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Im a big Boston fan but I also follow all the NBA closely.

Im interested what are the news out of Washington for this and upcoming season.

In my mind you have a very interesting team

3 great players:jamison, arenas, butler
2 solid veterans: haywood, stevenson
5 young prospects:mcgee, blatche, mcguire, young, crittenton

This is probably how you see your team longterm?

arenas/?
young/stevenson
butler/mcguire
jamison/blatche
haywood/mcgee

Having so bad season and picking high probably combo pg/sg is the way to go in draft.

Im interested do you think your management will stay put and wait till next season to see what is this team capable of...or maybe you will make some changes?

Greetings from boston

More than likely the Wizards will keep vets like Haywood, Jamison, and Butler until they see what Arenas looks like when he comes back from injury. I suspect all of the young guys can be had in a trade that nets the Wizards a solid piece and the Wizards could center a trade around Mike James and Etan Thomas who are expiring contracts. I could also see the Wizards trading the lottery pick for a well established veteran.

klemen4 wrote:Im a big Boston fan but I also follow all the NBA closely.

Im interested what are the news out of Washington for this and upcoming season.

In my mind you have a very interesting team

1 great player: arenas
2 wannabe allstars: butler, jamison
1 solid veteran: haywood
5 young prospects: mcgee, blatche, mcguire, young, crittenton

Edited for correctness.

Dat2U wrote:

klemen4 wrote:Im a big Boston fan but I also follow all the NBA closely.

Im interested what are the news out of Washington for this and upcoming season.

In my mind you have a very interesting team

1 great player: arenas
2 wannabe allstars: butler, jamison
1 solid veteran: haywood
5 young prospects: mcgee, blatche, mcguire, young, crittenton

Edited for correctness.

Dat you dont give props to Mr. Double/Double, Master of the flip shot.

Our mission now is to <See photo> and we did a great job last night.

You’ve caught me in a chatty mood so I’ll give you a little more than you probably wanted when you asked the question. Player-by-player here’s my assessment, and I do presume to speak for the entire Wizards fan base.

Gilbert: Our most talented player, and we probably forget at times how talented he is. That’s completely understandable when we haven’t been reminded in two years now. There are guys on the Wizards who would probably be more attractive hires to run a Wendy’s but professionalism doesn’t tighten coaching sphincters around the NBA like a guy who can take good shots from thirty feet away from the basket. His absence is also the primary source of our increasing reliance on the “can’t initiate the offense” set this year. Gil makes things easier for everyone on offense by being scary as much as he does with his much maligned point guard skills.

Antawn: The Captain, the professional, our rock on offense, and, well, a rock on defense. Antawn is as smart as anyone in the league as a scorer; he knows exactly what he’s capable of and gets away with some stuff he can’t just because no one knows how to defend against the dying swan shot from twelve feet out. Antawn works hard and provides an example for our younger players of what hard work can do for you, even against the best athletes in the world. I think he’s a little too comfortable with some of the veterans on the roster, and that it’s at his urging that some of the usual suspects on our roster see the floor more than we’d like. Antawn was is and always will be a disaster as a defender, to an extent that can’t entirely be accounted for with his poor physical tools. He looses his man on pick and rolls more than Darius Songaila, and I have no idea how anyone with a functional lower body could manage that if they were really trying. Whenever it comes time for Jamison and the Wizards to part ways we’ll thank him sincerely for his hard work and the pleasure of having let his personality reflect on the franchise, but we’ll move on, and at this point we’re ready to.

Caron: Another guy who’s both a big part of the team on the court and a big reason why the Wizards are in the league’s upper echelon of rosters you’d want to discover were booked to share a train car with you traveling cross country. Last year Caron was a revelation, he played out of his mind, and perhaps over his head. This year Caron is clearly frustrated and not handling the Wizards’ struggles very well. Too often he presses the issue on offense, holding the ball on offense and forcing up shots, he doesn’t seem to trust most of the roster to achieve a positive result if he gives up the ball. His effort on defense has also been uneven, and he’s not a player who can get away with lazy defense. Caron is still a very good player, and will be even better when he thinks the team has something to play for, which should be next year.

Brendan: Our defensive anchor. What Arenas does for our offense Haywood does for our defense, making things easier for everyone else on the floor. For what he does and what he’s paid he’s easily one of the better values in the NBA, and for a team like the Wizards what he does is of enormous value, with Haywood healthy the Wizards are a poor perimeter defensive team, in his absence we’ve become a generally bad defensive team. He’s not especially exciting offensively, but he’s not terrible, and a large part of the reason why the Wizards have recently been a surprisingly dangerous offensive rebounding team.

