While some Wizards are attempting to eat spoonfuls of cinnamon… While some NBA players, including John Wall, are avoiding bullets at a place called the Juliet Supper Club in New York City… While Ted Leonsis welcomes the “buzz and interest” created by a show making fun of the Wizards team name (but don’t ask him about changing it, he’ll get annoyed)… While Jan Vesley returns to the Czech Republic to contemplate his basketball life… While real estate sites are getting in on the lockout action by posting about NBA player and owner housing…

While NBA players seem rather frustrated about the Lockout, but doing alright nonetheless, the rest of us have done… Not much, aside from being working-stiffs, or in school, or entrenched in unemployment, or perhaps involved in a myriad of issues more concerning than the NBA Lockout. Some days for some of us are good, some days for some not so much. Maybe all is not that bad… unless you’re a Redskins fan in a rainy and foggy District of Columbia the Monday after the football kicker couldn’t pull it out against the rival Dallas Cowboys in overtime.

Perspective. No one on either side, players or owners, seems to have it. Fans, especially those who will inevitably come back to the NBA game anyway, are left with a feeling of helplessness. We are often only left, in the midst of this NBA Lockout, with social media and online pictures. Could you imagine if this happened in 1998? The game and its players would’ve disappeared from our visual pixels exponentially.

I can’t even begin to try to name all the states in which John Wall has played exhibtion basketball this summer – Maryland, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Washington, California, New York, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia (there were events in Minnesota and Connecticut where he didn’t show up). I’m likely missing several. He’s been playing basketball overseas as well. Trips to Paris, France.

For the most recent exhibition event, the ‘Good Squad Classic’ held on the campus of UC-Davis outside of Sacramento, Wall showed up, but didn’t play. Jonathan Santiago of Cowbell Kingdom writes, “I had overheard some chatter about his groin giving him some issues, forcing him to sit out the contest.  Donté [Greene] told me that that Wall was indeed injured because he had been playing overseas and that the Washington Wizards guard wanted to ‘rest his body’.”

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Links, a D.C. picture, commentary, lockout, stuff, a poll…

[A blurry night vision in Washington - photo: K. Weidie]

So before I get to the links, and as I continue to contemplate how much I care about this lockout, officially losing the first two weeks of the regular season – obviously this is an unideal, frustrating situation, but I also could care less about getting wrapped up in the politics, economics, and interpretation (often misinterpretation, likely) of scatterbrained media reports — I wanted to throw out a poll to see where some of the readers of this site might stand. Vote below and drop comments if you feel like venting. Otherwise, thanks for visiting. Even with no games, there’s a ton of potential for content (just not a lot of free personal time for the regular job-working contributors to this site), so just bare with us as we try to make whatever it is that’s going on as fun as possible. Thank you. -Kyle

LINKS!

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A D.C. pic, commentary, links, video, pictures, etc…

[Mt. Pleasant Day 2011 - Washington, D.C. - photo: K. Weidie]

Do we even know this John Wall kid?

Watching him play at exhibition games this summer, he doesn’t seem like the guy I saw make his pro debut at the 2010 Las Vegas Summer League, much less the player who dazzled us all during an injury-affected, frustration-filled rookie season.

The one potential problem I see with all of this (there’s always a “problem,” isn’t there, pessimist?) is that with the seemingly enhanced offensive and athletic ability over the 2011 Summer, is Wall, as a point guard, setting himself up to take matters into his hands too much if his teammates fail him?

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While a lockout fills pro basketball headlines in America, United States counterpart China has recently made a recovery from potential basketball disgrace. By winning the 2011 FIBA Asia tournament, reclaiming the title from Iran (winners of FIBA Asia in 2007 and 2009), their men’s national team has secured a spot in the 2012 Olympic games. Much of the thanks is due to the massive nation’s current basketball cover boy, and likely former Washington Wizard, Yi Jianlian.

In a country where the government hopes to manufacture basketball success by building a court in every village, making the cut to play in London was pretty important. The problem is the next step, competing with the best in the world; China has played men’s basketball in the past seven Olympics but has never finished better than eighth. And while he is now their star, Yi has done little to cure anxiousness for success.

Guan Weijia on SheridanHoops.com highlights the issue many Chinese have with Yi: “Fans are dissatisfied with his performance in the NBA, believing he is wasting his talent and playing too soft. Yi has many nicknames, none of which are complimentary.”

