SB Nation User Blog: JakeTheSnake

Fun Facts About the Summer League Roster

JakeTheSnake — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:53:22 -0000

He's baaaaaaaaaaack.

View full size photo uploaded July 2, 2009

UPDATE: Jon L has his breakdown of the Summer League team up.

As you saw a couple of days ago, the Wizards have their roster in place for this year's summer league in Vegas. The Summer League gives diehard fans a chance to see the development of some of the younger players on the squad and what unsigned players might have a shot at cracking the roster. We're less than two weeks away from seeing this crew in action so there's no time to waste in learning about what the team.

The Guys With Contracts

Javaris Crittenton: Has a Twitter.
JaVale McGee: Has a workout video.
Dominic McGuire: Has a cool nickname (TASER!) that no one outside of this website knows how to use.
Nick Young: Has a documentary.

The Guy Who Has Played With the Wizards Before But Doesn't Have A Contract

James Lang: Lang played 55 minutes over 11 games with the Wizards in the 2006-07 season, scoring 11 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in his short time in D.C. After his release, Lang joined on with the Utah Flash of the D-League, where he's played the last two seasons, along with a stint in China. His per 36 numbers are decent, but there's nothing there that's going to blow you away.

The New Guys

Alade Aminu: The Georgia Tech forward started a foundation called Brotherhood of the World which started a basketball camp for underprivileged children in the Atlanta area.

Ryan Ayers: Ryan (#42 in the picture) is the son of former assistant coach Randy Ayers. He shot 42.9% from downtown last season with the Fighting Irish.

Jimmy Baron: The Rhode Island guard is probably most remembered for his performance against Duke last season where he hit eight three pointers as he nearly led the Rams to an upset at Cameron Indoor Stadium. This fact along should be enough to make him a fan favorite for the squad.

John Edwards: Edwards spent two years in the NBA with the Pacers and Hawks, putting up some rather modest numbers. His biggest claim to fame might be that he was the only bench player the Pacers had available in their first game after the infamous brawl in Detroit.

Josh Heytvelt: Everything you need to know is over here.

Tywain McKee: The Coppin State product owes a lot of his success in college to coaching legend John Chaney. He's an explosive scorer that dropped 31 on Syracuse last season.

Tyrese Rice: Those of you who watch ACC basketball are already very familiar with Rice from his days at Boston College. He scored 46 points in a loss to North Carolina two years ago, and then helped lead the Eagles to an upset of the top ranked Heels last season.

Jason Rich: Like Rice, Rich is another ACC product, and also a guard. He graduated from FSU in 2008 and spent last year in Italy playing for Pallancetro Cantu along with former Georgia Bulldog Sundiata Gaines.

Alex Ruoff: Ruoff has a pretty balanced all around game. Last year, in addition to his 15.7 points per game, he also chipped in 3.4 assists and 3.7 rebounds. He also chipped in 1.7 steals on the defensive end.

Diamon Simpson: Patty Mills received most of the attention over the last few years at St. Mary's, but Sampson has some game too. He was the WCC's Defensive Player of the Year last season, averaging a double-double and adding in 1.6 steals and 1.7 blocks per game for the Gaels. Looking at the stats, it's hard not to compare him to another player from a small Western college.

Kyle Spain: Nearly half of Spain's field goal attempts were three pointers in his senior year, which would explain why his FG% (.409) was so close to his 3P% (.390).

Brandon Wallace: Wallace was actually a part of the Celtics roster last year, but only played in D-League while a member of the team and was cut in mid-December. Since then, Wallace has spent time in the D-League and over in Turkey.

Ernie Grunfeld's Interview with The Junkies

JakeTheSnake — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:17:34 -0000

Ernie Grunfeld's Interview with The Junkies

A lot of good stuff from the GM in this interview. My favorite parts:

1. He says there's no plans to move Gilbert to shooting guard. Excellent.
2. As of right now, the starting shooting guard position is still up for grabs and won't be decided until training camp. Given the uncertainty of how it's all going to pan out at this point, it's good that he's not locking himself into one player.
3. He is looking to add another backup big man. He said he's looking for "someone that could come in occasionally and give us six to eight minutes."

