Stats of the game
by Mike Prada on Dec 17, 2008 10:11 PM EST
in Recaps
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Print18 - The number of attempted shots by Antawn Jamison, despite suffering a left finger injury that has to affect his shot in some way. The number was the most on the team. Antawn, of course, hit just five of those shots.
4 - The number of shots Caron Butler, first-option fill-in since October 2007, took in the entire game. Tayshaun Prince is good, but that good?
Two all-stars, two team leaders, two completely different types of games, one story to be told from them.
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Caron also had 6 turnovers.
Disappointing that his head seems to be somewhere else.
Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It Dot Net
Did Nick Young play more?
"Would you like to shoot me now or wait till you get home." --- Daffy Duck
by George Templeton on Dec 18, 2008 1:45 AM EST reply actions
In keeping with my new "positive" attitude
I’m only going to mention those things that I noticed from the games that are positive
Butler, playing mainly against Prince on Offense, only got his shot blocked once during the game.
Jamison – forget about the 5-18 shooting…. or the porous defense….. he got his double double.
Stevenson – shot better last night. 3-9 (33 percent) ……………….Hey, 33 percent is better than his season average…
Mike James had a good game. Shot well. Scored 16………………. Boy, he can dribble….. and dribble…… and dribble……and
McGee played 2:30 and got a steal….. That’s 19.2 steals per 48-minutes.
Nick Young played 15.5 minutes and had an ASSIST !
The Wizards two best perimeter defenders (Stevenson and James) held the Piston’s starting guards under 50 points.
Even though our two “All-Star Forwards” weren’t playing well, Ed Tapscott still found it in his heart to give them maximum playing time to try to work through their shooting problems.
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
I Like How You Put All-Star Forwards in Double Quotes
As if it were somebody else’s opinion of them and not the technical reality. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The biggest casualty of this misbegotten season may be our two “All-Star Forwards”’ reputations.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
Yes, you would think the co-captains would be a bit more concerned about their...
rapidly diminishing reputations. This team is in free fall and I don’t think there is anyone in the cockpit who knows how to pull up out of a dive. If Gilbert comes back and the team improves he will be hailed as a saviour of course, and maybe (as others have said) that is the hidden agenda here…
Or perhaps
It’s just the FACT that the team was built around Arenas.
Maybe Ernie Grunfeld is a smart GM – and he HAS engineered a winning team. But, like a precision automobile made from the finest parts, it won’t go anywhere without it’s engine.
Maybe the Wizards are REALLY better with Arenas.
Maybe it’s Arenas, and not Butler…… that’s the real star of the team…
Maybe it’s Arenas, and not Jamison …. that makes the entire roster a playoff contender…
Maybe Arenas is the engine.
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
that's crazy talk!
you’re talking like that because you’re crazy.
everyone knows this team played better w/o a 65% arenas last year – ergo the team is better without him.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 12:04 PM EST up reply actions
There's a big difference
between a 65% Arenas and a 100%. A huge difference.
Dear Diary, JACKPOT!!!!!!!!!!
by Evander holyfield on Dec 18, 2008 12:22 PM EST up reply actions
Call me crazy, but
um…………Ok, I can’t think of anything pithy to say – - – - except
Wait until next year………………..
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
seriously -
i’ve thought about this teams troubles a lot, and i keep reaching that same conclusion about arenas. kind of stuck until he comes back.
but i worry that with each bad loss, the pressure on him to be awesome when he comes back increases. he has to be the savior, which is not the way to come back back smoothly, i don’t think
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 12:34 PM EST up reply actions
Arenas PLUS
I’m not really worried about Arenas returning and being slightly less than “awesome”… He doesn’t have to be the savior… Especially if the Wizards keep losing games. As a matter of fact, I now WANT them to continue losing games. The more games they lose, the less chance of Arenas coming back early to try for a “Playoff run”… He only needs to come back for the last 20-30 games – get some playing time and some confidence.
Even if he comes back and is only an extremely fast jump shooter – that can lead the break, and hit some big 3-pointers this year – he’ll be much better next year…..
As a matter of fact, I think next year will be THE BIG YEAR for the Wizards.
