The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Thinking Skins]

Both statements are correct. A lot of factors went into the loss tonight. Great effort to make a run to take the lead against the 2nd stringers but their 1st team were just too much for us. I can' wait to judge this team in December or so when everyone is healthy and have a few weeks of playing with each other.

I'm not waiting until December, I'm going game by game. For tonight's game, I give Barron and Crawford high marks and everybody else gets low marks. Crawford's the only person who got us into some type of flow on offense, which got us back in the game. Price got us a lead early, but it was fools gold because it was based on three point shooting and not getting points in the paint or a 16 ft jumper or pic and rolls etc.

Hopefully we'll correct this stuff by next game. What we need from game 1 to game 2 is to work within the flow of the offense. Crawford has shown me that he can do that, and I'd still want Webster in there starting. To me Crawford's earned that starting PG spot until Wall comes back. He's just BETTER than Price and Pargo.

The only thing that needs to change about Crawford is that he needs to take less threes. I was so happy with him today driving into the lane and he'd have an opportunity for one of those crazy shots, but he'd dish it out to somebody open and they'd hit it. That was execution. And I don't think Pargo and Price can create anything like that.

[Destino]

Ariza and Webster are miles better than the Singleton/Vesely/Lewis disaster that was the SF position last year. We haven't seem production from that position in a while.

Okafor defensively had some impressive moments. I'm eager to see what the interior production looks like with Nene on the floor at the same time. Seraphin added to the rotation... We might actually have a strong front court. What?! Did I just say that?

[endzone_dave]

8 for 32 from three point land says a lot. Lots of guys with very little talent just chucking the ball up there. I was surprised at Crawford passing the ball on the break, that was nice to see.

Waiters looked pretty good. I know it's just one game but I have that gut feeling EG screwed up again.

[Renegade7]

All this talk about the wizards having better bigs and we let one guy get 23 rebounds? 60 from the line isn't going to cut it either. At school during the game, but was able to keep up with the run on gamecast with the android. Very balanced box score, but still only 84 points. That's not going to cut it. Still like the 10 turnovers, keep doing that, and we might stand a chance until Wall and Nene get back. Tired of losing, man...

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

So...how many weeks until "We're 9-20 Night?"

[Destino]

All this talk about the wizards having better bigs and we let one guy get 23 rebounds? 60 from the line isn't going to cut it either. At school during the game, but was able to keep up with the run on gamecast with the android. Very balanced box score, but still only 84 points. That's not going to cut it. Still like the 10 turnovers, keep doing that, and we might stand a chance until Wall and Nene get back. Tired of losing, man...

Two of three bigs were out. Seraphin and Nene. Randy was slow on getting Barron in be use no one expected him to pay well.

[Skin'emAlive]

I said it before, and ill say it again: With Wall out of the lineup, we should be running Crawford at the point, and Beal / Martin at SG and Ariza / Webster at SF ( with Singleton coming in as a 3rd option)

[Renegade7]

Two of three bigs were out. Seraphin and Nene. Randy was slow on getting Barron in be use no one expected him to pay well.

I understand that, but that's only two guys. Varejo is not Kevin Love. Is this what we're going to have to deal with until Nene and Seraphine come back? Vasely was the 6th pick in the draft, ya know? Guys like Singleton and Booker I was hoping for a step forward.

I gotta see more games, but the players that are healthy and have been here need to be getting better. Maybe if I got to watch it I'd feel differently, but from the box score and this thread, I'm not seeing much progress from our young big men. Am I wrong??? ( I want to be wrong here, jesus, this sucks...)

[RonArtest15]

You guys are seriously undervaluing Varajao. The guy is very good. He's an excellent rebounding big and he showed it tonight. When we sent Jamison to the Cavs a few years back, I was hoping we could have gotten AV in the return.

[StillUnknown]

You guys are seriously undervaluing Varajao. The guy is very good. He's an excellent rebounding big and he showed it tonight. When we sent Jamison to the Cavs a few years back, I was hoping we could have gotten AV in the return.

