SB Nation User Blog: sierradave

Hypothetically Speaking... 5-on-5, who wins?

sierradave — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 03:45:11 -0000

So with Caron's recent injury, the Wiz are back to a 9-man squad. The offense is mired, which is no suprise since we're missing not just our top two scorers, but also our top two point guards, meaning there's no one to act as distributer and get people open looks in the Princeton. We don't know for the time being how long Caron will be out, but in the meantime, I thought it would be worth speculating on the outcome of a 5-on-5 game between our injured list and our active list.

Injured starting 5:
PG: Antonio Daniels
SG: Gilbert Arenas
SF: Caron Butler
PF: Oleksiy Pecherov
C: Etan Thomas

Active starting 5:
PG: lookin' like Roger Mason these days
SG: Deshawn Stevenson
SF: Antawn Jamison
PF: Andray Blatche or Darius Songalia
C: Brendan Todd Haywood

My money's on the injured squad. The active squad has a height advantage along the front line, but I don't know if anyone manages to get the ball to them consistently. Gil and Caron would manage 5 steals apiece and Gil would eventually start jacking up 1-handed 3s over DeShawn. Antonio would also drive past Mason all day and get to the free throw line every time after drawing contact from Andray on the help defense.

[This is, of course, in extended way for me to say "meh" to tonight's loss. The Wizards aren't such a good team when you take away half of our core players, but neither is any other team in the league. Hell, we're more injured right now than we were at the end of last year. Somebody sacrifice a chicken or something, right quick!]

Poll

Who would win?

The injured 5

16 votes

The active 5

1 votes

17 votes | Poll has closed

Um... Any of you guys able to play point guard tonight?

sierradave — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:25:38 -0000

2-4 weeks without AD. Last I checked, that leaves us with three shooting guards on our roster, plus Caron who can be moved to the 2 spot. Forget the whole "pure point guard" vs "shoot-first point guard" debate, we don't have a point guard. We're the Atlanta Hawks North for the next few weeks.

If opposing teams apply full-court pressure, I think the Wizards are toast. This is worst than that game against Charlotte, where we weren't just missing Gil, Etan, and Pesh, but were without Haywood as well. There we had to go small because of injuries. Non-ideal, sure, but teams sometimes go small. But hell, who's going to call out the offensive sets?!?

Anyone have ideas on how to survive this?

Poll

AD is injured

The end has come! This is worse than global warming!

0 votes

Caron can play point guard, no problem. Tuff Juice can do anything.

2 votes

Dear Abe Pollin, all I want for Christmas is enough healthy players to run a five-on-five practice

6 votes

It won't be that bad. We've survived Agent Zero being out, we'll survive this too

6 votes

Look on the bright side, we're still better than the Miami Heat.

4 votes

18 votes | Poll has closed

good times... Ex-Wizards defense

sierradave — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:34:16 -0000

So I'm hanging out at home, clicking around NBA League Pass while I wait for the start of the Wizards-Spurs game, and I settle on the Cavs-Pistons matchup.

End of the 1st quarter, Detroit has put our man Arvis into the lineup. In about a minute and a half of guarding Lebron, he picks up three fouls and turned the ball over once. ...But that's okay, because at least he went 0-1 from the field and held Lebron to 5 points (would've been 7, but LBJ missed a couple of free throws). I just grin the whole time while thinking about this year's bench.

Guess not EVERY ex-Wizard goes on to reign in the Motor City.

1st game thread? Wizards, Under

sierradave — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:50:18 -0000

I probably won't be online for the start of the game tonight, and I dunno if we're going to start having game threads this early in the season, when the lines and the over/unders are less clear. But if so, I hereby take the Wizards against whatever spread, and I take the under on points by the big 3, who are still a little rusty.

Also, I see the Wizards looking sloppy in the first, jumping out in the second, then getting a big lead in the third and inserting the second unit. Playing time for Taser will lead to 2 blocks, which will start raising a few eyebrows around the league.

We'll nonetheless get some sort of a scare in the fourth quarter before closing out strong. Because these are the Washington Wizards, and no lead is safe.

...Or, alternatively, the curse of the shorthanded team will continue and Ike Diogu will have a career night. The Wiz, in that case, will make up for it by utterly destroying Boston on Friday.

Them's my predictions. So thrilled that the season has finally started...

Wish list for Navarro?

sierradave — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:35:04 -0000

[Editor's Note: From the diaries. This is your place for discussing what happens now with JCN. I'd love to hear trade proposals, but I ask that you just try to keep them reasonable (e.g. there's a decent possibility of them happening in real life, not just in your head). Also, be sure to read this refresher of what you, the reader, can do here. -Pradamaster]

With Denver's signing of Chucky Atkins, I've resigned myself to the Camby dream-trade not happening. So much for winning the title next year.

