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No Wizardry In Washington
by Brandon Neal, OTRBasketball.com

For the last three seasons, the Washington Wizards have quietly declined, and for the most part, could never pick themselves back up when it mattered most. Due to numerous injuries, a potentially-lethal trio of guard Gilbert Arenas, guard/forward Caron Butler and forward Antawn Jamison, combined with solid role players, were eventually minimized to a duo of Butler and Jamison, playing alongside what us fans call scrubs — the leftovers gathered from other teams.

It didn’t seem long ago when a fair amount of Wizards fans were declaring that Butler was an MVP candidate, for his ability to shoulder the hefty load left after Arenas fell to injury, tearing his way into the playoffs for what eventually resulted in a third consecutive loss against a more-powerful Cleveland Cavaliers team. In fact, just last season, these Washington Wizards defeated the Boston Celtics in three of the four games they played, the only team in the NBA to win the regular season series against the eventual champions.

We all may not be Wizards fans, but we can’t help but feel sorry for the franchise — or should we not?

After re-signing the injured Arenas to a contract that will end up paying him roughly $22 million in the 2013/14 NBA season, the franchise could have made the decision to replicate what the Orlando Magic did with guard Tracy McGrady in 2004, where they traded him to the Houston Rockets for guards Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, avoiding the possibility of feeling obligated to pay McGrady for years of mediocrity. Francis and Mobley became non-factors for the Magic on the court, but a little over four years later, Orlando’s fans are celebrating many more wins than losses, and a possible NBA Finals berth, if all goes well.

On June 30, 2008, the Wizards organization decided to hand over a four-year, $50 million deal to Jamison. Some believe that this was another way to convince Arenas to stay in Washington, similar to Jamison stating that he would love to end his career with the Wizards, possibly hoping that he, Arenas and Butler could get together for a run at a 50-win season and a higher seed in the playoffs — to avoid Cleveland, of course.

However, a run like that would be amazing for a Washington franchise that has not won more than 45 games since 1979, one year after winning their first, and only, NBA championship. With that in mind, it was also 1979 when the Wizards (then the Bullets) finished first in their division.

If that isn’t bad enough, nine of their last ten playoff visits have resulted in first-round losses, with 15 seasons in between them where Washington failed to get into the playoffs, which actually group into seven and eight consecutive.

While many were cracking jokes at the Atlanta Hawks for not making the playoffs for eight consecutive years, the Washington Wizards may be one of the worst current franchises in NBA history. Atlanta had three 50-win seasons in the 90’s, stayed fairly healthy, and found their way out of the first round four times since 1993.

With a record of 9-33, Arenas missing another season, a new coach and absolutely nowhere else to go but up, it’s probably time to rebuild. Ship out the big contracts, keep the young talent, and bring in fresh and healthy faces, ready to put out effort on both offense and defense. The Washington fans deserve more than a repeat of what happened to the basketball fans in New York, and sadly enough, this is where the road begins in that destination to nowhere.

http://www.otrbasketball.com/forums/ind ... opic=55711

Real Deal wrote:

No Wizardry In Washington
by Brandon Neal, OTRBasketball.com

For the last three seasons, the Washington Wizards have quietly declined, and for the most part, could never pick themselves back up when it mattered most. Due to numerous injuries, a potentially-lethal trio of guard Gilbert Arenas, guard/forward Caron Butler and forward Antawn Jamison, combined with solid role players, were eventually minimized to a duo of Butler and Jamison, playing alongside what us fans call scrubs — the leftovers gathered from other teams.

It didn’t seem long ago when a fair amount of Wizards fans were declaring that Butler was an MVP candidate, for his ability to shoulder the hefty load left after Arenas fell to injury, tearing his way into the playoffs for what eventually resulted in a third consecutive loss against a more-powerful Cleveland Cavaliers team. In fact, just last season, these Washington Wizards defeated the Boston Celtics in three of the four games they played, the only team in the NBA to win the regular season series against the eventual champions.

We all may not be Wizards fans, but we can’t help but feel sorry for the franchise — or should we not?

After re-signing the injured Arenas to a contract that will end up paying him roughly $22 million in the 2013/14 NBA season, the franchise could have made the decision to replicate what the Orlando Magic did with guard Tracy McGrady in 2004, where they traded him to the Houston Rockets for guards Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley, avoiding the possibility of feeling obligated to pay McGrady for years of mediocrity. Francis and Mobley became non-factors for the Magic on the court, but a little over four years later, Orlando’s fans are celebrating many more wins than losses, and a possible NBA Finals berth, if all goes well.

