Pre-Season Hoops

[80sballboy]

You guys are funny. We suck. Let's give up on the season because we lost a stupid preseason game by a 100 where the coach experimented most of the game. I am concerned of course over MIA Blatche, but I know EJ was sending him a message for not rebounding.

Ugly preseason for the most part, but the last time I checked it doesn't count. We'll be ok and I mean ok, as far as inconsistent, but hopefully winning enough to be around .500 when Gil comes back anywhere from Dec. 1st to March 1st. Who the hell knows with that situation. I still wonder about backup point. Juan is a much better shooter but made some terrible decisions tonight as a floor leader, but I guess it's better than just being terrible.

And if we play Songaila a the backup center to Etan we might as well fold our up our tents and go him. He's what 30 and plays like he's 40? He still can't move to grab a damn rebound. It's unreal how bad he is defensively. So he runs the pick and roll better than anybody else. BFD.

[dandridge 10]

You guys are funny. We suck. Let's give up on the season because we lost a stupid preseason game by a 100 where the coach experimented most of the game. I am concerned of course over MIA Blatche, but I know EJ was sending him a message for not rebounding.

Ugly preseason for the most part, but the last time I checked it doesn't count. We'll be ok and I mean ok, as far as inconsistent, but hopefully winning enough to be around .500 when Gil comes back anywhere from Dec. 1st to March 1st. Who the hell knows with that situation. I still wonder about backup point. Juan is a much better shooter but made some terrible decisions tonight as a floor leader, but I guess it's better than just being terrible.

And if we play Songaila a the backup center to Etan we might as well fold our up our tents and go him. He's what 30 and plays like he's 40? He still can't move to grab a damn rebound. It's unreal how bad he is defensively. So he runs the pick and roll better than anybody else. BFD.

Hey, how can you draw any conclusions about Etan????...its just preseason afterall

I don't give two cents if we win a game during the preseason, but I'd like to see the Wiz at least come out with somewhat of a professional attitude, work on their D, run their offense, and at least be competitive. I have watched a fair amount of preseason games so far, and I haven't seen any other team look as bad, consistently, as the Wizards, both in terms of effort, defense and shot selection. We had the same sort of preseason last year and it carried over into the first part of the regular season. The Wizards aren't good enough to think they can just coast into the regular season and turn it on when they want. Yeah, the preseason games don't count, but if you haven't seen some of the same warning signs we have seen year after year, then you are looking at the team with rose colored glasses.

Regarding Blatche, if EJ benched him because he wanted to send a message, E.J. should be fired. Blatche wasn't doing anything different than the rest of the team...they were all coasting. If EJ wanted to send a message, he should have benched the whole team and forfeited the game.

[miller31time]

Seems simple to me. We're a jumpshooting team. Always have been. Will be for the foreseeable future. But before, we at least had Brendan in the paint to give our team a fighting chance. He could score from the post (albeit infrequently), but more importantly, he netted us stops where, even if we couldn't shoot as good of a % as our opponent, we'd at least get up a good amount of attempts.

Without Haywood, and with the general carelessness and lack of effort from this group, it doesn't really surprise me to see such violent swings in play from 1 game to the other, ending with a net negative.

[MJG]

You guys are funny. We suck. Let's give up on the season because we lost a stupid preseason game by a 100 where the coach experimented most of the game.

Were we really experimenting? The starters only played 5-10 minutes less than they will in the regular season. OPec and Brown, our two worst players, got single digit minutes. The rest of the bench played in the teens. Outside of McGee getting 19 minutes and Blatche getting 4 - numbers that are likely to be reversed in real games - this really wasn't all that far off what we're going to be doing when the regular season starts next week.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

You guys are funny. We suck. Let's give up on the season because we lost a stupid preseason game by a 100 where the coach experimented most of the game. I am concerned of course over MIA Blatche, but I know EJ was sending him a message for not rebounding.

Ugly preseason for the most part, but the last time I checked it doesn't count. We'll be ok and I mean ok, as far as inconsistent, but hopefully winning enough to be around .500 when Gil comes back anywhere from Dec. 1st to March 1st. Who the hell knows with that situation. I still wonder about backup point. Juan is a much better shooter but made some terrible decisions tonight as a floor leader, but I guess it's better than just being terrible.

And if we play Songaila a the backup center to Etan we might as well fold our up our tents and go him. He's what 30 and plays like he's 40? He still can't move to grab a damn rebound. It's unreal how bad he is defensively. So he runs the pick and roll better than anybody else. BFD.

