RealGM

The last version seems to be 'topic not found' via the links thread, so let's go again.

This is the thread in which to say nice things about the Wizards. There are always plenty of doom and gloom threads, but this shall serve as sanctuary for your frayed nerves. In here all moves are part of the long term chess game that ends with a Wizards championship. All struggles serve only to temper the steel of the players.

Terms of service state that negative nancies should find another thread in which to ply their trade, on penalty of sanction or banishment by the God Mods. Herein you will follow the advice of your granny: say something nice or nothing at all.

Go Wiz!

Thanks for starting this up again, doc. I used to hate these threads cuz I preferred "all EJ bashing, all the time". But now I find myself on the other side - defending the coach. It's a little weird but I think I can get used to it.



I like what Flip has done with the defense. It's not specatular but they're still much improved because they are focusing on contesting shots instead of forcing turnovers at all costs. They'll get better at it as time goes on and should be solid for the playoffs. I also like the offensive principles are in place - ball movement, spacing, screen/roll. We just need the guys with the talent to properly execute them to get healthy. Again, they should be in a nice rhythm come playoff time.

Once everyone is back, I fully expect this team to go on a sustained run. It would be nice to win a couple more games while waiting for that but it's not the end of the world if we don't. I'm still very confident in my prediction of 45 wins and enough momentum at the end of the year to advance at least one round in the playoffs.

Go Wiz!

Doesn't help having Jamison and MM on the bench. Hope MM's ok. ASSUMING MM comes back soon then we should be ok.

Important to note during this early slide. The Wiz have played something like the 6th toughest strength of schedule of the young year, while missing a good portion of our ideal starting 5.

And in so doing have actually played reasonably decent defense. There are hopeful signs that the system can conceivably keep us at or above the middle of the pack on defense, with occasional stifling or smothering games on that end. When we can afford to play Big, the Brendan/Dray pairing sometimes looks quite good on the interior even though our exterior D occasionally falters.

The weakness right now lies in our offense. But that's entirely predictable. Been saying for a while that we're a jumpshooting team that will ultimately rely on execution and chemistry for success. That takes time and it takes a good mix of, you know, shooters. No question we'll struggle while either of our catch & shoot wing forwards are out.

We've known for years that some part of the strength of Caron & Gil's inside game was predicated on Jamison's ability to spread the floor. Stat regressions and player-pair isolations showed that Jamison's in game effect raised the eFG% of everyone else. But with him we beat Dallas. It's to be expected that a team will struggle when missing a 20/10 consistent lock. With him a risk to shoot from outside, Gilbert and Caron can find seams in the defense and mismatches down low.

Ditto Mike Miller. Plus ball movement and extended range in the backcourt. And both players have been precocious rebounders as well, relative to their size and playing position. Fortunately we get them back. In theory. Then we'll once again have active and dynamic options who can score on the catch and shoot.

As for Caron. Understood his struggles have been disheartening for many if not unforeseen. Some prescient and possibly genius members of this board predicted this would be the case, that his game style is an inexact fit for the offense. Fair enough, but he's taken on more defensive responsibility and played pretty well at that end. And in addition his coach is an intelligent game theorist who finds ways to exploit mismatches. It's quite likely that given time and familiarity he may find wrinkles to maximize utility of Caron's skill set. Granted some part of Caron's game has changed with the weight loss. But it's not out of the realm of possibility that he puts back on bulk in musculature what he used to pack on in Mountain Dew. The Dew was not the Mojo.

Was Eddie Jordan's offense the mojo? In part. He did tweak his preferred sets to feature Caron. He's an unusual cat, a tweener in many respects, tough inside if given space of a one-two dribble move -- but smart, tough, dedicated, and in general win-oriented more than stat-obsessive. Once the crew starts winning again, all the rest goes out the window. I suspect Caron would do well as a decision-maker in the half court, allowing Gil to run the Rip patterns. But that requires an outside gunner at the longrange forward. Playing Caron as a 2-guard. Which means we need other options at SF.