The Chinese national team was already smarting from the retirement of Yao Ming in July. In August they came up short at the Stankovic Cup, winning one game and losing seven at the China-hosted event. They lost three games to Russia, one to New Zealand, one to Australia, and won just one of three games against Angola. Worth noting, however, that the minutes of Yi were limited during the Stankovic. Bob Donewald, American coach of the Chinese national team, indicated that he wanted to bring him along gradually. Still, the masses were less than satisfied.

Later in August, China went 0-5 at an international basketball friendly, the London Invitational Tournament. They lost to Australia by 28, Serbia by 34, France by 17, Great Britain by 8, and Croatia by 30 points. Yi averaged 16.8 points, just 6.6 rebounds and a scant 40.8-percent shooting. In addition, during all this, a black eye to China’s basketball discipline arrived courtesy of an on-court brawl in Beijing between a team featuring players connected to the China’s People’s Liberation Army and a team of athlete-students from Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown University.

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Links, commentary, shared items, celebrations…

  [photos via urbanpartylife.com]

After recently contemplating life, today, August 22, is Andray Blatche’s birthday. He is 25-years old, which is an entire quarter of a century of life experience. Along with Blatche, the likes of former Washington Bullets Terry Catledge and Michael Curry, former Maryland Terp Obinna Ekezie, along with, naturally, SNL’s Kristen Wig, Wu-Tang’s the GZA, singer Tori Amos, football’s Bill Parcells, and John Lee Hooker of blues legend also all celebrate birthdays today.

The celebratory festivities took place this past weekend at Dream Nightclub in Miami Beach… AND DRAY GOT A WIZARDS BIRTHDAY CAKE! (Old man Wizards logo, but new colors!)

According to Basketball-Reference.com, 48 NBA players have seen over 8,600 minutes in over 380 games, scoring over 3,800 total points and snagging over 2,000 total rebounds, in their NBA careers before the age of 25.  Of those 48 players, Blatche ranks 41st in PER. Well, here’s to the future…

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Links, commentary, stuff…

Andray Blatche. You might be aware of his various exploits that seem trapped in an devolving time continuum.

Blatche, inherently, is a sympathetic figure. He literally loafed into an NBA career, to the envy of millions, by likely being just smart of enough to realize that if he worked just a little bit to enhance his natural talents, he would get there. And he did.

He’s not a bad guy, nor is he misunderstood like a lot of athletes like to claim. It is, however, true to an extent in that lay people, the “commoners” to which LeBron referred in his infamous quote, don’t know the pressure of money, exposure, expectations, high critique, and high reward, which I am assuming is widely accepted in bounties of tangible goods and women. But to say that some of these pro athletes are misunderstood is to say that they, themselves, are complicated figures. Often, we know, that is not the case. Rather, it’s their situations within the business of the game they love (or “like”) to play which provides varying complex ways to digest someone who is simply human.

Blatche is a human after all. He means well, but the means by which he gets caught up in “the life,” as some like to call it (being a highly paid professional athlete, that is) doesn’t always bode well for him. Whose fault is it? Well, according to my own sliding scale of reason, the older Blatche gets, the more he is solely to blame for his situation(s).

My sarcasm and critique toward the guy, on the court and off, long ago, through conditioning I suppose, came to the conclusion that Blatche is and will continue to be a lost cause in terms of a basketball player. For obvious reasons, I teeter between internal struggles hoping that I’m proven wrong, versus the blind stare of franchise eyes continuing to stubbornly support and believe in disappointment, versus knowing that all humans love redemption stories from various levels and angles.

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Links, commentary, randomness…

Notice how ever since that gig on Who’s The Boss? Alyssa Milano has been pretty much everywhere? Now, this former dream of teenaged boys’ affection hasn’t seemed to tap into a post-sitcom television movie career like Christina Applegate (via Kelly Bundy), but Milano looks like she’s barely aged since her role of Sa-man-THA! Micelli.

Well, not really… considering she was age 10-20 on Who’s The Boss?, but whatever. (And I’ll attribute the increased present-day Applegate popularity to her being blonde … as unfortunate as that may be, in that similar preference has splashed inconsequential news stories like Natalee Holloway across our television sets, but I do believe I’m digressing. Also, while I’m at it, I don’t know anything about the show Charmed (which Milano was on more recently) other than it would be on TNT sometimes when I got up for work in the morning because I’d left the channel on the late NBA game from the night before and I would hate it.)

