I've enjoyed seeing Brendan Haywood play well in these playoffs. I liked what he brought to the Wizards and appreciated that he took a professional approach toward improving his game and helping the team win (would that JaVale McGee did the same). But his problems at the free throw line really perplex me. He's been absolutely awful--it looks like randomly throwing the ball in the genreral direction of the basket would yield similar results.

I expect that folks around here remember that Haywood was not always this awful and at one point even became a pretty darn good foul shooter. In the 2007-08 season, Haywood shot .735 from the line (and 80% during the playoffs)--very solid numbers for a big man. This year: .362 in the regular season and 30% in the postseason. Like many other players, Haywood's bad foul shooting is hurting the rest of his offense -- he generally avoids shooting for fear of being fouled, and when he does have a scoring opportunity, he rushes it to avoid getting fouled. Despite this, he's been pretty productive for Dallas and has provided some solid minutes as Tyson Chandler's backup. But he'd be WAYYYY more valuable (and likely would see more time) if he could make a dang free throw.

Haywood gave a lot of credit for his improvement in 2007-08 to Dave Hopla, who the Wizards had hired as a full-time shooting coach. After the Wiz let Hopla go, Haywood started his regression as a shooter and hasn't been above .620 from the foul line any season since then. The Mavs have a reputation for being willing to pay for experts to help their players, so I would be surprised to find that they don't have a designated shooting coach working closely with Haywood, but clearly the results are not there. If Mark Cuban reads FanPosts on Wizards blogs, perhaps he will look into getting Hopla down to Dallas to help Haywood out.

According to Ivan's latest article, the Wizards have until Friday to pick up the third-year options on Nick Young and Oleksiy Pecherov. Young seems to be a no-brainer, but Pecherov is a question mark. Granted, he's been injured much of his time here, but his production has been underwhelming, and not picking up his option would free up $2.4 million in salary next season.

There have been times when I thought Pecherov showed some promise. He's obviously a capable outside shooter, and he's a 7-footer. Reports are that he works hard on his game, and  there have been times when he 's mixed it up during games.  I like that. But he's not a particularly gifted athlete, and he frequently looks lost: His shot selection is questionable, he's somewhat turnover prone, and he sometimes looks lost on defense.

I think big men who can shoot are a valuable commodity, but Pecherov doesn't play particularly big. It would be nice if the team could assess his performance this season before deciding what to do with his contract, but we don't have that luxury. Forced to make a decision this week, I'm inclined to let him become a free agent.

What do others think?

[Editor's Note: I'm glad Vanilla Gorilla brought this up.  It's definitely something that's worth talking about.  Two things to keep in mind when you're discussing this are A) As tight as we are against the cap, every little bit of relief helps.  B) If Grunfeld picks up Pech's option, he could use it to make him more appealing in a trade a la Adam Morrison.  

Also, if you're interested in some Bullets Forever Fantasy Basketball, indicate your interest here.  -Jake]

So this post on the official Pistons blog quotes Michael Curry, Detroit's new coach, saying that Kwame Brown "didn’t use anything as an excuse" for Kwame's lackluster career when Curry and Brown met. Curry goes on to say: "“He took responsibility for himself and, really, once he did that, for me it was easy. That’s one of the biggest things – to get athletes to hold themselves accountable."

If I were to discuss the matter with Curry, I'd warn him that Kwame's always talked a pretty good game. It's a lot easier for Kwame to say that he cares and is responsible for himself than it is for him to actually play like it.

Let's just say that if Kwame plays any differently than the shrinking violet who has underwhelmed fans and teams at every stop of his NBA career, I'll be quite surprised.

Draft Express offers a fairly detailed scouting report  of the Wizards (the Magic too). Each player is assessed based on his strengths and weaknesses. I agree with their assessments mostly, although I think the profile for Roger Mason Jr. was written by Roger Mason Jr.'s mom (or perhaps his agent). 

(For the record, I very much appreciate RMJr's play this season and would like to congratulate him for getting whoever is going to overpay him next season to do so. It's too bad Isaiah Thomas is no longer alive to give him one of those Jerome James/Jared Jeffries kind of deals (although Roger obviously lacks the proper credentials initials for such a contract.))

Anyway, check it out for yourself if you're interested.

