The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Going Commando]

When Wall becomes a better ball handler, he's going to be an amazing inside scorer. But he lacks a creative array of finishing moves IMO. To me, this is as important an area for development as his shooting and decision making. And his defense of course. I don't understand how someone can simultaneously be such a great transition defender--blocking shots on 3 on 1s--and such a poor half court defender, especially off the ball.

If Wall actually does develop all of those skills...

- perimeter defense

- decision making

- finishing moves

- dribble pull ups and especially step back jumpers + it wouldn't hurt to become a better 3 point shooter and develop the ability to catch and shoot when he's off the ball.

... he'll be the best all around PG in the league.

Of course that's a mountain of skills to learn. It'll probably be years before he masters those things, if he ever does.

[No Excuses]

Can already tell how worthless Brian Cook is.

[Thinking Skins]

Can already tell how worthless Brian Cook is.

my thoughts exactly

[Going Commando]

See how pissed Wall was for missing that FT? Heart of a champion.

Wall could get a lot of mileage out of mastering the Dwayne Wade two step.

[StillUnknown]

Can already tell how worthless Brian Cook is.

He keeps Blatche on the bench, that's value enough for me.

[No Excuses]

As bad as Baltche is, Cook is probably even worse. I think he has a PER of .11 this year LOL.

[skinfan2k]

Brian Cook has a shot like me. I like what i see out of Jan. You can tell that he has been working on his body. His upper body is definitely bigger

[Destino]

Seraphin scoring well? Stop passing him the ball entirely.

[No Excuses]

Terrible defense by Singleton.

Nice tank loss.

[MonkFan8]

Good tank loss. Would have liked to see more balls in the post to Seraphin if only to open up some shots for our shooters. Unlike McGee, Seraphin passes it out of the post.

Oh well. Wall had some ridiculously athletic plays and we hung in there against a good team on the road. Liked what I saw.

[Skins199021]

loving how this trade has worked out

If he get number 1 i say draft davis, and try and trade our 2 2nds maybe some future 2nds and blatche to move back into the first and draft terrence ross

Wall/Mack

Crawford/Ross/Mason

Singleton/Vesely

Davis/Booker

Nene/Seraphin

that would be quite fun to watch

[Going Commando]

We're playing better. It's only a matter of time before we start actually closing out games and getting wins. I could see us playing .500 ball during the final month.

I doubt we get the #1 overall pick without some serious luck. More than likely, that pick is going to a team without a franchise player. Is there any doubt that the NBA owned, Stern-managed New Orleans Hornets will get the first overall pick?

- A year with a clear cut #1 choice in Davis.

- A down on their luck franchise that badly needs a new face in order to put asses in the seats and save basketball in America's new underdog city that everyone pulls for.

- That same franchise just so happens to be owned by the NBA and they've been looking for a buyer for what, three years now?

No, bet money that we'll be screwed by the lottery as usual. I bet we end up picking 4th-6th once again. If MKG stays in school the top three picks will go:

1.) Davis

2.) Barnes/Robinson

3.) Barnes/Robinson

They're the clear cut top three IMO.

So start figuring out who you like between Sully, Drummond, Beal, PJIII, Henson, T Jones, J Lamb, Quincy Miller, and Rivers.

Any one want to sig bet that we end up picking fifth and choose Drummond after the top four picks go Davis, Robinson, Barnes, and Sully?

As Wizards fans, deep in your hearts, you know this is going to happen.

If that happened, I'd rather just trade back and try and get multiple firsts and take value when if fell (Q Miller and Austin Rivers in the teens if they came out).

Or if I couldn't move down, I'd just say **** it and draft James McAdoo at that pick assuming he declares.

[Destino]

I don't think Drummond comes out. If he does he might cack the top three. All of the best in the draft are deeply flawed and Drummond has the most upside of anyone in the draft. Someone will fall in love with that. As far as I'm concerned this is a weak draft class.