In any case, good for Alyssa Milano — for staying ‘relevant’ — like I said, she’s been everywhere, including the Washington Wizards website. And I got no complaints. You’re welcome.

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Pictures, bulleted links, commentary & other stuff…

What are Flip Saunders and Andray Blatche looking at?

Part of me thinks they are looking at a tiny lamb heart, sitting in the palm of Saunders’ hand, barely (magically) holding onto life, while Flip is poking it with a ball-point pin. But I’m probably wrong. They are likely looking at this baggy-clothed Chris Webber from the 90s, perhaps modelling a new concept in comfort garments that eventually led to the invention of the Snuggie or the Slanket. Either way, looks dire.

[via Up North Trips, h/t Your Man Devine]

LINKS!

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“Basketball in my country is not so popular, but after this night, I think — I hope, that the basketball will be more popular. I will do my best to help that.”
-Jan Vesely, Draft Night 2011

Jan Vesely wants to put Czech Republic basketball on the map. Good luck.

“The Czech media have been really lame covering the story,” direct-messaged Yon Pulkrabek via Twitter. I’d sent out a tweet wondering if any follower spoke Czech, and the instant world of the Internet connected us.

Pulkrabek says he’s lived in Prague permanently for the past decade, working as a translator, journalist, and editor. He grew up in upstate New York to Czech émigré parents and has been a fan of the Boston Celtics since the 1980s, keeping up with their recent success thanks to League Pass, streaming web video and his DVR. Now, Pulkrabek has taken an obvious interest in the Washington Wizards.

He writes that initial coverage of Vesely in Prague was limited to a couple stories in the paper and a report on the evening news, but otherwise, soccer and hockey get the most attention in the Czech Republic. “But they are off now,” messages Pulkrabek. “Tennis is the headliner now, followed by inline hockey and hockeyball.”

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Critique of the NBA often surrounds the narrative of one player dribbling around then shooting. But when you have a 20-year old athlete whose combination of speed and size is already superior to most at his position, you take advantage of his one-on-one skills. And when that player loves to pass and relishes in the assist while always being a threat to score, it’s called basketball. Flip Saunders is a basketball coach and he often knows exactly what to do with John Wall.

Spread sets usually seem reserved for late-clock situations, and mostly true for the instances in the video below. Still, with Wall they can be implemented at just about any point of the game, depending on his surrounding personnel and the defensive match-ups the Wizards might want to exploit, of course. This clip of four plays all occurred in two games against the Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz on the Wizards’ late March west coast road trip, and all came with around 70 seconds or less left in a period. Let’s watch…

Earl Watson, Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis… Sure, intimidating defenders they are not. But also, this is the NBA. Not many rookies can make these moves look so easy — an attack of the rim through trees, finding Yi Jianlian for a bounce pass in the paint, throwing the perfect lob to JaVale McGee, getting to the rim through a big man, making the basket, drawing a foul, and finishing with a muscle flex.

It’s a simple game that can be made even more simple with supreme athletes. And the spread set out of which these plays were run — sometimes with a man in the far right corner (Nick Young), but mostly with the guard extended on the right wing (Jordan Crawford)… depending on the shooting comfort spots of the respective players, I suppose — certainly has some more intricate options. But I won’t blame Wall’s teammates too much for standing around to watch him operate sometimes (as long as the guards remember to cover on defense, and as long as they’re always ready to receive the pass).

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I can readily admit that I was encouraged by the way the Washington Wizards played over the last 10 games of the season.  They went 6-4 during that span, a new big three of Jordan Crawford, John Wall and Andray Blatche emerged, and the team–led by D-Leaguer Othyus Jeffers–seemed to play with a sense of urgency that had been lacking earlier in the season.  I wasn’t ready to declare the Wizards a playoff-bound team next season like John Wall so boldly did, but I definitely saw the improvement.

Then the 2011 playoffs started and I saw brilliant performances by underdogs like the Memphis Grizzlies, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Indiana Pacers.  I also saw teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Boston Celtics advance by stepping up their play.  Then I thought back to the 10-game flash of brilliance the Wizards showed and I realized that as good as they looked at certain points, they clearly have a long way to go before they can compete under the hot lights of playoff basketball. The same type of comparison can be made to Yi Jianlian and his 2010-2011 season with Washington.