I wasn't too surprised to learn that DeShawn Stevenson made the dreaded throat-slashing gesture during a Wiz-Cavs game (he's gotten carried away with the trash talk a little bit, IMO, and this falls in line with that), and it was no surprise at all that the NBA fined him (it seems a pretty standard practice). But I was VERY surprised to see the NBA repeatedly using the the throat-slashing gesture in its promos for tonight's game. There it was on NBA TV, a brief spot hyping Game 5 and showing DeShawn making a different gesture, then following up with the throat-slash.

I understand the point of discouraging the NBA's athletes from making such gestures. Kids watch these games and emulate their heroes on the court (I think there's also some gang connection to the gesture, but I'm so old and out of touch I'm not sure what it is). I wouldn't want either of my kids making that gesture on the court. But if the league banned the gesture because it wants to limit images of thuggishness and make the game more family-friendly, why in the world would they show it over and over in their promos? And if they are going to show it so much in an ad designed to attract viewers, how can they justify fining a player for it?

Doesn't make any sense to me, but neither does moving a team out of a cool city like Seattle for a dump like Oklahoma City, so what do I know?

In his latest Insider post, Ivan Carter waves at the  fevered fans of Bullets Forever.

Ivan writes:

Oh, and a note only the guys over at www.bulletsforever.com can truly appreciate: Did you know that Jamison is on pace to become only the 8th Bullet/Wizard to average 20 and 10 for a full season? The others: Chris Webber, Elvin Hayes (six times), Walt Bellamy (four times), Moses (twice), Gus Johnson, Jeff Ruland and, wait for it, Pervis Ellison. Never Nervous put up 20 and 10? Yes he did. It was the 1991-92 season. I would not have guessed that in a million years.

We love you too, Ivan.

I like reading Gil's blog because it's funny and controversial, but his latest post is smart and insightful too. It's must reading.

His take on Shaq going to the Suns is a lot more positive than most I've seen, and he offers some fairly convincing reasoning for his optimism (although I'm still not sure I agree).

Here's his take on the Heat side of the deal:  

Just like Dwyane Wade said, Shaquille helped his career. In turn, all he can do is be grateful. What's funny is after Shaq left a team in the past, no other players said what Dwyane Wade said. He really said it, "He's done a lot for me, I'm going to miss the big fella. Thank you, big fella." That's all the respect Shaq could ever want. You know, a player like him once in a while just wants somebody to say, "Thank you" once in a while. The other two stars, Penny (my man) and Bryant never said that.

Great stuff.

Gil says LA "hi-jacked" Paul Gasol from Memphis, "That should be a crime. You don't give away Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown and a rookie. I don't care what's out there, you can get more than that. You gave away a $100 bill and you got back two nickels and a dime."

He continues:

It seems like a pretty stupid move by Chris Wallace. No offense, I don't know him personally, but you don't give away Pau Gasol for what they got back. I mean, Chicago wanted Pau Gasol. They would have given something back in return. I mean, something. Ladies and gentlemen, they have Darko and Kwame at the four and the five. That's all I'm going to say.

His take on Jose Calderon as an All-Star snub is worth reading too. Gotta love Gil.

So here's a post on TrueHoop:  

Gilbert Arenas Throws Down the Gauntlet to the Wizards

January 15, 2008 5:00 PM

On his NBA.com blog, on a day when Washington is enraptured with the other Wizards, injured star Gilbert Arenas writes:

    I want to get a six-year deal. I want to be a max player. If my team decides that they don't want me here any more and they're going to go in a different direction, then I got to look elsewhere. For me to look elsewhere, I want to go find a championship team who's a championship contender. I'm going to have to take less money, but I'm willing to do that to win a ring. If my team doesn't want me, then I'm going to another team and I'm going to take less money to go there.

I'm sure he doesn't mean it this way, and maybe we'll have a clarification soon, but it seems like Arenas is saying that he'd play for passion, and to win in some other city. But if he has to play with these scrubs in D.C. ...

Meanwhile, "those scrubs" just beat the Celtics twice in a row.

And, looking at it from the other side, if you had a championship quality team, would you use your mid-level exception on a guy who dominates the ball? Having Gilbert Arenas on the floor re-orients the stars in your offense. (If you're Cleveland, I think the answer is yes. But San Antonio? Phoenix? Dallas? You can love Arenas from here to the moon, and still swallow hard before noodling with your roster in that particular way -- especially when you consider that he's little, not a great defender, and injury prone.)