He's mentally not there but teams have ignored that in the past. They'll think they can motivate and teach him. You can't teach 6-10 270 with tremendous speed.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Destino

[Skins199021]

i don't liek drummond very much at all

I want us to get one of

Davis

Barnes

Beal

MKG

PJIII

that is all i ask

[StillUnknown]

i don't liek drummond very much at all

I want us to get one of

Davis

Barnes

Beal

MKG

PJIII

that is all i ask

I wouldn't touch PJIII

Right now its The Unibrow, T-Rob, MKG, Beal, or Barnes, in that order.

[Going Commando]

Barnes, Henson, Sully, PJIII, Terrence Jones, J Lamb, and Davis are all safe bets to declare.

Rivers is probably a good bet to declare and it could certainly sense for him to do so. Meyers Leonard is probably a good bet to declare too.

Drummond will probably declare even though he almost certainly shouldn't.

Beal might declare because he's pretty much NBA ready, but I'd give it only an even chance at best right now.

Cody Zeller seems unlikely to declare. MKG, McAdoo, Quincy Miller all seem unlikely to declare as well.

To ensure we get a high quality prospect with our lottery pick, I think we need to hope that most of the group of freshman consisting of Beal, Gilchrist, Miller, McAdoo, Drummond, and Rivers declare. Unfortunately, I doubt most of them declare, and it wouldn't surprise me if none of them declared.

If each choose to go back to school and then come out as Sophomores, the top of the 2013 draft class would be much more talented than this one, especially when you factor in super rising freshman like Nerlens Noel and Shabazz Muhammad. I'd actually consider trying to deal our pick this year for an unprotected 2013 pick from a ****ty team, or picking up the assets to make this kind of deal next year.

---------- Post added March-18th-2012 at 10:23 PM ----------

I don't think Drummond comes out. If he does he might cack the top three. All of the best in the draft are deeply flawed and Drummond has the most upside of anyone in the draft. Someone will fall in love with that. As far as I'm concerned this is a weak draft class.

He's mentally not there but teams have ignored that in the past. They'll think they can motivate and teach him. You can't teach 6-10 270 with tremendous speed.

Davis is as good a #1 overall prospect as has come out in a while. In some ways, he's a better #1 candidate than John Wall was. He's one of the most gifted 6'10 bigs to have come out in a decade.

---------- Post added March-18th-2012 at 10:26 PM ----------

Robinson needs to pick it up and drag his team to a win here. It's what a POTY favorite and top three pick would do. Kansas needs to at least make the Sweet 16. Preferably the Final Four for my bracket's sake.

Watching Kansas here after UNC earlier, it's clear I made a big mistake picking them over UNC.

[Destino]

Whatever you see in Davis I'm not seeing. Best big in 10 years? I disagree. I can't ignore his lack of anything resembling an NBA game on offense or the fact that he struggles with bigger players in college.

Griffin, Aldridge, Bogut, Howard, Bosh, and Ming. I'd put all of them over him coming into the draft.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Destino

[Going Commando]

Bosh wasn't that great a prospect at the time. Bogut? Definitely not. College Bogut would barely see the top ten in this year's class. He benefited from coming out in a fairly weak year. If you went back and redrafted that class, he'd only be the fourth or fifth player taken.

Aldridge wasn't even the first pick in his class and it was a dreadfully bad class, one of the worst of the last two decades. Aldridge also didn't look special until last season.

Griffin was clearly special but he wasn't as dominant as a freshman as Davis is. Yao was a 7'7 Chinese player and true center. Hard to compare them.

Davis is fifth in usage at Kentucky yet leads the team in scoring. He's arguably the most efficient scorer in all of college basketball, definitely the most efficient of any of the top prospects recently.

We've basically never seen Davis's combination hands, leaping ability, length, motor, intensity, IQ, finesse, touch, upside, explosiveness, speed, and agility before. He's elite in every single one of those categories.

He's also been the unquestioned centerpiece and best player on one of the best regular season teams in college basketball history. If he leads them to a title this year? They'd be one of the best teams of all time. Arguably the best, considering this is the era of parity where mid majors make the final four and routinely beat power teams in the tourney.