He's good, mainly because he knows his limitations. He knows his role and excels in it, although we made didn't exactly make it difficult on him. The attempts at boxing him out were almost nonexistent.

Cavs will probably get a decent haul for him around the trade deadline.

[Destino]

I understand that, but that's only two guys. Varejo is not Kevin Love. Is this what we're going to have to deal with until Nene and Seraphine come back? Vasely was the 6th pick in the draft, ya know? Guys like Singleton and Booker I was hoping for a step forward.

I gotta see more games, but the players that are healthy and have been here need to be getting better. Maybe if I got to watch it I'd feel differently, but from the box score and this thread, I'm not seeing much progress from our young big men. Am I wrong??? ( I want to be wrong here, jesus, this sucks...)

Only young big worth talking about is Seraphin. Vesely is still not strong enough for the 4 IMO and singleton isn't a power forward. Booker had a HORRIBLE night. Sideshow Bob just pushed everyone around tonight. No one was able to box him out.

The bigs were also out of position constantly because the perimeter defense kept failing and they had to rotate off their assignments to protect the rim. This is the same thing hat happened last season. People liked to point at the pick and roll defense but until this team can put some speed bumps in the lane no big is going to have much success. That happened tonight,

I think maybe Wittman is as bad a defensive coach as his record suggests.

[Going Commando]

Kyrie is going to put up numbers this year.

Kyrie could be an amazing player if he simply gave a damn about defense. I find it hard to believe he simply has no clue whatsoever on that end. He's such a gifted scorer. To be as bad as he is on defense, and as smart a player as he is on offense, you simply just don't care about defense. He just says **** it, I'm going to take a bad gamble for a turnover every once in a while and commit a foul and on the rest of the plays I'm just going to drag ass.

Anyway, my thoughts:

- Wittman is just really bad and unqualified. He manages the lineups like a dunce. We'll never be a truly good team with him running the show. No team could. Not even Miami.

- Varejao is a terrific player, but goddamn, he's not that terrific. With Nene out, we lack size in the interior to match up with players like him. Mark my words, energetic and long big men are going to be our Achilles heal all season long and those guys are going to put up big numbers on us. We were actually trying to box Varejao out a good deal of the time and we simply couldn't.

- In general I thought the offense did a much better job moving the ball than I expected. Some guys were missing their outlets and settling for crap shots. Price comes to mind, that tear drop sucked for him tonight. Crawford wasn't so much missing his outlets so much as ignoring them but whatever, his drives were converting for the most part. Everyone else did a good job IMO.

- That said, even though the movement was better, go to scoring was still a HUGE issue. We were creating good shots and none of them were falling. Shooting is still a huge issue for the team. Nobody seems to have any go to ISO offense they can resort to except for Crawford.

- Book got absolutely screwed early on with those three foul calls. Each was horrible and it took him out of the game. Varejao needs to be fined for flopping.

- Vesely looked good tonight. Excellent defensive play. Did a good job using defense to feed into the offense by creating transition opportunities for teammates. He does a really good job moving the ball on offense. He's going to be a valuable cog on both ends of the floor even if he never becomes a scorer. I hope he was taking notes on the way Varejao played.

- Really like Okafor. He is the master of the tip out on the offensive glass.

- Beal was pretty anonymous although he flashed for a few stretches. A couple of nice dimes, really nice cleaning up the glass (good since we're not a good rebounding team). Only took a few iffy shots but nothing egregious. He's not going to be a big contributor for a while though. We can't be relying on him to be our main source of range shooting this year.

- Ariza had an excellent defensive game. Active and disciplined. Hoping this is the effort we can expect from him going forward and not his preseason play.

Bottom line: Both of these teams are pretty garbage. Watching Miami-Boston and LA-Dallas is such a contrast to what you see from Cle-Was. The best player on WAS or CLE would be the fourth or fifth best player on any of those other four teams--at best. Young teams that simply can't compete with what a first rate team actually looks like.

