Hollinger's latest take on the Wiz

[Soup's Uncle]

Yeah, alot of our injuries are like "luck" injuries. Gilbert got fallen into...Caron fell and hurt his hip...Antawn flew into the crowd and tweaked his shoulder. It sucks man.

[Brenice]

He's an idiot. He predicted we'd be last in the southeast last year and finish 13th in the east.

Exactly. Pretty much all of these analysts have no guts. They don't analyze based on fact or make predictions based on basketball knowledge. They always base their predictions based on what happened (historically) last. It appears as though the media will say the wizards will be injured again next year.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Yeah, alot of our injuries are like "luck" injuries. Gilbert got fallen into...Caron fell and hurt his hip...Antawn flew into the crowd and tweaked his shoulder. It sucks man.

or maybe we just happen to have three of the most injury prone stars in the league.

I'm not worried about Gil. He never seemed to have nagging injuries like Butler. But I question weather Arenas will be able to return to his all star dominant form.

Then you have Caron who gets injured every two weeks. Antawn is 32 and playing for a coach who can not help but play his starts 40 minutes a night and run them into the ground.

We have always had the highest MPG for our stars in the league. They get tired by the time playoffs come, injured and battered and we get the annual first round exit.

the first and foremost improvement of this team has to come from the coaching staff cutting into the stars minutes and using the bench a lot more despite the inexperience or inconsistency.

[nate33]

or maybe we just happen to have three of the most injury prone stars in the league.

I'm not worried about Gil. He never seemed to have nagging injuries like Butler. But I question weather Arenas will be able to return to his all star dominant form.

Then you have Caron who gets injured every two weeks. Antawn is 32 and playing for a coach who can not help but play his starts 40 minutes a night and run them into the ground.

We have always had the highest MPG for our stars in the league. They get tired by the time playoffs come, injured and battered and we get the annual first round exit.

the first and foremost improvement of this team has to come from the coaching staff cutting into the stars minutes and using the bench a lot more despite the inexperience or inconsistency.

Jamison, Haywood and Stevenson are iron men. They never get hurt. I'm not really worried about them as long as EJ can keep their minutes under control. Blatche also looks durable. He played all 82 games last year.

Arenas has proven fairly durable too. He's had two significant injuries in his 6-year stint with the Wizards. He hurt his abdominal muscle which ruined his 2003/04 season (though he managed to play 55 games), and he hurt his knee at the end of the 2006/07 season. If it weren't for timing of the knee injury (8 games before the playoffs) and the fact that he rehabbed it wrong, I don't think we'd be worried about Arenas' injury history. He played 80+ games in each of his other seasons here despite logging ridiculous minutes.

Here's an interesting stat: In the 3 seasons prior to last, Arenas was 2nd in the league in total minutes played (despite missing the last 8 games of 2006/07). Also, in Arenas' entire tenure as a Wizard ignoring last season, he was 7th in the league in total minutes played. And that includes the abdominal-injury season. Basically, if you ingore the one knee injury, Arenas is about as good as it gets with respect to total minutes played.

Caron Butler is the problem. That guy is Larry Hughes II. I love that he plays hard and he'll play through pain, but the man just can't stay healthy. He strains or breaks something new each month. Etan is also made of glass.

[fishercob]

Who really cares what Hollinger's says.

We are exactly were it was likely we were going to be. Only thing that happened differently then I expected was that we paid more for AJ and GA then I would have hoped. But once GS threw that money at GA, we didn't have much choice.

It was obvious AJ was going to start one more year after being signed. But for that kind of cash, I don't know when he will ever come off the bench. The question still remains, where will he start and for how long ? Will GA be able to play a complete balanced game ? Will OP be sent packing ? When will the terrorist be sent to the bench ? Can we play solid D with GA at PG and AJ at PF ?

There is still a lot to figure out this year. 2009/10 is when the bigger changes will likely take place. Either that or heading into the trade deadline this year. But 2009/10 could be a coaching change which would allow us to put every position on the table to see who should be starting.

We are still a pile of pieces that don't exactly fit together perfectly. Be patient. EG has done a good job keeping this thing going. Rome wasn't build in a day. We have a solid roster with some valuable pieces that can be moved if needed and AD and ETs expiring contract coming into play soon.

I'm not going to expect any major changes from EJ unless we move some pieces. He will start the starting 5 he always starts. Knowing EJ it will look something like:

GA, DS< CB, AJ, BH - starting
AD, NY, DM, DSong, ET - bench
AB (unless he has a great summer league, his off season antics will push him down the bench to start)
OP ( if he makes it. If not this position goes to a Posey type or RMason. I don't see where we have room for OP. Specially if we can call up JaVale if needed. We need another PG/SG/SF type)

This should be interesting to see what happens in Summer league.

JaVale will likely go to the D league.

This still isn't the line up I think we need given these player but it is what we will likely see. I still think we need to move some things around.

Guess who's back
back again
Handsy's back
tell a friend
guess who's back...guess who's back...guess who's back...guess who's back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1if9kLJpWw&NR=1
Welcome back, hands. I kinda missed your wackiness. I hope your hiatus from the boards was fun.

I don't truly care what Hollinger thinks, the way I care, say, what my wife thinks, but it bugs me that he has such a big platform at ESPN and is reinforcing what I believe to be a bogus conventional wisdom. Further, there's hope for Hollinger. While his methodology may still be flawed, he at least tries to interpret the NBA using stats, so as to filter out bias and our "lyin' eyes."

You and I are on the same page with regard to the need to use this upcoming season to answer fundamental questions. While we obviously want to try to win every game, the goal is to truly see what we have. Can Jordan effectively coach a full, healthy roster? Which -- if any -- of our kids can be big contributors? Which -- if any -- should we just cut bait on?

But the reason it's so crucial to use this year to assess out entire squad is because next offseason will provide opportunities to upgrade/remake the roster that we haven't had for some time. Again, we're on the same page in that regard.

Patience is indeed required to see how the Wizards' proverbial puzzle comes together.

Welcome back.