GT #80: Last home game of the year! Sixers @ Wizards 7 PM

[mhd]

Nice job putting Vesley in to ensure the tank.

[nate33]

You give it a rest. Im a big minute, short rotation guy. Alot of guys play big minutes. Wall missed half the year. He's not tired. Not only that but he's an AI type guy. He can play minutes. I believe you play them 12 or take them out with 1min left in the quarter. Then you bring the back in at the 7 or 8min mark of the 2nd quarter. I like my young stars to play 38min. Definitely nothing lower than 36.

Then I also like to go by the game. If a guy is hot, its common sense not to bench him like that. He was hot, played the whole quarter and he doesnt come back in until like 4 and a half minutes left in the half? No one does that. Its going to break anyone's rythm. Thats multiple timeouts and the quarter break. Youre cold after that. It should never go past the 6min mark

Wall is on pace to play 35 minutes tonight. Since he started playing well about 25 games ago, he is averaging 36.1 minutes per game, which would rank 22nd in the league. You may like your stars to play 38 minutes per game, but it's not the norm. Only 9 players in the league average 38 minutes, and none of them are coming off a knee injury that kept them out of 33 games. I guess the other 300 or so players in the league are suffering because their coaches ice them on the bench every night.

Maybe we should just go with 7-man rosters.

[penbeast0]

C'mon, that's just half hearted heckling . . . go ahead and rip his girlfriend and family too. Chris reminds me of Dom McGuire -- too much standing around on offense unless he has the ball in his hands then he tries to do too much. Teach him to move without the ball instead of standing around.

[sfam]

I'm thinking EG made the right call in selecting John Wall over Evan Turner.

Totally. Turner looks like a waste.

[dlts20]

You give it a rest. Im a big minute, short rotation guy. Alot of guys play big minutes. Wall missed half the year. He's not tired. Not only that but he's an AI type guy. He can play minutes. I believe you play them 12 or take them out with 1min left in the quarter. Then you bring the back in at the 7 or 8min mark of the 2nd quarter. I like my young stars to play 38min. Definitely nothing lower than 36.

Then I also like to go by the game. If a guy is hot, its common sense not to bench him like that. He was hot, played the whole quarter and he doesnt come back in until like 4 and a half minutes left in the half? No one does that. Its going to break anyone's rythm. Thats multiple timeouts and the quarter break. Youre cold after that. It should never go past the 6min mark

Wall is on pace to play 35 minutes tonight. Since he started playing well about 25 games ago, he is averaging 36.1 minutes per game, which would rank 22nd in the league. You may like your stars to play 38 minutes per game, but it's not the norm. Only 9 players in the league average 38 minutes, and none of them are coming off a knee injury that kept them out of 33 games. I guess the other 300 or so players in the league are suffering because the get "out of rhythm" every night.

dude, we have injuries and a D-Leauge team. We dont win unless he goes off or plays very good. If you play 12 in the 1st and then just over 4 in the 2nd then its not enough to win and keep teams off of you. Dont give me that minutes stuff. Guys play minutes all the time. He's young. We already eased him into it. Its the last home game. You should try to win for your fans and give them what they came to see, which is Wall.

Most of all, the part that upsets me is that it hurts Wall. Thats my main point. I think you made him cold. You want him to finish the year strong, not hurt him. He iced him

[nate33]

This was an important tank loss.

Nice move by Wittman to take Wall out 45 seconds early to give the fans an opportunity to cheer. Unfortuantely, the PA announcer was too slow to point it out.

[sfam]

This is great. We should lose out from here on out. Go tank!

[dandridge 10]

I normally don't have a problem when teams tank for a draft spot (let alone the Wizards), but I have to admit tonights game pissed me off as a season ticket holder. It just rubbed me the wrong way that Wittman picked tonights game, which was our last game and fan appreciation night, to chose to play our bench practically the whole 4th quarter and to purposefully lose a game. I'm fine with tanking. But, if that is the strategy, don't wait until three games left in the season to do it (let alone on fan appreciation night), and don't sell the fans BS with the notion that the team is going to try to win out. If the team really wanted to secure a good draft spot, they should have been sitting the starters weeks ago.

Tonights game also demonstrated how cheap Ted is. In prior years, fan appreciation night meant a lot of giveaways to fans before and during the game. There was none of that tonight. Really, the only thing that was given to the fans tonight in appreciation of their support was a piss poor effort.

Bottom line, I certainly did not feel appreciated tonight as a fan or as a long time season ticket holder.

