Met Tapscott Last Night, his answers to our questions posted

[dobrojim]

it is hard to argue with many of his points but I was struck
as many others were by the Critt comments. Saying his
jumper is bad and he can't "run the team" may have
some truth to it. Until you look at the relative truth.
His jumper is bad compared to James?!?! He can't
run the team but James can!?!?

not buying it.

agree with the observations on McGee.
he's got a lot to learn. Hopefully he'll
get there in a year or 2.

Rubio? I don't know. I saw him once I guess in the
Oly final and he looked pretty good. Spain gave
a real team of NBA superstars all they could handle.
I guess if I was ready to draft Curry, maybe I shouldn't
dismiss Rubio that quickly.

But I'd still consider trading down to draft someone like
TWilliams, Henderson. And if we can't get Griffin, I would
settle for Hill or Blair if we decide to draft a PF.

[miller31time]

I'd much, much rather trade down to 6, 7 or 8 for Henderson than take Rubio at 1, 2 or 3.

Though I am planted firmly on the Henderson bandwagon (which should say something, considering I absolutely despise Duke and all they stand for).

[hands11]

So I actually was able to have a decent conversation with Tapscott and the head trainer about the team. It was cool, saw the locker room, met the assistant coaches and took some shots on the Verizon court.

General Observations:
Our weight room is pretty cool. There's a big vibration machine that the players stand on for about a minute right before the game. It vibrates your entire body pretty intensely and when you get off you feel very light and it seemed to a couple inches to my vert. It gives your whole body, especially your calves that feeling you get right after doing a set of lifting exercises.

The locker room was standard, I bet many of you have seen it. Caron Butler's locker is COVERED in straws, and there were straws laying around everywhere in the training room. Gilbert has double locker in the corner with lots of clothes and an Obama poster. Opec's sandles looked like canoe paddles. Domonic and Jamison are apparently good friends have lockers next to each other and are the two hardest working players on the team according to the trainer. In general Tapscot and the trainer have big mancrushes on Jamison, and call him the best professional they have ever worked with both as a player and person. Serious bromance going on there.

I asked about pretty much everything I could think of, here's a basic breakdown of their replies to my questions.

Q: Will Gilbert be healthy next season, where is he now in his training, and what do you expect the PG rotation to be when he is back starting?

A: Gilbert is definitely going to be 100%, he's in the 90s now. Mike James will be our backup PG next season and Critt is a 3rd stringer. We like him on the 3rd string but he has ALOT of work to do. He has shown no ability to run a team, and is not a pure point, he just has no shot so he always defers.

*I was really surprised by the candor he showed me in this response, I could tell I would get some good insider knowledge when he started cutting down Critt, who I actually like.

Q: Why aren't McGee and Young playing more minutes? Don't you think Jamison and Caron could give about 30 minutes a night and that extra time could go to McGee and Young?

A: Jamison is in perfect health and is not in danger of being injured. We play them big minutes because we want to win basketball games. Last night we got booed at home, and that is a very hard thing to endure. If we play our young guys we'd lose by 30 points. So the booing hurts our pride and we approach every game looking for a win. McGee doesn't stay in because he doesn't understand how to rotate defensively and tries to block everything leading to foul trouble. In the start of the season he was getting great blocks but now teams have gameplanned him and realized that if you jump into him they'll get the foul call, so we really can't put him out there and do well on defense. He has a lot of work to do. Nick Young has a future in the league and is our best athlete. He has a standing 42 inch vert, and can really do some amazing things athletically. His problem is his confidence and his lack of team defense. Both of these guys kill us defensively, which is why Dom plays so much, he gets it.

*apparently McGee's nickname is SuperRook in response to Jamison being known as SuperVet

Q: What type of player are we developing Dom into?
A: We think he can be a really efficient defender in the mold of Jared Jeffries with the toughness of Najera. They actually seem to really like Jeffries and talked about him being one of the most efficient defenders in NBA history with his ability to switch off guarding Yao Ming to someone like TJ Ford.

All I can think of right now.

So how did you get a meeting with Tapp ?

As for the answers, I always take anything someone like what Tapps or EG say with a grain of salt. It's usually mixed with a good amount of PR. They aren't going to tell you 100 % truth. They will tell you what they want out there that will benefit them the most. Those were some strange answers.

1) I I doubt James will be here. I should have posted a question for you. A good question would have been what do you plan of doing with OP once everyone is healthy because you have more then 12 people signed. This may have been a back door way to get an answer about who will be here but I doubt they would say or that they even know.

BH, AJ, CB, DS, GA
JM, AB, ET, DSong, OP, DMAC, NY, MJ, Critt
+ pick

I've been doing a head counts for a while. That"s 14 player plus the pick. Even using this conventional line up I don't think James is certain to be here to start the season. But I wouldn't be surprised if they got someone to leave overseas. That goes along with the scenario I laid out where the draft pick started the season inactive until they can bundle a trade with Etan in it. I had OP starting the season inactive.

It's less likely James is here if DS is healthy enough to start the season. But, with DS out and OP inactive you have 12 players. The idea there would be to run James on a team that is more loaded so you can showcase him for a trade. You would have James and Etan with 2 nice expiring contracts worth 14M. But if DS is a go, that's 13 players. Someone has to go unless they deactivate Critter also. Again, that would be short term until they can do a trade.

If that was the case, you have to work out the starting and rotations to make sense. Lots of ways they can go. Conventional wisdom says they do this.

BH, AJ, CB, DMAC, GA
JM, AB, ET, DSong, NY, MJ, Critt
+ pick

DMAC better get busy working on a 3 ball.