On June 30, 2008, the Wizards organization decided to hand over a four-year, $50 million deal to Jamison. Some believe that this was another way to convince Arenas to stay in Washington, similar to Jamison stating that he would love to end his career with the Wizards, possibly hoping that he, Arenas and Butler could get together for a run at a 50-win season and a higher seed in the playoffs — to avoid Cleveland, of course.

However, a run like that would be amazing for a Washington franchise that has not won more than 45 games since 1979, one year after winning their first, and only, NBA championship. With that in mind, it was also 1979 when the Wizards (then the Bullets) finished first in their division.

If that isn’t bad enough, nine of their last ten playoff visits have resulted in first-round losses, with 15 seasons in between them where Washington failed to get into the playoffs, which actually group into seven and eight consecutive.

While many were cracking jokes at the Atlanta Hawks for not making the playoffs for eight consecutive years, the Washington Wizards may be one of the worst current franchises in NBA history. Atlanta had three 50-win seasons in the 90’s, stayed fairly healthy, and found their way out of the first round four times since 1993.

With a record of 9-33, Arenas missing another season, a new coach and absolutely nowhere else to go but up, it’s probably time to rebuild. Ship out the big contracts, keep the young talent, and bring in fresh and healthy faces, ready to put out effort on both offense and defense. The Washington fans deserve more than a repeat of what happened to the basketball fans in New York, and sadly enough, this is where the road begins in that destination to nowhere.

http://www.otrbasketball.com/forums/ind ... opic=55711

Nice article, Real Deal.

After reading it my thoughts are that Haywood's loss is what killed them this season. Butler's played like a scrub defensively and has been much less effective offensively than last season. He and Jamison's defensive woes without Haywood makes both guys extremely culpable for the Wizards' record this season. Jamsion's played extremely hard and hasn't regressed offensively or defensivvely. He's always been a woeful defender, but at least he's bringing it consistently offensively and on the boards. Just, without Haywood and with young bigs (not scrubs IMO) the defense is epically bad.

Real Deal, I feel you on Arenas. Just that over the past couple seasons he's been too injured to trade but when he was healthy he was near-MVP good. They could have signed and traded him when he opted out, however, I suggested at the time I thought it would have been a decent option. That or simply letting him walk and starting over without him, in light of the fact they made it to round one of the playoffs without him. I credit you with pointing out that they've never won more than 45 games with Gil, Real Deal. I think the team won't ever go far in the playoffs without a horse, go-to scorer in the paint. Giving Gil all that money and commiting long-term to Jamison as starting PF made me wonder a bit if they thought it through well enough. I thought they were more concerned with maintaining status quo and marketing Gil's image than truly winning in the playoffs.

I agree with you, Real Deal, that this team needs to make some trades, but just don't see how they can do so until they get both Gil and Brendan back. The Wiz do need to package players with big contracts. I think they'll need to get a bigger player at PF to go to the next level. (I could see Jamison at SF). They could opt to trade for a superstar SG down the road, IMO.

I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

In fact, look at Orlando and what they are doing with Hedo. Howard's defense has been nothing short of spectacular, which gives Hedo room to roam and knock down threes. It may hurt them in the playoffs, that they don't have a true post presence at the power forward spot, but all teams have problems here and there, and those are things you can overcome.

You're right in saying that Caron doesn't play defense. He was the Lakers' matador for quite some time (I know this because I couldn't wait to trade him, just not for Kwame). But...you could definitely use him on offense, and if you could give him a true point guard and a slashing shooting guard, you'll have a reason to go to him deep in the game, granted that you won't have to use him for all of 48 minutes a night.

Just experimenting here, but a starting five of Caron, Jamison, Marc Gasol, Young and someone like Hinrich would be pretty exciting to watch. I'm not sure if that would get what you want accomplished, but it's just an example of what I would look to do at this time, and shoot for that advanced shooting guard down the road (and yes, getting Gasol and Hinrich would be near impossible with who you have available, but again, it's just an example).

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

Credibility lost. It was nicely written, but I disagree with the basic premise. But your comment about Haywood reveals your ignorance on the overall topic.

Good article.

