A D.C. pic, links and commentary …

[A basketball court, Marie Reed Recreation Center, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC - K. Weidie]

Is this meme too old yet?

Not when the mustache wears sunglasses too.

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A D.C. pic, commentary and links …

[Frazier's Funeral Home - Florida Ave. & Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

Josh Howard recently said ‘all the right things’ in an interview with HoopsHype … ‘all the right things’ that are almost hard to believe. Perhaps it was a proclamation, of sorts — a personal challenge from Josh to Josh. Howard saying that the Wizards “see a natural-born leader” in him certainly drew faint scoffs from several prominent websites: ESPN Dallas, SLAM, Yahoo!.

Which makes me wonder … is skepticism wrong? Why are we skeptics? I’m sure there’s been a ton of psychoanalysis about it, but does it accomplish much aside from a potential future “I told you so”? That being said, I’ve been guilty of skepticism before … from being leery of Ernie Grunfeld’s romanticism of old school team management tactics to past battles with assessments of Andray Blatche (after being around him as a person this past season, I’ve grown to like him … it’s just that his previous bonehead decisions and court attitude have been teeth-grinders).

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A D.C. pic, commentary and some links …

[Adams Morgan community bulletin board, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

Washington, D.C.’s mayoral primaries took place Tuesday, which is essentially ‘the’ race for mayor. Since D.C. home rule was established in 1975, all six of Washington’s mayors have been Democrats. It will continue to be that way via staunch city political demographics. And that’s why the primary decides the race for mayor.

This year, it’s been determined that former D.C. Council Chair, Vince Gray, will replace incumbent Adrian Fenty as the Democratic nomination, and ultimately mayor. I wasn’t particularly a fan of Mayor Fenty … his arrogance and increasing lack of transparency (after he practically ran on the ‘always available’/'Mayor BlackBerry’ platform in 2006) have been very off-putting, yet his aims, for the most part, forward-thinking. Now we have old-school Gray, who provides an unknown, but assumed threat to return to ancient ways. Not exactly fair, but he’s going to have to come out with a bang to fulfill promises and quell the skeptics already lining up. I think I would’ve rather had Fenty’s efforts continue, but am not that torn up about it.

And the picture above, I suppose, can be the icing on how Fenty lost this year’s race. He was in denial over his own obliviousness in addressing constituent needs in a reasonable manner, or pretty much anything in a reasonable manner (don’t get me started about the Nats ticket fiasco), rather opting to perch himself so high that he became convinced that his methods and actions needed no explanation. And so he toppled, got his goofy face plastered on the community bulletin board in Adams Morgan with the caption “Denial,” got that lady in the photo pointing in jest, and finally lost the mayor’s race. Godspeed D.C. — Life continues.

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{flickr/SneakinDeacon}

Last Thursday, it seems that Josh Howard was on hand for the Wake Forest football opener against Presbyterian. While there, Howard donated $100,000 from his foundation to endow the “Josh Howard Scholarship” at Wake. Good stuff to hear. However …

Via pictures graciously provided by Flickr user SneakinDeacon, we must wonder what the 30-year old Howard was wearing. Looks to be comfortable gear for a football game … or questionable gear for handing over big novelty checks. But I’m not one to judge.

What one really must wonder is if Brendan Haywood considers the outfit “Josh Howard Hood” … ahhh, the answers to the unknown questions of the universe. Read more »

A D.C. pic and some links for Sunday reading. Hope you’re having a good one …

[The National Building Museum, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

LINKS.

A Western Conference executive thinks the Wizards could be in the playoff picture in the East, Ben Standig breaks it down.
[CSN Washington]

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This is Yi Jianlian’s buddy, his teammate, to the left and Yi is naturally to the right. The buddy’s name is Zhaoxu Zhang, but you can call him Max.

Max is 7’3″ and will be a junior for the Cal Golden Bears this season (tallest guy in school history). And while Max hasn’t seen a minute of court action in China’s four games at the FIBA Worlds in Turkey so far, that hasn’t precluded him from being team hype man. Let’s check Max in action … Super-Manning that ‘H’

Great.

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A D.C. pic and some links …

I probably should have included the above pic of the Monumental Sports banner on the Verizon Center in my post about a similar banner on another building. I guess I was distracted by the dueling plastic drum drummers. You can spot the other one, right?

Otherwise, not much happened Wizards-wise today. Kirk Hinrich did return to Sioux City for a golf benefit, said it was “a little weird” when he had his presser and put on a Wizards jersey. Glad he hit that free-throw.

Young Clutch

With a hotly contested 142-all summer league contest on the line, Nick Young’s killer instinct took over as he hit the buzzer-beating game-winner … over former teammate Shaun Livingston no less. He then smiled a lot in the post-game interview. The video, via Ball Is Life, is embedded below.

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A D.C. pic and links …

I came across this big banner hanging on a building at the northeast corner of 13th and L Streets NW, about nine blocks or so from the Verizon Center. It features “Monumental Action” and the Verizon Center website URL followed by Alex Ovechkin, Andray Blatche, Crystal Langhorne, Beyoncé Knowles (I believe), and who appears to be Chris Wright of the Georgetown Hoyas. The logo of the Ted Leonsis-led group, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, is featured in the lower right-hand corner. I’m not sure what other monumental banners are around the city (or DMV area), or how long this has been up (the Monumental logo was released on July 16), but I am curious to see if Blatche will allow himself to be the Wizards representative of Monumental Sports in the future.

Preparation “H”

Michael Lee reports that it’s unlikely the Wizards will sign 2010 second round draft pick (56th overall) Hamady N’diaye, rather likely opting to let him develop in Europe.
[Wizards Insider]

I had a feeling something like this was coming, as N’diaye remained unsigned, and it was previously reported that an Italian team had interest in him. The Wizards will still hold N’diaye’s rights for the future, but now, since it looks like Kevin Seraphin will need a fair bit of time to develop (and he isn’t going to the D-League — link below), it makes sense for Hamady to get more experience overseas.

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A D.C. pic and some links …

[Behind the Back - Columbia Heights Youth Center - 1400 block of Girard Street NW - K. Weidie]

Want more John Wall? Of course you do. In the second video TAI posted yesterday, Wall could be seen getting crossed up, and it would later surface that the ball-handler was Austin Rivers, son of Doc Rivers who is also ranked No. 2 overall in the ESPNU class of 2011 rankings.

On Rivers’ Scouts Inc. profile on ESPN Insider, the ‘Weaknesses’ section starts:

One definite area of needed improvement that sticks out about Rivers is that not only does he love going to his right the majority of times he has the ball, but if forced to his left he does not attack with the same aggressiveness. When played to his left he is reduced to relying on a one-or-two dribble step-back jumper for the majority of his offense.

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A D.C. pic and links …

[Card game, no guns - Meridian Hill Park, Washington, D.C. - K. Weidie]

[UPDATE] Here’s more video of Wall and others from the Elite 24 runs. Looks like Johnny gets crossed up at the 0:59 mark. [via Ball is Life; h/t SLAM]

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