Know Your Colts History: My, How Times Have Changed

JakeTheSnake — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:43:41 -0000

Back in the 1950's and 60's, there was a game show called "What's My Line?" where a panel of celebrity judges tried to guess the occupation of a guest. On one night in 1958 (no, not that night) one of the guests was a professional football player that you might be familiar with. Here's how his TV appearance went:

There's so many great things in this video that you would never see happen nowadays. Let's try and recap some of the best ones:

- The man was able to spell out his whole name and not have people automatically know that he was a star wide receiver on an NFL team. Marvin Harrison wouldn't even get to the letter v before someone could identify him, and he's one of the most anonymous star players the game has ever seen.

- While in the NFL, Raymond Berry was a member of an army reserve unit. I repeat, Raymond Berry, one of the top players in the NFL, was a member of an army reserve unit while he played in the NFL. You will never see this happen again.

- The whole Q&A would be so absurd nowadays that it would be borderline insane. Just imagine if Terrell Owens had to deal with these questions:

Do you now work for a profit-making organization?

Baby, I am a profit-making organization.

Do you deal in services?

What?!? Do you have a TV?

Is there anything entertaining or amusing about what you do?

No seriously, do you have a TV?

Are you engaged in any sport?

I'm 6'3, 225. Does this look like the body of an IT specialist?

Is it a sport which entails a team rather than going it on your own?

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THAT?

Is it team which has fewer than 11 members?

Let's see, there's me, myself, I, T.O., Terrell, #81, Mr. Owens, The Showstopper, I love me some me, Mr. Popcorn, and Terrell Owens. That's 11, right?

- Near the start of the video, Raymond Berry says that he's from the town of Paris, Texas. Paris is also the hometown of Robert Van Winkle. You might know him better as the lead man in this video:

Oddly, I feel older watching that Vanilla Ice video from the early 90's than I do watching the Raymond Berry video from 1958.

Josh Heytvelt signed to Wizards' Summer League squad

JakeTheSnake — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:57:59 -0000

Josh Heytvelt signed to Wizards' Summer League squad

Wiz fan perspective here: I'll be honest, I'm not sure Heytvelt has a great shot of making the team. But the Wizards' frontcourt depth is a little thin, so if he impresses in Vegas, he's got a shot.

Former Rhode Island guard Jimmy Baron to play on Wizards Summer League team

JakeTheSnake — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:18:44 -0000

Former Rhode Island guard Jimmy Baron to play on Wizards Summer League team

Baron is a bit of an interesting case because he'll be playing with Utah in the Orlando summer league and then playing for Washington in Vegas. If three point shooting is your thing, he'll provide it in spades. He shot 45.4% from deep last year.

(HT: WizStorm)

The Case for Rasho Nesterovic

JakeTheSnake — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:35:34 -0000

View full size photo uploaded June 29, 2009

If I've learned anything over the last few months, it's that a off-season rumor's sexiness is inversely proportional to its likelihood of actually happening. If you don't believe me, look no further than our most recent trade. Players like Amare Stoudemire, Manu Ginobili, and Jason Terry were all floated as players who could come to Washington in exchange for the #5 pick and other assets. Yet at the end of the day, we ended up with Randy Foye and Mike Miller. It's a trade that makes the team better, but it lacks the buzz that landing one of those players would have brought. But if we were truly honest with ourselves, I think that we would admit that those trades were more pipe dream than anything else.

We should look at this year's free agency crop the same way. We already know that the super pipe dreams (Paul Millsap, David Lee, Carlos Boozer, etc.) are out of the picture because they'll get much more than the mid-level exception on the open market. Keeping that in mind, the players that have been bounced around the most as potential targets in free-agency are Marcin Gortat and Zaza Pachulia. Again, both of those guys are nice players, but I think they both fall under the category of pipe dreams since Abe probably doesn't want to pony up most or all of the MLE on a backup big man.

