I want to see those guys again
by Pradamaster
on Apr 10, 2008 12:59 PM EDT
in Recaps
Box score.
Game flow.
Post recap.
Times recap.
Les Bullez.
Red's Army is scared.
Celtics Blog is not.
LOY's Place.
You know the Wizards won by 14, right?.
Celtics 17.
"Meanwhile, also lost in Arenas's absence was the development of all of the Wizards' role players." Well said.
Arenas to continue as sixth man.
Highest plus/minus: Caron Butler (+16).
Lowest plus/minus: Andray Blatche (+2).
I don't particularly want to speculate about whether we have "Boston's number." It's a cliche, but the playoffs really are a completely different mindset, and regular-season success is rarely an indicator of playoff success, unless you're talking about two very even teams (which the Wizards and Celtics certainly are not).
Instead, I want to reiterate how unstoppable our offense can be. I really don't think Boston played bad defense in that game. They dominated the glass, forced Butler into seven turnovers and just 10 shots, and mostly forced Gilbert Arenas into perimeter shots that he just wasn't hitting. On the ball, they did their usual thing.
It was off the ball, however, where this game was won. Our offense struggles when nobody moves without the ball, which forces someone like Arenas or Jamison into a very bad shot. Invariably, Arenas is the one who gets blamed, when some of that blame should go to his teammates who aren't moving. You have no choice but to go one-on-one when nobody is presenting himself to be a passing option.
Today, though, I was really impressed with how quickly everyone moved within the framework of the offense. Darius Songaila was huge in this regard, but Jamison was probably the one who exhibited this most. He was excellent in the two-man game with Arenas, and he was going to different spots besides the post and the three-point line. Boston's bigs were doing a really bad job of covering our bigs off the ball, and we really exploited that within the framework of the Princeton.
Gilbert's final line (5-14, 1-5 from three, only a +7) doesn't look oustanding, and he definitely forced some bad shots, but I thought his first entrance into the game was a turning point. It opened up the offense, to the point where it tailors to Jamison and Songaila's strengths moving without the basketball. Plus, there were those two steals where he dropped it off to Butler and Blatche, respectively, instead of taking the layup himself. Those plays spoke volumes about what he at least is trying to do now that he's come back to a team that has found a formula for relative success without him.
I'm still concerned about the defense, because even though we only gave up 95, we got lucky in that Boston missed so many threes. Take away Pierce's 6-9, and Boston was just 7-21 from deep, and they had a lot of open looks. I'm also really concerned about our pick and roll defense when Haywood is in the game. Boston is so dangerous because they can run so many different players in a pick and roll, so they were able to get Haywood away from the basket by screening with Kendrick Perkins. It's a formula I expect to see a lot if we play Cleveland and Anderson Varejao is in the game. Haywood is an excellent interior defender, but as Truth pointed out a couple of times in the game blog, he really struggles with his pick and roll defense. Our best option besides Haywood is Songaila, who's too small to rely on too heavily down the stretch.
Ultimately, there's a lot of good to take away from this game. Offensively, this might have been our best game of the season. We didn't score as many points as we might have been able to do, but we got across-the-board contributions, hit all types of shots, got to the free-throw line 29 times, and even added a fast-break element now that Gilbert is back. If the defense can be tinkered just a bit, we might well be more dangerous than even we think.
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Not sure if Taser will win.....
This "Nancy" character has decided on Livewire as a nickname for Dominic McGuire.....hell, Glass Wipe is better than that.
But I tried my best:
Wizards React Quotes: A Taser is Born?
by Truth About It on Apr 10, 2008 2:53 PM EDT 0 recs
20 second timeout
Just to review:
- "Wizards Cast Spell Over XXXX" ...Dude, if you want people to take your writing seriously, maybe eschew the most cliched phrases in your headlines.
