Moderators: nate33, montestewart, LyricalRico
closg00 wrote:Who wants to play odds-maker? What are the chances AMMO is in a Wiz uni this season?
Rafael122 wrote:Anyone staying up for this? Maybe chat it up?
nate33 wrote:Already signed:
PG Wall, Hinrich
SG Arenas, Young
SF Thornton, Howard, Booker
PF Blatche, Yi
C McGee, Armstrong, Seraphin
That's 12 players. We're 2-deep at PG and SG, 2-1/2 deep at SF and PF (if you argue that Booker is a tweener), and 3-deep at C. I'd say our biggest areas of concern are depth at SG and depth at SF while Howard is out.
It looks like a pretty sure bet that Martin or Hudson will make the roster at SG as our 13th player. I think the play of Booker during training camp will be the deciding factor on our 14th player. If Booker looks good enough to hold his own for spot minutes, then there really isn't a need to add anybody else. Booker will hold down the fort until Howard gets back.
long suffrin' boulez fan wrote:nate33 wrote:Already signed:
PG Wall, Hinrich
SG Arenas, Young
SF Thornton, Howard, Booker
PF Blatche, Yi
C McGee, Armstrong, Seraphin
That's 12 players. We're 2-deep at PG and SG, 2-1/2 deep at SF and PF (if you argue that Booker is a tweener), and 3-deep at C. I'd say our biggest areas of concern are depth at SG and depth at SF while Howard is out.
It looks like a pretty sure bet that Martin or Hudson will make the roster at SG as our 13th player. I think the play of Booker during training camp will be the deciding factor on our 14th player. If Booker looks good enough to hold his own for spot minutes, then there really isn't a need to add anybody else. Booker will hold down the fort until Howard gets back.
Is Singleton out of the picture?
Flip Saunders looking forward to "molding this team"
Saunders on conditioning: "We're in a lot better condition that we were in the past, One of our goals is to be one of the best conditioned teams in the league ... our practices are going to be very grueling."
Saunders on Arenas: "Right now, he's by far in the best shape he's been in the last three years, as far as physically, weight wise, how he looks, how his legs are. I know he wants to go out and prove a lot of things, and I think he's taking the right approach, as far as a serious approach. That's what we have to do as a team."
More Saunders on Arenas: "I don't think anyone looks forward to talking to 50 people. You guys aren't the nicest guys in the world. Let's put it into perspective."
Saunders on whether Arenas and John Wall will work well together: "You look at some of the better teams that have played. You look at Detroit, with Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas. Both of those guys were considered point guards, or guys that wanted to have the ball in their hands. Both these guys - they've played a lot together over the last few weeks. There won't be any problems there."
Saunders on Andray Blatche: "He's in a different situation than he was a year ago. He didn't have John Wall. He didn't have Gilbert Arenas. He didn't have Kirk Hinrich. He didn't have Josh Howard. Those have four veterans guys who have played in this league and been very effective players, so he's not going to have to carry a big load like he did a lot last year. The main thing is that he's got to be efficient."
Saunders on whether he'll employ a tight eight-man rotation like he pledged to do last year: "Right now, I'm going to keep everything open. We'll see how many guys can play. If we get 12 guys that can play, we'll play 12. Right now, it's pretty much open competition for everybody."
Saunders on whether we'll see the same two-guard offensive sets we saw at the end of last year, rather that his typical point-guard driven attack: "We'll do some of [the two-guard sets]. The difference is that [Wall's] dynamics as far as his speed with the ball is off the charts, so we're not going to take away from one of the best things he does. We're going to get the ball in his hands and let him make decisions, but we'll run some two-guard sets too, because he's going to want some pressure taken off of him at times too."
Elvin Hayes and other former Bullets reconnect with team
Elvin Hayes said somewhere along the way - possibly after the Washington Bullets dealt him to the Houston Rockets in 1981 - that his relationship with the only organization for which he had won a championship, the place where he had established most of his Hall of Fame credentials, had been severed.
It always pained him that he had mostly lost that bond but he didn't realize how deep the disconnect was until he called the Wizards last season and struggled to find someone who recognized his name and could offer him assistance. Hayes, whose No. 11 jersey hangs in the rafters, eventually called former teammate and current Wizards broadcaster Phil Chenier, who helped put him in contact with the right people.
"That's when it really hurt me. You have put so much sweat and blood on the court and you call a place, and it's like, 'Who?' " Hayes said in a telephone interview from Houston. "It was like nobody knew. I called everywhere. I finally got one person who said, 'I know who you are.' "
Hayes likely won't have that problem anymore. Since taking over as owner of the Wizards, Ted Leonsis has made a concerted effort to reach out to former players with the hopes of establishing a formal Wizards/Bullets alumni program. He has reached out to Hayes, Wes Unseld, Bobby Dandridge, Earl Monroe, Kevin Grevey and Kevin Porter and asked President Ernie Grunfeld to assist him in contacting players.
Taking a cue from organizations such as the Boston Celtics, who constantly intertwine their past history, Leonsis wants players who have contributed to the success of the Bullets and the Wizards to have a more visible presence - in the owner's box at Verizon Center, at games, at practices - sharing their wisdom with the current players and serving as ambassadors for the team.
After Abe Pollin's death, and the Pollin family selling the team last June, Leonsis felt the organization lost an important link to its past success and needed to start anew.
"I promised we'd pay homage to the past, but I didn't have that natural connective tissue," Leonsis said. "I need to build that sense of community, because Mr. Pollin owned the team for so long, he was the team. I'm new. I can't do it on my own. I need help. In my due diligence and my research, I felt like this franchise has had a lot of great players, Hall of Fame players, championship-winning players who had developed and become great and successful in life."
Dat2U wrote:Bottom line, every year we say the East is much improved. I've been guilty of this the past three years and each year it seems like the more things change, the more they remain the same. There's one superteam. A couple of good teams, a couple of also-rans (were in this category IMO) and a couple of miserable teams. There's plenty of opportunity IMO for a team like the Wizards to surprise.
hands11 wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/09/27/VI2010092705412.html
Gil not looking to happy. Not loving the media anymore. It's ok. It's a process.
Damn, I missed it. I wanted to go but had it in my head it was tonight. Well, at least I got to spend time with my nieces and mother eating some pasta.
Ruzious wrote:hands11 wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/09/27/VI2010092705412.html
Gil not looking to happy. Not loving the media anymore. It's ok. It's a process.
Damn, I missed it. I wanted to go but had it in my head it was tonight. Well, at least I got to spend time with my nieces and mother eating some pasta.
Yeah, they treated him like a show-pony instead of a person, and he didn't feel like pandering. I don't blame him.
. I gave him the benfit of the doubt of suffering from a mental lapse due to fatigue tho. Mainly because he didnt really give any effort on the play but partly because im hoping that it was fatigue and not inability to defend and get position on one of the finese bigs on the floor on the block
REDardWIZskin wrote:Did anyone notice the play where Yi sealed Mcgee on a Booker entry pass for a easy two. That kinda made my stomach drop. If Yi is able to seal Mcgee what will starting caliber C's do to him
LyricalRico wrote:REDardWIZskin wrote:What I remember most is Wall seeming to defer to a non-explosive Arenas during the few offensive posessions they shared together. Obvously it's a very small sample size but it was pretty scary and I would HATE to go through 82 games of that.
Mosca wrote:I didn't get a chance to see the midnight practice. From what i'm hearing Gil looked like he was in great shape. Does he have his speed/athleticism back?