More than anything, this might be an example of why players angling for maximum deals should probably have agents manage the process. It would be smart to avoid even the slightest chance of needlessly pissing off the only good team on the planet that can afford to give you big money.

I can't read Gil's comments any other way than TrueHoop's Henry Abbott does. And reading them that way suggests Gil is selfish or stupid or both. He's demanding the max from DC but he'll play cheaper elsewhere? My response to that is not fit for a family blog. What title contender can afford him? Is he gonna take the minimum? How'd that work out for Karl Malone and Gary Payton in LA? Is he gonna sign for big bucks in a more lateral move? Ask Larry Hughes how much he's enjoying that.

I'd like to think I take into account athletes' human perspective when considering such matters, but I'm having a hard time seeing how Gil's comment about his contract situation isn't just a total dick move toward the franchise that paid him huge money already and has seen him blossom as a superstar. I'm not saying that should count for something at the negotiating table, but to say he'd sign for less elsewhere ... cripes. My first reaction is to say fuck him -- we're doing OK without him, and we can use the cap room to sign someone who doesn't pull shit like this.

The biggest benefit of having NBA League Pass is that I get to see every team in the league. I was an NBA fan for decades before I got the League Pass, but I'll never not have it again -- it's that cool. Seeing every team lets me get a look at a lot more players than just the same ones who show up on TNT and ESPN (do they even show games if Wade, LeBron or Kobe aren't involved?). I really like being able to check out players who get little or no ink, but when you see them, they really can play -- guys I wouldn't mind seeing in a Wizards uniform. In years past, I'd put players like David West and Boris Diaw in this category. Here's a few guys who I think are a lot better than the pub they're getting this year:

Linas Kleiza -- A solid SF at 6-8, 245, Kleiza can shoot from the outside and get his shot off around the basket as well. He's averaging 11 points and 4 board this season, and shoots well from the floor and the line (and passably from 3-point range) but what has struck me most is his attitude. He's just a hard-case who doesn't take shit from anyone. Has sort of a serial-killer look in his eye -- the kind of guy I'd much rather have on my team than against me.

Joel Pryzbilla -- He's pretty much been a goon his entire career, but this season, he's been an effective goon. Doesn't score much, but he shoots a high percentage from the field, and his main strengths are shotblocking and rebounding. He's just an old-school enforcer, and if you drive the lane on him, you can expect to be picking yourself up off the floor at the end of it.

Matt Bonner -- He was a free agent a few seasons ago, and I coveted him for the Wizards, but I think we landed AD that summer instead. I prefer AD, but Bonner would be a good addition to a lot of teams. Unlike Kleiza and Pryzbilla, he's not a regular, but he can shoot the 3 (.411 this season) and is 21-for-21 from the line this year. He's only averaging 7 points and 4 boards, but he makes the most of his minutes, and he always plays like a pro. A good roleplayer. He reminds me of Darius Songaila, but a better rebounder and with 3-point range -- and at half the price.

Francisco Garcia and John Salmons -- I guess you could make the case that every member of the Kings is unsung, but these guys are rarely ever mentioned, they both have dynamic offensive games with good shooting numbers, and they just no how to play. Salmons is more quiet, but Garcia plays with a mean streak.

There are a couple other guys who I'd put on the list, but my baby's waking up from a nap, so I'll end this here.

I'm taking my four-year-old daughter, Libby, to her first Wizards game at GMU this Saturday. She's totally jazzed, and so am I. My wife happened to meet a Wiz executive a few weeks ago and mentioned what big fans we are. Next thing you know, he sent us fantastic tickets to the game. How cool is that?

Libby listens to her old man enough to know that she loves Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. But I recently told her that Brendan Haywood is the tallest guy on the team, and now all she can talk about is seeing him at the game. She totally mimics everything I say, so I'm trying to be careful not to call him Haywood Jablome around her.

I'm still skeptical about whether she can sit still long enough to watch the game. She gets bored pretty quick when we watch games on TV together . I suspect she'll have a greater attention span for Gil's cartoon.

Anyways, if you go to the Dallas game Saturday and you see the cutest little girl in the world waving  a sign saying "My first Wizards game," I'll be the goofball sitting next to her.

So Kwame Brown got arrested again in Georgia. I don't understand why we ever let him get away. He's so big and athletic. And all we got for him was Caron Butler.

