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BRAVEONAWARPATH

By BRAVEONAWARPATH
in The Tailgate

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Going Commando

Going Commando

Posted
Posted
Young is a ****ing badass.

What do you mean Vishal? Young is obviously just a guy and only counts as .25 of our 1.25 barely adequate starters.

---------- Post added February-25th-2011 at 11:11 PM ----------

Wall, Young, and McGee appear to be the only players that contributed tonight. Except for Baltche, who contributed more by not playing than he has in any game he has played this season.

Those are our young studs. They played like it on the road against one of the best teams in the league. They are a really nice set of building blocks along with Booker and Seraphin. We're going to be a good team as we mature and actually become a team. Right now we aren't more than the sum of our parts. But our young guys have talent and energy and I think we'll start to turn it around before they get burned out.

I agree that Blatche needs a change of scenery, but we shouldn't give him up for nothing. I think he'll have some trade value for a team looking for some scoring. I would have moved him for the Clippers' lottery pick if we could have gotten our hands on it in time. We probably could have gotten Barnes with that pick. Oh well. Failing that, we should try and get a lottery pick for the 2012 class because it's chock full of good forwards.

Or if we're in striking distance of Jared Sullinger, I would gladly trade Blatche as part of a package to move into the top 3 to get him. If the basketball gods have any mercy in them, they'll let us get Sullinger.

Move Blatche, Bibby, and at least one of our older forwards. Pray for the third pick so we can get Sullinger. Hope Atlanta's pick is around 20 because take a look at these names in that range on draft express' mock draft:

- Alec Burks @ 18

- Josh Selby @ 20

- Brandon Knight @ 22

- Trey Thompkins @ 27

Those are some bit time offensive players. I'd hope for one of them with the second first rounder. Then in the second you can take whoever. I know some like Marshon Brooks, that could be a range.

Suddenly this starts to look like a team that could go somewhere:

1 - Wall, Knight

2 - Young, Crawford

3 - Lewis, Thornton

4 - Sullinger, Booker

5 - McGee, Seraphin

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Going Commando

Going Commando

Posted
Posted

Here's an interesting tidbit. When you take out Mustafa Shakur's number, McGee, Wall, and Young lead our team in PER according to ESPN. Blatche is fourth, but Trevor Booker is fifth. I think this actually validates the PER stat as a determinant of your teams best players because I think that it correctly placed our 4 best players in the top 5 (discounting Shakur).

---------- Post added February-26th-2011 at 12:13 AM ----------

Is it fair to say that John Wall is in the middle of the best statistical rookie season of any of the pure PGs currently in the league? Nearly the best in the history of the game?

His current statistical line (15.2 PTS, 9.0 AST, 4.3 RBD, 1.7 STL, .408% FG) is arguably better overall than the rookie seasons from:

- Chris Paul (His closest competitor--better shooting FG % but worse 3PT %, slightly more points and steals and rebounds, but nearly a whole two assists / game lower)

- Deron Williams

- Rajon Rondo

- Steve Nash

- Jason Kidd

- Russell Westbrook (probably his third closest competitor)

- Derrick Rose (probably his second closest competitor)

Paul and Oscar Robertson are pretty much the only pure PGs in NBA history who were this good this fast. Isiah Thomas comes close, but his total output doesn't put him in Wall's tier.

So basically, when all is said and done, we could be looking at second or third greatest rookie season from a pure PG in NBA history. If you remove remove Robertson from consideration because he played in such a different era, Wall's season so far has arguably been the greatest of the modern era.

****ing Blake Griffin. Any other year and Wall would be the unanimous choice.

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G.A.C.O.L.B.

G.A.C.O.L.B.

Posted
Posted

What the hell are you talking about McQueen? Steve Czban told me last week that the Wizards shouldn't build around Wall, he isn't all that special.

I say Wiz fans boo the **** out of Blake Griffin on the 12th. It'll pain me cause I really truly love him as a player, but he a) ****ed McGee out of the dunk title and B) is ****ing Wall out of his RoY Award.

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Destino

Destino

Posted
Posted (edited)

So is there any hope that Nick Young will ever give a consistent effort? The guy can score at will when he wants to... but he doesn't seem to want to often enough and then showers praise on himself when he does even if it happened in a losing effort. I like the potential but my instinct tells me he's Baron Davis type player. His man defense has improved which is good but the inconsistency kills me. This team is loaded with players that have so much potential and no mental toughness.