They have been stockpiling young talent (McGee, McGuire, Pecherov, Young, Blatche and Crittenton) – and they have $20 Million in expiring contracts next year (Thomas, James and Haywood)….
Next year, 2009-2010 is the year before the mega, jumbo, Uber-HUGE Free Agent frenzy of the “Summer of Love” (2010)…. Teams wanting to re-build around a Superstar Free Agent or two (or three) will be falling all over themselves to acquire expiring contracts and young talent.
The Wizards will have expiring contracts, AND young talent.
EG’s phone will be very busy. Then, look for the Wizards to be in contention for the NBA Championship (along with the winner of the FA frenzy – Knicks?? NJ??) for the next several years.
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
that is a nice, rosy scenario
and entirely possible – and i think some of ernie’s moves support what you’re saying.
what i worry about is what all the losing and irregular playing time will do to some of the young players – granted they are not fragile children or anything, but still, weird and bad things go on on teams that lose this much, and this badly.
so i’m not sure where i stand on the ‘more losing is good in the long run’ argument – i get it, and it makes sense. especially the part about it letting arenas come back easy, just trying to work his game back into shape for next year.
on the other hand, who knows what his mindset will be – i still think no matter what there will be a ton of pressure on him, either from himself, or just the general weight on him that fans and management have created.
also, the other variables are butler and jamison – i can’t help feeling that something is going to blow up with one or both of those guys pretty soon. so whatever effect that will have bears watching.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 1:09 PM EST up reply actions
Pressure on Arenas?
Sorry, but that one struck me as funny…
Of all the Wizards players, I see Arenas as the one player that relishes “pressure”…. That actually seeks out pressure and exposure and controversy and challenge … That wants that lime light ; the notoriety ; the “stardom” that comes from pressure situations.
I doubt that he’ll feel much pressure if he comes back in mid-January, and the team is 8-30…….. (Look at the schedule, and tell me that you see the Wiz winning more than 4 games between now and January 14th)
I do however, share your trepidation about the minutes and stress that Butler and Jamison are forced to endure.
At 4-19, and the thoughts of the Playoffs are now only mentioned as a joke, I don’t understand why the Coaching staff continues to ride those two guys like a 9-year old race horse. Give em Lasix and Steroids and keep sending them out to race – day after day… They’re gonna break down eventually.
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
fair enough about arenas and pressure
but he will essentially have the weight of the franchise on him when he comes back.
that’s all i’m saying i guess.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 1:38 PM EST up reply actions
I like the way you think Rook
Only difference is I’m thinking we’ll add Griffin to our stud free agent pickup next year and then we will contend for the championship for the next several years.
Might as well be optimistic, right?
I only caught the second half
Is there a reason McGee only played 2:30? Other than what I’m afraid the answer is, I mean.
Personally, I Care More About Crittenton's Minutes
If McGee isn’t in the game, but Blatche is, then at least one young player is getting minutes to improve. What bothers me is the DNP next to Crittenton’s name, while the never-going-to-improve Mike James is getting major minutes. I still think Ernie is using ET as his proxy to showcase guys like him in order to make a big trade. Nothing else explains it well enough for my liking.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
That game revealed
that Caron Butler is not an elite NBA all-star that can carry a team. Caron Butler has showed that he is definitly a great second option scorer but is not capable of being the franchise player.
The franchise players in this league; Arenas, Kobe, Wade, James, Paul, Anthony and others; will never go out and be that passive that they will only attempt 4 shots in a game. If their jumpers not falling they drive and get to the line no matter who is defending them. The point is, they find a way to score and take over any night if they need to.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Caron is a great player but anybody that thinks that Caron Butler is a franchise player should have definitely re-thought that after last night
In Other Words
Caron Butler is a Scottie Pippen, not a Michael Jordan. Someone else said that here.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
I don't necessarily disagree
However, in the middle of a season like this that must be SO frustrating, I can’t really blame the guy for having a bad/passive game.
by MR on Dec 18, 2008 8:27 PM EST up reply actions
The key phraseis the second part of that slashed one
First options/franchise players have bad games. They almost never have passive games. They’re never completely eliminated from being a factor.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
Correct
A first option will always be aggressive and get their shots up no matter what. They may go into the fourth quarter having only attempted 4 shots but they know its time to take over in the 4th. Thats what Caron needs to try to do as long as he is our fill-in first option. If not we are gonna keep losing games in the fourth quarter, like we arent already in big enough trouble this season.