Davis probably deserves to win POTY. That's an absurdly special accomplishment as a freshman, much less a freshman big. A freshman big has never done it before. The only other freshman to have done it is Kevin Durant. Davis is basically a ceilingless Kevin Durant-esque caliber talent, and is to defense and rebounding as an NCAA freshman what Durant was to scoring.

[Destino]

What gives him the efficiency is what gives me doubts. Lob scoring and put backs do not translate to the nba where both of those are minimized by better, bigger, more disciplined bigs that do not allow them at anything resembling the college level.

I don't think he's bad or will be bad in the nba I just don't see star potential on him. Nor do I see prototype. This is why the trade annoyed me. This team short term needs to sign talent. The draft won't save us, not this class anyway.

Edited March 19, 2012 by Destino

[No Excuses]

Jan is averaging something like 6 PPG per 36 minutes on 48%TS.

It's amazing how his offensive range is literally 1 feet from the basket. This is from a guy who has had 4 years of pro league experience.

He's probably played less minutes than anyone on the team, and shot more airballs than all of them.

Edited March 19, 2012 by No Excuses

[Warhead36]

Jan is averaging something like 6 PPG per 36 minutes on 48%TS.

It's amazing how his offensive range is literally 1 feet from the basket. This is from a guy who has had 4 years of pro league experience.

He's probably played less minutes than anyone on the team, and shot more airballs than all of them.

It's incredible how inept he is offensively. I mean we're talking about a professional basketball player who can't shoot the damn ball at all!

[Destino]

It's incredible how inept he is offensively. I mean we're talking about a professional basketball player who can't shoot the damn ball at all!

If we played guess the position and I described a 6'11 player who had attempted 23 shots from outside three feet and only made 1. Yes that's right 1-23 shooting from outside three feet. Would you guess small forward?

That's Jan Vesely.

Seraphin is 16-51 from the same range (may not include today).

Edited March 19, 2012 by Destino

[StillUnknown]

If we played guess the position and I described a 6'11 player who had attempted 23 shots from outside three feet and only made 1. Yes that's right 1-23 shooting from outside three feet. Would you guess small forward?

That's Jan Vesely.

Seraphin is 16-51 from the same range (may not include today).

It's a shame because he can be an asset on defense, but since we can't spare having a non factor on offense, it decreases his minutes.

[Going Commando]

So Kendall Marshall's wrist is broken and Kansas clawed out the win last night. My bracket just might remain intact. In less important matters, if Marshall can't play, that will probably make Harrison Barnes and John Henson look like crap.

---------- Post added March-19th-2012 at 09:30 AM ----------

My final four was Kentucky, Florida, Ohio State, and Kansas. My method is transparent--pick the teams with the best/most talented player(s), especially in terms of NBA potential.

- Kentucky is the most loaded (in a region that was loaded with lottery picks) so I picked them to win it;

- Kansas has the best player in their region in Robinson (and I didn't like UNC's softness);

- Ohio State had the best player in Sullinger in their region, easily better than anyone FSU, Syracue, or Vanderbilt could trot out;

- Florida has two future NBA first round picks in Beal and Young and Missouri has what, maybe two second rounders? I doubt anyone from Michigan State's team could get drafted this year. Florida had the most talent in their region and they've got a coach with a proven track record in the tourney negating the (always annoyingly relevant) Izzo factor.

You've got to figure the best and most talented players make a disproportionate difference in the chaotic atmosphere of a 64 team single elimination round robin tournament right? An atmosphere where normal practice and game preparation are almost impossible and the best guys can just go out and ball. We'll see how it works out. So far, I'm ranked about the 50th percentile on ESPN but, it's too early for major separation and I've still got a lot of my elite eight left standing.

[pjfootballer]

I was looking at the standings in the newspaper yesterday and I didn't know New Orleans and Sacramento had passed us in the standings for overall worse record. We're at #2. Only the Blobcats are worse than us.