Hey, how can you draw any conclusions about Etan????...its just preseason afterall

I don't give two cents if we win a game during the preseason, but I'd like to see the Wiz at least come out with somewhat of a professional attitude, work on their D, run their offense, and at least be competitive. I have watched a fair amount of preseason games so far, and I haven't seen any other team look as bad, consistently, as the Wizards, both in terms of effort, defense and shot selection. We had the same sort of preseason last year and it carried over into the first part of the regular season. The Wizards aren't good enough to think they can just coast into the regular season and turn it on when they want. Yeah, the preseason games don't count, but if you haven't seen some of the same warning signs we have seen year after year, then you are looking at the team with rose colored glasses.

Regarding Blatche, if EJ benched him because he wanted to send a message, E.J. should be fired. Blatche wasn't doing anything different than the rest of the team...they were all coasting. If EJ wanted to send a message, he should have benched the whole team and forfeited the game.

Amen to that.

Darius played 17 minutes and finished with 0 rebounds, shot 0-5, and had 2 points.

Blatche in only 4 minutes hit his only shot, hit two free throws, and grabbed 2 rebounds. The team was +6 with him on the floor.

EJ will lose a ton of games with the likes of Etan and Darius appearing to give effort while being badly outplayed. But the guy EJ gets vocal about is Blatche, who a 22 is already better than Etan or Darius ever will be.

I really can't stand being a Wizard fan at times, because the level of effort on defense and the substitutions are consistently bad.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Another thing about Eddie Jordan is he'll consistently lose the same dumb way against Cleveland.

Lebron beasts Caron 90% of the time. The Cavs swing the ball a couple times and always seem to have open shooters on the perimter. Cleveland always kills the Wizards on the boards. The Wizards always jack up a bunch of jumpshots. Eddie always responds by going small. Darius is EJ's answer to Varajeo and it just doesn't work.

EJ also never seems to notice how badly Butler and Jamison get outplayed by Cleveland. Today, Butler was -24 and Jamison was -24 against the Cavs. EJ makes a statement benching Blatche, though, while his fowards once again suck against Cleveland.

[nate33]

Seems simple to me. We're a jumpshooting team. Always have been. Will be for the foreseeable future. But before, we at least had Brendan in the paint to give our team a fighting chance. He could score from the post (albeit infrequently), but more importantly, he netted us stops where, even if we couldn't shoot as good of a % as our opponent, we'd at least get up a good amount of attempts.

Without Haywood, and with the general carelessness and lack of effort from this group, it doesn't really surprise me to see such violent swings in play from 1 game to the other, ending with a net negative.

Haywood is also one of the top offensive rebounders in the game.

[closg00]

Seems simple to me. We're a jumpshooting team. Always have been. Will be for the foreseeable future. But before, we at least had Brendan in the paint to give our team a fighting chance. He could score from the post (albeit infrequently), but more importantly, he netted us stops where, even if we couldn't shoot as good of a % as our opponent, we'd at least get up a good amount of attempts.

Without Haywood, and with the general carelessness and lack of effort from this group, it doesn't really surprise me to see such violent swings in play from 1 game to the other, ending with a net negative.

Haywood is also one of the top offensive rebounders in the game.

Where does BTH rank in top offensive rebounders, do you have any stats?

[Scabs304]

Seems simple to me. We're a jumpshooting team. Always have been. Will be for the foreseeable future. But before, we at least had Brendan in the paint to give our team a fighting chance. He could score from the post (albeit infrequently), but more importantly, he netted us stops where, even if we couldn't shoot as good of a % as our opponent, we'd at least get up a good amount of attempts.

Without Haywood, and with the general carelessness and lack of effort from this group, it doesn't really surprise me to see such violent swings in play from 1 game to the other, ending with a net negative.

Haywood is also one of the top offensive rebounders in the game.

Where does BTH rank in top offensive rebounders, do you have any stats?

Last year Brenda had a 12.4 Offensive Rebound% which is 12th in the league without any minute cut off taken into effect.

[pancakes3]

plenty of stats back up the fact that haywood is a great offensive rebounder. He was 5th in the league in offensive boards, had more offensive boards/game than Dwight Howard last year... I guess that leaves one to reason that he's a below average defensive rebounder seeing as how Jamison had significantly more defensive rebounds than he did and how haywood can be 5th in offensive boards but nowhere to be found on the top for total rebounds..

[dobrojim]

gotta agree with CCJ and others...

why does it seem as though so many of our shots contested
and so many of the opp are wide open?

yeah Caron is physically overmatched by LeTravel but what I
hate is L killing us with passes to unguarded players. Make L
drop 40 on us if they're going to blow us out. Old complaint
is that the players cheating off their man accomplish very
little when they do so.

Strange game in a way. Horrible start but we recovered
and actually had a brief/small 2ndQ lead before falling
completely apart.

bottom line is it doesn't count but it still leaves a bad taste

[Pollinator]

Anyone catch the story in the WP where Young says that he has "loose stuff" in his knee that he has had since college but may need to be cleaned out surgically after this year?

There you have it, the latest diagnosis from Dr. Nick, the Wizards' team doctor.