Official Thread - Wizards vs Hornets SL (7/16/10)

[GhostsOfGil]

DAGGGER!

[Hoopalotta]

Alright, so Lester as the 5th guard? He's got my vote; I'd imagine a one year non-guaranteed deal at the minimum would get it done. And We've got a spot regardless of what happens with Cartier at the 3. I wouldn't be surprised if we found someone more proven, but I bet the chemistry with Hudson is nice with the young guys.

And as an emergency replacement for 6th guard, I've got Javale running double duty there in addition to his role at center. That seems to be what he wanted to show us today.

For those saying not to jump to conclusions with Cartier, remember, he played something like eight games with us at the end of the season when they were closing it out with a respectable showing and good chemistry. There was Buzz for him even before this SL run. He's limited but functional. And affordable.

Jerome Randle, I mean, just no. He already played for us about sixty games last year, it's just that we called him Earl Boykins at the time. Small ball-dominant guards who like to pull up off the dribble and have trouble seeing the passing lanes are pretty well smack dab in the middle of "no thanks" as far as I'm concerned.

All told I don't know what to say about today's game. It was exciting, but there were plenty of concerns.

[Terpman]

I was very pleased with Booker tonight. Best game yet from GAM. We're a small forward and a banger off the bench (and a healthy Gil) from being a solid team.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

McGee with the hardwood equivalent of 30 clown's out of the Volkswagen. Don't know what to say about that.

Just think, I posted just last season that McGee should be playing more minutes only to be told by the majority of this board that McGee was a clown.

I blasted Flip's coaching, saying McGee is a very good scorer who makes things happen but Flip never plays him. I said Flip was doing a miserable job. I still feel that way. McGee had a lot of this in him early last season when he was getting DNP CDs.

Javale blew up the last part of last season IMO because Flip finally played him. (I said before last season started that McGee should be getting all Oberto's minutes). If there's much improvement in his game since then, it's proably because added a bit of weight and obviously worked hard on his game in the 2 or 3 months since the end of the regular season.

Most of all, McGee finally has a PG that can get him the ball for dunks. His confidence is sky high now.

I hope Coach Saunders has confidence in what McGee can do.

[Terpman]

McGee with the hardwood equivalent of 30 clown's out of the Volkswagen. Don't know what to say about that.

Just think, I posted just last season that McGee should be playing more minutes only to be told by the majority of this board that McGee was a clown.

I blasted Flip's coaching, saying McGee is a very good scorer who makes things happen but Flip never plays him. I said Flip was doing a miserable job. I still feel that way. McGee had a lot of this in him early last season when he was getting DNP CDs.

Javale blew up the last part of last season IMO because Flip finally played him. (I said before last season started that McGee should be getting all Oberto's minutes). If there's much improvement in his game since then, it's proably because added a bit of weight and obviously worked hard on his game in the 2 or 3 months since the end of the regular season.

Most of all, McGee finally has a PG that can get him the ball for dunks. His confidence is sky high now.

I hope Coach Saunders has confidence in what McGee can do.

+1

[VintaGe36]

I saw this game live, McGee played like a monster, except for a few stupid ticky tack fouls and atrocious boxing out.

Wall was flat out faster than everyone else on the court, but as eluded to earlier, his jumper, just isn't there yet.

Hudson's shot was nice, and the Wall-McGee Alley-oop was disgusting.

I have McGee's posterizing of the poor Hornet, the game winning shot, and the alley-oop on footage on my phone, if any are interested in seeing it.

[Hoopalotta]

That is completely taking me out of context, CCJ. I don't mean McGee's a clown, I meant he was putting on a circus performance. That's where they do the Volkswagon trick.

But I'm a wild McGee homer, everyone knows that. Is it not completely obvious? It's just that if you don't acknowledge the issues, nobody will take your opinion seriously.

But I think also the idea that Javale blew up in the final portion of the season because "he finally got playing time" is a total distortion.