Prime candidates for a trade are Jamison and Blatche. Jamison, because as long ago as my very first post on this board 4 years ago I said he would help restore this franchise to .500 ball and respectability but then his utter lack of D would kill us by setting the wrong example for everyone else on the squad. AJ's an excellent scorer. Period. He doesn't do much else. Time to ship him. I'd look at teams in contention, especially one looking to up their armaments to compete with the Lakers or Celtics.

Why Blatche? Because plainly he doesn't give a ****. At least here in DC. I bet his talents would blossom with a change of scenery, but I've given up on it happening here. I'm much higher on McGee.

I'm just sorry we didn't make moves 1-2 seasons ago when we were dealing from a position of relative strength. Now if we rebuild, every GM in the league knows we are over the barrel. The Wiz will only get offers at 50 cents on the dollar for any of our guys.

That may mean we need to think even bigger to bring back real talent. What about sending Gil and Blatche for Amare amd Barbosa? We'd have to wait till Gil's BYC status ends, but I could see Phoenix detonating its team in the next year or two. It doesn't look like they can win a ring, and Nash/Shaq are getting old.

The Orlando comparison is an interesting one because that was also a situation where they had an injured star (Hill) and still enough talent in McGrady to make the playoffs but couldn't get out of the first round. And they decided to blow it up and start over.

What's even more interesting IMO is that the Wizards are much farther along when it comes to young talent than Orlando was immediately after the TMac deal. If we get the right guy in the lottery we could rebound even faster.

But the main difference between us and Orlando is that when they dealt McGrady they also had Hill's deal expiring soon after. We could deal both Butler and Jamison but we'd still be saddled with Gil's contract for another 5 seasons.

At this point, the minute Gilbert appears to have a pulse, we may very well need to ship him off for pennies on the dollar. Gilbert straight up for RLEC is not unpalatable at this point. I think he could become a star again, but even if he does, we need the flexibility to make the moves needed to rebuild this team.

At the very least, I'd only keep one of the "Big 3" - or rather, either only Butler or only Arenas.

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

In fact, look at Orlando and what they are doing with Hedo. Howard's defense has been nothing short of spectacular, which gives Hedo room to roam and knock down threes. It may hurt them in the playoffs, that they don't have a true post presence at the power forward spot, but all teams have problems here and there, and those are things you can overcome.

You're right in saying that Caron doesn't play defense. He was the Lakers' matador for quite some time (I know this because I couldn't wait to trade him, just not for Kwame). But...you could definitely use him on offense, and if you could give him a true point guard and a slashing shooting guard, you'll have a reason to go to him deep in the game, granted that you won't have to use him for all of 48 minutes a night.

Just experimenting here, but a starting five of Caron, Jamison, Marc Gasol, Young and someone like Hinrich would be pretty exciting to watch. I'm not sure if that would get what you want accomplished, but it's just an example of what I would look to do at this time, and shoot for that advanced shooting guard down the road (and yes, getting Gasol and Hinrich would be near impossible with who you have available, but again, it's just an example).

This is stuff we has been talked about for some time. We could have done something with AJs contract 2 years ago when it was expiring at 16M and we could have done the same with GA as it was expiring.

AJ's contract sucks.
GAs sucks also if he is going to be a shoot first ball in hand SG playing PG
CB and AJ are both tweaners who best fit at SF
Haywood is the least of our worries. He is a solid center. No problem there. Great contract.
Blatche is a young talented PF playing Center who doesn't have enough heart/toughness yet.

If healthy, we would be good but as constructed, we wouldn't be great and the contracts for GA, AJ, and CB don't work in total for what we need.

The team has 2 tough mature leaders in CB and AJ. I'd put Haywood in that category now also. After that, there is a huge drop off. DS is a mature person but has some limits to his game. Good role player on the right team. To bad he can't hit a 3 or he would be really nice. Dixon is mature and hard nosed also but he doesn't play.

GA is a a flake
DS is a loser punk
NY is a kid
Blatche is a goofy kid
DMAC is a focused kid
McGee is a rubber man kid
OP is a kid
Crit is a kid
James is pretty ok maturity wise I guess but limited game

This team simply has to many immature people or kids. Not enough - Eye of the Tiger tough focused talent.

fishercob wrote:

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

Credibility lost. It was nicely written, but I disagree with the basic premise. But your comment about Haywood reveals your ignorance on the overall topic.

