WizardsWhiz's Xanga

I'm finally back...

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 18:31:02 GMT

What a lame blogger I am, I know. Believe it or not I am actually a busy person. Anyway, now that I've recovered from strep throat I'm ready to impart my words of Wizards wisdom on my faithful 3 readers again.

So...with that said, let's start with the embarrassment of last night in Houston. Looking at the box score all-in-all not a bad game. The one glaring statistic: field goal percentage. Here we have the Houston Rockets, a team now 8 games below .500. A team that normally averages 90.9 points per game, the second lowest in the league. A team that averages a 43% field goal percentage. So far this season the Wizards have allowed them to shoot 55.1% fg percentage in January to go for 123 points and last night the Rockets ended up with 105 points and a 55.7% fg percentage. That is just EMBARRASSING!! This shows the absolute abysmal state of our defense. Yao was unstoppable. I know he's been on a little tear lately...but they were utterly unable to keep the ball out of the paint. Lucky for us Yao has a mild case of SHS (Stone Hands Syndrome for those of you unfamiliar with the disease; first diagnosed in Etan Thomas of the Wizards) and ended up with 7 turnovers otherwise he could've had his first 50 point game. This summer Ernie has to find us a big man that isn't completely worthless. It's so frustrating to see them play so hard against some teams and just fold against others. They have to be more consistent if they're ever going to be any kind of a force in this league.

Ok, that's all for now...I'll try not to disappear for so long again!

In other bball news...

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:06:17 GMT

How about those Patriots?!? Pretty amazing to see GMU get this far in the tourney. They definitely have a chance to make it to the Elite Eight considering they beat Wichita State this season in Wichita. Who knows, maybe we can even creep up on UConn since they sure haven't been playing their best ball. It's great to see all the press Mason is getting. Check out this week's SI, it has Lamar Butler on the cover! And make sure you're in front of a TV at 7:27 PM this Friday.

Jump ball diagram

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:41:31 GMT

My dad whipped up this nifty diagram of the weird jump ball formation the guys have been using. Now everyone can see how ridiculous it really is. Check it out...

Wash Times

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:08:25 GMT

I really enjoyed this column in the Washington Times by Tom Knott. (http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20060306-011635-7238r.htm) It's entitled, "Poet, 7-footer Part of Inferior Interior". It details our persisting problem of non-existent post presence. (Wow, try to say that 3 times fast). Definitely worth the read.

Jump ball

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:02:15 GMT

Has anyone else noticed that the Wizards have started jumping the ball in the weirdest formation? Jeffries (or Haywood- who by the way can jump a total of 2 inches- now that Jeffries is injured) jumps the ball but they have no one standing right outside the circle to jump the ball to. Of course I've never seen them actually WIN a tip doing this. I have no idea what the justification behind this formation is but it makes no sense. How can u win a jump if u have NO ONE standing there to tip the ball to? Very weird... Sometimes I wish I could get into Eddie's mind to find out what the hell is going on in there.

JJ

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:41:09 GMT

I believe it's finally time to share with the world my very strong opinions about Jared Jeffries. Below I will list the two myths that the media continues to propagate about JJ and why each of them are absolutely wrong.

JJ Myth #1: Jeffries is invaluable to the team because he does the intangibles that can't be recorded in the box score.

This couldn't be more false. On occasion JJ will play decent defense and create some of those hustle plays. He has occasionally been referred to as our "defensive specialist". I slightly agree with this but as you will notice, Eddie is putting Caron more and more on our opponents offensive threat rather than JJ. I am an absolute supporter of role players. Guys who go out there and play hard, battle inside...the guys who know their role and bust their butts to help their team, I absolutely love these guys. Michael Ruffin is one of these guys. He hustles more than anyone on our team and plays hard every minute he's on the court. This is the type of guy who actually has those "intangibles". By saying Jeffries does those intangible things...is actually a nice way of saying, "Wow, that guy's stat line SUCKS." Which at least 8 out of 10 games, it does.

JJ Myth #2: He's our Scottie Pippen-like starting 2-guard.

O man...where to even start with this one. Scottie Pippen??? Well first of all Scottie could hit a jumper. JJ...NO jumper whatsoever. Minor detail when your starting shooting guard has no shot. And who's shooting guard is 6'11''?? The only reason they have to put him at a guard position is because he weighs all of 150 pounds and would get his ass whooped in the post. Also, most guards are great free throw shooters, right?? JJ?? You guessed it...61%. Another key skill for a guard...ball handling skills. I cringe every time he brings it up the court. I believe Larry Brown said it best in Ivan Carter's Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501770.html) ..."When you can have [Jared] Jeffries take the ball out of bounds, dribble the length of the court and dunk it down, that'll give you an indication of our defense." Not exactly a glowing compliment of JJ's skills. Ok...so some guards don't have the best jumper. Some guards are slashers and are great at getting inside and converting the basket. Again...not Jeffries' forte. He's unable to finsh inside. His only move in the post is hitting his fist against his palm and saying, "Damn," after screwing up yet another play.

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Somehow Eddie misses all these things and has some twisted obsession with Jeffries. I just don't understand it...luckily although Daniels is coming off the bench, he's the one getting the majority of the minutes. Hopefully this off-season Ernie will find us a 6'11'' guy with some REAL post moves. Cross your fingers...