- ZOMG! Gilbert took 14 shots in 24 minutes? Why, that would translate out to 28 shots in 48 minutes, or a pretty unsurprising usage rate for a team's first option. And yeah, when the offense broke down, he was the one in charge of jacking up an emergency shot. Clearly that means the Wizards are a much better team without him.
- "When Arenas was out of action during this season, the Wizards ran some really nice plays featuring ball and player movement, so it was a bit jarring to see guys suddenly forcing up shots." Just out of curiosity, does Friedman ACTUALLY watch Wizards games when Arenas isn't playing? Sometimes our offense runs great. Sometimes it bogs down and the team becomes a bunch of shot-jackers. That's been true AAAAALL season.
- Really gotta love the overused "people say he's an MVP candidate?!?!?!?" routine. Dude, we discussed this a few months ago. People put him in that upper-echelon for about two months last season, when he was posting 30-35 a night and leading the Wizards to the best record in the east. At full strength, he's still one of the most explosive scorers in the game, and before you start in on a "does he make the players around him better" rant, please take a quick look at the file on Hughes, Larry.
- "His best minutes against Boston came during his first stint." There are two ways to analyze this. Either he's a shot-jacker who can only keep it under control for a couple minutes, or after 66 games off, his conditioning needs work. I'll give you a hint, we know for sure that the latter is true. Maybe consider that...
- Yeah, the Wiz just beat the Celtics by 14. The Celts didn't rest their starters, though I can see an argument that their hearts weren't really in it. But the Wiz just beat them by 14. How much better did you want the offense to run?
by sierradave on Apr 10, 2008 3:42 PM EDT 0 recs
20 Second Timeout
As for the specific points you made:
- I'll try to do better with the headlines :)
- Arenas has said that he is going to try to fit in with what the Wizards have been doing without him all season; how does that mesh with taking more shots than every starter but Jamison, particularly when Arenas was hardly hot?
- I realize that the Wizards, like most teams, go through stretches where the offense looks really good and stretches where the offense does not look so good--and I still maintain that when your best player is a shoot-first point guard that leads to chemistry problems on the court, even if everyone gets along fine off of the court.
- The Hughes, Larry file shows an NBA Finals appearance alongside LeBron James; do you really believe that Arenas is better at making his teammates better than James is? I hate the phrase "making teammates better," anyway; I prefer to speak of placing teammates in a position where they can be successful. I realize that does not flow off of the tongue but my point is that you can't make someone do something he is incapable of doing. Guys like Kobe, LeBron and CP3 draw defenders, providing their teammates the chance to shoot open jumpers or dive to the hoop to catch lob passes. Does Gilbert have a similar effect? He is an All-Star level player who does those things sometimes but I maintain that he has a lot of Marbury in him--overdribbling, too many outside shots early in the shot clock, only a casual interest in defense, though Arenas is a better steals guy/off the ball defender than Marbury.
5) The Wizards also beat the Celtics twice this year without Arenas when the Celtics had their hearts in it for the whole game, right?
I gave Arenas credit for the energy that he provided, particularly in his first stint, and I acknowledged that he still is not 100% physically. That said, I don't think that he is playing too much differently now than he did prior to the injury. The record shows that the Wizards have never been much more than a .550 team even with Arenas and I don't see any reason to expect that to change; the record also shows that the Wizards' record is far more dependent on whether or not Butler plays than whether or not Arenas plays. If Butler had not missed several games this year the Wizards' record this season would most likely be better than it was last season when Arenas was healthy until just before the playoffs.
Early this season I asked if Arenas is the most overrated All-Star in the NBA. Several people here suggested that this question could not really be fairly answered until the Wizards played the whole season without Arenas. Now we are near the end of the season and the Wizards did not do much worse without Arenas in '08 than they did with him in '07.
by David Friedman on
Apr 10, 2008 6:35 PM EDT
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Fact Check
When Arenas and his teammates were completely healthy last season (in late January), he was the second highest scorer in the NBA. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's actually quite good. How is a scorer supposed to regain his shooting touch if he doesn't shoot? Perhaps he should wait for the playoffs before he tries to shake off his rust? When he does regain his stroke, he is capable of taking over games (see Laker game in Los Angeles from last season), even when his teammates are slumping.
