Open thread: Preseason reactions

His offense helps compensate for Antawn’s absence, obviously. Less obviously, his rebounding makes the starters a better defensive unit. Our starters’ biggest problem may be the inability to secure the ball after forcing a miss. Haywood is a very, very good help defender, but when he helps out, we give up offensive rebounds. Even when Brendan forces the initial miss, we often end up giving up put backs and other easy opportunities. Miller’s rebounding will act synergistically with Brendan’s help D— we can force the miss and secure the rebound. (Yes, Miller will allow penetration, which is bad. But every time his man drives past him is one less time for Gilbert’s or Caron’s man to drive on them after they gamble for the steal.)

Foye, DeShawn, and McGuire can be our primary perimeter reserves. All good defenders. With a solid perimeter D, maybe we can get some good play out of Andray and maybe even JaVale. They can concentrate on playing solid, basic D without having to worry too much about switching and helping all the time.

I definitely agree with yop32’s position. Miller as starter – bringing good mix of offence and rebounding – with perimeter reserves who bring good energy on defense (D-Steve, Foye, D-Mac). I’m not sure Flip sees it that way though, especially with respect to D-Mac. Can’t understand why he got so little run during the pre-season, especially in the games when Antawn and Miller were both not available…

Obviously, that game sucked. I’m not reading too much into it.

Overall, the team looks like a team running a new system with players either shaking off rust or playing together for the first time. I remain quite optimistic about what will happen when they gel and get a feel for the offense. Team defense looks MUCH improved and that alone is a reason for optimism.

Mike Miller is a very, very good NBA player and a great fit for this squad. I think it’s a given he starts in Jamison’s absence and probably would have anyway. Randy Foye looks a little lost both as a PG and trying to run the offense, but he is also a very, very talented player with remaining upside.

I have always been a Dray Blatche fan, and the patience is going to pay off this year. He has looked not just good, but great, at times even though he is still learning how to harness his considerable talent. That the Wizards will be able to bring Dray, Foye, Stevenson and Oberto off the bench (the 4 that I assume will be in the rotation at this point) makes the Wizards a ridiculously deep team. Not many teams in the NBA could not find time for Young, McGuire and McGee.