I watched all those games and McGee just suddenly started playing better when he didn't have to matchup with the opposing starters. He had opportunities in all those games leading up to that stretch and plenty of the games he didn't get minutes in were due to foul trouble or matchup problems. You can't just blame it all on Flip. McGee just suddenly flipped a switch.

[nate33]

McGee with the hardwood equivalent of 30 clown's out of the Volkswagen. Don't know what to say about that.

Just think, I posted just last season that McGee should be playing more minutes only to be told by the majority of this board that McGee was a clown.

I blasted Flip's coaching, saying McGee is a very good scorer who makes things happen but Flip never plays him. I said Flip was doing a miserable job. I still feel that way. McGee had a lot of this in him early last season when he was getting DNP CDs.

Javale blew up the last part of last season IMO because Flip finally played him. (I said before last season started that McGee should be getting all Oberto's minutes). If there's much improvement in his game since then, it's proably because added a bit of weight and obviously worked hard on his game in the 2 or 3 months since the end of the regular season.

Most of all, McGee finally has a PG that can get him the ball for dunks. His confidence is sky high now.

I hope Coach Saunders has confidence in what McGee can do.

CCJ, McGee's on/off differential midway through the season was something like -12. He was killing the team when he was on the court with his terrible rotations and poor defensive rebounding. He did indeed play better later in the season, but you've got it backwards. He didn't play better because Flip gave him more minutes; Flip gave him more minutes because he played better.

McGee finished the season with a -5.1 on/off differential which means that he must have been a positive influence in games down the stretch.

I thought Flip did a fine job with the way he handled McGee last year. I thought he handled Blatche fairly well too. He did not handle Young well at all.

[TheBigThree]

The thing that really stood out to me from this game, outside of McGee and Wall's nice performances (nice to see Wall is able to back-to-back impactful games without shooting particularly well), was McGee's hook shot. Hope he keeps that in his arsenal, because if he can perfect it it would be nigh unstoppable.

[jholmbe1]

McGee with the hardwood equivalent of 30 clown's out of the Volkswagen. Don't know what to say about that.

Just think, I posted just last season that McGee should be playing more minutes only to be told by the majority of this board that McGee was a clown.

I blasted Flip's coaching, saying McGee is a very good scorer who makes things happen but Flip never plays him. I said Flip was doing a miserable job. I still feel that way. McGee had a lot of this in him early last season when he was getting DNP CDs.

Javale blew up the last part of last season IMO because Flip finally played him. (I said before last season started that McGee should be getting all Oberto's minutes). If there's much improvement in his game since then, it's proably because added a bit of weight and obviously worked hard on his game in the 2 or 3 months since the end of the regular season.

Most of all, McGee finally has a PG that can get him the ball for dunks. His confidence is sky high now.

I hope Coach Saunders has confidence in what McGee can do.

we get it, you are always right!! i am a huge javale fan but defense is a huge part of the game so we will have to see how he holds up against real (not summer league) talent. also, before you blast flip lets remember that Javale has been out of shape and probably had terrible practice habits. Believe it or not sometimes the coach has to be tough on the player, no matter how much you love him.

[Hoopalotta]

As to out of shape and last season, I there's something to be said for the asthma issue that was discovered in, something like, February or March.

You can still see him breathing pretty hard in the SL here, many times with his mouth open. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a genetic problem rather than a shortcoming of his training. Suffice to say he looks to be in pretty good shape when he's running and jumping.

[Ruzious]

As to out of shape and last season, I there's something to be said for the asthma issue that was discovered in, something like, February or March.

You can still see him breathing pretty hard in the SL here, many times with his mouth open. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt that this is a genetic problem rather than a shortcoming of his training. Suffice to say he looks to be in pretty good shape when he's running and jumping.

