No Wizardry In Washington

[hands11]

On/Off sucks. Lets get behind that. It has to much to do with he total line up.

As some one who has followed this team for over 20 years and watches every game, I can see with my own eyes that Haywood is a solid center. Perfect - No. Above average - Yes.

He is tall, strong, tough, has some post game, dunks, has decent hands, is a good character, works hard, etc.

Does he has weakness - sure. He doesn't have to best lateral speed.

End of story. He simply needs the right player next to him. Someone with decent length and lateral speed. That player is not AJ.

End of story.

[FreeBalling]

On/Off sucks. Lets get behind that. It has to much to do with he total line up.

As some one who has followed this team for over 20 years and watches every game, I can see with my own eyes that Haywood is a solid center. Perfect - No. Above average - Yes.

He is tall, strong, tough, has some post game, dunks, has decent hands, is a good character, works hard, etc.

Does he has weakness - sure. He doesn't have to best lateral speed.

End of story. He simply needs the right player next to him. Someone with decent length and lateral speed. That player is not AJ.

End of story.

I'd like to see Blatche at PF and AJ SF/6TH Man. Haywood will be back next year and the truth will be told.

[FreeBalling]

I need an explanation.

Dude, you need more help than an explanation. Let me introduce you to a phrase: quit while you are behind. You have received more explanations, more examples, and more analysis that would answer questions more difficult than this: the Wizards play significantly better when Haywood plays, and significantly worse when he does not and this is due to his contributions.

My IQ is 42 an even I got that, LOL.

Just the fact of 9 win with Haywood out should be a good starting point. More explanation you got to be kidding after all the facts were posted.

[Kanyewest]

Dude, nearly every one of your assertions is refuted by the stats. Your response is to choose to ignore the stats that you don't to believe. That's certainly your prerogative, but rest assured, you aren't swaying anybody with your arguments.

Arenas posted a +14.1 on/off differential when his backup, Antonio Daniels, was the same guy you rave about leading the Wizards to a good record in 2007/08. Having said that, it's true that on/off data isn't all that great when applied to big-minute stars. The problem is that they have very little "off" time. The sample size is so small that there is a lot of statistical "noise".

However, that doesn't apply to Haywood. Thanks to our stupid coach, Haywood has consistently managed to play just 20-27 minutes per game throughout his career. There is a lot of "off" data to go with the "on" data. Furthermore, Haywood has spent time as both a starter and a reserve, and he has done so with many different teammates over the years. The on/off data for Haywood couldn't be more accurate. The man helps the team win.

Then why do you ignore his on/off differential from last season, if it's so important? If the stats are telling everything, why should we ignore what he didn't do last season just because he had an "off year?"

The stats are based on more than just the player, correct? You admitted this already. Well, in those games I posted where Haywood was giving up all those boards and getting beat to the rim, he wasn't playing 20 minutes. He played nearly 30 when Bogut smoked him in their last game, and you can argue that other players factored into those bigs scoring and pulling down boards, but then you'd have to apply that argument to your on/off court differentials.

So, when Eddie Jordan benched Haywood and went with a small lineup that couldn't score (he did it plenty of times), that doesn't mean that Haywood was that much more important, it meant that EJ was just stupid, and there was no way that those guys were going to score without Arenas or Butler in there (or Jamison, depending on what scorer was left out on the floor). Sure, the on/off is going to be a positive for Haywood. There's no reason it wouldn't be.

Like I said, Kobe Bryant's on/off differential back in 06-07 was +7.6 with a lineup of him, Smush, Odom, Kwame and Walton. That same season, Jamison's was +6.5. Are you telling me that those numbers reflect how important those two players are to their team? Odom, Kwame, Smush and Walton...I'd have to say that Bryant was three times as important versus Jamison.

And remember, Arenas was a +14.1 that season. Twice as important to the Wizards as Kobe was to those Lakers? I need an explanation.

Again you are underestimating how bad the Wizards bench was in the 06-07 season. You know who was Jamison's backup? Michael freaking Ruffin. While Antonio Daniels was solid in the 07-08, he was notorious for coasting during the regular season and saving himself for the palyoffs.

Check out this awesome pass he had to Morris Peterson to explain how "awesome" Michael Ruffin was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5bqF4VDSx4

And when Michael Ruffin didn't play, the Wizards had brilliant idea of playing Hayes at the power forward position. Ugh...

Second, in the 2006-07 guys like Kwame Brown and Smush Parker played alongside Kobe Bryant. It also goes to show Lamar Odom did a good job running the offense without Bryant.

Third, the Wizards were a better team than the Lakers when Arenas was healthy. Their overall +/- differential was greater when Arenas, Butler, and Jamison were healthy. This is not to say that Kobe is a better player than any of them but collectively, the Wizards were playing like a top 5 team halfway through the season. Arenas +/- became even greater when Jamison and Butler went down with nagging injuries.

Fourth, Kobe played 41 mpg so I'm guessing his sample size is much too small to make reasonable determination how well his teammates played without him.