Allen Iverson is a shoot-first point guard too, I don't see any Nuggets players complaining. Also, does that automatically mean that he's overrated? He's got an NBA Finals appearance, so that must mean that he's a great player. After all...
Yes, I do actually. How many players around LeBron have gone to the All-Star game or have led the league in anything? Coincidentally, Larry Hughes was 1st Team All-Defense when he played alongside Arenas. He led the league in steals per game. He averaged 22 points a game. All of his numbers took a huge nosedive the next year playing alongside LeBron. LeBron made him so much better that his FG% went from .430 to .409. The fact that he made it to the NBA Finals on LeBron's coattails doesn't prove anything. In fact, as an argument it's laughable.
You could use some remedial math classes. When Arenas and all of his teammates were healthy at the end of January, the Wizards stood at 27-17. My calculator says that is a winning percentage of .614, what's yours say? That happened to be the best record in the Eastern Conference at that point in the season. That was when Arenas was getting MVP talk, and deservedly so. Who do you know that had picked the Wizards to have the best record in the East heading into February? Who do you think deserved the credit?
It just so happens that Jamison got hurt during the game the Wizards got their 27th win, and he missed the entire month of February. So I suppose it was Arenas's fault that the Wizards struggled that month, and it had nothing to do with him missing his close to 20-10 teammate. When Jamison finally came back, the Wizards' Big 3 played 6 games before Butler got hurt, then came back and played 3 games before getting hurt again, then Arenas blew out his knee in the next game. The fact is the Wizards were never again completely healthy after they had the best record in the East, so your logic makes absolutely no sense.
See above. I would call a .526 winning percentage much worse than a .614 one. I would also call the 5th best record in the East much worse than the best one. When Arenas and his two All-Star teammates are all healthy, the Wizards are one of the best teams in the East, and Arenas should get just as much credit (if not more) than Caron and Antawn do. Without Arenas, the Wizards are an average playoff team.
by cuppettcj on
Apr 10, 2008 10:17 PM EDT
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Fact Check Reply
By the way, I am not singling out Arenas when I say that he should never have been mentioned in MVP talk (even during the Wizards' fabled January). My position in this regard is quite consistent: being player of the month does not automatically make you an MVP caliber player if you have never sustained MVP level performance for a whole season. I thought that it was ridiculous to put Brandon Roy in the MVP conversation when the Blazers had their winning streak and I disagreed with people who have pumped up Melo as an MVP caliber player at certain times. Arenas, Melo and Roy are all All-Star caliber players. Arenas and Melo have been All-NBA Third Team caliber players at times--but none of them are MVP caliber players. It's kind of like the "rule of two" with the Sith--except in terms of the MVP I have a rule of five (or so); if you are not on the All-NBA First Team or in serious contention for it then I don't buy that you are an MVP level player. I'm just not that big into hype, into calling everyone a "superstar" and an "MVP."
Are the Iverson-Melo Nuggets your model for how to build a championship team? They are a squad that might not even make the playoffs--albeit in a much tougher conference--and they have not gotten out of the first round in Melo's career. By the way, when Iverson led the 76ers to the Finals he was playing shooting guard, not pg (he was third on the team in assists and operated off of the ball; that would be a better role for Arenas, too).