That's probably the most encouraging part of seeing him in the SL - that and the improvement in his body. I think it's important to note that as well as he's played offensively, we've seen that his defense is still nowhere near what it should be. It's really bad, and there doesn't seem to be any reason why - other than he just doesn't put the effort in. He puts outstanding effort in the offensive end and just doesn't do that on the defensive end. Only if that changes will he be the player we need. I agree 100% with nate's and jholmbe's comments about how Flip handled him and Blatche. They're both wildly talented, but to ignore the reasons neither was a very high pick is to ignore reality.

[Ruzious]

BTW, Sun Yue switched teams and played for the Bucks last night - as their roster is severely lacking in guards - and he played better than any of the other Bucks guards - a left-handed compliment.

[Hoopalotta]

Truth is, he's probably doing a worse job of challenging shots right now in the SL than he did at the close last year.

Fratello was repeatedly saying that he's a poor shot blocker in the broadcast - and you'd maybe want to say Mike-F needs to do some research based on last years per minute block numbers - but the truth is he was just going by his eyes and McGee wasn't placing much emphasis on really blocking anything. As much as everyone dogs his defense, I'd say it's against his normal pattern to be holding back in going after shots. He was picking guys up, but not really going after the blocks as he usually would.

Even games when he was killed last year (like when he fouled out against Dwight in about 10 minutes) he played a lot harder on that end than he is now. Not really sure what to make of that, but worth noting.

[fishercob]

I attribute Javale's improved summer league production to the presence of Wall, Javale's personal improvements in conditioning and skill, and the absence of any other high-usage "big" on the squad (i.e. no Blatche).

Can anyone name the best player Javale has matched up against? He's still a foul waiting to happen and an iddy biddy kitten on the defensive glass. HE's going to have some great moments and nice games this year, but he's going to struggle a ton too.

[LyricalRico]

I attribute Javale's improved summer league production to the presence of Wall, Javale's personal improvements in conditioning and skill, and the absence of any other high-usage "big" on the squad (i.e. no Blatche).

Can anyone name the best player Javale has matched up against? He's still a foul waiting to happen and an iddy biddy kitten on the defensive glass. HE's going to have some great moments and nice games this year, but he's going to struggle a ton too.

Agreed. It's encouraging to see the production McGee is putting up. I'd rather him put up numbers than not. However, I'm taking them with a huge grain of salt and not expecting anything close to that in the regular season. On the bright side, his body does look better and it's clear that he has not regressed so I think he will show some improvement next season. How much remains to be seen.

And this is not a McGee-hate post (it's too bad that our board has in some ways become a place where I have to say that). We all pretty much agreed at the end of last season that McGee was still probably a couple years away. A few good summer league games against undersized NBDL-caliber centers shouldn't be enough to change that perception.

[pancakes3]

i'm just wondering if we're running a large part of our offense through mcgee (especially last night) just to win games, or if flip wants to test mcgee's offensive skills to use for the upcoming season.

[dangermouse]

McGee should come off the bench as a spakplug scorer, at any of the 5 positions. Thats my conclusion from this game.

[no D in Hibachi]

Saunders on McGee
"The best play he had all night was that jump hook because that was a big time play where he had to score over somebody and make some type of a move."

I think of all the highlight reel plays by McGee, Wall, or Hundson I agree with Saunders in that the best play of the night, and the summer, in my opinion, was McGee's jump hook in the 4th quarter. He's so long he can get that over any defender in the NBA. Its a move that simply cannot be guarded. It was a decisive, one dribble sweeping hook with perfect touch and footwork. The razzle dazzle, alley oops will be few and far between in the regular season, but if he perfects this move he can be crazy good/efficient on offense.

I was talking with my Dad about McGee and we kept saying how he has the length of Bynum, the althetic ability of Howard, very good mits, probably the fastest center in the game, and the body control of a guard. He's still a year away because he lacks good fundamentals, which have been well documented, but his potential is scary especially with Blatche because their style of play is so complementary.