[sfam]

I normally don't have a problem when teams tank for a draft spot (let alone the Wizards), but I have to admit tonights game pissed me off as a season ticket holder. It just rubbed me the wrong way that Wittman picked tonights game, which was our last game and fan appreciation night, to chose to play our bench practically the whole 4th quarter and to purposefully lose a game. I'm fine with tanking. But, if that is the strategy, don't wait until three games left in the season to do it (let alone on fan appreciation night), and don't sell the fans BS with the notion that the team is going to try to win out. If the team really wanted to secure a good draft spot, they should have been sitting the starters weeks ago.

Tonights game also demonstrated how cheap Ted is. In prior years, fan appreciation night meant a lot of giveaways to fans before and during the game. There was none of that tonight. Really, the only thing that was given to the fans tonight in appreciation of their support was a piss poor effort.

Bottom line, I certainly did not feel appreciated tonight as a fan or as a long time season ticket holder.

If you're at the game, you never want to see them tank. That really sucks. BTW, at the Miami game, they gave 40% off on all Wizards gear - they said it was for fan appreciation. I ended up getting a really nice throwback Unseld jersey for $60 bucks. Did that sale happen again tonight?

[hands11]

This is great. We should lose out from here on out. Go tank!

Yeah. This was an very important game in the grand scheme of things. Really needed to lose this one and I was kind of worried they might win because it was Philly and they were at home.

When I checked in on my phone they were up like 10 pts

I was no like .. Noooooo

But they pulled out the Tank so all is good.

Nene 20 mins
Okafor 20 mins

Starting C Martin because Trevor A can't play ( come on, we know he could play ) sore knee ?

I know it may seem like a small thing, but I will be happy to not see C Martin on the roster next year. It bothered me they were unable to keep Mason who was a cool dude to have around. More mature. More legit NBA player. Mason could have helped bring Beal into the league and would have given them a vet leader at guard like they had at SF, PF and Center.

The move to keep C Martin over Mason just made no sense to me. Honestly, I was kind of shocked since a signed pointed to Mason wanting to be here and then moving into the front office.

Maybe they wanted to give me one last look because he was younger. I have no idea. For me, I have seen enough. He just doesn't have it between the ears.

I want to see that slot filler with either some young talent or a solid vet role player like Mason or better.

[nate33]

The move to keep C Martin over Mason just made no sense to me. Honestly, I was kind of shocked since a signed pointed to Mason wanting to be here and then moving into the front office.

Maybe they wanted to give me one last look because he was younger. I have no idea. For me, I have seen enough. He just doesn't have it between the ears.

I want to see that slot filler with either some young talent or a solid vet role player like Mason or better.

Remember that Martin was signed before Webster was obtained. At the time, we had (a presumably healthy) Wall, Price, Beal and Crawford already in place in the backcourt, and only Ariza and Singleton at SF. Looking at those players, I could see EG thinking Martin's ability to play some SF defensively outweighed Mason's superior maturity and ball handling ability.

I agree that once Webster was in the fold, Mason would have made more sense as a 5th guard.

[montestewart]

The move to keep C Martin over Mason just made no sense to me. Honestly, I was kind of shocked since a signed pointed to Mason wanting to be here and then moving into the front office.

Maybe they wanted to give me one last look because he was younger. I have no idea. For me, I have seen enough. He just doesn't have it between the ears.

I want to see that slot filler with either some young talent or a solid vet role player like Mason or better.

Remember that Martin was signed before Webster was obtained. At the time, we had (a presumably healthy) Wall, Price, Beal and Crawford already in place in the backcourt, and only Ariza and Singleton at SF. Looking at those players, I could see EG thinking Martin's ability to play some SF defensively outweighed Mason's superior maturity and ball handling ability.

I agree that once Webster was in the fold, Mason would have made more sense as a 5th guard.

Not to mention he was a more efficient shooter/scorer than Mason in the previous two seasons and shooting was (to me) the most glaring shortcoming of the roster. He's not all that important, but I hope the Wizards decide to bring someone on as an end of the bench shooter again next year. Can come in pretty handy at times.

[pancakes3]

Saw Nick Young at Rocketbar right after the game with 2 of his friends and a girl. Took a picture and was going to go talk to him but he and his entourage rolled out.

[Hawaii]

I thought it was funny when the fans started booing Thaddeus Young because they thought it was Nick Young.

I was also a little disappointed by this "fan appreciation night". I got one of those posters they were giving away, but I thought they could've done a little better. I figured there was just some stuff going on that I didn't know about; I didn't explore around the stadium at this game like I normally do. But surely they had extra surplus of promotional items from this year they could've given out. Usually Ted's better at stuff like this.