Home Opener: Nets @ Wizards (10-31-09)

[mohammed10]

7 day dray thru 3 games


*All star Candidate
*6 man of the year frontrunner
*Most improved player of the year frontrunner

What's this? A positive Wiz quote from Ji? Man, I must be dreamin'

[DaRealHibachi]

Funny stuff...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=954256

bigdaddywookie

@cdouglasroberts stop tryna dunk on me lol

[P'Oed]

Funny stuff...

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=954256

bigdaddywookie

@cdouglasroberts stop tryna dunk on me lol

ugh...come on Java. Don't get involved in this stupid crap. Don't be top 5 on Doc Walker's Knucklehead list.

[keynote]

Eh, the Twitter war is harmless. Just two young guys having a little nerdy fun.

I'd rather see McGee spend Halloween night engaging in silly Twitter wars than going to some club to hang out all hours.

[Donkey McDonkerton]

7 day dray thru 3 games


*All star Candidate
*6 man of the year frontrunner
*Most improved player of the year frontrunner

OH NOEZ, we might want to sit him next game!

DAME

[Zerocious]

just got back from the game. you guys saw them intro, friggen sweet with all that fire 'n stuff. they got this huge 'wizard' mechanical fire spewing thing hanging from the ceiling now, damn thing is hot!

proof, these seats are real good, you really don't miss any action. only thing is that you don't have any people sitting in front of you but there is a walk way to the seat below, people walk in front of you. most were polite enough to make sure you don't miss anything though. also i saw Kevin Johnson there. he didn't recognize me

[jholmbe1]

I met Mike Miller after the game tonight at Matchbox. He could not have been a nicer more chill guy, especially since my girlfriend took forever to take picture

[Zerocious]

I met Mike Miller after the game tonight at Matchbox. He could not have been a nicer more chill guy, especially since my girlfriend took forever to take picture

you look just like your avatar!!

[dlts20]

Does anyone know if the Wiz-Cavs game was voted the winner to be shown on NBA TV on Tuesday?

[Zerocious]

Does anyone know if the Wiz-Cavs game was voted the winner to be shown on NBA TV on Tuesday?

i think it camein second

[doclinkin]

If we can get 12 or so minutes for McGee a game, that really going to help us later in the year.

Thats still our whole. We need deep at center and I dont want it to be Blatche moving there so we need McGee to develop. That the story behind the story.

Blatche is our second leading scorer so far. Amazingly good news.

Great thing about Blatche hitting his stride is that at 23 and with 3 more years in the league, he's like a big brother out there for Javale. Blatche's confidence and consistency coming off of last season is something Javale has to compete with and also see first hand.

Javale has YEARS to mature. Tonight Blatche showed he's there now. Three games in, but he's showing it's no fluke. Javale's next.

Oh my, this is good.

Mark it down. CCJ with the first post providing Blatche as a good example for younger players.

Ahem:

Haywood might be a very good mentor. He's one of the smartest guys on the team, a guy Ivan Carter says is the Wizard most likely to end up coaching one day. McGee plays the same position as Haywood and would likely be asked to do exactly the same things on defense.

Ivan said that too? I know I've said that.

Actually the thought I had was that the addition of JaVale McGee might be most beneficial to the development of Andray Blatche. (I'll reprise his metas later). He'll no longer be the youngest kid on the team, and the threat to his job security and the presence of a cat with even fewer fundamentals may spur him to put it all together an focus on keeping his job, proving to the squad that he's the better of the two, and no more dicking around. Some reports suggest the kid is a bit of a gym rat, has little outside of basketball to keep his interest spends all his time in the gym. Dray may read this draft pick as a shot across the bow with all his minor niggling offcourt issues etc, and decide to buckle down match the kid's effort and school him. Play the veteran.

Dray's metas suggest he's one of those guys who suddenly puts it all together almost out of nowhere then dominates from then out. Birthday shared with Stormin Norman Schwartzkopf and The Big Tuna Bill Parcells.

It was foretold...

Too bad there's no archived link to the initial Meta thread, I'll re-transcribe the Dray info, but essentially if you were flakey enough to listen to the 'stars' why you would have expected this coming long ago.

[GilArenas88]

Didn't catch the game, but from the box score and your guys comments, we did pretty damn well considering we were missing two All-Star fowards. Few things really popped out to me from the boxscore...

1. We shot 61% from the field, wow
2. Dray playing like he's a man on a mission, good to see, 15/18 is rediculous
3. 32 points points on only 13 shots is great, not to mention he got to the line, and hey the half-court heave
4. All of our additions again are contributing significantly
5. Stevenson played well, like someone else mentioned, if he can be solid off the bench, it makes us that much more deeper, and from the looks of it we are really deep

[hands11]

I don't see what your getting at.

What you posted was stuff I others talked about also. I'm sure you don't recall because there are so many posts on here over the years but McGee was may pick for us that year. Well I had it narrowed down to him or Hibbert. Hibbert was off the board so we took McGee. When I started targeting McGee of course I was slammed for it while trade thread was going nuts. I don't remember a long line of people in McGee camp at the time. Actually, after we took McGee I remember a lot of complaining about what EG did. But this only the set up to what CCJ posted because it finally allows us to play Blatche at PF and not only at PF but with a new coach he is getting minutes with Haywood and now to a lesser degree McGee also. A lot of why Dray looks great is because he is playing PF now, not center.