Next year would be a transition year where you start with everything you have and then mold it during the season hopefully trading assets at peak value. Problem with that roster is still the bench. Just not reliable enough. If NY was more reliable and you exchanged ET for solid back up vet center with length, it would look at lot better.

As for the straight up comment that Crit has shown no ability to run the team, that"s hard to believe he said it like that because that just isn't true and why would he frame it that way. I would guess he would say, Crit has shown a lot of progress but we have other vets currently ahead of him. If he puts in the work over the summer, he will be competing for the 2nd PG spot.

2) I can believe most of that. I saw that as what happened with McGee and we can all see NYs emotion swings. But I thought we had stats showing that NY played good D. Interesting he saying team defense though.

3) If they think Jefferies was one of the best defenders in NBA history, the follow up would have been, then why didn't you keep him ? 6M would be a fair price for the best.

This team still has some challenges a head. Next year will be a very interesting year. They simply have more players + draft then they have open roster spots.

[dobrojim]

I'd much, much rather trade down to 6, 7 or 8 for Henderson than take Rubio at 1, 2 or 3.

Though I am planted firmly on the Henderson bandwagon (which should say something, considering I absolutely despise Duke and all they stand for).

Henderson, Terrance Williams or Turner.

We should take a long look at all 3 of those guys.

[He Hate Me]

Allow me to clarify something that I should have stated explicitly. My post was in the form of Q and A, but that A is basically a summary of the things they said during the discussion that each question started in which I'd followup my question with comments, add my thoughts in the mix, ask leading questions like, "well do you think he could lead the 2nd string?" (In reference to Critt) So the Answers I posted are more like summaries of the responses by Tapscott AND this trainer (Drew Cleary) who I talked to who was really cool, and a couple of the assistants that I met throughout the evening. Guys like Wes Unseld Jr., Ayers, and Hubbard. I took all the information I got from these guys and summarized it into these answers. Those answers are not direct quotes.

I attended an event for season box ticket holders to meet the coach and experience a practice. there was a tour of the locker and training room and a QA session. Nobody asked questions so it ended early but right after it was dismissed I approached tapscott and started asking my questions. Throughout the evening I had been talking to Cleary so he joined in the conversation and we talked for about 5-10 minutes about the team and all the things that I posted.

[closg00]

We really appreciate you asking the questions. Thanks Again!

[JWizmentality]

Am I the only one who finds it horrifying that Tappy labeled Critt a 3rd stringer? Isn't that for the new coach to decide???

[Ruzious]

Good stuff, HHM. It was an entertaining read - thanks for sharing it. I didn't like a lot of what ET said, but honestly - I can't argue with him. He was pretty much right. 42 inch standing verticle for NY... wow. I don't know of anyone his height can jump that high from a standing position. I've heard ET say before that Nick is the most talented of the Wiz young players - now I know why. Geebus, with his height, length, leaping ability, scorer's mentality... dude should be way better than he is. They gotta find a way to nurture his development.

[fishercob]

Good stuff, HHM. It was an entertaining read - thanks for sharing it. I didn't like a lot of what ET said, but honestly - I can't argue with him. He was pretty much right. 42 inch standing verticle for NY... wow. I don't know of anyone his height can jump that high from a standing position. I've heard ET say before that Nick is the most talented of the Wiz young players - now I know why. Geebus, with his height, length, leaping ability, scorer's mentality... dude should be way better than he is. They gotta find a way to nurture his development.

I'm telling you, hire Charles Oakley to beat his ass. That'll develop him but good.

[Ruzious]

Good stuff, HHM. It was an entertaining read - thanks for sharing it. I didn't like a lot of what ET said, but honestly - I can't argue with him. He was pretty much right. 42 inch standing verticle for NY... wow. I don't know of anyone his height can jump that high from a standing position. I've heard ET say before that Nick is the most talented of the Wiz young players - now I know why. Geebus, with his height, length, leaping ability, scorer's mentality... dude should be way better than he is. They gotta find a way to nurture his development.

I'm telling you, hire Charles Oakley to beat his ass. That'll develop him but good.

Eh, I'd bet on the only things Oakley teaching him being what the best clubs to go out to and where to lose his money gambling.

[dlts20]

Ive been saying from day 1 that Rubio would be our pick if we dont trade out. We will either trade out or move down and pick Rubio. I say this because its obvious that EG really likes Wood, AJ, McGee, and Blatche so where is another big going to play? Deshawn is a good vet but they dont really trust him so you can still go with him, NY, and Dmac for next year but if it doesnt workout then you have Rubio for the future. Remember, they are not hanging on this pick like the fans are. They actually think they have enough to win the East without making any moves as long as theyre healthy. Thats why you pick Rubio so you wont go over the tax and you have a guy to fill youre biggest need as of now in the future. The other reason why I always thought we would pick Rubio is because of Ernie's insistance on Gil playing this year so much. Why would he talk so much about that unless he never really cared about picking Griffin anyway. I like Harden though.


As for questions, I wish that you wouldve asked him why does Dmac always play at the 3 with Caron at the 2 instead of the other way around? Its so clear that Caron is not a 2 and sucks there while Dmac and play either spot and actually seems to look better at the 2. Dom can handle the rock better and can make plays at the 2. He has no problem catching the rock behind the arch because he can drive it but Caron is basicaly forced to take a J because of his lack of handles. I dont mind starting Dom at all but its been obvious from day 1 that Dom shoud be the 2 and Caron the 3. Caron is so average right now while he's a beast at the 3 and when he catches it on the logo. Sure he still plays there some but by time he goes to the 3 his rythm is totally off. Make that simple switch and we will look alot better, espicaly when Gil gets back