Reality Check! They aren't who we thought they were.

[Dat2U]

Yeah, i know its only 6 games into the season, but there are some troubling signs that the roster EG put together isn't as solid as many believed.

1. We aren't as deep as initally thought

This is not a deep team. When totally healthy, we have 8 credible NBA players on the roster. That's good enough to fill out a tight rotation. But there's no depth to sustain injury just like in the past. We see that now with Jamison & Miller being out. Arenas, Foye, Butler, Blatche, Haywood & Oberto are the other 6.

It's not my opinion, but fact... you cannot count on the other 7 players on the roster.

I have alot of hope for Javale McGee but he's not close yet. Although he's a total defensive sieve and practically clueless, his upside is undeniable and his talent is good enough to postively impact games at times despite being so raw. He's the only one of the 7 I'd keep.

The remaining six players are dead weight on the roster. James, Stevenson, Young, Crittenton, McGuire & Davis. You put any of these guys in the game, your likely to hurt the team. Stevenson is an overrated defender and one of the worst offensive SGs in NBA history. Young is too dumb to ever be more than a one-trick scorer. McGuire doesn't appear to be able to develop enough skill to be credible offensively. Critt hasn't really gotten a chance this year but past results don't give me much optimism. And we all watched enough of Mike James to see what he brings to the table.

That points to a more specific problem. Outside of Arenas, Foye is the only true guard on the roster that can be relied upon to produce. Miller can play G as well but is natural SF who struggles to defend quicker players. With Miller out, were forced to play one our ineffective backup Gs which is bad news. If we lose Gil to injury, its definitely over for the Wiz.

2. We still don't play defense.

Not much to be said here, but we still fail to close out on shooters and we still allow dribble drive penetration to the basket. Having Wood back helps, but after seeing CDR get a career high against us and then watch Wade torch us for 41.

I know EJ was part of the problem and I definitely blamed him for it. But the other part falls on the players, outside of Wood & maybe Oberto, I'm not sure if any other our top 8 (not including DS or Dom) care much for defense. And outside of Wood, Gil & Blatche, I'm not sure if any others are capable of effectively defending their position. This needs to fall on EG. He drafted, traded or re-signed every player on our current roster.

3. This isn't 06-07 anymore

It's time to stop living in the past. And I'm not just talking to you all. The front office needs to hear it too. We are not in 1st place and the East is totally different from 3 years ago. Boston & Orlando are league powers now. Cleveland is a proven contender. Atlanta is a proven playoff tested team. Chicago is young and improving, etc, etc.... It goes on and on. The East at that time was historically weak. That is no longer the case. The Wizards refer to one week in January '07 where they were in first place and getting back to that point while all other teams are focused on 09-10 and moving forward.

It's time to evaluate the core for what it is. Not what it could be if everyone was healthy. I know what someone will inevitably type: Lets wait to Jamison & Miller get healthy and give them some time to learn system because we have a new coach and new players. I call bullshxt to that because at some point the injury excuse is no longer an excuse, its an injury problem and it will remain a problem as long as this core is here. Some guys just can't stay healthy. Once Jamison and/or Miller are healthy, someone else will get hurt. Do we say well, lets wait another 20 games until we get X player back? I'd say no, because we've said for 3 years now, lets wait until we get X player back. At some point you have to move forward and not be trapped by the past and present.

Secondly, it shouldn't take half a damn season for teams to learn a new system or new players. This ain't EJ's complicated Princeton offense that has to be learned. By all accounts, things have been simplified on both sides of the ball, especially defensively where EJ used all sorts of complicated junk defenses to try to cover up defiencies. Sure, I don't expect miracles overnight but right now, based on what we've seen thus far, there's been little improvement.

I'm not ready to say blow everything up just yet, but I'm hard pressed to believe that this is a team that's ready to contend, even 6 months from now.

[Kanyewest]

I thought the Wizards would be a middle of the pack team with Jamison out of the lineup before the season. Sure Blatche can fill up the score sheet and play decent man to man defense. However, Jamison is more consistent than Blatche and was by far the team's best overall rebounder going into the season.

Mike Miller's injury has made the problems worse. He was the glue guy who help continue ball movement. He helped on the boards and he spread the court for his teammates when he was on the floor.

Butler's struggles are a bit surprising. I believe Butler has struggled mightily in the beginning of the last 3 seasons with the Wizards. Still, it is entirely possible (although I'm not ready to accept or believe it) that Butler's high productivity was the result of Eddie Jordan's offense, much like Larry Hughes stint in Washington. Or like Arenas, maybe Butler plays much better with Jamison.

