Blatche then shook his head. "I'm always the guy they want to make an example of," he said.
Wizards Insider. I'd argue that no quote sums up the last few years of this team better than this one, because there's simultaneously a) an element of truth in it, and b) a completely ridiculous and unacceptable side to it (i.e. Blatche being so off-base in the execution and timing).
(FYI: I'm not going tonight because I didn't get my credential request submitted in time. My bad all).
about 2 years ago
Mike Prada
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Money quote
When asked how hard it would be to change that mindset, Saunders said, “It’s going to be really easy, you sit them on the bench.”
by morethesamewiz on Jan 12, 2010 2:55 PM EST via mobile reply actions
good grief
the first years I began watching the Bullets was around the Webber days and then you watch the whole Pistons team made up of former Wizards/Bullets. Blatche could very well be that guy we let go when he’s young and turns out to be a star for a contender. This time though I wouldn’t be upset because this guy is so immature. He had a clean slate this season and he ruined it.
Didn't Antawn Jamison complain recently about his shots?
just sayin………………….
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
Jamison is a class act
until you mess with his shots or his minutes (Exception: Dallas Mavericks).
by Pryme on Jan 12, 2010 3:18 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Double-Standard
For awhile, the vet’s have been able to get away with anything they want (both on and off the court) and the young-ins can’t.
Exactly
Like that time Jamison got busted trying to pick up a prostitute that was really a cop.
Or when he was partying late and got shot in an attempted carjacking.
Or when he was arrested for reckless driving, going 86mph despite having a suspended license, the third time he had gotten busted driving with a suspended license.
Yep, that AJ sure is a menace. It’s time somebody locked him up.
by MR on Jan 12, 2010 3:45 PM EST up reply actions
A majority of the younger players issues are off-court
while many of the vet’s issues are on-the-court.
you don't think blatche has any issues on the court?!?!?!?!
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 12, 2010 5:35 PM EST up reply actions
You forgot AJ was clubbing while 18 when he was shot
and Mike Wise wrote some article about it glossing over that fact in hillarious fashion if I remember correctly.
by BayAreaBullet on Jan 13, 2010 2:19 AM EST up reply actions
Link?
I don’t remember Jamison overtly complaining about shots … I don’t hold it below him to do, but it doesn’t seem like he would do that … at least to the point where it would make the funny pages.
Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It.net and Bullets Forever.
So - Jamison can kick a banner, frustrated, because the Coach pulled him?
From Wizards Insider December 23rd
Coach Flip Saunders said he had no regrets about benching his starting five in the third quarter. The 76ers to start the second half on a 12-5 run and Saunders sat Gilbert Arenas, Randy Foye, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison in favor of Earl Boykins, Nick Young, Andray Blatche, Dominic McGuire and Fabricio Oberto.
A frustrated Jamison kicked the advertising banner near the Wizards bench immediately after the move. When asked if he had to smooth over anything with players who might’ve been upset, Saunders shook his head.
From Wizards Insider December 24th
Jamison ………….. explained what happened the night before against Philadelphia, when he was visibly frustrated when Saunders benched the starters in the third quarter.
“As long as I win it doesn’t matter,” Jamison said. "I think last night was a case of the ball not coming my way, and you’re going to have times where you don’t see the ball. "
So……………………………..Jamison kicks a banner after the Coach removed all the Starters – (Jamison was frustrated because the ball was not coming his way ) = thereby dissing his Coach in front of 20,000 fans in the Verizon Center.
Just don’t tweet about your lack of shot attempts (“Never have I played a game and had no shot attempts, they me all [expletive] up.”)
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
You're taking a lot liberties ...
With assuming why Jamison was mad.
You really think he did that because he wasn’t getting shots? Or was he more mad, embarrassed that the starting unit was sucking?
Look, we all know that Jamison probably has too much pride to come off the bench, but in terms of the above options, which one is more like Jamison? I’m siding with the latter just about every time.
Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It.net and Bullets Forever.
by Kyle Weidie on Jan 13, 2010 12:21 AM EST up reply actions
I think Blatche can be big for the Wizards
but when do you expect this attitude to change? A different coach? A completely different team around him? or maybe he just needs to get older?
