ANIMATED: JaVale McGee Runs The Other Way

It’s not even his most boneheaded play of the year. That award goes to when he left the paint to go triple team Lou Williams (I believe) on the corner 3 leaving Elton Brand wide open for the offensive rebound.
Notice how teams always have wonderful offensive rebounding numbers against us.

1) the obvious and easy “look at this boneheaded play/lack of awareness”

2) hey – at least he was hustling back on D!!

but he still has yet to enter full scale liability mode. His plus/minus numbers may not bear it out but the Wizards best defensive lineup has him at center IMO. Seraphin would not be able to log 30+ minutes because of foul trouble. At least McGee has a way of playing through foul trouble that Brendan Haywood could not.

When BTH got 2 quick ones…it was a wrap for the night. Remember those days?

Now if he were running down on offense before the team secured the defensive rebound, it would be a problem.
Here he is hustling back on D, which is a good thing. It does look funny though and is going to cause him a little grief, I’m sure.

McGee got thrown a pass he wasn’t expecting and had to react really quickly. He made an incredibly athletic move dribbling through his legs to regain possession. It was really the only thing he could have done, and few centers in the NBA could have done it.

He was also pretty gassed and was trying to keep up with the play. There are reasons I don’t like Javale, but I give him a pass on this one.

Is how Wall just stops and does a double take back at him like “WTF are you doing? Get over here and set this screen”

I was watching the game last night and I kept saying to myself it looks like McGee doesn’t care. That play clearly shows it. On another play where McGee didn’t get a rebound you could hear Coach (on TV) yell “MCGEE!” He was in such a rush to get out of the game he didn’t wait for the coach to sub him out and he just ran to the bench. Lucky Toronto was shooting free throws. During the Clippers game Jordan just out hustled him. I hate to say this but it maybe time to cut our losses. It doesn’t look like McGee wants to play for us.

…and pair Seraphin up with either Anthony Davis or Thomas Robinson

but this just seems world’s superior to Flip’s public attitude and I would imagine it’s helpful for the players:

"I mean, at first pretty upset with the [shot]. And then when I saw him running the other way, one thing we preached to him was transition defense, but the problem with that was we had the ball. At least I know he’s listening.

"You know what, as with any player in this league — it doesn’t matter what team you’re on — you go through a period of time in every season — and it can be a couple times — of …some bad play. JaVale has gone through here probably a tough three- or four-game period. He has not played very well.

"And the thing I told him today at practice, I said everybody goes through this. LeBron James goes through a bad streak. The great ones go through a bad streak….The only way to get yourself out of it is to work your way out of it….And all of the sudden you’re back on track and you’re playing at the level we need you to play. We need JaVale to play at a high level, there’s no question about it. He isn’t right now, and it’s my job to help him out of that hole and help him keep his head straight."

I saw this clip got a lot of responses on yahoo sports. Our team is famous! Yeesh.