How did playing with Arenas make Hughes better at getting steals? Obviously, Hughes' steals have more to do with his health and the defensive scheme that he played in. The Cavaliers were much more successful with him in the lineup than with him out of the lineup but that is probably a discussion for another place. I like Hughes as a player more than a lot of people do, but I don't credit Arenas for Hughes' numbers in Washington. As someone once said, correlation does not equal causation :)
My calculator says that .614 is not much higher than .550. I said that the Wizards will never be much better than a .550 team with Arenas as the main guy. Can you cite a full season with Arenas during which the Wizards were much better than .550? Last I checked, there are not any trophies for having a good record in January. Over the past two years, the Wizards' record when both Arenas and Butler have played is a shade above .550. It is not realistic to assume that both star players will play every single game every year, so considering that with their top two guys they top out at a shade above .550 I don't think that the Wizards will be better than .550 over a whole season as long as Arenas is the main guy; that is where I got the .550 number from. Their record with Butler and without Arenas is actually better (27-18, .600). We could parse various games, other players' injuries, etc. until the end of time to try to determine the exact causation of each aspect of the Wizards' record but the Wizards' overall record simply is not that great during the Arenas era and it is much more sensitive to Butler's absence than Arenas' absence. I see no evidence in the team's performance to suggest that he is adding as much value as you seem to think he is to a squad that has two other All-Stars. Yes, Arenas is a talented player and he is capable of offensive hot streaks that other players on the team can't match--but you just conveniently ignore the big picture (his overall shooting percentage, the team's record with him and so forth).
You are assuming a lot of facts that are not in evidence by suggesting that the Wizards were on their way to a first place finish last season. When this team as presently constructed wins 55 regular season games and/or two playoff series in one year then I will reevaluate my position.
by David Friedman on
Apr 11, 2008 1:27 AM EDT
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Reply to the Reply
Agreed, but you can't make a good analysis on such a small sample as a 20 minute chunk of one game. Arenas's shot wasn't falling for him that game. I'm not surprised, since this was only his fourth game back from his knee injury. He's going to have a few off-nights. The fact remains that he is a scorer who is capable of taking over games. Shooting in practice is a lot different than shooting in a game. When Arenas has his shot falling, he helps his team a lot more. It doesn't seem to matter from where on the court he shoots. Kobe Bryant once accused Gilbert of having "no conscience" when it came to his shot selection. It just so happened that he made those comments after Gilbert dropped 60 points on him on 53% shooting. Three games later, Gilbert dropped 54 points on Phoenix with 57% shooting. Gilbert takes the shots he takes, which only seems bad when he's not making them.
Yet when all is said and done, Gilbert still had a true shooting percentage of .565 last season. That was better than both Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James. That tells me his shot selection wasn't so bad after all. It also tells me he helped his team a lot more than you are willing to give credit for.
I agree, which is why Gilbert was no longer mentioned as an MVP candidate when his team faded down the stretch. When people talk about MVP candidates at mid-season, it is always based on the assumption that the player (and his team) will continue to perform the rest of the way like he (they) did up to that point. Had the Wizards finished the season with the best record in the East and Arenas was still the second-leading scorer in the NBA, rightly or wrongly, he would have been in serious contention for the award. Had his teammates stayed healthy, I believe that would have been possible, but that's not what happened. However, to go from the argument that Arenas isn't quite an MVP caliber player to he doesn't help his team at all is a huge leap.
As for the Wizard's "fabled" January, I'd like to point out that December was a pretty damn good month for them too.
You make a better argument here, and I admit that I forgot that Iverson played SG while with Philly. However, my point was that shoot-first point guards aren't always a bad thing, and I don't think any analyst would argue that the Nuggets would be a better team without Iverson. Iverson doesn't prevent Melo from gettings his shots up. Iverson doesn't make his teammates worse when he plays. I'm only trying to argue the same about Arenas. Which brings me to my next point.
To paraphrase the great Yogi Berra, basketball is 90% mental. The other half is physical. Almost all of Hughes's numbers were higher when he played with Arenas. Field goal attempts, field goal percentage, free throw attempts, rebounds, assists, steals, points. He even turned the ball over less when he played with Arenas. I would argue that Hughes's performance on the offensive end fueled his confidence and focus on the defensive end. I could be wrong about this specifically, but I don't think I'm wrong to argue that Arenas at least contributed to him being better offensively. This contradicts your theory that Arenas doesn't place his teammates in a position to be successful, and that players like LeBron James do.