[doclinkin]

Gilbert Arenas brings more than scoring. He brings wins. Proof: 9-33.

You have to expect that with everyone out like they are.

Okay, end of argument. The 'everyone' out pretty much starts and ends with Gilbert Arenas & Brendan Haywood. The Wiz were 1-10 with nobody missing but these two.

Unless somehow you're trying to make the case that a dinged up DeShawn Stevenson is good for a 20 game swing in the standings.

Look we get it, you don't like Gilbert Arenas, so you'd like to find a way to tapdance on the Wizards misfortune. And as such you fall prey to 'confirmation bias' looking for facts to back up your prejudice, even after your theory suffers under cold light of truth.

Forgive us any lack of courtesy if we don't share the same prejudice, but you're a doofus. An articulate doofus, but still un-selfcritical on this issue. And, frankly wrong, even in your perception of the guy.

Gilbert is injured in large part because he tries to do too much and works too hard. He has tried to come back too early, put in insane amount of work trying to rehab his knee figuring it would respond to workaholic obsessiveness the same way his game has since he was little. Wiz fans would be ecstatic to have back a healthy Gilbert, sorry if that fact pains you in some manner. In the national media you hear his quirkiness, read his blog, his loopy candor, as if he were a no-nothing fan with little at stake but his 'rep' on some sports chatter message board swamp.

But fans here see his inferno of desire to play, to improve, to outwork opponents. Fans here see his outreach to the community, as approachable a superstar as you could expect or want. Yeah he's sitting despite signing a massive contract, fine, we're not happy to be losing without him either, but consider the alternative: what-- he should be playing on that knee while it's still weak and endangering the franchise's long-term investment?

Fans in DC see that he bought and delivered a truckload of pampers, baby formula, clean socks, etc to Katrina refugees staying at the DC Armory, without telling anyone, no press conference. Fans in the roughest projects in DC see him show up without bodyguards to play in summerleague games, just to hang out and meet the fans who can't afford a ticket.

We'd be happy to have him back, and expect him to improve once healthy. And if you know more about the guy I think you'd feel the same way. I'd suggest if you're intellectually honest, you might do a little more research on the guy and see if you still hold the same impression of the kid. He's a wingnut, but nobody cares more about the game than this guy. As for the rest, we'll see when he comes back, you know?

[fishercob]

the Doc abides!

[JWizmentality]

Damn Doc, well put. Which is why for the life of me I can't understand why you supported Eddie Jordan.




















I can't help myself

[Kanyewest]

Damn Doc, well put. Which is why for the life of me I can't understand why you supported Eddie Jordan.




















I can't help myself

Clearly Eddie Tapscott is SOOO much better.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Damn Doc, well put. Which is why for the life of me I can't understand why you supported Eddie Jordan.




















I can't help myself

Clearly Eddie Tapscott is SOOO much better.

Yeah because we all know Eddie Tankscott is the future of this team.

[Kanyewest]

Yeah because we all know Eddie Tankscott is the future of this team.

I don't understand why Eddie Jordan used to play guys like McGee and Juan Dixon so much. Man he was crazy.

[Real Deal]

Wow, so now I see why everyone told me not to post anything here. Can some of you avoid the name-calling and grow up just a bit?

You either have to be a Wizards fan, or you're just simply wrong? Gotcha. Still didn't get the explanation why the on/off is only significant to certain players, and why centers demolishing Haywood doesn't matter, and why Haywood's on/off last year was a fluke. Never was made clear.

Either way, thanks to those who actually helped the topic get to six pages without all the whiny bickering and temper-tantrums.

[doclinkin]

Wow, so now I see why everyone told me not to post anything here. Can some of you avoid the name-calling and grow up just a bit?

You either have to be a Wizards fan, or you're just simply wrong? Gotcha. Still didn't get the explanation why the on/off is only significant to certain players, and why centers demolishing Haywood doesn't matter, and why Haywood's on/off last year was a fluke. Never was made clear.

Either way, thanks to those who actually helped the topic get to six pages without all the whiny bickering and temper-tantrums.

Oh relax, don't let yer Depends chafe you or nothing. That's just East Coast courteousness. We beat up on each other worse than that. Just means we're pals. Ya doofus. Hey I said you were articulate.

Hell you don't even have to be a Wizards fan, just on top of your facts. But since you want a tutorial on +/- I'll happily help out.

Nate said, but I'll repeat: the effect of the "on/off" +/- stats of heavy-minute stars is often less significant a metric than it is for mid level role players. The reasoning is similar for garbage-time scrubs, (though for the opposite reason). The fact is star players have a very small sample size of "off" minutes to measure the data by. Which means the more anal stat-o-philes refuse to countenance it as statistically significant. Because one fluke sequence or berserk level of game-play by back-ups will tend to skew the data.

