pictures above is a pair of fuzzy Wizards/Zephyrs dice. Fancy, huh?

First, congrats goes to Thomas Pruitt and Wade Smith, the only two respondents to answer all nine trivia questions right. They both win a copy of the book. Also congrats to Marc Salmon, his email address was randomly selected from the entire pool of entries. Marc gets the lucky dice.

Now let’s go over the questions, answers and a bit of team history. In case you didn’t take part in the poll, I’m posting the answers at the bottom so you can take a guess at the questions if you feel so inclined.

#1 Which coach led the Washington Bullets in their ’97 1st round playoff matchup against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls?

• Bob Staak
• Bernie Bickerstaff
• Jim Lynam
• Wes Unseld
• Jim Brovelli

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December 7, 1999: Ten years ago today, as Y2K hung over the world, the Washington Wizards lost their 20th game of the season to the Los Angeles Lakers, dropping their record to 5-15. In fact, the game was probably going in L.A. about the time I published this post. Let’s check out the Washington Post game story by Steve Wyche, courtesy of Dan Steinberg:

The Washington Wizards’ entire front court scored 16 fewer points than Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal, and as a result, Washington fell, 91-80, tonight before 15,571 at Staples Center.

O’Neal scored a game-high 30 points and grabbed 16 of his team’s 44 rebounds as the Lakers won their seventh straight game. The Wizards lost their fifth straight, an unflattering mark seeing as they have a seven-game losing streak already to their credit this season.

Washington forward Juwan Howard scored just six points on 3-of-17 shooting. Forward Michael Smith added two points and center Ike Austin had six. Combined they were 7 of 30 from the field, and none of the three attempted a free throw.

“We just couldn’t get anything from our starters in the front court,” Wizards Coach Gar Heard said. “We can’t win any games unless those guys score, and we had opportunities to score. But you’re going to have games like that.”

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flickr/Roadsidepictures

I watched the Wizards take on the Timberwolves and Clippers in the Las Vegas Summer League long ago, but am just getting my notes/observations on those two games posted.

So in the spirit of better late than never, here goes ….

(Note: I still need to get my post up on the Knicks game and hand out the summer league grades … but only to the players who ‘count’ — Blatche, Young, McGee, Crittenton and McGuire.)

Wizards vs. Timberwolves : Summer League Game 3

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[photo source: flickr/dskciado]

This is Eduardo Alonso Nájera Pérez, a Mexican victim. Probably not of the swine flu, but definitely a victim of capitalist America’s NBA luxury tax, which is designed in a rather socialist manner to penalize those who spend more money.

Many have wondered where Denver would be if they still had Marcus Camby, who was sold to the Clippers for a 2nd round pick. But watching the energy, hustle, and scrapiness of the Nuggets, led by the Birdman Anderson, it’s easy to see how a big like Nájera might fit better than the frail Camby.

Nuggets coach George Karl hated to see the Big Mexican sign a 4-year $12 million contract with the Nets this past summer, but Kiki had an edict from cost-cutting owner Stan Kroenke (even though anyone might question giving that much to a 32-year old). Still, Kroenke and his wife, a Wal-Mart heir, are both on the Forbes billionaires list (Kroenke is ranked 205 and worth a meager $3 billion).

It’s clear that Denver misses a big man to compete with the Lakers. But I’m here to say that the playoffs as a whole misses the Mexican from Chihuahua, the 10th most marketable player in the NBA.

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