No, but neither can you cite a full season when Arenas and his teammates were all healthy. However, I can cite two months when they were all healthy and they were the best team in the Eastern Conference.
That's not bad, considering a lot of those games were played without All-Star Antawn Jamison and the fact that Gilbert was 24 and 25 years old those two years and Butler was 26 and 27 years old. Butler is just now entering his prime, and Gilbert is not even there yet. Yet, you seem to be willing to write him off.
Agreed that we won't change any minds with this argument. We can go back and forth forever, but I felt the need to get my points out there. You are suggesting that in the big picture the Wizards haven't been that good with Arenas, and you have some valid points. But my point is that the last time we saw a healthy Arenas with his two All-Star teammates also healthy, the Wizards were the best team in the Eastern Conference. Then injuries struck. You believe without any solid evidence that the Wizards would have faded badly down the stretch even if they had remained healthy. I believe without any solid evidence that the Wizards would have remained one of the two best teams in the East had this happened. We'll never really know.
I never actually said that the Wizards would have remained the best team in the East had they stayed healthy. I do, however, think they would have still been one of the top teams and would have at least earned home-court advantage through at least one round of the playoffs. I admitted above that I don't have a lot of evidence for this belief, just as you really don't have a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise.
Maybe this is the year you reevaluate your position. ;)
by cuppettcj on
Apr 11, 2008 8:34 AM EDT
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look
The fact is the Arenas defenders and Arenas critics can argue all day about whether he hurts the team or helps it and not convince either side. What is persuasive is statistic analysis, which Prada has convincingly demonstrated, shows that this is a worse offensive team without Arenas and the defensive improvement is not due to his absence. This hard-nosed analysis, frankly, is why we are denizens of this blog and not others.
by Aldo on
Apr 10, 2008 10:58 PM EDT
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Exactly
by Pradamaster on
Apr 10, 2008 11:39 PM EDT
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What I'm noticing
by hotplate on
Apr 11, 2008 7:56 AM EDT
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More on Gil
I've watched most of the games since Gilbert's arrival and haven't felt like he was a ball hog. Somehow, despite his ball hog presence, he's had 2 other 20 point scorers alongside him for each of the past 3 years. From all that I have seen and read, he is popular with his teammates. His only publicized issue with a teammate was with Kwame Brown.
I have watched the Bullets/Wizards now for 25 years, and Arenas is far and away the best player we have had during that time.
by hotplate on Apr 10, 2008 4:18 PM EDT 0 recs
Yeah
by hoyymmnn on Apr 10, 2008 10:33 PM EDT 0 recs
Refute of Friedman, sorry for the long post
This thinking is class post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Just because something occurs when a variable changes, does not mean that the variable caused the change. For instance, I switched to a new pair of shoes today, and my professor let class out early. Therefore, my new shoes caused Greenberg to let class out early. That is an obvious example, yet the point remains, simply because Gilbert went out and these ppl performed better doesn't mean Gilbert's absence caused it. His absence may have caused (and those things can be verified by stats, which you haven't brought because they don't agree with you) but it may not have (as the facts bear out). It is a fallacy to say Gil's out, they are winning, therefore they are winning because Gil is out.
As for the shoot first point guard... first he does pass the ball, around 6 Assist a game the last couple of years. He has assisted so far in the come back, but you look at basketball the wrong way. The key is value added by position. Gil adds tremendous value by his position, whether he is shoot first or pass first PG. What you are arguing is that his shoot first mentality significantly lowers value from other players. This is simply not backed up by fact. You could bring out Caron (but as I showed above, not related to Gil).
