Wizards lose 16th in a row to Rockets

Ooooh, oooh I got one...

Sixteen tastes like a rotten saltine when you’re losing…..

by SkinsWizStangs on Mar 30, 2010 11:05 PM EDT reply actions

I’ve never been an advocate of tanking games, cause really the more likely you are to win the lottery, the more it seems like you don’t win it, however, let’s just say that I’m not too torn up if they lose a couple more games than the warriors over the last couple weeks of the season. always gotta look for a silver lining, even if it’s barely visible, sigh, 16 games is extremely disappointing

by macattack777 on Mar 30, 2010 11:21 PM EDT reply actions

Sixteen isnt keen when your losing

by CBDirty30 on Mar 31, 2010 12:06 AM EDT reply actions

You can't preen with sixteen when you're losing

Or, perhaps more to the point,

Sixteen shouldn’t be seen when you’re losing

"Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet... but trust me, you're gonna love it." ~Marty McFly

by mr. 91 on Mar 31, 2010 1:14 AM EDT reply actions

Very appropriate caption

Looking forward to facing the Nets on Sunday..

by purpleonblack86 on Mar 31, 2010 1:42 AM EDT reply actions

Last I checked the Wiz were up 4 with 5 minutes left

thank god we lost.

by John Park Williams on Mar 31, 2010 1:48 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs

TankalankaDingDong!

I still want to love this team, just not this year. Looking forward to Gil coming back.

by Tbonebullets on Mar 31, 2010 1:53 AM EDT reply actions

Sixteen isn't spleen when you're losing.

by Palace of Good Play's Golden Toilet on Mar 31, 2010 3:21 AM EDT reply actions

Into a tie for third

Before the streak started, the team appeared to be in “danger” of “falling” to as far as 7th in the ping-pong ball standings. Instead, they’ve now managed (with the help of a brutal schedule) to catch GS. Impressive.

April 6th looms large for both teams. Aside from that, the Wiz have remaining home games against NJ and Indiana and a road game against the Knicks, while GS has a home game against NY, a road game against Minny (unfortunately as the second game of a back-to-back), and an at LAC.

by bwoodsxyz on Mar 31, 2010 7:45 AM EDT reply actions

is it safe to say yet

that it wasn’t caron and aj’s fault?

by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 31, 2010 11:50 AM EDT reply actions

When Will it Ever Be?

The only way I can logically see someone making that argument is if we acquired players of similar supposed talent level to Antawn and Caron, those players did not get injured, and we still lost frequently. But you can’t compare this team of scrappy no-names to our former “Big” 3. Last I checked, Antawn still can’t guard a 53 year old Flip Saunders to save his mother’s life and Caron is still clanking J’s in Dallas to the tune of a below-average 14.1 PER and a terrible 50.4% true shooting percentage (which is actually lower than he shot for us, if you can believe that – jab step, jab step, pump fake, pump fake, jab step, clang!).

The way I see it, we are losing now because we don’t have enough talent. We were losing before also because we didn’t have enough talent. The difference is the old crew were expected to be more talented than they actually were. But for some reason, Caron decided to suck badly for the past two seasons, and Antawn is simply getting old (20.6 PER last season, 17.7 PER for the Wiz this season, 16.8 PER for the Cavs this season).

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto

by cuppettcj on Mar 31, 2010 12:16 PM EDT up reply actions

Correction

Caron decided to suck badly this season.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto

by cuppettcj on Mar 31, 2010 12:20 PM EDT up reply actions

50%

am I missing something? is 50% a terrible shooting ? I’m trying to make sense of that. I’ve never been to interested in PER, but is there really a situation in which 50 is terrible? being an avid fantasy player, I would kill for a player to shoot 50% on a regular basis.

by macattack777 on Mar 31, 2010 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions

It's true shooting percentage, not field goal percentage

Scroll down on this link for an explanation.

I believe the average TS% is 53%, but don’t hold me to that.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Mar 31, 2010 1:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Right

I like to cite true shooting percentage, because that takes into account all ways of scoring, factoring in the extra weight of 3-pointers and the ability to get to the foul line and convert. Caron shoots 44% from the field this season for Dallas, but you can shoot 44% and still be an efficient scorer if you make a good percentage of your 3-point shots and/or you get to the line often and convert. But Caron doesn’t do that this season. Even when you factor those things in, he still shoots a below-mediocre 50.4% for Dallas.

You want proof that sucks? Arvis Hayes currently has a 51.4% true shooting percentage. In Arvis Hayes’s worst NBA season shooting wise, he had a 50.2% true shooting percentage. So Caron this season for Dallas is scoring only slightly more efficiently than Arvis Hayes did in his worst NBA season of his career. I rest my case.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto

by cuppettcj on Mar 31, 2010 11:54 PM EDT up reply actions

I dunno

I believe the cavs are 15-5 and the mavs are 17-5 since the trades. Thats about on course for the cav’s season but a big bump up for the mavs.

