but not surprising – think about it – they signed jamison and arenas to big new contracts – no real changes on the roster. the plan is obviously to give it another go with this team as is/was last year. so, they are going to ride the vets and hope to tread water until arenas gets back. that’s the management plan, and while i would love to see more blatche mcgee young mcguire (maybe) P.T., i just don’t think that is realistic given the way the team has prepared for this year. which is a damn shame.

and I know I’ll disagree with myself tomorrow, but my gut feeling is that if McGee is on the active roster, he should play. The Wizards’ situation is too…sub-optimal right now to leave an asset like that on the bench. Even if he only plays four minutes, he brings energy, rebounding, and most of all blocked shots.

I don’t feel this way about guys like Brown or even Pecherov, but if they’re going to make McGee available, then put him in, coach. He’s developing. That means he needs to be in situations that help his development. EJ should find a way to get him active, get him confident, and get him contributing.

Yeah, the game was winnable, so EJ may have been reluctant to let that slip away due to rookie mistakes, but to me he’s talented enough and a good enough rebounder/blocker right now that he should never see a DNP-CD, not this year. I still think two games is too small of a sample to make decisions from, but I agree with Prada; what the Wizards did tonight will not work.

Yeah, I’ll probably disagree with this tomorrow.

with you prada, personally, i’m just trying to look at it from eddie/managements point of view as to why they won’t try and rest CB and AJ at least a little, and why they are reluctant (tonight at least – small sample for sure) to give bigger minutes to talented but possibly erratic players.

1. Is Andray trying to do too much? I think he’s really feeling the pressure so to speak from the vets to really start being consistent and contribute nightly to the team. Maybe he’s pressing? His first half stint left so much more to be desired.

2. Nick Young: 29 minutes, 23 points, 2 reb, 2 assists, 1 steal. Not too shabby. Kudos to Eddie for riding the hot hand.

3. Our starters played horribly together for the second game in a row. Not good.

4. Juan the facilitator? Paired with Nick Young the game just felt right. I can’t describe it other than a feeling, but it looked like Wizards basketball.

5. I thought AD played to about even. His first stint was horrible. Uninspired, the team staggered offensively, etc. etc. The second unit brought the intensity and in AD’s second stint he kept the intensity level from dropping.

6. I was sad there was no McGee sighting! Maybe next game.

And I can’t blame him for that.

Nick Young was playing great….so DeShawn was absent down the stretch.

Darius Songaila was one of the only Wizards playing with hustle and aggression….how can you not reward that with time on the court?

I certainly know that Songaila would not have allowed Kwame Brown to drive it right down the lane from the top of the arc on him….TWICE!

If Andray Blatche doesn’t earn it, I have no problem with him sitting on the bench and taking the good and the bad of Darius Songaila.

I should rephrase that; AD played okay, but didn’t do much, while DeShawn played like dog poo.

I can see that DeShawn is going to be the scapegoat this season, as this is the second straight game you’ve thrown him under the bus, at least with your initial reaction. He may deserve this designation in many games this season, but I don’t think he does for these past two. Yes, he looked pretty bad offensively in the first quarter and a half, after missing his first two 3-pointers. After that, however, he adjusted his game and made 4 of his final 6 shots, including two very nice drives for layups against tough defense. As with last game, I didn’t feel he did too much. Only 8 Wizards possessions ended with a DeShawn shot or turnover, and he had 8 points. As long as he keeps to that ratio and doesn’t shoot too much, I have no problem with his offense.

Defensively, I am starting to see your point. He did have trouble fighting through screens, and that resulted in more than a couple of wide-open shots for Rip Hamilton. Over the course of the season, though, I don’t expect DeShawn to be a liability on defense. He has never been a bad defender and I think he’ll make the necessary adjustments on that end of the floor to redeem himself.

The reason I think he gets blamed is because of the position Eddie puts him in due to Eddie’s starting lineup. Think about it – Etan, AJ, Tough Juice, DeShawn, and AD. Only AJ and Caron can consistently create any offense. Etan is only effective on wide-open dunks and offensive rebounds. AD offers nothing on offense other than the ability to pass the ball to AJ or Caron. So when the defense neutralizes our two All-Stars, it’s DeShawn who has to figure something out and try to create his own shot. When he fails, everyone blames him. They should be blaming Eddie.

DeShawn is at his best when he is no higher than the fourth scoring option on the floor. That leaves him with very favorable match-ups and wide-open looks from behind the arc. Last season, he was behind AJ, Caron, and Brendan, and many times he excelled. Two seasons ago, he was behind Gil, AJ, and Caron, and he also excelled. But this season, he is at his worst when teamed with AD in the backcourt. Your solution is to bench him and keep AD. The problem I have with this is that would take away a legitimate 3-point threat on the court, something that I feel will hurt the team a lot more.

My solution is to bench AD and let Nick Young take over at the point. Yeah, he’s not a traditional point, but neither is Gilbert. Besides, you don’t need a traditional point guard in the Princeton. With a lineup of Etan, AJ, Caron, DeShawn, and NY, you’d get 4 legitimate scoring threats and 3 guys who can create their own shots on a consistent basis. This would allow DeShawn to concentrate on what he does best: defense and spot-up 3-point shooting.

Admittedly, your alternative of replacing DeShawn with Young would also work better than the current starting lineup. But I don’t think that would be better than my idea, and, quite frankly, I just don’t see the benefit of AD starting anymore. He’s not that good on defense (no better than DeShawn, IMO), he can create his own shot only rarely (even less than DeShawn, IMO), and he can’t take a kick-out pass and hit a three. He’ll always get you 5 to 10 assists a night, but with two All-Star forwards, I would expect most guards with regular minutes to give close to that contribution on most nights. Finally, AD is way past his prime, which would indicate that he will only get worse from this point forward. DeShawn is still young, and at least theoretically, could still improve.

I sense something else going on, though. I think some (if not many) in this forum are still bitter about the whole DeShawn-LeBron feud from last season, and still place a good piece of blame on DeShawn for the Wizards poor play in that series. It’s for this reason that I think many of you are just waiting for DeShawn to screw up so that it will validate your negative feelings towards him.

I say judge him by his performance. When someone says someone played like dog poo, then I would expect his efficiency to be pretty bad. But when that player is more efficient than Caron Butler, I don’t think that player deserves any ire.

Folks here rail on Jordan for his erratic substitutions. Folks get down on him for yanking Haywood all the time. Well there is some pretty erratic talk going on about benching guys after just two games. There is talk about starting a guy that almost everyone here was down on just a few weeks ago, some folks even suggested cutting the guy. I mean, let’s get a grip. Are we little girly Lakers fans or what? Let’s pull ourselves together. Consistency and stability are at premium, especially with so many unavoidable changes due to injury. Let’s not throw away things that have worked in the past just because of a couple of bad losses.