Under your idea, AD is the perfect point guard. He distributes the ball better. Right? They have roughly the same number of A/36 Mins. Right around 5. Therefore, there must be something outside of stats that AD does that helps by being a pass first PG. The other players must be happier that their PG CANT SCORE AND PASS therefore they perform better.
The only argument that can be made for Gil hurting the team is on D, but AD isn't exactly a lock down defender. I think this can be credited to BTH being on the court more.
Gilbert is one of the top players in the NBA. He adds immense value to this team. This team, sans Gil may be able to beat CLE but doesn't have a chance against the top three. With Gil, they can beat any of them.
by zeke5123 on Apr 10, 2008 11:22 PM EDT 0 recs
My problem all season
Also, gilbert arenas is a quick cure to the wiz's problem all season, no easy buckets. When the offense got stale and we weren't hitting mid to long range jumpers we just weren't scoring. Nobody could take it to the rack and there damn sure weren't any fast break points to be had. Agent Zero fixes both of those problems.
by five by five on Apr 11, 2008 8:23 AM EDT 0 recs
Agreed
by Icantfeelmyface on
Apr 11, 2008 11:15 AM EDT
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Iverson and Gil are similar
by zeke5123 on Apr 11, 2008 12:13 PM EDT 0 recs
i agree with a lot of what friedman says
friedman's criticism is pretty severe and i think the C's game is too small a sample size to judge whether arenas will adapt his game, but i do think he needs to adapt. i happen to think he should be given the opportunity to do so. (it frequently worries me however that gilbert seems to like to do his own thing though.)
gilbert is a great player. the wizards have a chance to be a better team with gilbert than without him. i however dispute that the wizards will ever maximize their potential with gilbert playing point guard and scoring 30 a night.
i don't really feel like coming up with heaps of statistics that point one way or another on this argument. hollinger used statistics to compute the wiz would win 33 games this year, which is laughable. if there is a reasonable argument on both sides (which i believe there is here), you can always provide data to point the argument one way or another depending on how you already feel about it. i'm not saying statistics are worthless, they're not, and it's interesting to see prada put them to use, but they don't always tell the entire story. there are too many factors. and i sincerely doubt anyone here is objectively looking at numbers and then using solely the stats to form an opinion about gilbert's game.
not that i won't try to provide some reasoning for my stance:
1 - gilbert was absolutely on fire during the wizards run through december06-january07. then he cooled off. as much as he helped the team win while he was smoking hot, to me, he hurt the team when he was shooting under 40% and taking LOTS of bad shots. the team shouldn't rise or fall on gilbert's shooting/scoring. (i know there were other mitigating factors like injuries, but what i saw was gilbert dominating the ball and not being nearly as effective as he had the previous months.)
2 - the wiz play differently this year. they have the makings of a better team. they are more balanced. not all of this is due to the absence of arenas, as they have a better rotation, less drama at center, and better defensive schemes and coaching, but one has to question whether gilbert would have bought into the system or seen it produce results if it was business as usual for him and the team this year.
3 - gilbert's main argument on his blog is pointing out how players have done well beside him. with the wizards offensive mindset and the respective roles of jamison, hughes, butler, and even jerry stackhouse in the offense, i believe all of those guys would have averaged 20+ a night with or without gilbert in the lineup. i don't necessarily think gilbert made those guys statistically any better or worse with him in or out of the lineup, given the wizards system and their roles.
4 - regardless, it's not really a question of whether he makes his teammates statistically better or worse while he's scoring 30 a game as a point guard. its a question of whether the team is better or worse while he's scoring 30 a game as a point guard. i think we've seen this year that we don't need him scoring that much to beat good teams. more balance, better defense, and efficient scoring and playmaking from arenas and the wiz will be legitimate contenders.
to summarize, i personally don't think gil can consistently maintain the run he went on last year when he's trying to pump in 30 a night. being that he plays the point guard position, when it fizzles, it ends up hurting the team. gil would be a lot better off by RELYING on his teammates and his team's system more rather than always forcing the issue. then he'd really be making the team better.
and please no more of those sulking i'm not going to shoot and only pass the ball games. i'm hoping that gilbert is savvy enough to get what the critics are saying and use it to better his game.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Apr 11, 2008 12:24 PM EDT 0 recs
The thing is
What I object to is Arenas being the one singled out for all that's wrong with this team,unsubstantiated claims that he kills team chemistry, and assertions that the Wizards won't go anywhere with him. Those littered Friedman's post, at least based on the way I read it.