Last summer at the FIBA Championships held in Turkey, Yi displayed the type of aggression that had been lacking during his three-year NBA career with the Milwaukee Bucks and the New Jersey Nets.  He averaged 20.2 points, 10.2 rebounds, unveiled a quality drop-step move, and emerged as the leader of the Yao Ming-less Chinese National team.  After that FIBA performance, Michael Lee of the Washington Post wrote:

“It’s hard to tell how Yi’s performance will translate to the upcoming season, since he will not be featured with the Wizards as he was with China, which was not good enough to survive a sub-par performance from Yi. But if Yi arrives at training camp healthy, as expected, he should also come with much more confidence in his abilities. There are still flaws that he will have to overcome, and his defense still leaves much to be desired, but the Wizards shouldn’t have any regrets about basically renting Yi’s services for free for a year.”

Lee’s words proved to be prophetic once the season started, because Yi retained none of the brilliance he played with during the FIBA Championships.  Instead of being the focus on offense like he was in China, Yi was often the second or third man off the bench, and his appearances lacked consistency and aggression.  To make matters worse, Yi had recurring knee injuries that further hindered his ability to play effective, even in limited minutes.  A typical Yi appearance would go as follows:

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When news of the Gilbert Arenas-Rashard Lewis trade broke, it was received with a groan. The less-than-enthusiastic reception of the 31-year-old Lewis wasn’t so much a public damnation of his basketball abilities, nor an uninterested dismissal of his more intangible, clichéd qualities – veteran leadership, for instance. No, it was the result of a city, of a fanbase, coming to grips with the end of an era.

The Washington Wizards traded away their (cult) hero, and all they got in return was a “lousy” stretch four.

Just a week before Christmas, Lewis arrived in the nation’s capital with his long frame, his long contract, and his long face. Rough. Nick Young—by way of Gilbert Arenas’ interview with ESPN’s Michael Wallace—made Lewis’ first impressions public:

“He was telling me about Rashard Lewis. Nick was like, ‘I don’t know if he’s going to make it two weeks here. He feels like the world just ended.’ “

From a professional standpoint, getting traded to the Washington was one of the worst things that could have happened to Lewis. In the time it takes to pen a bit of chicken scratch on a trade agreement, he went from championship contender to NBA doormat. But for the Wizards, the acquisition of the former All-Star was the best thing that could have happened to team—luck of the lottery draw notwithstanding.

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So I mistakenly published a post before last night’s game that I’d already prepared about Andray Blatche versus Kevin Garnett without first finding out that Garnett was to sit out against the Wizards. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo and Shaquille O’Neal also joined Andray’s sort-of rival in not taking the court, a rivalry which Andray now gladly plays down.

But the game without Boston’s stars and Washington’s “veterans” (Nick Young, Rashard Lewis and Josh Howard) wasn’t exactly meaningless. Combined with a Miami Heat win over the Atlanta Hawks, Boston’s 95-94 overtime loss to the Wizards means they will finish third in the East with a match-up against the New York Knicks awaiting in the playoffs. Miami will face the seven-seed Philadelphia 76ers. On the other hand, all of the teams Washington’s draft lottery combination odds needed to win last night ended up losing. At 23-58 with one game left Wednesday at Cleveland, the Wizards now sit softy with the fourth worst record in the NBA, a game better than the Toronto Raptors and a game worse than each the Sacramento Kings and the New Jersey Nets, who both sit tied for the fifth worst record at 24-57.

“You always have people saying, ‘you’re winning games, you’re losing lottery balls,’ but I guess last year we showed it really didn’t matter where you are,” said Flip Saunders last night after the game. The coach relayed that he’d rather see his team learn the lesson of making a six-point comeback with less than a minute left in regulation than worry about down-the-road chances. And with that, I’d have to agree, especially if it means a disappointing departure for the Celtics fans that infiltrated the Verizon Center.

Waiting for Saunders at his post-game press conference, many members of the media scoffed at the idea of Washington’s win being entertaining. Flip himself called it a “grinder.” But if you like big missed dunks (thanks to Von Wafer), rookie No. 1 overall draft picks knocking down three crucial free-throws in a row (thanks to John Wall’s calmness that brought the Wizards within 83-82 with 21 seconds left in regulation), and a lottery-bound team making a six point comeback on playoff-bound reserves, amongst other notable occurrences, then the game was for you. If you like the nuance of a physical affair, played more like a meaningful game rather than with completely careless unfamiliarity, then you might be a basketball fan. All the stars need not be aligned, or around, to form a basketball game worthy of enjoyment in the season’s home finale. Wall and his team came through for the D.C. fans.