Andray: There are a few of us for whom the various trials and tribulations on and off the court that have been part of the Andray Blatche experience have been a poison, and there is no question that he has been the Wizards’ most frustrating player in recent years. Most of us, however, see Andray as a talented player and a good fit for our offensive system (or Eddie Jordan’s system that we have yet to scrap anyway) and nearly as underpaid as Haywood. Andray is far from perfect, and apparently spent the summer months drowning his sorrows in ice cream because he’s only now really in playing shape but he’s a good player, and he’s a much smarter player than he was coming into the league. It is absolutely imperative, however, that he quit it with those stupid little chin spike things he grows, it’s not like he’s such a beautiful man that stupid facial hair is a forgivable sin. Still the team leader in migraine inducing plays, but now sometimes he makes the shot anyway.

Nick Young: Terminally goofy. If Patch Adams had run into Young he’d have ditched the idea that everybody needs to lighten up pretty quick. Nick has the jump shot to drive even the best defender to distraction, but is far too limited a player for what he can do. Young needs to continue to work on his dribble, and to provide at least marginal effort as a rebounder in order to really become an asset to a good team. Stylistically I’m going to guess he spent a lot of time as a kid alone in a gym because he’s very uncomfortable shooting the ball without any dribble set up and doesn’t seem to like to shoot off of curls. If he ever does perfect his offense the results will be hilarious, as the experience of having watched him match Michael Redd in a shooting duel has already confirmed.

JaVale McGee: The Wizards seem to have generally made an effort to become more athletic in the past few years, and in adding McGee they took a major step. McGee so excites us because he contributes so much despite making every mistake you’d expect a raw rookie big man to make. His physical skill set and motor are so well matched that he can miss a rotation or fail to give up the ball on a fast break and still end up doing something spectacular. There are those among of who have their doubts about just about every player on the roster, but everybody wants to find out where JaVale is going to take us.

Dominic: Last year most of us were torn between approval of McGuire’s defensive ability and all around effort and despair over the horrors of his offensive game. We liked his ability to block shots and rebound, to actually stay in front of his man occasionally, but he was just so limited as a scorer that it wasn’t clear he had a place in the rotation, or in the NBA. This year he’s bad, but less disgustingly bad, and he’s getting better. So while the day he moves to the bench won’t see many tears from us, it is no longer worrying that he is allowed onto an NBA court. He can’t be much worse than Ared Effries at this point.

Darius: We don’t hate Darius so much as we hate how he’s used. Darius is a short, slow power forward frequently used as, but very poorly suited for use as, a center, especially when paired with Antawn Jamison. Darius is very smart, and doesn’t do anything to hurt himself offensively, and so would be an unremarkable if overpaid backup if he were limited to backing up Antawn. It is both amusing and frustrating to hear Tapscott offer up rationale for using him this way, but not amusing enough.

Stevenson: Stevenson has ascended to the rarefied heights of frustration once reserved for Jarvis Hayes and Michael Ruffin in the hearts of Wizards fans. We dread the day that he next takes a jump shot for this franchise. We do not, however, mind that he occasionally calls out LeBron James.

Etan: While not as bad as Stevenson, his contract is far more irksome and his minutes come at the expense of players (Haywood normally, McGee currently) that we desperately want to see on the floor. If the league gave everybody another shot at the Allan Houston rule Etan would be our target.

Crittenton: Seems big and quick and solid defensively. Is so reluctant to shoot that we’re a little baffled as to what has caused his scoring phobia. As soon as he realizes that we’re not about to yank him for missing a jumper when the alternative is several significantly less desirable shots by Mike James we’ll be happy to have him.

James: The knowledge that this man once averaged twenty points per gave over the course of a season is terrifying. So long as he only takes layups and shots that do not require movement prior to release we’re okay. I have no idea where the notion that he’s any kind of defender came from, though if every point guard in the league were a clone of Derek Fisher or better yet completely immobile he might be okay.

Pecherov: Seems to be able to shoot pretty well, and knows it. I am a little uncomfortable with the persona the Wizards seem to want him to adopt, though maybe he’s just being himself and he’d have been a clown if he wasn’t seven feet tall.

Dixon: Probably not much worse than Mikes James.

Anyway, going forward I think we’re generally looking for a complement to Arenas in the backcourt or, perhaps partially because of the number of intriguing forward prospects potentially in the upcoming draft, in a long term (or perhaps even immediate) replacement for Jamison.

Those players around whom we would prefer to build the team are:
PG: Arenas/Crittenton (what would dealing him even get us?)
SG: Young
SF: Butler/McGuire (again, we’re not turning down deals for Dominic left and right)
PF: Blatche
C: Haywood/McGee

There is a subset of fans here who think we should look to make like you guys and trade our youth for a big talent or two and go for broke, most of us seem to look forward to seeing a really talented rookie join this ensemble next year and for us to kick some surprised ass with what is really a pretty talented roster for such a doormat of a team. Anyone not that I didn't just name is probably available, and everyone but Jamison is probably still in DC only because removing them is beyond our power. With Antawn we're holding out hope that we can wrangle a pick or a real prospect as well as expiring contracts in a trade. Or management is so in love with him that we're stuck with him anyway.

If you don’t want to read every word of that just read starting at anyway, by the way.