I'm sure Kwame will realize his full potential with the Lakers and carry them to glory, much to the delight of Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson.

The Washington Post reported today that the Wizards hired Ed Tapscott as director of player development/programs and Dave Hopla as assistant coach/player development.

I found the news particularly interesting since I know Dave Hopla from nearly 20 years ago, when he was an assistant coach at a community college in Baltimore, and I was a cub sports reporter at a tiny community newspaper that covered the college. Hopla had been the last guy cut from a CBA team that played in Baltimore a few years earlier, and even in the very early 90's, he was traveling around working as a shooting guru (his website makes clear that he still does).

I spent some time picking Dave's brain for insights on shooting (the only thing I was ever good at in hoops), and even wrote a feature story on his work as a vagabond instructor. His philosophy was fascinating, and since then, I've seen the tactics he told me about employed by numerous top players.

I'm not smart enough to know whether Dave will do a better job than Harvey Grant as the player development coach, but it was pretty cool for me to see that a guy I new way back when would be on the Wiz coaching staff.

So I have read a number of takes on Eddie Griffin's death, but none of them mentioned his mental illness until I came upon this post at FreeDarko. The comments further the discussion nicely, IMO.

Some members of my own family have dealt with both depression and addiction (and the spiral-inducing link between them), and my observations of them have colored my opinion of Griffin and his problems.

It makes me sad to see someone with Griffin's obvious physical gifts never come anywhere close to reaching his potential as a basketball player, but it makes me sadder to see someone suffer as much as Griffin apparently did.

So I'm at work on a Sunday, but we're slow as hell. Rather than find a productive way to keep busy (for my company, anyway), I decided to check out the Post's Wizards Insider blog, a recent entry in which stated:

For comparison's sake just consider that folks with the Wizards believe Andray [Blatche] is already better than Kwame Brown ever was yet Ernie was able to turn Kwame into Caron Butler.

As optimistic as I am about Blatche, I'm not sure I buy that he's as good as Kwame ever was. In his third season as a Wizard, Kwame averaged 10.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game while shooting 49% from the floor. In addition, he was generally considered the Wizards' best (and overall a decent) post defender. I watched him dominate Jermaine O'Neal in a Washington win over Indiana.

To my thinking, Blatche, with his career highs of 3.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and .437 shooting last season, has a ways to go to be "better than Kwame Brown ever was." Yet in researching for this post, I checked out Kwame's stats. They're bizarre. His free throw percentage in his rookie year was a career-high 70.7%, and it has declined each of the  last 4 years to 44% last season -- that's Ruffin territory. His FG percentage last season was .591 -- or about 15 percentage points higher than his FT shooting. I can only attribute such a decline to a general apathy toward improving a crucial skill or a weird mental block.

What's oddest to me about Kwame is how he has invited scorn upon himself just about every time he turns around. He's 6-11, with great athletic ability and basketball skills, yet he's been only marginally productive (at best) every place he's played. I guess it's the glow of being a #1 pick (along with his obvious physical gifts) that keeps people expecting something awesome out of Kwame, even though he's never done anything in the NBA but underachieve (save a few games of brilliance that only serve as a further tease).

People who expect anything from Kwame are inevitably disappointed. During his time here, I was convinced that some day, it would click -- that he would gain some deeper understanding of basketball and how his talents fit into the game, and he would emerge as a force on the court. But of course he hasn't, and anyone who still thinks he will is deluding himself. The reason? Kwame won't compete. I understand that as a professional athlete, a game that you love playing can become workaday drudgery. But hundreds of NBA players with a lot less talent than Kwame find a way to overcome this. Michael Jordan famously called Kwame a "faggot" in his rookie season (I'm not a fan of the term, and in this case, that's damn insulting to gay men), reducing him to tears. And Phil Jackson as much as told Kwame he was a pussy. I've never seen anything from Kwame that proves the sentiment behind these assessments wrong.

My bottom line: Andray Blatche has yet to match Kwame Brown's accomplishments as an NBA player, but no way would I trade Blatche for Brown. One is an unproven commodity with vast potential. The other has proven only that he's everything you don't want an unproven commodity with vast potential to become.