[StillUnknown]

Jae Crowder looking good for the Mavs..........but we got Satoransky.

[Destino]

Jae Crowder looking good for the Mavs..........but we got Satoransky.

Grunfeld is not to be questioned heathen! He gave us new uniforms... Are you never satisfied?

[SuperBash]

Once, I want the Wizards to luck out and draft a stud wing/perimeter type player who can slash, drive, and make plays off the dribble. Even someone on the level of Granger/Paul George. Hell, Indiana did it twice! Not even top draft picks. But, to be able to find that type of player, we'd need a compete GM/scouting staff. I don't think I've ever seen a player like that in D.C. I guess Butler is the closest I can think of,

[Going Commando]

He's good, mainly because he knows his limitations. He knows his role and excels in it, although we made didn't exactly make it difficult on him. The attempts at boxing him out were almost nonexistent.

Cavs will probably get a decent haul for him around the trade deadline.

Well, a few were trying to box him out. They just couldn't. Length and bulk are a huge issue in the front court when Nene is out. Okafor is skilled, but he's lean and he's not really that long. Vesely is long, but lacks bulk. Seraphin, Singleton, and Booker are bulky but lack length. Webster isn't really a big, relying on

RA15 is right though, Varejao is absolutely an upper echelon rebounder and a terrific player in general. He should have made the All Star game last season. Not going to get too worked up about him going off, nobody else on their team abused us on the glass like he did.

---------- Post added October-30th-2012 at 11:45 PM ----------

Jae Crowder looking good for the Mavs..........but we got Satoransky.

Yeah he's looking excellent. Confident shooter who looks pretty deadly when in rhythm.

[Destino]

Looking at the rosters... I didn't expect the Mavs to be winning at the half.

[Going Commando]

Waiters looked pretty good. I know it's just one game but I have that gut feeling EG screwed up again.

You said it yourself, It's one game.

I wasn't that impressed with Waiters by the end of the game. He's got a few NBA ready skills that he's going to use to produce with early on, but in general I thought he was just OK. He's quick and gets into the paint and has a nice set of finishing moves and he hit a nice step back jumper from mid range but I thought he was pretty weak defensively and didn't do a good job spotting up--not a natural looking spot up shooter.

Then again, Beal was pretty hesitant with his shot too and took a few shaky shots out of rhythm.

In general though, I think Beal has a much higher ceiling than Waiters. I think Waiters is going to be a fairly one dimensional player.

---------- Post added October-30th-2012 at 11:55 PM ----------

Looking at the rosters... I didn't expect the Mavs to be winning at the half.

They're a lot better than people think.

Cuban has been doing this for a while. He cobbles together moneyball style teams out of undervalued players nobody else wants and works them into a winning group. As long as Dirk is there, that team will be a playoff fixture. He's kind of the thing that makes it all work. No matter what team you field, you need one top end scorer that can generate good offense against a set defense.

In particular though, I think Brand, Kaman, and Collison are very undervalued. OJ Mayo could blossom in this new situation, and the assortment of role players is fundamentally strong as it's a bunch of veterans who know how to play.

---------- Post added October-30th-2012 at 11:58 PM ----------

Good stuff from Kenny although he's kind of missing the point. Gasol is a much better running mate for Dwight than Kobe...

This is going to become more apparent as this experiment moves forward.

[Destino]

Beal looked nothing like a top three pick. Hitting open shots is great but Steve Novak does that and he's not what people are looking for in a top three pick. Beal needs to be able impose his will. He needs to be able to beat his defender and score.

This had better be a one game thing, because if he can't dribble he's hot garbage. A point guard that can't shoot playing next to a shooting guard that can't dribble is the script of a bad Disney basketball movie.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Destino

[Going Commando]

Beal looked like a deer in headlights. I'm glad he got his first real NBA action tonight so he'll now what to expect from here on out.

