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The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc


BRAVEONAWARPATH

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Oh wow, had no idea the Summer League MVP was a legit thing. And had no idea that Wall won it in 2010

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Summer_League#MVP_Winners

Looking at that list, it's a damn good sign that Rice won it. Not all those guys are stars but they're all names we know. And you can't beat that with a 2nd round pick

Wow. That's some really good company to keep. Especially as the first 2nd rounder to take the crown.

This is an encouraging sign.

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Porter and GRJr were the Pippen and Jordan of Vegas Summer League. Those two have really great on court chemistry. GRJr is a born scorer. I love his aggressiveness, but he also shoots good shots for the most part. He was a gem. I think he can be a microwave bench scorer for us next season.

Porter should split his time with the starters and bench IMO. I like him playing with Rice but he should also play off the ball with Wall too.

Those two are fun to watch. The bench is going to be as entertaining as the starters this year. We've got the players to do a true 10 man rotation where you mass sub in a second line.

I think this Wizards team is going to be the best team we've had top to bottom since the end of the 70's.

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What i like a lot about Rice is that he plays with an edge.  Sometimes his emotions get the best of him, but he's fiery.  We need a guy ike that on the 2nd unit.  He and Otto shouldered 95% of the workload because their teammates, for the most part, were sub-par.  A lot of critics of Rice's shot selection failed to take note of the fact that there were only TWO legit NBA players on our SL roster.  Given what Otto/Glen had to work with, leaving Vegas with a 6-1 record (and a MVP trophy) is awesome. 

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What i like a lot about Rice is that he plays with an edge.  Sometimes his emotions get the best of him, but he's fiery.  We need a guy ike that on the 2nd unit.  He and Otto shouldered 95% of the workload because their teammates, for the most part, were sub-par.  A lot of critics of Rice's shot selection failed to take note of the fact that there were only TWO legit NBA players on our SL roster.  Given what Otto/Glen had to work with, leaving Vegas with a 6-1 record (and a MVP trophy) is awesome.

Yeah, they carried the whole load. But it's also not unusual for a SL roster to only have a couple NBA players.

Regardless, Rice demonstrated he's well suited to carrying the scoring load. He really is a born scorer, just has the mentality and instinct. He's extremely aggressive and spends every second searching for shots. I actually don't think his shot selection was bad. He's not Jordan Crawford or Nick Young. He takes in rhythm jumpers and he gets to the FT line. And he will pass the ball.

I agree, he can be really valuable for our second line. Miller and Porter are playmakers at heart and a hyper aggressive lead scorer to go with them creates a nice mix. Add Kris Humphries's solid jump shooting and that's a lot of offense for a bench.

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I'm having another roll my eyes argument on RealGM. This time its with people claiming that Ariza was the best player on our team last year. Their claim is based solely on numbers of course. No thinking, observing fan actually watching the Wizards play basketball last season would come to that conclusion.

What gets me is how little understanding of pretty simple concepts like offensive role they demonstrate. "Ariza was the best Wizard because he had the best ORtg." Nevermind that he was 10th on the team in usage and his offensive role consisted entirely of catching and shooting threes/straight line drives from the perimeter to an open rim against a hard close out. This **** should be obvious and go without saying for basketball fans. These guys don't understand this and I don't even know where to begin going about explaining something so self evident. Makes arguing with them really tedious.

It's no coincidence that a lot of these guys also worship Daryl Morey.

But what's different this time was one of the most obtuse posters cheerfully claimed it doesn't matter why Ariza's production was so good, only that it was good. It reminds me of that Grantland video where Vivek Ranadive claimed that we're in a time when math is more important than science. Meaning, the "why" of a pattern doesn't matter so long as you can see the pattern. It's just such an obviously stupid, reactionary idea. No wonder Sacramento has been flailing around trying to build a team. You can't project future results solely based on past patterns and be totally ignorant of all relevant contextual information explaining the pattern. You'd be ignorant of all variables that would determine whether or not you can actually recreate/repeat the pattern.

Duh.

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There are too many smart-dumb people on RealGM.  I have an account over there and lurk, but ES has better b-ball discussion.  I'll sum up Ariza's last year in a few lines...

 

He was GREAT for us last year.  No denying that.  However, a lot of his success is directly tied into John Wall.  We'll miss his defense, because he is one of the better perimeter defenders in the league...but he was EASILY replaceable.  There are many guys in the NBA who would have put up the same #'s on offense due to getting relatively easy looks.  We've upgraded the position with Pierce, and will be able to do many more creative things due to his versatility. 

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steve, you should know by now most people don't understand sports beyond a basic which number is higher level.

That's not true for RealGM Wizboard. These are true basketball nerds. Almost to a fault. Too obsessive over numbers. Although you will also find a lot of good stuff there. The draft thread on that board has been nailing sleepers for years.

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There are too many smart-dumb people on RealGM.  I have an account over there and lurk, but ES has better b-ball discussion.  I'll sum up Ariza's last year in a few lines...

 

He was GREAT for us last year.  No denying that.  However, a lot of his success is directly tied into John Wall.  We'll miss his defense, because he is one of the better perimeter defenders in the league...but he was EASILY replaceable.  There are many guys in the NBA who would have put up the same #'s on offense due to getting relatively easy looks.  We've upgraded the position with Pierce, and will be able to do many more creative things due to his versatility.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's a clear picture of reality.

Just wanted to come here and make sure I wasn't the one who was crazy.

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Wizards

I wrote about the Summer of Grunfeld earlier this week, and since then the Wiz added Kris Humphries (great depth, solid starter when Nene inevitably gets hurt for 30 games) and DeJuan Blair (human grizzly bear) to help fill out the frontcourt. It’s all so incredible.

If you were to pick one GM who won this summer, doesn’t it have to be Ernie Grunfeld? Given what was expected, what was possible, and what the Wiz actually accomplished … it’s Ernie’s world right now.

I’m fully prepared for something horrible to happen to ruin all this come November or December, but the Wizards nailed this offseason. They now join the Raptors and Hornets as the three teams with shockingly realistic chances of competing for the Eastern Conference crown. I’m not including the world’s greatest GIF, but just know that it’s playing in my heart for the rest of this summer.

GRADE: A+, AND WIZARD PARTY AT ERNIE’S

 

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/your-nba-offseason-report-card/

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