I hope you're not trying to tell me that you want Haywood to be your defensive anchor. Aside from being one of the leaders in some of your perspectives, that doesn't make him a great defensive player. Shot-blocking isn't all there is to defense.

If my "ignorance" to the Wizards (who, like every team, I have watched for the last three years with League Pass, because basketball is my life) is crippling enough for me to misunderstand Haywood's role on this team as a defensive anchor, then I really don't know what he is to you guys. Furthermore, if you think for a second that Haywood can be a defensive anchor for a contending team, maybe it's you that isn't watching his games.

Real Deal wrote:

fishercob wrote:

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

Credibility lost. It was nicely written, but I disagree with the basic premise. But your comment about Haywood reveals your ignorance on the overall topic.

I hope you're not trying to tell me that you want Haywood to be your defensive anchor. Aside from being one of the leaders in some of your perspectives, that doesn't make him a great defensive player. Shot-blocking isn't all there is to defense.

If my "ignorance" to the Wizards (who, like every team, I have watched for the last three years with League Pass, because basketball is my life) is crippling enough for me to misunderstand Haywood's role on this team as a defensive anchor, then I really don't know what he is to you guys. Furthermore, if you think for a second that Haywood can be a defensive anchor for a contending team, maybe it's you that isn't watching his games.

You were doing pretty well until you started talking about Haywood. He is one of the best defensive bigs in the Association. In the Wiz playoff run the last few seasons - they never would have made it to the playoffs with an average defensive center. Pretty much the entire team was terrible defensively - except for Haywood. As a comparison - with Etan Thomas and various backups at center, the Wiz were the worst defensive team in the Association. With Haywood, they were somewhere in the 15th - 20th range. Don't take our word for it - look at the +/- defensive numbers on 82games.com for the previous 4 years. WizardKev, probably the smartest analyst used by RealGM over the years, did an exhaustive analysis showing Haywood's tremendous defensive effect on the Wiz one year. The Wiz miss him arguably just as much as they miss Arenas.

I tried to find "The Haywood Defense" thread but it appears it was lost during the upgrade.

No worries though, for as many times as nate33 has educated RealGMers on Big Wood, he probably can recite all the info contained in that thread in his sleep by now.

Cue Nate in 3.....2.......1.....

fishercob wrote:

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

Credibility lost. It was nicely written, but I disagree with the basic premise. But your comment about Haywood reveals your ignorance on the overall topic.

I agree with Real Deal to a certain extent. Although Haywood isn't a bumb in the middle, he's certainly not some great defensive presence in the middle, he's good, that's it. Haywood was here for years while teams consistently got in the paint against us, even last season against Cleveland in the playoffs. I really think people on this board have a tendency to hype the hell out of some of the talent on this team. Now, obviously the team sucks without him in the middle, but I think part of that is that the other bigs have no clue what their doing on the floor. Again, Haywood is a good defensive center, but he can't control the paint by himself like some others. Remember, although he isn't here this year and we suck, he was here last year and the year before that and the year before that.......and we still sucked at protecting the paint. We just didn't suck as bad. Just like the rest of the bigs on this team he isn't tough. I think that type of center could work beside a Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett, but he can't make up for Jamison because he isn't a real tough guy in the middle. He's a good center, but he is really over hyped on this board. However, I'm not saying trade him or anything because we have nothing else. He keeps great position in the paint and knows where to be and knows what he's doing, but he's not a one man wrecking crew down there and will still have PG's drive down the lane on him uncontested.

Again, I'm not advocating getting rid of him or anything and I think he's the least of our problems but I do think he's a bit over valued by some on this board, he's a good center with a great contract. THATS IT. His best attributes are getting good position and knowing what the hell he's doing. But he's an average shot blocker for a 7'0 260 center and an average rebounder for someone that size.

You can certainly argue against Haywood as much as you'd like, but I think you'll find that there are few (if any) topics where the board's opinions are close to unanimous on than Haywood's defensive prowess, so I wouldn't expect to convince many that he's the problem.

Ced67 wrote:Again, Haywood is a good defensive center, but he can't control the paint by himself like some others.

Because of rule changes a few years ago - defensive 3 seconds and hand-checking/forearm checking - the game has changed quite a bit, and it's pretty much impossible for any center to control the paint by himself. Just wondering - what centers do you think can do that?

hands11 wrote:

Real Deal wrote:I think that the Wizards just putting a defensive presence in the paint is the first priority. As you said, moving Jamison down to the three -- that's a must, if you guys are keeping him, but you CAN get away with having him play the four if you bring in a defensive-minded center. Haywood, to me, just doesn't fit that bill. He's not the type of player you want to anchor your defense around.