Navarro is going to end up somewhere this offseason, and he's probably going with the Poet in tow. According to hoopshype, Miami and Memphis are pushing hard, with Cleveland, Boston, and Philly showing interest as well. Given these teams' rosters, and assuming the contracts will include one of our centers, who do you think Ernie should be asking for from each of these teams?

Sounds like if it's Memphis, we're hoping for Hakim Warrick. I don't love that trade, but I wouldn't hate it either.

Miami seems ready to make an offer, though it seems like they make an offer for every player in the league. I'd like to see Doleac included in a trade - he's a non-terrible center and an expiring contract. they'd need to throw in Dorrell Wright or Wayne Simien to make the numbers work. I have no opinion on which one would be a better fit for our team.

Not sure what Cleveland would offer. Maybe Newble's expiring contract, maybe Donyell Marshall. They can't offer us the big man we need unless it's a sign-and-trade for Varejao, and I'm not convinced he's actually an upgrade over BTH and Etan.

Boston has a mess of young guys, and I know nothing about any of them.

Same basically goes for Philly. We could get an okay seven-footer in Steven Hunter, and they have a ton of young guys. NOT Shavlik Randolph, that's all I have to say.

Anybody have any great trade proposals?

Thought this was funny: all-defensive team?

sierradave — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:52:23 -0000

Hey folks,

The NBA all-defensive first and second teams were just announced (http://www.nba.com/news/alldefensive_070430.html)

If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see that our own Agent Zero got one vote for second team status.

We talk a lot on this site about journalists who bash the Wizards and just don't get it. What I want to know is this: who the HELL thought Gil was one of the top defenders in the league this year? I mean, I'm pretty sure "Gilbert Arenas" and "lockdown defender" have yet to appear in the same PARAGRAPH!

I'm unclear whether it's journalists, coaches, or GMs who make this selection. If someone can clarify that, I'd be interested in hearing guesses as to who cast the errant vote, and do we think it was some sort of joke or something?

playoffs question

sierradave — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 22:32:16 -0000

They mentioned on nba tv today that, if the playoffs were to start right now, the Wizards would have the third seed behind Detroit and Cleveland. In past years, the three division winners get the top three seeds, regardless of whether a second-place team in the division has a better overall record than one of them. That's why the 6th seed is often a good place to be -- the 3rd-place team is sometimes abyssmal.

Is this being misreported, or was there a rules change during the offseason that I didn't notice?

Open Letter to Jarvis Hayes

sierradave — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 02:30:07 -0000

Dear Jarvis,

I want to be a fan, dude. I really do.
I felt for you during the knee injuries, I've been patient through the shooting slumps.
Tonight, against the Nets, you're even shooting it pretty well.
But there's just one thing:

Learn. To. Set. A. Fckn. Pick.

You're filling in for Jamison. He and Gil run that high pick all the time. They've got to -- teams love to double Gilbert. A half-dozen times in a row, I've watched you set up for it. Then you meekly avoid contact, leave Gilbert stuck, and jump out and wait to take another awful three.

Play like a man, dude. Set decent picks.

That is all.

Wizards-76ers, my recap

sierradave — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 22:02:30 -0000

[From the diaries. Here's a firsthand recap of the Sixers game. -Pradamaster]

I missed most of the first quarter in icy traffic, but my recap of what I saw of the game is as follows...

First off, thank God for the W. It was dirty and they barely earned it, but it ought to wash the bad taste out of the team's collective mouth heading into the All-Star break.

Blatche looked great. The guy has got a real feel for scoring when he gets around the basket, and there were long stretches last night where he was positively looking like a threat to the opposition. And you just can't argue with 10 boards, 11 points, and 4 blocks. I won't get too excited until he has a good game against a legitimate starter (Joe Smith was filling in for Steven Hunter), but this is a very positive sign.

The Best Moment of the Evening Award has to go to Songalia, who during the third period actually turned his back to the basket and exhibited some low post moves! I'm pretty sure this marks the first time this season a Wizards player has executed basic low post offense. If he keeps improving like that, he can add a lot of value come playoff time.

One place Songalia suffered was on the boards. At this point, the guy really doesn't have very good hands at all. On two possessions in a row, he would have had a board but he just couldn't bring the ball down. Let's hope that's just a conditioning thing.

Speaking of hands, that's the one shout-out I've got to give to Jarvis. His jumper may still be on extended leave, but he pulled down a couple of crucial boards with authority late in the game. He isn't reliably great on the glass, but on a day when Brendan Haywood was on auto-pilot (man, how hard did Etan hit him, anyway?), everyone had to help fill in the gap.