I think he'll change
But it will only come after he changes teams, at least once, sees his career slipping away, then realizes that he really does need to grow up.
I'm glad Flip is focusing on this issue of shots
It is a team-wide problem, and he is right to harp on it.
But as others have noted, too often on this team a coach will publicly point to a problem, and when he needs to attach a name to a team-wide problem, he names a young player.
I don’t say this to absolve Blatche on this issue, but selfishness breeds selfishness. If you play on a team where one guy is worried about his shots and takes bad ones time and again, that’s a virus that spreads. Soon the next guy thinks, “Well, if he’s going to get his shots, I’ll get mine, too,” and it goes from there. We’ve heard Jamison quoted over the summer about how with Gil returning, he and Butler might have to sacrifice a couple of shots, as if the yellow brick road to a championship is built on the enormous sacrifice of taking a few less shots each game. We’ve seen Jamison pout when he got benched and only got 7 shots in the Philly game in December. We’ve seen Butler not touch the ball on offense for a few possessions, and then come down and shoot a 20 footer when going 1 on 4 or 5. We’ve seen Gilbert be one of the league leaders in points, but at a low FG%. About the only guys that don’t seem to be infected by the virus are Miller (who should shoot) and Stevenson (who shouldn’t shoot under almost any circumstances).
by disgrunted on Jan 12, 2010 3:50 PM EST reply actions 4 recs
Yea, I actually ...
Wanted to ask Haywood, since he’s brought up guys being worried about shots before, if he thought Blatche was a product of the environment … if the “wanting shots” thing was contagious.
Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It.net and Bullets Forever.
I should have mentioned this classic exchange between Young and Jamison in my post
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider/2009/04/wizards_staying_upbeat.html
I found it easily by googling “Nick Young” and “and it’s going up.” Classic, classic, classic.
i love that jamison is carrying the team right now
and people here are defending blatche and throwing barbs at AJ.
this is madness.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 12, 2010 5:40 PM EST up reply actions
Just like the Arenas issue -
People here are not defending Blatche for his poor attitude… or his complaining about lack of shots… Just that there are others that have done the same things, but were either not punished, or were just ignored.
So, It’s probably not appropriate to defend a poor attitude, but , it SHOULD BE appropriate to point out that SOME OTHERplayers on this team (cough Jamison cough) have an attitude that ANY shot they put up is a good shot…. and pout, or throw a tantrum when they don’t get enough shots….
It’s been pointed out before (last year)… and it’s become apparent again this year (Philly game).. that Jamison is particularly prickly about “getting his”…………
Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......
the day when
it’s blatche’s role to score 20 a night for this team, then blatche can complain about shots.
by the way, it’ll never happen. blatche will NEVER be as good as jamison.
this is NUTS. people on the board must be suffering from battered fan syndrome or something.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 12, 2010 7:09 PM EST up reply actions
Sometimes people on this board get grudges that they just won’t let go and they interpret every little everything through the same tired looking-glass.
It’s amazing to me the amount of sympathy that some younger players who have never shown us any real sustained production garner around here.
by MR on Jan 12, 2010 11:27 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
You all really are missing the point
Nobody is saying Blatche>Jamison. We’re just saying that there’s a degree of truth in Blatche’s statement that he always gets singled out for stuff when Jamison, as good as he might be, also pouted during a game upon being taken out and refused to comment about it, after a win no less. Clearly, there isn’t equal treatment here.
Doesn’t mean Blatche is going about this the right way and doesn’t deserve criticism, but this is a team-wide epidemic, not a Blatche epidemic.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
Maybe I didn’t see all the replays or get the right information. It seems like these are the two incidents:
1) The entire starting lineup gets taken out at once after playing poorly. AJ kicks a table. Are you assuming he kicked it because he wasn’t getting enough shots? Because he’s mad at the coach? Maybe he’s mad at his teammates. Or himself. Do we know?
