Wizards VS Hornets 7PM Tonight

[tontoz]

It astounds me that many of you are so happy to delve deep into the statistics of a losing team..........

That being said not much else to do, but I would like to see you guys analyze Saunders a bit more. I don't know my way around the stat sites as well as most, but is Saunders actually playing our best lineups in crunch time?

Are there things he could do in terms of substitutions/lineups that could help us be more competitive that he ISN'T doing? Attempting to speak your language here..........just curious to the statheads' thoughts on the head coaching matter from a statistical perspective.

Of course the main stat I'm concerned with is 8-24. Assuming you have no major issues with his rotations.....or losses. Do you justify Saunders retaining his job based upon incremental improvements with McGee and Young? That's the only positive I see so far this year. And one step further, if this were Flip's saving grace in your eyes, wouldn't it make more sense to play Booker/Seraphin more minutes in a lost season as well?

Sometimes you have to look hard for hope and to me the defense is a hopeful sign. Defense can be played more consistently than offense because offense depends so heavily on perimeter shooting. A team that plays tough defense game in and game out can win games when their offense is off.

As far as Flip goes my big problem right now is that Blatche is playing too many minutes and is given way too much leeway when he is playing like crap. He needs to be kept on a much shorter leash. I would like to see Booker get some of his minutes.

I think Flip has cost the team 2 games for sure by playing guys (Yi and Blatche) who should have been pulled because they were killing the team.

[WizarDynasty]

i disagree completely. How many nights did jamison have an awful shooting performance and did we ever post that Jamison should be kept on a short leash. You may hate Blatche's off field issues but he is a veteran now. I know alot of you like to pretend that he is still a rookie but he is one of the most senior members on the team being here nearly 6 years.
Blatche has earned the right to have bad shooting performance.
Caron butler and Jamison often had terrible shooting nights and both played far worse defense than Blatche.
Veterans are going to have off days and blatche could have easily pulled a caron or jamison and said that something was bothering him but like his role model kevin garnett he battles through the injury. Garnett is playing 10 times better than he did last season and everyone knew he was playing on a hurt knee but Garnett.

Let remember that Blatche wants to be an allstar like his role model kevin garnett and the only thing that matters is performance on teh court. Sure he isn't hitting his shots but we know he is quite capable and veterans shoot there way out of slumps. That's just how it goes wiz fans.

he is the most senior member of the wizard team as well as captain. he plays for his team through injuries. you may hate him but he is better powerforward than any one coming out of this draft, he is a better powerforward than number 3 overall pick favors just to give you a sense of just how hard it is to fine an athletic seven foot powerforward than can shoot, dribble, and pass.
My only problem with this game is that McGee should be developing his passing skills from the free throw line because that is the spot on the floor where he is most dangerous and is threat opens up the entire court for everyone else including blatche.

We are making blatche work to hard on every play to try and create. Alot of the Blatche's offensive load needs to be moved to plays taking advantage of McGee view of sight at the free throw line and the fact that he can stand there uncontested with the ball due to his height and can easily make over head passes since he standing nearly 12 feet in the air with the ball raise. not many players can even leap that high to the knock the ball out of his hands.

[hands11]

Seriously, this guy tontoz may have become a Wiz fan over the off-season or whatever; but he gets way out of line with the name calling. You can make those same arguments without doing so.

Flip is a terrible coach for a rebuilding team, but I don't personally believe even with a coaching change this team would be much better. I know the team sucks, and their record represents their talent level. I think that with a different coach than Flip however, certain players development would be less hindered and we would be properly "rebuilding". The organizational strategy of "rebuilding" to me that this franchise is taking is a sort of half-hearted one.

I see them more as renovating an old house (that will again fall apart with the same problems as before) more so than rebuilding it. When you rebuild something you generally knock it completely down to the ground and start over with new parts. Something this team has not done by retaining the entire Front Office, Medical Staff, Coaching Staff, etc. - all we've done is jettison the only part of this organization that has been successful in the past 30 years: The players from our 1 and done playoff teams.

The Wizards/Bullets foundation for failure is still there, no matter how many times we build up a pretty house around it.

Rebuilding doesn't involve walking up to a house, setting the dynamite and blowing it up.

First you set a plan. Then you do controlled demo work. You don't toss everything. You evaluate then you throw more away and continue to build.

We have Dray, Nick and McGee from last year. I call that some serious rebuilding.
Changing coaches every year isn't the answer. Flip is an experience HC that is more than good enough to get us through this year that will lead into a strike year more likely. He us under contract so why would Ted just let him walk with the money when they already did that with EFJ.

And Flip is just now getting his roster on the court. As this team is constructed, he needs all the core pieces available to do much of anything this year. You can't just have Wall at PG with no Kirk and you can't just have McGee at center with nothing behind him. And you can't have just Dray with no Lewis.

They aren't the Lakers. Come on people. Get real.

[DaRealHibachi]

WizD, many here where saying that AJ should play less minutes, if only b/c of his defense... If his offense was off, he had no reason whatsoever to be on the floor...