Point is, it's early yet, there's room and time to improve. And if you squint at it the right way there are hopeful signs, even if we potentially have to take a tail-whipping from our chief rivals early in the season (Miami three times, Cleveland twice of three times).

This squad plays best as underdogs anyway. Yes it's an inferiority complex that must be transcended at some point, but until then I have no problem getting underestimated and falling back top a place where the squad can play hunter not hunted. Then late season after the experiments are out of the way and we know the formulae for success, going on a revenge tour late and carrying that chip deep into the postseason.

I think there is a decent amount of hope for the Wizards despite their record. The only loss this far that is really troubling is the Indiana loss. I think the Pacers are a borderline play-off team and the Wizards will have to beat those teams to have a successful season.

I think Butler's shooting woes will resolve one way or another. Either he will find a way to score efficiently or he will lose a lot of minutes to Miller, Jamison and possibly Nick Young.

I think Arenas, Haywood and Blatche have looked at least as good as expected. However they have not gotten a lot of help from the rest of the team.

doclinkin wrote:Important to note during this early slide. The Wiz have played something like the 6th toughest strength of schedule of the young year, while missing a good portion of our ideal starting 5.

According to Jeff Sagarin's ratings system, we have played the hardest schedule in the league so far, and by a significant margin.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba0910.htm

It's why I'm not that worried yet. Of the 7 games, we only had one gimme game (vs NJ). We had two toss-up games (@Indy and vsMia). The rest of the games, a decent .500ish team would have lost anyhow (@Dal, @Atl, @Cle and vsPho). We basically held serve despite missing half our lineup.

my note of optimism will focus on the new 7 day Dray

Yeah, he had a poor game at IND but he was a beast
on Sunday. A definite bright spot. The fact that he is
locked up at a cheap rate for the next 3-4(?) years
is a huge kudo for GMEG. I'd go as far as saying that
Dray played as well as Amare so on a $ basis, we got
ourselves a serious bargain.

re Flip - I was a little surprised that N1 got no time at
all vs PHO given that we were at a distinct disadvantage
in 2-3 starter vs starter matchups. We had to go with a
smallish guard (when starting Foye) against either JRich
or Grant Hill. Frye also exploited our need to have
Big Wood in the paint. N1 might have helped there.
That said, I absolutely trust Flip to decide whether
that possible advantage defensively would have been
offset by other disadvantages.

I am finding it difficult to be too down on the team right now (other than during games). Then again I also think that JC is not the problem for Redskins. So who knows.

As others have pointed out, we've played a very difficult schedule so far and done so without Jamison and a couple of games without Butler and Miller respectively and other than the Indiana game and perhaps the Atlanta game we've been in the games until the end.

So Blatche is not perhaps 7 day Dray quite yet, but so far he seems like at least 4 if not 5 day Dray and thats a significant improvement over the year.

We might be 2-5 now, but I am no way backing down from my 49 win prediction just yet if we can get our starters back and get into a rhythm offensively like we had perhaps against Dallas and against Cleveland in the first quarter we could easily do better than that. Win out

Good to finally see some level headed individuals post on this board. Nice fact to whoever pointed out we've played the toughest schedule as of yet.

Keep it coming, doc et al. I'm hurting.

I aint scurred or worried.. DAME.

We've all said it, it's going to take some time to gel....add to that we are missing two big pieces to the puzzle (miller and AJ..no not MJ).

Arenas has shown flashes, but he's still a little rusty from the absence.

New system.

This thing will get right, and we've had a BRUTAL schedule so far.

Folks keep referring to the schedule and I firmly believe that if instead of winning at Dallas, we lost but then beat Indy - people would feel better about being 2-5. There would be a feeling of "okay, we're losing to the good teams while we wait to get healthy, but at least we're beating the teams we're supposed to beat" and folks wouldn't be quite as negative.

But to have the team look so good against a good Dallas team in their building, I think it set some folks up for disappointment when they couldn't sustain it just yet. But that game showed the potential this team has. So just like folks are willing to suffer through the mistakes of a guy like McGee because they see what he could become, we need to be willing to endure this team's growing pains because they could be really good before the season is over.