Caron bashing now
i guarantee you if you take caron off the team and replace him with a 100% arenas then this team still sucks right now.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 18, 2008 4:47 PM EST reply actions
i wouldn't call this caron bashing
necessarily – maybe came off a bit harsh. but the point that he’s perfect as a 2nd option instead of a 1st i think is well established on this site.
getting up 4 shots only i think only served to emphasize that.
i don’t think that anyone who follows this team could seriously “bash” caron.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 4:50 PM EST up reply actions
i can name several games
where arenas played like crap. i think there’s a good likelihood that if arenas had been through this losing streak he might have laid an egg one night.
i’m not disputing the idea that caron isn’t michael jordan. i am disputing the idea that arenas is.
this group needs to win as a team. to me, that is what has become crystal clear.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 18, 2008 4:56 PM EST up reply actions
i see your point
but when arenas is healthy, even with the questionable quick shot/shot selection overall, he opens up so many things for others that caron doesn’t do as much.
and obviously arenas is no jordan, but remember how dominant he could be. it’s been so long since he actually played healthy that i think a lot of us forget the finer points (good and bad) of his game.
i guarantee his dog games still had him putting up more than 4 shots though – excluding the game where he didn’t shoot just to prove a point.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 5:11 PM EST up reply actions
It would be nice to see Arenas back ...
just to find out what will happen for good or ill… I mean the only Gilbert Arenas we’ve seen in uniform lately is the wax one… and I get the feeling that if we could borrow the wax Gilbert from Madam Tussauds and put him on the court, even his simulacrum would put up better numbers than our current backcourt.
i guarantee you
no cleveland or boston fan site has ever used ‘simulacrum’ before.
that is fantastic.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 5:23 PM EST up reply actions
all i have to go off
was the 06-07 season. wiz stunk the second half of that season, or at least were very mediocre, and arenas was in the lineup for most of that stretch.
and how do you know caron wasn’t trying to prove a point last night? just because he doesn’t talk about it like gil doesn’t mean he wasn’t saying something on the court.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 18, 2008 5:25 PM EST up reply actions
And that 06/07 team was woefully thin
We basically went eight deep, with AD, Jarvis Hayes (shudder) and either BTH/Etan, and that was with everyone healthy. Songaila was out for 2/3 of the year, Blatche was in the doghouse, Nick and Dominic and Roger Mason were not on the team (Roger was, but he never played).
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
disagree
first off, they only have to be mediocre to support my point.
second, that team still had a healthy haywood, thomas, daniels, and a functioning stevenson (playing his proper role), and they did have darius back for much of that stretch. the only people out were caron and AJ intermittently. and i don’t think ruffin was nearly as bad as everyone here makes him out to be. numbers don’t say everything.
and for the record they were 12-16.
furthermore, by saying the team was thin, you’re more or less saying that getting arenas back on a thin team this year doesn’t guarantee the team will be any more than mediocre.
we need the whole gang. arenas isn’t a lebron or kobe either.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 18, 2008 5:39 PM EST up reply actions
I'm confused
By your entire flow of comments.
First, you’re saying that this is Caron bashing, when it’s really just suggesting he’s a good second option and not a legit first option offensively. Second, you’re saying the Wizards need to win as a team, which is obvious and pretty irrelevant as far as a counterpoint. The discussion isn’t Arenas vs. the team or whether Arenas is a savior that will solve all problems. Nobody is saying that. All this discussion is suggesting is that Arenas is a better first option than Caron, because like little stevie said, Arenas would never be completely taken out of a game like Caron was last night. Even in the no-shoot game, Gil took nine shots. A first option’s job is to be a high-usage performer. Maybe not as high-usage as GIl was sometimes, but you can’t just be taken out of the game like Caron was. That never happened to Gil.