As for the offense seeming dead, I have two observations:

Gilbert is just plain slumping. Jamison went through this a couple times last year, and the other guys covered for him. I mean, the 3's Gil was putting up are shots you want him to take. His feet were set, he was in rhythm, no one was really challenging. They just aren't falling right now, and with Antawn out, they're having problems picking up the slack.
Back when the offense was clicking, I read an interview with Gilbert (a real blogger would link here, of course) where he was saying that their offense works because they all do different things. He mentioned that he and AJ run the pick &roll/pick & pop, while Caron gets his isolation plays. That's part of why the offense is shutting down right now. They're running the pick & roll with Caron and that isn't where he likes to get his offense. So then they just do isolation plays, which leave four guys standing around and one trying to be a hero. That was what went well yesterday about the subs being in during the 3rd/4th -- it was one of the few times they ran the offense the way it's drawn up. Eddie Jordan has got to get someone else involved in those pick & rolls (Blatche, maybe?) because what they're doing right now reeeeally isn't working.

Besides that, solid defensive effort, they got stops when they needed them and got better and better at rebounding as the game progressed. Let's hope the break is refreshing for everyone, Agent Zero gets his swag back, and Antawn is ready for action soon.

The Silver Lining: Schedule Strength

sierradave — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:12:48 -0000

[From the diaries. Great analysis that goes well beyond what we might think of right away. -Pradamaster.]

Things look really bleak right now. Arenas can't buy a three-pointer, Antawn is sidelined, and at the end of every first quarter, the wizards are shooting 31% to their opponents' 65%. Meanwhile, Miami is 5-1 on the month.

I see one upside to this: if the Wizards can survive February, they have a great chance to hold on to the division. January and February were good months against tough opponents. As a result, the Wizards don't have a lot of tough games left on their schedule (this is assuming, of course, that they return to form enough to beat teams like Portland). What's more, Miami still has a number of tough games ahead of them, and Orlando faces a killer schedule after the all-star break. The analysis is below. It's still very rough, I'd be interested in comments/feedback:

I started by dividing the league into 3 categories: top tier, bottom-feeders, and middle-of-the-pack. This was arbitrary and based on an assumption that teams are at full strength, so I felt Denver, Miami, New Orleans, and Milwaukee were all a lot better than their records, while Cleveland, Toronto, and Chicago probably won't keep up the pace their on. I put Washington in the top tier, based on their play when they had Jamison.

So my top 10 teams were Utah, Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Lakers, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Washington. None of these teams are an easy win.

Middle-of-the-pack teams were Toronto, New Jersey, Cleveland, Chicago, Indiana, Orlando, Milwaukee, Clippers, New Orleans, and Minnesota. On a good night, they'll beat you, but more often than not, this should be a win.

Bottom feeders included Charlotte, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Memphis, Seattle, Portland, Golden State, New York, Sacramento. Yes, I know New York has been playing better of late, but I'd be surprised if that lasts.

With that said, a look at schedule strength for the top three teams in the Southeastern conference suggests that the Wizards have an easier path than their rivals. Washington has 13 games remaining against the weakest teams in the league, 16 against middle-of-the-pack opponents, and only 4 against top-tier teams (3 of these being against division rival Miami). Of the tough western conference opponents, Washington has a game against Utah left, and that's it.

Miami, if it stays healthy, will have an easy time in their 11 games against weak teams. They've also to 12 againt middle-of-the-pack challengers, but still have to prove themselves 8 times against the cream of the crop. This includes Detroit twice, Houston, Dallas, and Utah.

Orlando's schedule is Death. They've played most of their easy games, and only have 9 more against the Oden/Durant lottery chasers. They have another 9 against middle-of-the-pack teams, and a hefty 12 games against the best ones. That includes 3 games against Detroit, 2 against Houston, and games against Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, and Utah.

I haven't figured in home versus away games (Miami has more remaining than Washington or Orlando), and I'd expect the easy games to get easier in April and the medium ones (who will be fighting to make the playoffs) to get tougher, so there's plenty I'm leaving out of the model. And, once again, if the Wizards keep tanking, we can start counting ping pong balls. But a 50-win season for the Wizards would mean beating all of the worst teams and going just 9-6 against teams like New Jersey and Indiana. Miami would have to go 23-0 against the non-elite teams, and still win 2 of 8 games against the best out there. If the Wizards can beat Miami once in three tries, the conference ought to be theirs barring a complete breakdown.

February was goingt o be a tough month regardless of injuries. The good news is that, once Jamison returns and Songalia finds his legs, this team will still have plenty of opportunities to win the division and enter the playoffs with a 2nd seed.