[D.C. Council: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the subs, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is on the table. Game No. 8, Washington Wizards vs. Utah Jazz; contributors: Sean Fagan and Kyle Weidie from the Verizon Center with John Converse Townsend from behind the T.V.]

No Wall, No Nene… Not an excuse. Read more »

Here to provide the DC Council Opening Statements for Washington’s eighth game of the season against the Jazz in Washington are TAI’s Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) and guest Spencer Ryan Hall (@saltcityhoops), who writes about the Jazz for the TrueHoop blog Salt City Hoops.

Wizards Starters (0-7):

A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Trevor Ariza, Jan Vesely & Emeka Okafor

Jazz Starters (4-6):

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Mustafa Shakur, Othyus Jeffers, Hamady N’diaye, Kevin Seraphin and Cartier Martin.

Those were all of the players available for the Wizards off the bench last night in Utah. Shakur didn’t play (coach’s decision being the given reason), and N’diaye tallied just three minutes in the box score, nothing else. Jeffers, Seraphin and Martin combined for 18 points on 6-14 from the field and 17 rebounds, five offensive thanks to the bruising workmanship of Jeffers. The numbers of the bench squad with the most unique set of names ever weren’t astounding, but the Wizards made it work in their somewhat shocking 100-95 overtime win over the Utah Jazz on Monday night.

Sure, Utah was missing Devin Harris and Andrei Kirilenko from their starting lineup, instead putting out a unit of Earl Watson, C.J. Miles, Raja Bell, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson. But a Wizards starting five of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Mo Evans, Yi Jianlian and JaVale McGee didn’t have a chance of feeling sorry for the Jazz, or themselves.

Jazz fans, however, may be feeling sorry for themselves … enough to boo their team at intermittent times throughout the game as Washington fought to gain control early, and then tried their best to relinquish it late, despite Utah’s best effort to not take advantage. It was odd to hear the Wizards television team of Steve Buckhantz and Phil Chenier recount just how far the Utah franchise has fallen in the year 2011. The Jazz were 27-13 when they made an east coast trip in mid-January, beginning with a game in Washington on the 17th.

Jerry Sloan’s team proceeded to lose to the Wizards on Martin Luther King Day, and then they lost five more in a row. Barely a month later, Sloan resigned after a 23-year run with the team and star point guard Deron Williams was traded to New Jersey. Now the Jazz are left in a vastly uncertain rebuilding mode with Tyrone Corbin as their coach, a six game losing streak (including last night’s take down by the Wizards), and a 36-39 record that looks to keep them out of the playoffs for just the fifth time in the last 28 years (also the fifth time in the last eight years, to be fair).

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This Skybox basketball card commemorates Darrell Walker‘s rebounding prowess as a guard for the Washington Bullets in the early 1990s. In ’90-91, Walker led all guards with 7.8 rebounds per 36 minutes, amongst those who played at least 15 minutes per game and achieved at least 400 rebounds. When strictly looking at per game stats, according to the search results at Basketball-Reference.com, Tyrone Corbin of the Minnesota Timberwolves averaged more rebounds per game as a guard, but he was more a swing-forward to Walker’s true ability to play the point. [Note: Rounded, both Walker and Magic Johnson averaged 7.0 boards per game in '90-91, but Walker was a fraction above Magic.]

In Washington Bullets/Wizards franchise history, according to BBR, only four guards have played in more than 60 games in a season, averaged over 25 minutes per game and over five rebounds per 36 minutes. Those players were: Larry Hughes (’02-03 to ’04-05), Michael Jordan (’01-02 and ’02-03), Darrell Walker (’88-89 to ’90-91) and Earl Monroe (’67-’68).

From the BBR database spanning from 1946-47 to the present day, only two NBA guards have appeared in more than 70 games, had a Total Rebounding Percentage (TRB%: an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor) above 13-percent and a Defensive Rebounding Percentage (DRB%) above 20-percent.

Those two guards are Jason Kidd (2006-07: 13.2 – TRB%; 20.8 – DRB%) and Darrell Walker (1989-90: 13.4 – TRB%; 20.4 – DRB%).

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