Beal's thinking and not doing. He looked somewhat afraid to shoot. His setup was slower than usual and he was passing up some shots he should have taken and then taking others out of rhythm or forced them a bit.

I liked his work cleaning up some of the boards and passing the ball and I think he is going to be one of those opportunistic defenders that makes nice gambles when he can turn defense into offense.

In general though, Beal played far too few minutes to really draw any conclusions about his performance.

All in all, I'm not that disappointed. Team was beyond flat for 3 quarters...showed some fight/resiliency, and made it a game in the 4th. I loved the fact that they didn't lay down. Pargo/Price were awful, Craw shot horribly (even though he did some good things as far as playmaking), Booker looked like that dude at the gym who takes inaccurate shots after a heavy biceps workout, etc. Considering we were missing 2 starters and 1 key bench player, I don't see why people can't be somewhat optimistic that this squad can win 35+ games. We'll have our horses back in a few weeks. The other guys have to stay balanced and keep the team near .500 in their absence. It can be done.

I'm disappointed. Mostly in Wittman. His management of the lineups was just bad down the stretch. Pargo and Price really forced it and basically lost us the game and both of them should have been out of the game at that point. Yet Wittman just let it run on with that dumb look on his face.

Booker also looked scared to shoot. He let the moment pass on a lot of shots and couldn't get a rhythm. But I also think him getting screwed with three awful fouls early took him off his game.

Singleton seemed kind of meh. He needs to shoot with more confidence too. This team is waaaaaay too concerned with makes and misses. If you've got a good shot, just take the damn thing.

Vesely was good, better than I expected, but again, hesitant shot.

Ariza and Webster were both pretty good.

Barron was solid, seems like he's got value for the rotation.

Okafor was the best player on our team.

Crawford had a strong game for the most part and we're clearly going to have to lean on him early. He's one of the only guys who does seem to shoot with confidence and aggressiveness. But he misses some opportunities to pass for selfish shots and he's never far away from saying "**** it" and switching to gunner mode.

I think we actually played more than well enough to win this game as a whole. The defense was pretty good and the ball movement was surprisingly excellent considering our PGs aren't good. The reason we lost is because we couldn't make any damn shots. Cleveland is clearly a dreadful defensive team. We got a TON of good looks and just missed them over and over again, including the FTs. Plus we can't rebound and gave them a ton of second chances. That made the difference.

[Destino]

Steve I agree about Wittman. I'm also sick of seeing him preach defense. He knows nothing about coaching defense.

[chipwhich]

Beal looked nothing like a top three pick. Hitting open shots is great but Steve Novak does that and he's not what people are looking for in a top three pick. Beal needs to be able impose his will. He needs to be able to beat his defender and score.

This had better be a one game thing, because if he can't dribble he's hot garbage. A point guard that can't shoot playing next to a shooting guard that can't dribble is the script of a bad Disney basketball movie.

In all fairness Grunfeld fielded the best Wizards/Bullets team since the 70's and the NBA is an all star sport.

Only a few teams compete in the NBA, and you need an all star.

[Going Commando]

Beal looked nothing like a top three pick. Hitting open shots is great but Steve Novak does that and he's not what people are looking for in a top three pick. Beal needs to be able impose his will. He needs to be able to beat his defender and score.

This had better be a one game thing, because if he can't dribble he's hot garbage. A point guard that can't shoot playing next to a shooting guard that can't dribble is the script of a bad Disney basketball movie.

We get it, you don't care for Beal. But you're being completely knee jerk. One iffy game (his first as a pro), and you're on the brink of declaring him hot garbage?

[Destino]

In all fairness Grunfeld fielded the best Wizards/Bullets team since the 70's and the NBA is an all star sport.

Only a few teams compete in the NBA, and you need an all star.

That was before he decided no stars wanted to play here and gave up. Back when he showed up with a suitcase full of money and stole arenas. Now he settles and apologizes to players for bringing them here. He's become pathetic and his continued employment insults me as a wizards fan.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Destino

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

if Lamb and Drummond ball this season, I will be ill.