Once you take those guys out of the equation, you're left with a smattering of veteran and D-League players who can come in and fill out the team's front court rotation. As you can tell from the title, there's one player that stands out to me more than anyone else: Rasho Nesterovic. Here's my reasoning:

He can defend other centers: Without Haywood in the lineup last year, centers pounded away last season. His return will help with that, but having another big who can slow the big guys down wouldn't hurt. At 7 ft. tall and 248 lbs., Rasho has a little more bulk than McGee and Blatche, which would come in handy when Brendan needs a breather and the Wizards are going up against the bigger centers in the league. Opposing centers has a PER of 16.5 against him last season, compared with 18.3 for Andray and 23.3 for JaVale McGee.
He can take on some of Darius Songaia's roles: Aside from his grit and Songaila was valuable because he was a big that could stretch the floor by knocking down open shots off the pick and pop and he was a solid passer. Rasho's jumper isn't quite as automatic as Songaila's, but it's good enough to make opposing teams respect it and he averaged more assists per 36 than Darius.
Familiarity with Flip Saunders: Rasho spent his first five seasons in the NBA in Minnesota with Flip Saunders where he became a very dependable sidekick alongside Kevin Garnett. As Flip begins his first season in Washington, it would probably be a good idea to have someone on the roster who already knows the system. Not only does that mean he'll have one less player to teach the system to, but it also in effect gives him another assistant who can teach guys like McGee and Blatche the little nuances of Flip's offensive and defensive sets.

Signing Rasho Nesterovic won't bring in the headlines that signing Paul Millsap or Marcin Gortat would, but he's a more realistic option who could help out for a decent price. It's not a sexy move, but he fits the team's needs and direction. Don't be shocked if you see him in Washington next season.

Alex Ruoff signs with the Summer League squad

JakeTheSnake — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:46:09 -0000

Alex Ruoff signs with the Summer League squad

Ignore that second paragraph.

Any personal goals for yourself? Um, hopefully just stepping my game up, getting better, something...

JakeTheSnake — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:25:31 -0000

Any personal goals for yourself?

Um, hopefully just stepping my game up, getting better, something like that.

JaVale McGee on how he plans to improve this off-season.

It's Make or Break Time for Andray Blatche

JakeTheSnake — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 05:24:46 -0000

More photos » by Manuel Balce Ceneta - AP

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The opinions on Andray Blatche within the Wizards fanbase are as varied and inconsistent as Andray's on-court production. Some see a 22 year old who is that close to having a breakout season and just needs to be given a little more time to realize the potential that we've all seen glimpses of at different point in his career. Others see a player coming off his 4th NBA season who has been given too many chances to put all of his gifts together.

No matter where you stand on the Andray Blatche debate, everyone can agree that the only person whose opinion truly matters in the situation is Ernie Grunfeld's. Grunfeld traded away his main competition for playing time, Darius Songaila, this week and didn't bring in another player to challenge him in the front court rotation. At least not yet. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't still have his reservations when it comes to Andray.

In all of the draft hoopla, this quote from Ernie to (the much more optimistic as of late) Tom Knott regarding Andray deserves some extra attention:

Grunfeld remains ever hopeful with Blatche, a 6-foot-11 talent with a history of shrinking from his duties. That has been chalked up to his immaturity, a condition Brendan Haywood eventually overcame.

"We like Andray," Grunfeld said. "I don't expect him to have a great game every game. That is what you expect from the great players in this league. I knew Patrick Ewing was going to be great 76 games a year. Good players in this league might be great in two out of four games. With Andray and with his ability to shoot and handle the ball... is he someone who can get 12 to 14 points, eight to 10 rebounds a game? But I agree. The jury is still out on Andray. It's up to him."

It's not exactly the most ringing endorsement ever given, but clearly Ernie still believes in Andray. If it wasn't the case, he would have either packaged him in the Minnesota deal or made a more immediate move to find someone who can fill in when Andray struggles. Barring an unexpected trade, he's showing enough trust in Blatche to make him a primary backup in the 2009-10 season, a role that he's never been fully entrusted with before now. Sure, there have been times when he's been called to do that and more in the last two seasons, but only when injuries necessitated such action. This is the first time that he's been given a vote of confidence before the season began. If he isn't careful, it might be his only chance.

As we all know, with great trust comes great responsibility. In the past, Andray could have made the case that he deserved more minutes than he received. With Songaila out of the way, there are no more excuses. The pressue is now on Andray's shoulders to make the most of this chance to prove to the judge and the jury what he can be.

Your first confirmed Summer League invitee is...

JakeTheSnake — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:18:34 -0000

Your first confirmed Summer League invitee is...

Former Boston College point guard Tyrese Rice.