Gilbert Arenas speed is back. But he's still very rusty with other aspects of his game. It kind of reminds of when Kobe came back in the 2005-06 season from a knee surgery and struggled a bit to get his game back. As long as Arenas has no major setbacks in terms of injuries, I'm pretty confident he can reach that echelon of a top 10 player by midseason. But in the past 5-6 games, I would question if Gilbert is even a top 20 player by his performance.

I agree that Orlando and Boston are well ahead of us. But Cleveland and Chicago if we're healthy? I don't know. I think you are underestimating how important of a piece Jamison is. There's a good chance that the Wizards could have 2-3 more wins if Jamison was healthy. I agree that guys like Young and McGee haven't panned out like they thought they would, although there were certainly signals that's how it would turn out in summer league and preseason.

Overall, the Wizards could still finish with 43-46 wins, but be playing like a 50 win going into the postseason.

[no D in Hibachi]

Great post Dat. I'm affraid the Wiz will play the whole wait and see thing the entire season. I doubt there will be a shake up until next summer, if there is. EG has held true to this course for too long to blow it up once everyone is "healthy". Now its an ego thing, a told you so thing, but its ultimately going to get him fired. Realistically speaking the Wiz need to either shxt or get off the pot by the trade deadline. This whole Arenas/Jamison/Butler thing isn't working and if they don't show a pulse by January I just don't see anything changing. I can't remember which ESPN analyst said it, but he refered to the Wiz as delusional for thinking they could compete with a core of Arenas/Butler/Jamison. Maybe he's right. It's a damn shame that the Wiz wasted a top five pick to roll the dice this season.

Here are a couple quick thoughts I have for a couple players thus far.

Butler - He is getting less valuable by the game. His game has deteriorated and it seems like he's lost his drive to be an above average player. I don't see the effort and since he's undersized and not very quick if he's not giving 100% effort then he's just ordinary. It's hard cheering for him when he's coasting.

Foye - I'm totally amazed how he was a high lotto pick. He has no size, he's not explosive, he's not overly quick, doesn't look like he has the ability to just will himself to the cup. Every game I get more annoyed that EG gave up a high lotto pick for a one year rental of this.

DMac - No skill, not a good defender, will be out of the league after this season.

N1 - Most disappointing player of the season, I find it funny that Flip said N1 showed the most progress over the summer time, but has completely regressed in everything this season.

That said the season is young; however, the ship doesn't appear as though it's turned around after the awful season of last year. It seems as though it's still moving in the same direction. I hope they prove me wrong, but the signs are there--I saw them last year and I'm seeing it again. Gosh! why is it that DC sports suck so bad! What have we done to deserve this? I'm just going to blame it all on Daniel Snyder

[Bickerstaff]

I wouldn't want to be in a bunker with any one of you.

[TAI8]

Are Wizards fans always this pessimistic?

[truwizfan4evr]

pointless thread wiz still has a chance too be real good.

[Dat2U]

I wouldn't want to be in a bunker with any one of you.

And I wouldn't want to be in a bunker with half of you either. You'd probably get too settled and content to leave bunker and eventually get blown up.

And please read what I'm saying. I'm basically saying what I thought in the offseason. This isn't some overreaction to one game or six games. It's about a firmly held belief that's only grown stronger since the regular season began. It's about watching what this core has done for 4+ seasons.

You guys know what? I bet the Wizards will come out against Phoenix and play their best game of the year after the debacle against Indiana. And in the short term we'll all feel better and some may even take a shot at what was written in this thread. That's fine, but long term the comments above still remain. We aren't deep. That's not changing unless trade is made or a light comes on for Young/McGee in the next few weeks (unlikely). We don't play defense. There's been no evidence of that suddenly turning around for us. And Jamison & Miller returning won't help that aspect. And were still waiting on a healthy core of Gil, Caron & Antawn to lead us to something more than a playoff warm-up for Cleveland or another power.

[Ji]

We should of never done the trade...We still should of picked Rubio or someone else from what is looking like a decent draft

This season was done for me when we lost out on our future...Blake Griffen

[truwizfan4evr]

ji we will be alright i expect us 2 go on a big run.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

What happened to the folks who said they expected us to be shaky starting out because integrating gil plus getting used to Flip would take a month or two? Although I am surprised at the club's mental weakness, but I'm also surprised that the zards seem to be the target of bad reffing more often than not. Didn't watch the indian game so I have no idea whether reffing was a problem there or if the zards just laid an egg.

[fishercob]

Meh. They ARE who we thought they were. No one expected them to storm out of the gate with a brand new team against a brutal early schedule and light the league on fire. Injuries compounded the problem and the injuries were terrible luck -- freak occurrences to otherwise durable players. (The bad luck is a pattern and may be a sign that God hates us, but that's another thread). There is plenty of reason to believe they'll be playing their best basketball when it matters. As I said when I predicted 50 wins, a 4-10 start is a possibility.