Then, you say the team would still suck with Gilbert. I respond that they wouldn’t be 4-19 bad (which they weren’t — they were 12-16 in 06/07 like you said). You said you only have the second half of 06/07 to go off. I think that’s silly. There’s large parts of 04/05 when Hughes and Jamison were hurt, parts of 05/06 before Butler became Tuff Juice, etc. etc. The point of pointing out the lack of depth on 06/07 is only to say that it can’t be your only example. It’s ignoring three and a half years of evidence for a half of year.
(And Michael Ruffin was as bad as everyone made him out to be. He had one good year in 04/05).
So I’m not sure what your point is exactly or why you took this conversation in the direction you did.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
Until he grabbed a key rebound and threw up that premature...
celebration ball against Toronto a couple of years back… the one that MoPete grabbed and tossed in for 3 as the clock ran out…
Hey now that we have Mike James starting in the backcourt, should we sign Antoine Walker?
prada: say what?
on the “it’s really just suggesting he’s a good second option and not a good first option” comeback, let’s review:
first off, rook sarcastically put “all-star forwards” in double quotes then we went further with that:
I Like How You Put All-Star Forwards in Double Quotes: As if it were somebody else’s opinion of them and not the technical reality. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The biggest casualty of this misbegotten season may be our two "All-Star Forwards"’ reputations.
khrabb: Yes, you would think the co-captains would be a bit more concerned about their… rapidly diminishing reputations…
geez. someone else should be sticking up for jamison too!
on no one is saying arenas is a savior:
khrabb: This team is in free fall and I don’t think there is anyone in the cockpit who knows how to pull up out of a dive. If Gilbert comes back and the team improves he will be hailed as a saviour of course, and maybe (as others have said) that is the hidden agenda here…
colter: but i worry that with each bad loss, the pressure on him to be awesome when he comes back increases. he has to be the savior, which is not the way to come back back smoothly, i don’t think
rook: Maybe it’s Arenas, and not Butler…… that’s the real star of the team…
Maybe it’s Arenas, and not Jamison …. that makes the entire roster a playoff contender… Maybe Arenas is the engine.
on ignoring three and a half years of evidence for half a year… my point is not that i only have data from 06/07 available, it’s that i only have to look that far to determine arenas isn’t a top-tier franchise player. and what about the previous three and a half years? the team was a 40-45 win, first round and out kind of team… making the arenas is a franchise player argument ignores last year, when we pretty much did the same as we did in previous years with arenas gone for the entire year. at no time have we been decimated by injuries and bad circumstances like we are right now. saying the team wouldn’t be 4-19 bad right now if arenas was playing (instead of butler)… it’s pretty clear what the implication is there, and it pretty much flies in the face of everything i said in this paragraph.
you’re free to disagree, and i’m sure you will, but at no time was my logic inconsistent or leaping around.
i’ll say it clearly though: my point is that just like it was unfair to bash arenas after what took place last year, it’s unfair to bash caron (and jamison) for what’s happening this year, particularly to jump all over caron after he lays an egg on wednesday night. come on people.
continuing with that point, while caron is not a top-tier franchise player, arenas isn’t either, the team would still suck ass right now if you replaced caron with arenas, and it’s unfair to bash either of them for not being franchise players when we need both those guys on the court, with good producing players around them, to win big.
just like arenas fans probably wished he was on the court and not caron last year so they wouldn’t have to listen to the “team is better without arenas” crap. i wish arenas was on the floor and not caron for the first 20 games of this year so i wouldn’t have to read stuff about caron having lost his rep – on a wizards fan site.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 19, 2008 3:43 PM EST up reply actions
well - gilbert was totally in the wrong
when he did that – so it wouldn’t make it any better in my eyes if caron was doing the same thing.
also – just by the nature of his position, gilbert is more valuable to the team. especially given the guard play we have been getting.
please don’t take this as a negative against caron, just that gil is the engine of this team.
by little stevie colter on Dec 18, 2008 5:31 PM EST up reply actions
gil is the engine of this team.
Gee, where have I heard that before?
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
wasn't that one of the last things eddie j. said after a loss
before getting fired?
the man made an honest point, i guess. we could use a coach like that around here.
by little stevie colter on Dec 19, 2008 11:09 AM EST up reply actions
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