When Dray isn't making shots, he no better than Booker, since Booker has the same defensive capabilities as Dray... There's no dropoff on D or O between them if Dray isn't hitting his shots... Dray isn't a volume scorer like Gil is/was, so letting him keep shooting isn't gonna help him or the team at all, and going off his recent cold streak (36% in the last 10 games), playing him less is a good thing...

Dray should pick his spots better, if he makes his first 2 jumpers, green light on jumpers... If he misses, look for something else that'll work, probably in the post, where (like you said) he can create for others...

And as far as I can remember, KG isn't his role model anymore... Since KG got in his head last year, almost making him cry, Dray said that he doesn't respect him anymore, or something in that direction...

McGee's vision of sight is like a freakin tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel being the basket... He has 14 assists over 31 games this year, 51 over his 166 game career... He's NOT a passer, and if I have to go off of his track record, I'll say he'll probably never will be too...

[tontoz]

i disagree completely. How many nights did jamison have an awful shooting performance and did we ever post that Jamison should be kept on a short leash. You may hate Blatche's off field issues but he is a veteran now. I know alot of you like to pretend that he is still a rookie but he is one of the most senior members on the team being here nearly 6 years.
Blatche has earned the right to have bad shooting performance.

It isn't just about having a bad shooting night, it is about playing dumb basketball. The dribble between the legs and heave which is his signature move is a horrible percentage play. Plus he turns it over way to much when he does his Kobe imitation.

Blatche doesn't deseve the be mentioned in the same sentence as Garnett. Lets see Blatche get over 10 rebounds per game or shoot 50% for a season before trying to tie them together. I don't see Garnett dribbling between his legs or behind his back before launching a jumper.

[hands11]

Re the "black and white" issue. It looks like tontoz read Killbert's quote of CCJ and assumed he had captured it before CCJ edited it. However, CCJ's original quote does not look edited. So from my perspective, tontoz made an honest mistake and CCJ reported the wrong guy. Killbert is the guy who intentionally misquoted CCJ.

I didn't think the "drinking problem" comment was intended to offend at all. Tontoz was setting up his punch line of using the haterade image.

I think Killbert could have honestly edited wrong. While my notebook is down I've been using Safari on my IPod touch. The editor truncates and corrects and overwrites things that I often don't want it to. It also overwrites and capitalizes on the fly. It can't handle long quotes. It puts responses in the middle of quotes, too. That is what I think Killbert did with Flip is white and EJ is black.

I guess I can ignore his posts, too, I guess.

Even blocked posted can be viewed when the trimming are short and you curious to see what they have to say.

[hands11]

WizD, many here where saying that AJ should play less minutes, if only b/c of his defense... If his offense was off, he had no reason whatsoever to be on the floor...

When Dray isn't making shots, he no better than Booker, since Booker has the same defensive capabilities as Dray... There's no dropoff on D or O between them if Dray isn't hitting his shots... Dray isn't a volume scorer like Gil is/was, so letting him keep shooting isn't gonna help him or the team at all, and going off his recent cold streak (36% in the last 10 games), playing him less is a good thing...

Dray should pick his spots better, if he makes his first 2 jumpers, green light on jumpers... If he misses, look for something else that'll work, probably in the post, where (like you said) he can create for others...

And as far as I can remember, KG isn't his role model anymore... Since KG got in his head last year, almost making him cry, Dray said that he doesn't respect him anymore, or something in that direction...

McGee's vision of sight is like a freakin tunnel, the light at the end of the tunnel being the basket... He has 14 assists over 31 games this year, 51 over his 166 game career... He's NOT a passer, and if I have to go off of his track record, I'll say he'll probably never will be too...

Wow, those McGee passing numbers sound terrible. Do you know where that ranks him ? 0.5 assists a game. Hey, but I could see McGee deciding to throw an alley opp to Wall one game. He would love that kind of flash. Then he could do the Doogie at mid court afterward.

Hey, I totally agree that Dray should be evaluating his game, in game, better than he is. But he is hardly dead weight when he is missing. He is averaging over 10 rebounds, 1.8 blocks, 1.5 steals a game over the last five. But Booker is a leaper, quicker and dishes it out the pain more. He is more committed to defense.

We all know Dray has been dinged up and struggling this year. First he had to get in better basketball shape and came into the year seemingly confused about his role. Then he was out a few games with a knee injury - four games. Then suspended one. Now he is getting three days rest. I kind of feel like, If he is going to turn it around, this would be a good time to do it.

He had a four run just before that knee injury where he was 32-61 FG 22-30 FT 27 rebounds, 86 pts and three of those games were on the road. There in lies the glimmer of hope for him being off for the above reasons + add some Dray factor in there.

[cwb3]

It would be kind of fun to see/hear Sam-I-Am stalking the sideline and barking at the players and refs. . .I loved him from his playing days, I wonder how he is as a coach?

[pancakes3]

why is everyone hating on the dougie?