2) Blatche is suspended after comments…not an expression of frustration, but comments. The coach goes out of his way to say that the suspension is not an isolated incident but a culmination of a lot of events.
Did I get the known facts right? Did I miss some aspect of these stories? If not, I think that (as usual) there are a lot of assumptions floating around this forum that people are interpreting without real cause.
Yes
AJ kicks a table. Are you assuming he kicked it because he wasn’t getting enough shots? Because he’s mad at the coach? Maybe he’s mad at his teammates. Or himself. Do we know?
Repeat from the AJ quote above:
Jamison ………….. explained what happened the night before against Philadelphia, when he was visibly frustrated when Saunders benched the starters in the third quarter.
"As long as I win it doesn’t matter," Jamison said. "I think last night was a case of the ball not coming my way, and you’re going to have times where you don’t see the ball. "
:’-(
"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 direct you to MR and Truths comments
AJ might have been mad b/c he wasn’t getting shots, amongst other things, but (1) in AJ’s case it’s slightly understandable, and (2) you’re making a grand leap by saying that’s the only thing AJ was upset about and the only thing blatche got suspended for. if AJ started ignoring the coach the rest of the game, or went back out and pouted instead of finishing off philly in the 4th, amongst whatever else AB has been doing that we don’t know about, then maybe you could compare these two situations. LIke MR and Truth, you are making a grand leap to say these situations are that similar.
and yes, if AJ wasn’t producing at an EXTREMELY high level right now, we wouldn’t even be competitive. we’d be getting blown out every game.
maybe it’s all for naught if we don’t win and people don’t give a crap, but AJ is playing his heart out right now and people on this board are shitting on him and sticking up for blatche. that’s being a lousy fan IMO and i don’t feel badly saying that.
you want to trade AJ and start blatche, trust me, your patience with blatche will wear out before you know it.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 13, 2010 1:03 PM EST up reply actions
actually
i was referring to your post and truth’s posts as the two most sensible posts (IMO) i saw on this thread.
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 13, 2010 4:31 PM EST up reply actions
For the Record
I’m not sticking up for Blatche. I just don’t think he should have sole ownership of the blame for this team’s dysfunction. AJ may indeed be playing his heart out, so perhaps it is unfair of me to accuse him of padding his stats. I retract that suggestion. However, Jamison has never in his career, from what I can tell, been able to defend his man from doing pretty much whatever he wanted to do. Therefore, I cannot buy the notion that he is somehow a hero. There are no heroes on this team. Almost every player on our roster is soft and sucks on at least one side of the ball, and the net sum of this mess equals 12-24. There’s plenty of blame to spread around. Everybody deserves their share.
"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 just don’t think he should have sole ownership of the blame for this team’s dysfunction
Nobody’s come close to suggesting that.
I think the discussion stemmed more out of ’if Blatche was suspended why not AJ".
by MR on Jan 13, 2010 2:45 PM EST up reply actions
if AJ would get some help
from guys other than foye and haywood, we might be playing .500 ball. flip, what the hell happened to caron butler? who is the guy wearing his uniform out there?
by DarrellWalkerFan on Jan 13, 2010 4:42 PM EST up reply actions
How is AJ Carrying the Team?
By scoring lots of points and grabbing lots of rebounds in consistently losing efforts? More like he’s just making sure he gets his stats padded before he goes out the door. The fact remains that his dreadfully poor, red-carpet defense is a major reason why the Wizards suck so bad. And the one time he doesn’t see the ball a lot, he pouts like a 6 year old whose mom wouldn’t let him have a popsicle before dinner. In a WIN no less.
If being a “class act” means giving every player you guard chauffer service right to the front of the rim, then as far as I am concerned, AJ can take his “class act” to another team. He would be a perfect fit for Toronto.
"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier
Does this at least mean some extended PT for Javale tonight?
Or do you think Flip will go more with Oberto? If he doesn’t give Javale some good minutes tonight with Blatche out and against a bad team like the Pistons I’m gonna be really pissed
There you go
Javale’s big minutes. Not exactly a game changer. Maybe Flip is right not to be playing him.
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