Edited by Destino
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G.A.C.O.L.B.

G.A.C.O.L.B.

Posted
Posted (edited)

Honestly, I think Nick Young and Javale McGee still have some of that Agent Zero on them. Once they're able to completely free themselves from that influence they'll be fine.

And I know some people will disagree vehemently with me on this, but thank God we traded him before Wall fell under the spell.

Edited by G.A.C.O.L.B.
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Going Commando

Going Commando

Posted
Posted (edited)

This is the second time this season we've played the Heat tough. The first game we didn't have Wall, so that was kind of a forgettable one.

We haven't seemed to gain any ground on the Magic, but when you look at the landscape in the East, when Wall has been healthy, we've beaten the Celtics and played the Heat really hard twice. Wall hasn't really been healthy versus the Bulls yet, and clearly we don't have a chance when he's not in top form.

But you have to be encouraged by the early returns of this team against the conference's best teams. We seem to match up well against the Heat and Javale can dominate them in the paint. They have to commit LeBron and Wade to defending Young and Wall. If we actually get another big scoring forward, I don't know that they'd have the horses to shut everyone down. We could beat them. Likewise, the we can give the Celtics everything they can handle because they have a hard time matching our speed and athleticism. Rondo isn't enough of an offensive threat to truly tax Wall and it takes everything Rondo has to defend him. If Seraphin and Booker continue to develop, in a couple of years we'll be able to match them in saltiness. Those two power teams are going to have trouble with us in a couple of seasons.

The only problem is the damned Hawks, Magic, and Bulls. The Bulls can go stride for stride with us at just about every position since they're built almost identically (but with a lot more talent). Get us Sullinger though and we'll have our own Boozer (only much younger). The Magic are just too big and too athletic in the frontcourt for us to handle right now. Howard scores and rebounds at will and Javale will probably always struggle with him. Maybe one day Seraphin can develop into an effective defensive presence down low, I don't know what we're going to do to stop Howard. The Hawks pose all sorts of matchup problems for us too because we don't really have an answer to Josh Howard nor Al Horford. Our best hope is that they never find a PG and eventually decide to dismantle their core to shake things up.

The Knicks would be dangerous if they got Dwight Howard. They wouldn't scare me as much if they got Paul because a Wall-Paul matchup will favor us and Javale can actually out-rebound Stoudemire. But if the cap ends up being much higher than we expected and Howard leaves for New York, that would suck. The Nets wouldn't bother me as much. I think Wall can handle Deron Williams and Javale can defend Brook Lopez. If they added a third piece though, they might become problematic. Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, and Charlotte all look like they're in worse shape than we are. Eventually, we'll be able to beat Milwaukee regularly. Indiana and Philly are tough draws though. We tend to match up poorly against them for some reason.

When you look around the conference, our future seems bright if we get another key piece from this year's lottery. The West will still be a bear and probably kick our butts most of the time, but we'll eventually be able to hold our own in this conference and make it to the playoffs. This year has been long and frustrating, but aside from a few brief and isolated moments of despair, I've felt optimistic the whole time. Things are going to get better and we'll start peaking at a point where the other power teams in the East are on the downslope of their window.

Edited by stevemcqueen1
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StillUnknown

StillUnknown

Posted
Posted (edited)
When you look around the conference, our future seems bright if we get another key piece from this year's lottery. The West will still be a bear and probably kick our butts most of the time, but we'll eventually be able to hold our own in this conference and make it to the playoffs. This year has been long and frustrating, but aside from a few brief and isolated moments of despair, I've felt optimistic the whole time. Things are going to get better and we'll start peaking at a point where the other power teams in the East are on the downslope of their window.

I wish I shared your optimism on McGee. I really want to see him reach close to his potential, but my gut is telling me he won't be that much better than he already is

on a sidenote, I think instrumental in the rebuild is selecting the right kind of coach to grow with this team.

two questions, who is most likely to replace Flip and who do you want to replace Flip?

Edited by StillUnknown
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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted (edited)
Honestly, I think Nick Young and Javale McGee still have some of that Agent Zero on them. Once they're able to completely free themselves from that influence they'll be fine.

And I know some people will disagree vehemently with me on this, but thank God we traded him before Wall fell under the spell.

I don't think the Agent 0 spell would have effected Wall. Gil had mentally checked before the season even got here.