And without Kevin Garnett, Andray Blatche found all he could handle in a Glen “Big Baby” Davis. Both players went face-to-face and belly-to-belly in an overall physical match-up that involved the two teams combining to commit 56 fouls and to score 53 of the game’s 189 points from the free-throw line. Let’s go to the pictures from this grind-it-out affair. Read more »

[John Wall before the tip-off.]

People will say that the Atlanta Hawks lost to the Washington Wizards on Saturday night because they were without Josh Smith. Because they were unmotivated against a free-flying Wizards team with their playoff seeding already set. A date as the five seed going to Orlando to play the Magic awaits the Hawks in the first round, but did they have to get blown out by the Wiz Kids 115-83?

Regardless of Atlanta’s effortless situation, the Wizards countered with one of their best team defensive displays of the season, turning 23 Hawks turnovers into 27 points, partially thanks to 11 steals. And as the Washington Post’s Michael Lee has written, much credit is due to D-Leaguers Larry Owens and Othyus Jeffers — Owens putting in 10 points off the bench and Jeffers scoring 13 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. The energy of on-the-cusp players has made some of the more contractually secure Wizards not take their situation for granted.

Jeffers’ contagious explosion of hustle shouldn’t be taken for granted for the next training camp the Wizards hold either. He, along with Andray Blatche, were big reasons why the Wizards got off to a 29-18 jump on Atlanta after one quarter. Blatche worked Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia to the tune of nine points, five rebounds and 3-4 from the free throw line in the period. And Jeffers picked up two boards, one offensive, and 3-4 at the charity stripe in six and a half minutes off the bench. The disinterest of Atlanta was especially evident when they allowed Yi Jianlian to counter Jamal Crawford’s 11 points in the second quarter with 10 of his own. Washington led 61-46 at half.

Jordan Crawford didn’t have a particularly good first half. Limited with three fouls, he scored just four points on 2-3 shooting in 15 minutes, but he did have three assists and zero turnovers. In the third, Crawford didn’t try to force his own offense the entire time, even though he did go 1-6 from the field in the period. Instead, he proved that he’s not a limited basketball player by dropping five assists to one turnover and three rebounds. He finished the game with six points on 3-9 shooting with an 8-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, flipping zip passes to teammates with the same confidence he has in his offense.

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[The Wizards' ballsiest offensive players: Sam Cassell, JaVale McGee and Jordan Crawford]

The young Wizards made a valiant effort last night in Boston, that they did. Losing 104-88, they were within four points at 87-83 with seven minutes before the Celtics pulled away. Individual talents and potential flashed nicely, but familiar inefficiencies combined to lead the team down the path of losing. Possession-killing shots form Jordan Crawford, a crucial missed one-handed, wide-open dunk from JaVale McGee that would’ve kept the Wizards within four points with five minutes left, newcomer Larry Owens letting the 35-year old Ray Allen beat him to a transition basket, the seven turnovers of John Wall (which combined with those of McGee and Andray Blatche totaled 17) — they all were there. But nothing unexpected.

The Celtics valued most of their possessions and functioned like coordinated birds in flight on many. Rajon Rondo took ownership of the night with 14 assists. Neither John Wall nor Jordan Crawford could sufficiently keep up with him without worrying about the coordinated movement from the rest of the Celtics and whether the Wizards could depend on each other for a combined effort on defense.  Washington does not yet know how to fly together like Boston. They’ll get there as the core grows with time, but that begs the question, who’s part of the core?

Wall, Crawford and McGee? Clearly. Rashard Lewis? There’s not much choice. Andray Blatche? Signs point to yes. Nick Young? Things are more complicated with the free-agent to be. On Friday Ted Leonsis gave Young some blog love, touting him for Most Improved Player.

“He will be an integral part of our team,” Leonsis wrote, indicating that Nick can play the two or the three. And in that Leonsis is right. The shininess on Crawford’s run only means an added asset, not an internet argument on which one to keep. With Young going into end-of-rookie-contract qualifying offer free agency, Crawford is a safety to not overpay him, which could only happen if another team offers Young a contract that the Wizards will have to match or decline. Over 2,500 miles from home in Southern California, look for Young to remain in Washington for the next season of basketball that is played. Ernie Grunfeld was carefully cost efficient when negotiating contracts with DeShawn Stevenson, and he will likely do the same with Young

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