Let's borrow the example of your 06/07 Kobe-suppository:

Like I said, Kobe Bryant's on/off differential back in 06-07 was +7.6 with a lineup of him, Smush, Odom, Kwame and Walton. That same season, Jamison's was +6.5. Are you telling me that those numbers reflect how important those two players are to their team? Odom, Kwame, Smush and Walton...I'd have to say that Bryant was three times as important versus Jamison.

Kobe's numbers were suppressed precisely because he was playing next to scrubs. And there were precious few minutes that he was offcourt at all. And when he was gone Phil often ran with a squad of talented young puppies. But these players all saw more work in garbage time and against second line players where they were more likely to be statistically successful. Check the top 20 most used line-upsthat year. The fact that he appears in all but two of the top 20 lines would tend to indicate how many minutes and games he played. And his positive effect can be skewed when you have solid success with the Farmar-Vujacic-Evans-Radmanovic-Bynum crew whenever you could afford to dump a bunch of talented rooks on the floor together.

The fact that the back-ups were not appreciably worse than the starters will tend to keep Kobe's numbers down.

Here in fact Arenas' numbers and Haywood's +/- numbers would tend to be inflated in relation to the rest of the league by the fact that our bench was a collection of dried cat turds and pocket lint. And our coach would often dump in all the scrubstitutes at once, so the difference was fairly stark and glarling.

This is one explanation for why Haywood's +/- effect wasn't so startling last year: Andray Blatche was improving and Darius Songaila was finally healthy. This the key reason why we were able to weather the absence of Gilbert: we had more talent behind him, matured within the scheme, with improved defensive habits courtesy of a new defensive coordinator, and better size deeper into the roster. Late season we just wore down playing the veterans too many heavy minutes.

The real problem with your premise is you have no effective measure of defensive effectiveness (citing rebounds and occasional standout games by opposing Bigs) and you refuse to accept the stats offered to you by people who do (that the team allows significantly fewer points per 100 possessions when Haywood is on court, that teams prefer to jack shots from outside, etc). And due to your bias (needing to defend your article) you discount the first-hand knowledge and observations of people who know more about the situation than you.

Haywood is a pretty good defensive center, despite being a sub-par rebounder (poor hands). He defends the pick and roll well, quarterbacks the defense, teaches young players, studies opponent tendencies on film, he's huge, strong and smart. And he's got a cheap contract. Good value. He's pretty good on the show and recover challenging shots outside then fading to shade the paint. But that means players can get loose behind him if his frontcourtmate doesn't seal tehm off or collect the rebound from a missed shot. This team would do well if we had an intimidating lowpost threat behind him. He'd be fine in the Kendrick Perkins role on a championship team. Not the KG role.

As for the article you wrote: You don't have to like the Wiz, or Gilbert, you just have to be accurate to be respected. But satisfaction with your own pisspoor scholarship doesn't make you a better writer. Nor does a stubbornness to learn. Unless I'm misreading you. In which case fine, sorry, maybe you actually wanted to discover that Haywood was a better player than you thought. If not Gil.

But really, you want the Wiz to follow the example of Orlando? If we simply traded Gilbert like the Magic did TMac we would swiftly see the improved record they are reaping?

Okay so here's the nincompoopery in that statement. The Magic are successful today because by trading away TMac for Cat Mobley and Grant Hill they got the ass-end of a terrible deal (TMac was a 3 time allstar posttrade) and were terrible enough that they were able to draft Dwight Holy Howard with a number one pick. With the cap space they saved eventually when the lease Grant Hill's useless contract expired, they were able to overpay for an undersized front court chucker. So in effect if we were able to trade Gilbert away and be really awful and really really lucky and draft Dwight Howard... well then we'd be fine.

Great plan. I like our plan better. _Not_ trade the allstar scorer for a brokedown player with a bloated contract. Re-sign our own undersized frontcourt chucker. Be really really awful waiting on our allstar to return (and defensive center) then hey maybe get lucky, draft a top talent to play next to that allstar (or three). Develop our youngsters, maybe trade one for a backcourt playoff savvy veteran. Then win the dang thang.

[Kanyewest]

As for center having a big game on the boards against him, it makes sense because Haywood was the last line of defense for the Wizards. He often helps out his teammates and forces misses, and the opposing center can usually get an easy tip in. Still, the Wizards defense was much better overall because he forced other players shots into misses.

Haywood had bad performance but he also had some great ones. I remember he and the Wizards held Dwight Howard to 3 points. On average, the Wizards were simply better defensive team with him in the lineup.

Haywood's impact has also been underestimated on the offensive end. He was a pretty good offensive rebounder who averaged 3.3 rpg. He became much better at finishing at the basket. He also improved his free throw % to 75% and had a career high TS% of 58 %.

If you want another explanation of the Wizards fall, look at the fall their backcourt. I believe Daniels and Stevenson during the 1st 10 game stretch were shooting under 35%. The Wizards desperately needed firepower from someone in the backcourt. Hate him or not, the Wizards could have used a healthy Gilbert to make it to the postseason. Guys like Stevenson look above average when he's on the court.