Young and McGee were around when Gilbertology was in full swing. Even though I think Young learned well from Gilbert. Gilbert was a workaholic and Young seems to have learned quite a bit on the offensive end from him. Gilbert gave him a lot of confidence as well. I think everyone but Gilbert had given up on Nick coming into this year.

I really hope we can retain Nick Young for $5M or close per year. His shot is just too deadly.

Edited by No Excuses
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Going Commando

Going Commando

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Posted
I wish I shared your optimism on McGee. I really want to see him reach close to his potential, but my gut is telling me he won't be that much better than he already is

on a sidenote, I think instrumental in the rebuild is selecting the right kind of coach to grow with this team.

two questions, who is most likely to replace Flip and who do you want to replace Flip?

I don't really know enough about coaching candidates to have an opinion. I don't think Flip is the man for this job though. He needs a veteran team to work with, not a bunch of knuckleheaded 22 and 23 year olds. I just don't think he's got the patience to manage this group with an even hand like they need.

But I also don't think Flip is a disaster either. This season was ****ed from the beginning and we knew that going in. So the team losing shouldn't decide whether he stays or goes after this season. What will be my barometer of success is if he continues to effectively develop Wall/McGee/Seraphin/Booker/Young. That's really all that matters at this point.

Even if McGee never gets any better than he is right now, he's still a good starting center. He's efficient and has unique above the rim ability and has a PER in the 16s, which is better than what a lot of teams get at the position.

But McGee is also 23 and came into the game notoriously raw. He's already made big strides in his first season as a starter and will certainly continue to do so. Josh Smith was another super athletic but super raw big that didn't start to thrive until he had about 150-200 starts under his belt. The Hawks would be short a really good player if they had given up on him too early. Once McGee gets consistent enough to start commanding 30 minutes or more per game, his performances will shine. He'll put up bigger numbers and assert himself as one of the better centers in the East.

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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted (edited)

I agree that McGee is already pretty decent but big men are over valued in this league. Say it's time for free agency and McGee is about to hit the market. I guarantee some team will want to pay him a decent chunk of money for him.

The question we have to ask is do we want to invest on him, or let him walk and try to get someone better? If we want better production from the C spot, why not trade him while his value is at its peak?

Edited by No Excuses
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Going Commando

Going Commando

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Posted

It'll be hard to find someone better though. It would also suck to have a minimal return on McGee after having spent all that time developing him. I'd rather stay the course with him than start over at the position and go from it being a position of minor strength to one of huge need.

That could damage our ability to keep Wall.

Plus I still think there is a lot of upside left to McGee's game.

---------- Post added February-26th-2011 at 02:20 PM ----------

When are we going to change the team name? Wizards just leaves me feeling unattached. It'd be like if the Redskins changed their name to the Accountants or something.

I want us to go back to the Bullets now so we can hear an endless stream of puns every time Wall runs coast to coast.

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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted (edited)
It'll be hard to find someone better though. It would also suck to have a minimal return on McGee after having spent all that time developing him. I'd rather stay the course with him than start over at the position and go from it being a position of minor strength to one of huge need.

With the current structure of the team, I agree that there is no point in trading McGee. He's our best big man prospect with a ridiculously high ceiling. But if we draft someone like Jared Sullinger or any other prospect next year and he ends up showing a lot of promise and production, then I'd look for trade offers for McGee.

Portland was interested in trading Nicolas Batum and apparently they contacted the Wizards about McGee. I'm a fan of Batum and I think he's the ideal SF to pair next to Wall. With the Gerald Wallace trade, I think they'd consider moving Batum for value. With Pryzbilla gone, Oden hitting the open market and Camby nearing retirement, they'll find good value in McGee. Plus, they played Lamarcus Aldridge 51 minutes at the C spot last night. They have a desperate need for a C.

We already have another really good prospect in Seraphin. I think a year or two from now when we're hopefully ready to contend, Seraphin will be a good NBA center. I love the mean streak that he plays with. He has a lot of Ben Wallace in his game. Just a powerful guy in the paint.

Edited by No Excuses
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StillUnknown

StillUnknown

Posted
Posted

its hard to get an accurate feel about McGee in part because he spends so much time on the court with #7

those two cannot play together on a defensive end, their games just don't compliment the other

i actually think McGee would probably play best with someone like Sullinger who's a great rebounder

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