As to the "the still don't play defense" theorem, I believe the evidence points to the contrary. I think the defense is improved, and once we've got the right people playing the right roles and have had more time in the system, there is reason to believe the defense can be good, certainly passable.

As to the front office and long term stuff, I see good things on the horizon. Mike Miller is better than everyone here expected him to be. If he's a significantly better small forward than he is a 2-guard (and can be re-signed for a better value than an extended Butler), then that frees up a huge trade chip. In a lot of our summer trade speculation the M.O. was to combine Jamison and youth for some kind of stud, and the CW was that moving Caron did was implausible. Well, if MM is a better fit for the hawk and this squad, Caron becomes a great chip when combined w/some young talent and salary filler.

I'm not panicking yet. I'm distraught over our injury luck, but that's another story.

[nate33]

On depth:

We are deep in our top 7. That is, our 6th and 7th best players (Blatche and Foye) are better than the 6th and 7th best players on most teams. I agree that there is a substantial drop off after that. Our 8th best player, Oberto, is no better than the 8th best player on most teams. Our 9 and 10, McGee and Stevenson, are probably a bit worse than the 9 and 10 on most teams. Our 11-15 players (McGuire, Young, James, Crittenton, Davis) all suck horribly.

On defense:

Believe or not, we are getting better. Our defensive rating is 17th and we rank 9th in opponent eFG%. And this despite quite a few system breakdowns because guys are still learning the system. And clearly, Flip cares more about defense because he lets Haywood play more minutes and steadfastly refuses to go with small ball. If you had told me at the start of the season that we would have the 17th best defense in the league, I think I would have been fairly happy. Of course, it remains to be seen whether that defensive rating will hold up once Jamison gets back.

On the competition:

I agree that the competition is better. Also, we have played the hardest strength of schedule of any team in the league so far.

Bottom line:

I'm not worried yet. The way I see it, prior to the Indy game, we were doing just fine. We stole one win in Dallas and blew one at home against Miami. So as of Saturday morning, there wasn't much to complain about. We were playing in line with expectations. I agree that Saturday in Indiana was a disaster worth ranting and raving about. And by all accounts, there was a lot of ranting and raving by Flip and Jamison. We'll see if we can bounce back.

[closg00]

I believe we will get-it-together to be competitive, the problem is that if it takes too-long, we will be chasing the 7th or 8th seed only. There is also the hope of a trade to get-rid of the "dead-weight", and we have a lot of it.

Ps. I'm glad we didn't pick-up Foye, I can see why Minny flushed him, he's just an OK player with not much athleticism. There will be plenty of 2nd-round bubble players that can do what Foye is doing for cheaper next year. Don't over-pay for bench SG, that is the lesson from the DeSuck debacle.

[LyricalRico]

Meh. They ARE who we thought they were. No one expected them to storm out of the gate with a brand new team against a brutal early schedule and light the league on fire. Injuries compounded the problem and the injuries were terrible luck -- freak occurrences to otherwise durable players. (The bad luck is a pattern and may be a sign that God hates us, but that's another thread). There is plenty of reason to believe they'll be playing their best basketball when it matters. As I said when I predicted 50 wins, a 4-10 start is a possibility.

As to the "the still don't play defense" theorem, I believe the evidence points to the contrary. I think the defense is improved, and once we've got the right people playing the right roles and have had more time in the system, there is reason to believe the defense can be good, certainly passable.

As to the front office and long term stuff, I see good things on the horizon. Mike Miller is better than everyone here expected him to be. If he's a significantly better small forward than he is a 2-guard (and can be re-signed for a better value than an extended Butler), then that frees up a huge trade chip. In a lot of our summer trade speculation the M.O. was to combine Jamison and youth for some kind of stud, and the CW was that moving Caron did was implausible. Well, if MM is a better fit for the hawk and this squad, Caron becomes a great chip when combined w/some young talent and salary filler.

I'm not panicking yet. I'm distraught over our injury luck, but that's another story.

Here's all that needs to happen to get us looking like a 50 win team: 1) Jamison and Miller come back healthy, and 2) we package Butler with whoever else from the list of guys who aren't helping in a trade for a starting SG and a solid reserve swingman - both of whom can defend. Those two things literally solve 90% of our problems.

This team isn't the Redskins who have too many holes to count and problems all the way up the chain of command. This team has a lot of stuff needed to win in the NBA already in place. We only need a little bit more and it will all come together. I may gripe during the individual game chats, but I'm still willing to be patient on the season as a whole.