There are a lot of other factors (BTH, Shaq & Z being out etc) that make this an imperfect measuring stick. But I’d say both of those teams are probably thrilled with the trades.

by MR on Mar 31, 2010 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions

Haywood is the difference in Dallas

Which is what everyone here said when those trades happened. Haywood filled a big hole for them, and they still only did slightly better than would expect during a relatively easy stretch in their schedule. That should tell you something about Butler’s and Stevenson’s net contributions.

Cleveland with Jamison might be a smidge better than Cleveland was without him. No shock there (to me, anyway).

I haven’t seen anything since the trades that would make me think that if those guys (Butler and Jamison) were still here we’d be winning a lot of games. We’d probably be a little worse defensively and somewhat better offensively. We’d probably have won 2 more games in the last 20. Haywood by himself would have gotten us more than that.

by steadyhand on Mar 31, 2010 6:58 PM EDT up reply actions

This Argument Makes Absolutely No Sense

Pointing at a good team’s record does not automatically make every mediocre player on that team’s roster good. Does the Lakers great record mean that you want to trade for Adam Morrison? Come on, MR, you’re much smarter than this. Teams can win because of players, or despite them. Why should I believe that Caron has helped Dallas, while putting up the PER of a below-average NBA player? I mean, I can see how Brendan has helped tremendously, as steadyhand pointed out above, but in what way has Caron contributed? He has the second highest usage rate among the team’s starting five, yet is one of the least efficient scorers on the entire team. If he can’t get his game back together, I would not be surprised at all to see him come off the bench next season. He has declined that fast.

As for Antawn, his fall has been a lot less precipitous, but still very noticeable. His rebounding is still there, and his PER is still above average, but he is far from his All-Star level numbers from last season. And his 52.4% true shooting percentage, while much better than Caron’s, is still below-average for an NBA player and is one of the worst on the Cavaliers (13th out of the 17 players the Cavs have had on their roster this season). And did I mention that he still can’t guard anybody to save his mother’s life? Yeah, I did mention that. But at least he guards better than JaVale McGee, for what that’s worth. (Answer – worth absolutely nothing)

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto

by cuppettcj on Apr 1, 2010 12:13 AM EDT up reply actions

this is utter nonsense

some posters said caron and aj were ball stoppers and all we needed to do was rid them from the picture and play as a team and we’d be good. yeah, not so much…

we played a year without BTH in 08-09 so this is how i read the other arguments i am seeing:

IF we had Josh Howard, we’d be as bad as we were in 2008-2009, so therefore josh howard and mike miller are GOOD and AJ and CB SUCK.

by DarrellWalkerFan on Apr 1, 2010 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions

I think that's not exactly what cuppettcj is saying

He’s just saying that Butler and Jamison aren’t playing great for their new teams, so in a lot of ways, their new teams are winning in spite of them. I don’t see what’s so crazy about that premise.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Apr 1, 2010 4:50 PM EDT up reply actions

To Your Points

If this is still being read.

some posters said caron and aj were ball stoppers

I’m not sure if I said this or not, but I agree with that assessment.

and all we needed to do was rid them from the picture and play as a team and we’d be good.

This is where it gets a little tricky to follow. Caron and Antawn were supposed to be All-Star caliber players for us this season. They certainly were All-Star caliber two seasons ago. Antawn was still All-Star caliber last season, while Caron started to fall-off to merely above-average. This season, Antawn is only above-average, while Caron is now not even an average quality small forward. Part of the reason that both players have declined is because they, in fact, have become ball stoppers. Both have seen their assist percentages decline in each of the past 2 seasons.

But it is ridiculous to say that we can replace those two with just anybody in the local YMCA gym and be better than we were. Yet I would argue if you replaced those two with All-Star quality talent (for sure), or I would assert even above-average talent at those positions, and those players played as a team, then the Wizards would in fact be better. But we didn’t just get rid of those two. We also got rid of the anchor of our defense and a solid contributor on offense in Brendan Haywood. Even so, I believe we did see an improvement when Josh Howard was healthy. However, since Howard got hurt, our overall drop in talent on this team went way down from where it was before, hence the poor record. This does not mean that Caron and Antawn weren’t part of the problem we sucked before, however. It just means that having ball stoppers isn’t the only way to suck. Having a group of lesser talent players can get the job done too. I hope I made sense here.

we played a year without BTH in 08-09 so this is how i read the other arguments i am seeing:

IF we had Josh Howard, we’d be as bad as we were in 2008-2009, so therefore josh howard and mike miller are GOOD and AJ and CB SUCK.

OK, I’ve re-read those statements several times, and I still can’t follow this logic. You are going to have to walk me through how you got from what I said, or what others have said, to what you wrote above.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

"...don't ever think it can't get any worse, because it can. There's no question, it can." -- Flip Saunders unintentionally coining the new Washington Wizards motto

by cuppettcj on Apr 1, 2010 9:20 PM EDT up reply actions