So the Wizards have nearly finished compiling their roster for the upcoming season, and any additions they make from this point are likely to have little impact. If I had to give a letter grade for the offseason, it'd be a B- ot a C+. The team largely kept its roster intact, which might seem a problem for a squad that finished seventh in the conference and got swept out of the first round of the playoffs. But even though the Wizards added no impact players to the roster, I'm feeling optimistic about 2007-08. Here are my thoughts on how the roster moves will affect the upcoming season:

-- The signing of Andray Blatche is the key offseason move. Locking up a 6-11 dude with basketball skills who runs and jumps like a gazelle for 5 years at $15 million seems like a terrific deal. The Wizards' main weaknesses have been defense (especially shotblocking) and rebounding, and if he can provide those up to what seems to be his potential, Blatche could be a huge upgrade to the lineup.

-- There's been plenty of criticism of the DeShawn Stevenson signing, but he's a very solid member of the team -- a good shooter and defender who doesn't try to do too much and is willing to play a role. Everyone seems concerned by the player upgrades in Boston, Orlando and New York, but the Wiz were atop the Eastern Conference when healthy last season, with some huge wins against the league's best teams. Keeping that unit together -- while Miami and Detroit get older, and Boston and Orlando learn how to incorporate their new pieces -- seems like a smart move to me.

-- The new players -- Nick Young, Dominic McGuire and Oleksiy Pecherov -- are certainly promising, but none is an impact player, and it seems likely we'll be waiting until next season for them to pay significant dividends. Of the three, McGuire strikes me as the most likely to contribute sooner rather than later.

-- The bench looks to be stronger than last season. Two weak second-unit regulars -- Jarvis Hayes and Michael Ruffin -- are gone. Their minutes likely will go to Darius Songaila, Blatche, and perhaps one of the rookies. I am concerned that Antonio Daniels is the only proven guard off the bench. It seems we can get away with a three-guard rotation in the short term, but over an 82-game season, we'll need a fourth guard we can rely on, and perhaps a fifth. I doubt Nick Young is ready to be that guy, and I'm nearly certain Donnell Taylor never will be. I wish Roger Mason was coming back.

-- The resolution to the Juan Carlos Navarro situation was disaapointing, but I don't know if it was realistic to have expected much better. If JCN emerges as a Ginobili-like star for Memphis, the deal we got for him will be very unsatisfying. but as it is, we'll get a mid-first rounder in one of the next few seasons for a second-round pick we'd pretty much written off as ever coming to Washington. That's not too bad, in my book.

-- The biggest dissapointment of the summer has been the lack of a resolution to the problem at center. The open feuding between Brendan Haywood and Etan Thomas boiled over into fisticuffs several times during the last few seasons. In an optimal situation, one of them would have gone elsewhere this summer, but that didn't happen, meaning the tension and the problems around it remain. The team plays much better with Haywood on the court, in my opinion, but every season, he seems to languish through prolonged stretches of uninspired play, then he sulks when Eddie Jordan holds him accountable for this loafing. The strained relationship between Haywood and Jordan seemed to cast doubt on whether they could work together any longer, but it looks like they'll have to find a way to put their differences aside. When Haywood plays well, he's a slightly-below-average starting center, which given the high caliber of the players around him makes the Wizards a formidable team. The question is what the Wizards are going to get from him after a season in which he alienated himself from his coach and perhaps some teammates.

In all, I'm pretty optimistic about the upcoming season. I think 50 wins is a reasonable goal, and a first-round playoff exit would be a major disappointment.

Looks like those of us who were impressed by Aaron Miles' summer league play and hoped he might join the Wizards will have to settle for some disappointment. The Lawrence Journal-World & News is reporting that Miles has signed with a Spanish club.

I guess we'll have to be happy with Donnell Taylor as the third PG, although Gil's apparently chummy with Brian Chase, so maybe he'll grab a spot. Or since we're so close to the luxury tax threshhold, maybe we'll stick with only 2 PGs.

TrueHoop reports that the protection on the Memphis #1 pick the Wiz will get for JCN renders the pick nearly worthless.

On TrueHoop, Henry Abbott passes along a report that says the Memphis Grizzlies #1 draft pick the Wizards would receive in exchange for Juan Carlos Navarro would be protected if it's a top-19 selection. The protection decreases until it's top-12 in 2013. I wonder if Ernie can get a swift kick in the nuts thrown in as part of the deal.

---------------------------------------------

Update [2007-8-7 15:39:56 by Pradamaster]:
Quick editor threadjack to mention that Ivan says the report hasn't been confirmed yet. Thanks to Vanilla for moving the discussion.