a couple months ago on this site something like 30+ people said gil was the franchise player and i was the ONLY ONE who voted for caron. i’m wondering if that’s changed at all?

while i’m at it, the fact that gil didn’t bother to tell his coach he wasn’t going to play, but rather communicated it to EJ through the media about an hour before tipoff… i hope i’m not the only one troubled by this. i do not understand the circus that is the wizards when he’s been around lately. unlike in past years it WAS NOT a fun circus. who’s in charge around this team anyway? if it ain’t EJ, HOPEFULLY NOW IT’S CARON.

to gil’s credit, at least he did do the right thing and sit himself out. but why did he have to stink up the joint for 30+ minutes in game 4 before this happened? where is EJ in all this? does he have any say in anything gil related? does ownership have EJ’s back in handling gilbert?

as far as his play goes, it’s unfair to judge gil right now, but the distractions he presents, the way he dominates the ball, and the way EJ doesn’t seem to be able to rein him in or sit him down have all been clearly on display lately. this continues to worry me.

the one positive in all this, which is a big one, is that at least now we shouldn’t have to make a decision on whether to max him out this summer. that is, unless gilbert does something foolish. then again, i guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he does, but at least the team will have the leverage and their hand won’t be forced if gil does opt out now.

This team does have a bunch of talkers – Gilbert, Deshawn, and Brendan being the biggest culprits – whether it’s through the media or on the court. Even though the captains have done nothing but perform with exemplary professionalism, everyone in a Wiz uniform represents the team. So if some of them talk trash and fail to back it up, then it’s fair to label us as “talkers.”

It’s easy to praise Caron’s and Antawn’s statements as good leadership because we just won game 5, but if you look closer, you see that our captains have very little control over the team. To paraphrase Caron, he said to stop paying attention to what all the other Wiz players are saying because only his and Antawn’s words matter. That’s not good. To paraphrase Antawn, he basically said that he’s been harping on the point of letting our game do the talking from day 1, but some of his teammates haven’t listened. That’s not good either.

On the other hand, this is more assertive than I have ever seen our captains act or heard them talk. And this new locker room assertiveness coincided with the game 5 victory, so maybe it helped the team focus and get the job done.

But let’s look forward. An argument can be made that luck, not veteran leadership, won game 5; and if we lose game 6, that argument gains some validity. If we win game 6, the veteran leadership argument gains steam;but if we go on to lose game 7, a good question would be: “Why didn’t Antawn and Caron step up earlier in the series when their leadership could have helped win games 1 or 4?” Of course, if we go on to win the series (knock on wood), then we have the best basketball team captains of all time…and I’m not waxing ceremoniously.