That being said, if this team has the same problems at the trade deadline but Grunfeld does nothing - I'll have my torch and pitchfork out with the rest of you.

[Rafael122]

This is why I said we'd probably win 37 games. We'll probably win more than that, but on paper, yes this is a 50 win team. ON PAPER, and that's when everything comes together, and everyone is clicking.

[MF23]

This is a bit of an over reaction. Caron has played poorly probably because he's still banged up. Gil is overcompensating on offense because Caron hasn't taken his game to the level of play from the past 2 seasons.

Defensively the effort has improved but it's inconsistent.

There has been too much standing around and watching the player with the ball at times.

One thing I will say is Blatches attitude has really been impressive. I believe he's changed and later on that could be the x-factor for this team.

This team will be fine. They are weak on leadership so this start doesn't surprise me. A lot of teams don't have someone who will push everyone but you can hope Arenas can learn from the staff how players like Billups do it.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Reality Check! The season just started, players are getting used to the system. We look 100x better on defense than we ever have in the past five years and the offense will get going with either Miller or Jamison returning and Caron deciding to wake up.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

This is why I said we'd probably win 37 games. We'll probably win more than that, but on paper, yes this is a 50 win team. ON PAPER, and that's when everything comes together, and everyone is clicking.

I said 38 wins. They are cursed of injuries. That's what they are so far. They are who I thought they'd be.

Honestly, this team looked great against Dallas and New Jersey, and for one quarter against Cleveland (in a game the refs cheated them). They were very competitive til the end against Miami. That's virtually half the young season. Miller's injury has been the let down. The latest injury and the team's complete meltdowns, lack of fire, overall softness, and the negative vibe I get from them has me feeling the team's looking like a hot and cold bunch that will fight for the eighth spot and not go far if they make the playoffs at all.

The thing I'm seeing early is Flip isn't the coach I thought he'd be. When Flip trots out James, Stevenson, and Oberto and leaves talented young players on the bench; I don't think he's a good a coach as I'd hoped. McGee is raw but very predictable. He and McGuire couldn't foul as much as Oberto if they tried. Dom can give you boards and hustle in place of DeShawn. McGuire wouldn't hurt the team as much as Butler has forcing things. Flip has made them and Young suck but the way he gives them the hook. He's as bad or worst than EJ in favoring veterans.

It is very early. But I don't see Flip winning a thing favoring Oberto, Stevenson, and James over McGee, McGuire, and Stevenson. The reason I don't like the older veterans is they lack quickness and athleticism. They don't finish well. Stevenson can't shoot (nor can Dom, but Dom's a better rebounder who brings size at SG/SF.) I'd just as soon see McGee making plays than what Flip prefers.

[dlts20]

1st time Ive been on here in ahwile and I saw what I expected to see. Everyone is panicing. I just dont get that. Here is what I wrote on another forum:

Im not upset at all and I think there is one excuse thats legit. If you watch us play right now, you can tell that we are not at the level of a bad team. You can tell when a team is bad and just not good enough but we look like a team that is just not in rythm at all. I think everyone is struggling with Flip's system right now and I still think he is hurting us by starting Oberto over Blatche because it completely throws off the O from the jump and its hard for them to recover.

On top of that Oberto gets 2 fouls quick every game anyways so why start him? He's so different from AJ. I love Oberto but he belongs on the bench espicaly when you knew AJ was going to miss 8 games or more. He should be starting. Again though, once we look comfortable in the system and still lose, thats when I will worry.

------------------------------------




Thats the way I truly feel. You guys really think Arenas is this bad? Our #1 problem right now is our O. You guys really think we are a horrible offensive team? Truth is we are probably one of the top Offenses if not the best in the league but right now we are total garbage. Thats why we have lost 3 straight. Thats nothing but rythm and trying to find our way in the new system. IDK if that will change today or not but one of these games we will get it back and it will roll again

[penbeast0]

I'm normally a glass half empty guy on the Wiz (based on many years of disappointment). I also like tough defensive, efficient offensive squads and so have never cared much for the Ernie era Wiz. I also thought the Foye/Miller deal was terrible; even worse than the Devin Harris deal that was also basically a deadwood/salary dump. But, there have been a few positive notes this season:

(1) Haywood is getting playing time and playing solidly on both ends.
(2) Blatche is playing with confidence -- (and needs to be since Oberto has looked pretty limited)
(3) Gil, while not hitting his shot consistently, is exploding past people and looks healthy, just rusty
(4) Jamison isn't a great player but he's a glue guy for this team and assuming it gets Oberto out of the rotation rather than getting Blatche out, his return will make a sizable difference.

There, that's my glass half full take . . . now I can go back to talking more on NBA history and the PC board again so I don't have to depress everyone around me.