In fact, look at Orlando and what they are doing with Hedo. Howard's defense has been nothing short of spectacular, which gives Hedo room to roam and knock down threes. It may hurt them in the playoffs, that they don't have a true post presence at the power forward spot, but all teams have problems here and there, and those are things you can overcome.

You're right in saying that Caron doesn't play defense. He was the Lakers' matador for quite some time (I know this because I couldn't wait to trade him, just not for Kwame). But...you could definitely use him on offense, and if you could give him a true point guard and a slashing shooting guard, you'll have a reason to go to him deep in the game, granted that you won't have to use him for all of 48 minutes a night.

Just experimenting here, but a starting five of Caron, Jamison, Marc Gasol, Young and someone like Hinrich would be pretty exciting to watch. I'm not sure if that would get what you want accomplished, but it's just an example of what I would look to do at this time, and shoot for that advanced shooting guard down the road (and yes, getting Gasol and Hinrich would be near impossible with who you have available, but again, it's just an example).

This is stuff we has been talked about for some time. We could have done something with AJs contract 2 years ago when it was expiring at 16M and we could have done the same with GA as it was expiring.

AJ's contract sucks.
GAs sucks also if he is going to be a shoot first ball in hand SG playing PG
CB and AJ are both tweaners who best fit at SF
Haywood is the least of our worries. He is a solid center. No problem there. Great contract.
Blatche is a young talented PF playing Center who doesn't have enough heart/toughness yet.

If healthy, we would be good but as constructed, we wouldn't be great and the contracts for GA, AJ, and CB don't work in total for what we need.

The team has 2 tough mature leaders in CB and AJ. I'd put Haywood in that category now also. After that, there is a huge drop off. DS is a mature person but has some limits to his game. Good role player on the right team. To bad he can't hit a 3 or he would be really nice. Dixon is mature and hard nosed also but he doesn't play.

GA is a a flake
DS is a loser punk
NY is a kid
Blatche is a goofy kid
DMAC is a focused kid
McGee is a rubber man kid
OP is a kid
Crit is a kid
James is pretty ok maturity wise I guess but limited game

This team simply has to many immature people or kids. Not enough - Eye of the Tiger tough focused talent.

WOW, Im shocked someone agrees with me on Gil and the young talent on this team. Immature is the key word. Just because your young doesn't mean you have to be immature and just because you old like Gil doesn't mean you're a mature vet. Look at guys like Brandon Roy and Rodney Stuckey, you could swear these guys are like 6 yr pros. Ive always thought that if Gil played like a 2 but occupied the PG position this team would never get as far as they thought, he needs a PG beside him or at least someone like Hedo Turkoglue or Lamar Odom at the 3 who can handle the ball and run the offense allowing Gil to be the 2 guard that he is. Caron, AJ and Haywood are the closest to actually being mature on this team, everyone else has a bunch of question marks. But I am starting to really like McGuire.

Ced67 wrote:Again, I'm not advocating getting rid of him or anything and I think he's the least of our problems but I do think he's a bit over valued by some on this board, he's a good center with a great contract. THATS IT. His best attributes are getting good position and knowing what the hell he's doing. But he's an average shot blocker for a 7'0 260 center and an average rebounder for someone that size.

I think you're making the mistake of looking at Haywood's per game averages. You have to look at his pace-adjusted per 40 numbers to really compare him with the rest of the league. The top shot blockers and rebounders in the league all played 8-10 minutes per game more than Haywood typically did under the EJ regime. Last year, when Haywood finally got starter quality minutes, he had career numbers and almost averaged a double-double for most of the year. The analysis that nate and Kev did showed that Haywood didn't get better - he just got more minutes (meaning he could have been having years like that all along).

In addition, Haywood is one of the few players in the league who can guard elite PF/C players one-on-one and hold them to their averages. When Wood is healthy, the Wizards never have to double guys like Duncan, Yao, Garnett, or Brand because Haywood is such a good individual defender. Anybody with hops and timing can block shots (see Josh Smith) but there aren't many quality man-on-man defenders in the NBA anymore, least of all at the C position.