Go Wiz!

Our defense looks so much better than it ever has and it's only been six games. The offense will come in time and we'll go on a long winning streak.

nate33 wrote:

doclinkin wrote:Important to note during this early slide. The Wiz have played something like the 6th toughest strength of schedule of the young year, while missing a good portion of our ideal starting 5.

According to Jeff Sagarin's ratings system, we have played the hardest schedule in the league so far, and by a significant margin.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba0910.htm

I was looking at an oddsmaking site, but you find some pretty esoteric and interesting sites out there when tracking down stats arcana. I liked this graphic:



From here. Pretty interesting site. I like this chart here analyzing home stands versus road trips. Check it out (I lose too much detail if I upload it here.)

Miami and New Jersey look like cake schedules, but the Wiz schedule is pretty mild either way.

I think getting Jamison and Miller back should improve the offensive efficiency. Also Gil and Butler getting on track would help in that area too.

doclinkin wrote:I like this chart here analyzing home stands versus road trips.

Interesting. We have a ton of home games in January. We play 12 out of 17 games at home over one stretch between Game #30 and Game #47. On the downside, we have a lot of road games down the stretch in March and April. When we're battling the likes of Atlanta, Chicago and Toronto for playoff position, we're going to have to win a bunch on the road.

Double doubles for both Dray and Wood, holding Jermaine to 6 points and Haslem 1-5. Granted Beasley had hisself 15 points, but 6-of-17 ain't great. And neither one fouled out, despite playing close to 40min apiece.

Understood teams suffer when wounded and shorthanded, no surprise, what we're looking for now is glimpses of what will work for us when we have an ordinary run of decent health. What looks good: we've had runs of startlingly efficient offense, when the ball swoops from player to player like a homing falcon, leaving opponents chasing or lost in no-man's-land. The contrast becomes that much more stark and startling when the team stops following the principles, but that becomes and object lesson on how to make it work.

In the mean time, we bide our time, hunker low in the trenches and wait for the fusillade to pass. A healthy DWade is a transcendent player, understood, if he were an ordinary 20ppg starting 2-guard then this is a win. But he's not, he's one of the most preternaturally game-aware players in the game with a reflexive instinct for the kairotic moment: he knows exactly how and when to turn it on, and can sustain that flow for months at a time if that's what his team needs to win. Plenty of far more healthy teams have been beat by DWade. He's good.

As for the injuries-- you can cry about it, but there ain't a deal of good that'll do. Any positive that can be taken from it? -- it's possible that it leads to a front office realization to improve the medical team and strength & conditioning specialists. If you can identify and eliminate the preventable injuries, the rest is simply how it goes. Statistics happen, there are always outliers on the chart, sometimes a team takes a string of injuries; sometimes good luck happens as well. No point crying doom and 'owning' that hoodoo like it's your own personal lodestone. 'Sucks is sucks', it ain't hatred by the gawds to punish you for your fandom or players for their hubris. It just makes it all that much better when the good comes back around. Makes you appreciate success instead of expecting your championship as a just due reward. On a bad day, we're all still lucky enough to be able to care about these petty concerns.

I like that aside from injuries, this team's struggles are ultimately primarily identifiable and improvable even without a significant roster alteration. We see glimpses of what chemistry can do if we can find a way to sustain the good play, and yeah if we can get a couple more healthy bodies out there, what can ya do?

We're 2-6, but we could be 0-8

DallasShalDune wrote:We're 2-6, but we could be 0-8

And we have we have only 1 game in the next seven days and its against a team that is just as banged up as us. Hopefully, we will have AJ, MM and Foye back by the Cleveland game and we can make a run then. Hey, this is the optimism threat right? I'll keep my pessimistic views in a different thread.

I was thinking, maybe the injuries are a good thing. Blatche has had an opportunity to get real minutes and come out of his shell. Haywood, too, has played well with increased minutes. If they can keep up their proficiency with reduced minutes (when Jamison returns) then everything will be peachy keen. Better than it would have been if everyone was healthy, actually.

Just an optimistic thought.