As for Blatche, there have been few posters who have consistently supported the kid and the idea that we should keep him. I know CCJ and I have been consistent about that. Anyone who listed Dray in countless trade ideas would not qualify as Dray believers and didnt get EGs vision. Same can be said of people who didn't believe in Haywood and wanted to trade him. These are two great value players.

But what I was really pointing out is how far this kid has come since the days when so many gave up on him. The street walker thing. The gun shot.

After only 3 games we have been surprised with just how far he has come. There are lots of factors that played a roll. Flip.. Adding McGee and Oberto... The return of Haywood... All leading to move to PF for Blatche.. The return of Gil.. His talk with his mother.. His offseason work...

All this leading to a 7 Day Dray who is exceeding exceptions to the point that CCJ so clearly said it..

He can now be a legit example for the younger players. That stood out to me. Something I hadn't seen so clearly stated so I gave CCJ some props for pointing it out first.

[MarvinWilliams#24]

I was at the game the intro was pretty hot! But not much of a contest on the court the wizards handed it to them.. Also it was great to see andray and gil tear it up!

[BanndNDC]

Missed the game last night so i've been watching a bit of the replay. Besides all the superlatives already mentioned I noticed that Gil and Andray dealt with the play ATL tore them up with a lot better. They clearly either talked about it or worked on it because both of them slightly changed how they reacted in that situation and that adjustment actually led to at least one turnover for NJ. They noticed a problem and they fixed it. Just another example of improvement.

i also noticed that while young still wasn't good he wasn't a rhythmic drag on the offense. he doesn't quite know the song that everyone else is grooving to in their heads but he did improve a bit and seemed to be paying more attention to what was going on around him on defense. as much as the fan in me hates it the analyst in me is quite glad to see flip trying to strategically develop nick when we have a bit of a cushion so that 1) there's actual gameplay to teach with and 2) next time he's actually needed we hopefully won't see what happened in atl redux.


nice win. don't let the music stop.

[Cramer]

lol...I don"t mean to be an ass...and I love his game, and he couldn't have been nicer....but Miller looks like a ****' idiot in that pic.

[fishercob]

Finally watched the game yesterday. Man, NJ's defense was putrid. I don't think we played amazingly well, to be honest. BUt that's OK considering we didnt have our two starting forwards, both recent all-stars.

Glad to see Blatche have a big game. From what I heard on the radio and read on the boards though, I was actually somewhat disappointed. I think plenty of his shots were questionable, and had they not gone in there would have been plenty of groans from the peanut gallery. Ideally, if you're 6'11 and take 18 shots, you're going to go to the free throw line a little bit. He's clearly making progress though, and even when his shot isn't falling he's going to help (ehem, Nick) because of the feel for them game she's shown since he entered the league. We're seeing that with more regularity now.

Haywood is indeed pressing a bit. I don't think it's so much about the contract as some have opined. I just think he's in a rush and needs to slow things down. Brendan's smart; he knows if we win, he'll get paid. He's running the floor great. I fully expect him to try to run to tire Shaq tomorrow.

I found it interesting that Flip didn't sub Mike James for Foye during the garbage time at the very end when Dom, Davis, Young and McGee were on the floor. I wonder if that was in deference to James' vet status so as not to slight his ego, or if it was a case of him not thinking James had earned the time.

Courtney Lee's a nice little player, but he's exhibit A in the importance of teammates in the game of basketball. He was a very nice role player with Orlando. With no help in NJ, he's really an afterthought. And Yi? That guy is a complete and total stiff.

Anyhoo, good win and great to rest Gil and Brendan late. Bring on the Travs!

[keynote]

I dunno. I think Blatche's shots were within the offense - and well within his capabilities - in the first half. Basically, he took open 18 footers and the occasional turnaround from 15 ft and in. He had a few heat checks in the second half, but that's okay; I'm fine with a player becoming more aggressive if he's on an NBA JAM-like roll.

In the past, though, Blatche would bust out the high-difficulty shots early on, without establishing a rhythm. He'd shoot contested 20 footers from a standstill, or try to beat defenders off the dribble only to force up an off-balance shot or a weak layup attempt at the rim. Now, on a drive, he's far more likely to stop, gather himself, square up, and use his length to shoot over the defender. Nothing looks out of control. That's a nice upgrade from last year.

[nate33]

I found it interesting that Flip didn't sub Mike James for Foye during the garbage time at the very end when Dom, Davis, Young and McGee were on the floor. I wonder if that was in deference to James' vet status so as not to slight his ego, or if it was a case of him not thinking James had earned the time.

It might also be that Flip wants to give Foye more time to master the PG position. Foye is a young man. It's not like he really needs the extra rest.

[fishercob]

I dunno. I think Blatche's shots were within the offense - and well within his capabilities - in the first half. Basically, he took open 18 footers and the occasional turnaround from 15 ft and in. He had a few heat checks in the second half, but that's okay; I'm fine with a player becoming more aggressive if he's on an NBA JAM-like roll.

In the past, though, Blatche would bust out the high-difficulty shots early on, without establishing a rhythm. He'd shoot contested 20 footers from a standstill, or try to beat defenders off the dribble only to force up an off-balance shot or a weak layup attempt at the rim. Now, on a drive, he's far more likely to stop, gather himself, square up, and use his length to shoot over the defender. Nothing looks out of control. That's a nice upgrade from last year.

Good points, key. Bonus points for the NBA JAM ref.