I think that when people cite these examples of guys who have put up better numbers with Arenas than without him, they do so not to say that Gilbert makes his teammates better, but rather to refute the claim that he makes them worse. I think the Princeton is primarily responsible for everyone's offensive improvement more than anything, but if Gilbert really was completely ignoring the system, then those players' numbers would also be down.
In essence, I agree with your points, and those are fair ways to criticize Gilbert. What isn't fair is suggesting that the team would be better off without him. To me, that's absolutely ridiculous.
by Pradamaster on
Apr 11, 2008 1:54 PM EDT
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Interesting Discussion
This is an interesting discussion but there probably is not a lot more to add at this point. We each have our perspectives about the Wizards/Arenas and we have each stated why we think the way that we do. It will be interesting to see what happens in the playoffs and what moves the Wizards make in the offseason. I'll continue to offer my perspective and I'm sure that I will hear from Wizards' fans when they disagree :)
As Prada said, this has been a civil discussion and I think that is important. We can disagree without being disagreeable, as the cliche goes.
by David Friedman on
Apr 12, 2008 1:43 AM EDT
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Man Oh Man
This franchise was the laughing stock of the NBA before Arenas's ascension into super stardom as a Wizard. Twan and Butler played major roles in the success but Agent Zero was the main man because he had the ball in his hands at the end of almost every game. Gil was the playmaker. He gets hurt, misses one playoff series and almost a whole year, now the Wizards should move on without him? Or somehow his style of play is holding them back from greater success? I do not get the logic.
If they call a travel on Lebron or an offensive foul in the 06 series, the Wizards would have 2 playoff series wins on him. Even though he missed those free throws, Gil made some amazing plays in that series. His 30 footer to force OT in game 6 is the loudest I have ever seen the phone booth and it still gives me chills.
A few points about this year's success without Gil that I have not seen made yet. This years roster is sooooo much better than anything the Wizards have had in this 4 year playoff run.
There is no dead weight or limited players. This team is deep with a great mix of talented young players and solid, contributing vets.
Jordan has become a better coach and has learned how to actually stick with somewhat of a rotation.
Gil wants to win and fit in with the team. Aside from his shot being rusty, I thought he played quite well the other night and he stayed within the offense.
I am more worried about his full game returning and him being the old Gil than him interrupting team chemistry in a negative way.
A good reminder, NO one in the NBA could stop a healthy Gilbert Arenas off the dribble. No One.
He led the league in foul shots for a reason and a player like that is an asset to a team, not a liability.
by Mac G on Apr 11, 2008 2:07 PM EDT 0 recs
Couldn't agree more...
In terms of the Arenas debate, you can point to all the stats in the book, but until this team achieves real success (winning 50 games/the southeast division/2 or even 3 playoff series), he will always have doubters.
In terms of his current health, I think people should be more worried than they are. He has absolutely no lift. I hope it's just conditioning, but EJ had a telling quote in today's Post when he said Gilbert won't be himself until October. For the remainder of this year, he's going to find it hard to earn the same foul calls as in the past because his drives to the hoop lack the typical explosion. Also, AD said the success of Gilbert's return will be determined by Arenas' ability to jump over the mental hurdle his injury caused. So, while I agree that a healthy Gilbert is unstoppable off the dribble, the current version can be stopped by other teams and by himself.
by jvflail on
Apr 11, 2008 3:16 PM EDT
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