Haywood is in the mold of guys like Bill Cartwright - not stat stuffers but quality big men who can be integral parts of very good NBA teams. To say otherwise means that you're basing your opinion on what the talking heads say and not on actual facts.

Ruzious wrote:

Ced67 wrote:Again, Haywood is a good defensive center, but he can't control the paint by himself like some others.

Because of rule changes a few years ago - defensive 3 seconds and hand-checking/forearm checking - the game has changed quite a bit, and it's pretty much impossible for any center to control the paint by himself. Just wondering - what centers do you think can do that?

Ruzious, Im not gonna sit hear and lie and there's a huge list of great center because in today's game because there arent. All the 7 footer's who 15 years ago would have been brought up to be centers are now groomed to be finesse PF's.

I guess my original point was that Haywood's good but not good enough to make up for AJ on defense. I said in another thread a few days ago that the perfect compliment to Jamsion would be Duncan or Howard. Yeah...There aren't to many of those guys. Thats why Im not advocating letting him go, because the crop of centers in this league are terrible. I still don't think he's some great defensive Center because there arent many. If you want to say he's a top 10 defensive Center go right ahead because you're right, but there is a lot of room between the top dogs like Duncan and Howard, and guys like Haywood and Dalembert.

LyricalRico wrote:

Ced67 wrote:Again, I'm not advocating getting rid of him or anything and I think he's the least of our problems but I do think he's a bit over valued by some on this board, he's a good center with a great contract. THATS IT. His best attributes are getting good position and knowing what the hell he's doing. But he's an average shot blocker for a 7'0 260 center and an average rebounder for someone that size.

I think you're making the mistake of looking at Haywood's per game averages. You have to look at his pace-adjusted per 40 numbers to really compare him with the rest of the league. The top shot blockers and rebounders in the league all played 8-10 minutes per game more than Haywood typically did under the EJ regime. Last year, when Haywood finally got starter quality minutes, he had career numbers and almost averaged a double-double for most of the year. The analysis that nate and Kev did showed that Haywood didn't get better - he just got more minutes (meaning he could have been having years like that all along).

In addition, Haywood is one of the few players in the league who can guard elite PF/C players one-on-one and hold them to their averages. When Wood is healthy, the Wizards never have to double guys like Duncan, Yao, Garnett, or Brand because Haywood is such a good individual defender. Anybody with hops and timing can block shots (see Josh Smith) but there aren't many quality man-on-man defenders in the NBA anymore, least of all at the C position.

Haywood is in the mold of guys like Bill Cartwright - not stat stuffers but quality big men who can be integral parts of very good NBA teams. To say otherwise means that you're basing your opinion on what the talking heads say and not on actual facts.

You're absolutely right. I agree with that 100%. You don't have to double when he's on the floor and you can't say that about many guys in the league. But more of what I was saying is that he can't makeup solely for Jamison's flaws like a Dwight Howard, so I'd be hesitant to say that he's a great defensive center. But I will say that he is a good, solid center and ive said that he gets and holds great position in the paint. But he's not a tough guy who closes off the paint also. Again, I dont want to get rid of him or anything because there's nothing else out there. Guards routinely got into the paint on this team and we where still forced to play the asinine "protect the paint defense." As stupid as it was, there was a reason for it. He's a great position defender but he's not going to dominate the paint to allow a guy like Jamison to float outside. If anything, its more Jamison than Haywood obviously. But I was going on the premise from the first post of keeping Jamison which I don't agree with myself, I also don't agree with Blatche starting at the 4 either, but thats an argument for another thread.

Ced67 wrote:But more of what I was saying is that he can't makeup solely for Jamison's flaws like a Dwight Howard, so I'd be hesitant to say that he's a great defensive center.

Oh yeah, Howard >>>>>>> Haywood. We definitely agree on that.

My only rebuttle is that using the argument "Haywood isn't as good as Dwight Howard" to prove that Haywood isn't a great center is like saying that Reggie Miller wasn't a great player because he wasn't as good as Michael Jordan. Just because a guy isn't the absolute best at his position doesn't mean he isn't in the top tier. And the numbers show that in today's NBA (with the changes in rules and player styles) Haywood is in the top tier of big man defenders.

And really this could come down to semantics in that we may have different definitions of the word "great". I use that word in a relative sense based on a players performance with his immediate peers. Now if you're talking "great" as it relates to the pantheon of NBA big men then no, I don't put Haywood in that category.