I had several ideas for today's column, started and stopped a dozen times. Ty Lawson's comments touched off another major media rant about our favorite team that Dan Steinberg was kind enough to transcribe. I was immediately in a funk and I wasn't sure why.

The Wizards over the last several games (before last night) have been playing pro ball like a pro team. My fandom has been inspired by the relentless effort from the team. I could catalogue my reasons for feeling this way, but I won't.

There are those who scoff at the taint of institutionalized losing. Whether it can be proven or disproven is irrelevant. It is real because it exists in the minds of the players that make up the institution and thus institutionalized losing is absolutely real. As they say:

Cosmo: While in prison, I learned everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality...

Marty: ...but on the perception of reality.

Sneakers

This is part of the war Flip Saunders is fighting. Any institutionalized culture flourishes by tacit consent. Money, treaties, family ties ... these are valueless abstracts unless we say otherwise. Affecting change requires buy-in across the board sustained by massive, concerted effort. I believed we'd seen the beginnings of that effort prior to Monday night's effort against the 76ers.

While I tune out most of the streamlined-for-your-consumption major media, I know the team listens to them, remember that PTI incident? The last thing I want a team showing some guts and commitment pre All-Star break, listening to is a front-running personality going cherry picking with all the credibility his network can afford him. That brand of voice, especially come playoff-time, loves parroting the cliche, "You're only as good as you're last game." I'm sure that will hold true after the latest blowout.

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Has everyone heard Kierkegaard's parable of the duck church? I'll sum up briefly:

• Ducks have a church.
• Duck preacher says 'You have wings and you can fly like birds.'
• Duck congregation says, 'Amen!'
• Duck congregation waddles home.

This seems to be precisely the beef Wizards fans have with Flip Saunders. Flip is correct in that you can't give 82 Knute Rockne speeches (especially since there's only 66 games this year), but you damn well shouldn't have to. The coaching ability Wizards fandom is desperately seeking evidence of is transformational leadership, and the roster change may represent Flip's last stand. I'm glad Sean mentioned identity in the Bulls recap, because that is precisely what the Wizards have to discover and own for there to be any positive progress as a team this season.

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Crisis?

I haven't subscribed to the John-Wall-for-Norris-Cole insanity, but still...suggesting the team is in crisis feels reactionary as hell in middle of Week 1. Sure, the starters have looked like a hot mess, the coach brought the fire and brimstone during preseason, the team captain questioned leadership via post-game commentary and Twitter before telling the world to 'shut up' after the team choked away a massive lead in a home opener where the organization handed out 'New Traditions' t-shirts. But Javale McGee is showing signs of that consistent progress we've discussed, Nick Young looks like pre-injury Nick Young, Chris Singleton is as advertised, and Ronny Turiaf has finally given Flip a tenable substitute when Javale needs a breather/reminder.

So what do you do when the guys you're counting on to lead the team stumble? What do you do when they stumble badly? Flip Saunders is riding herd on a lot of young guys driving the athletic-specimen equivalent of supercars while trying to do so as a unit. But this isn't the AAU. It's hard to find the chaos we're witnessing as anything but unacceptable, but it's necessary for our sanity to know what we're complaining about which means defining the problem more clearly.

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Javale McGee has been with the Wizards his entire career and last year he wasn't shy about wanting more touches. With the (fake) season rolling, one dynamic that will bear watching is whether or not, and then to what degree, Jordan Crawford's shot-jacking has on McGee's media cool. Typically reserved with the press, when Javale's frustration peaks it's usually just a brief sound bite, but one that is demonstrative of his current mindset.

Like every other first round pick eyeing restricted free agency, Javale wants to earn a big contract, start a bidding war, what-have-you. And when it comes to seven footers with several years of NBA experience who have yet to enter their prime, it's always seller's market for a player with a respectable stat line.

So how's it going to sit with him while JC chases Michael Jordan and is missing six out of ten shots? Sure, we want Javale getting points off cleaning the glass, but it's hard to argue Javale hasn't earned more shot opportunities for the simple reason Jordan hasn't earned all the rainbows he's launching.

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It's taken a perfect storm of injuries, a coach few believed could bring along young players, and a GM praised and demonized for the Big 3 era to get the cast of the Wizards playing how we hoped they would.  We're getting our fourth quarter games, and hopefully that momentum carries into the offseason (and remains unaffected by a prospective lockout...)

To be frank, at this point, I'm comfortable with both Flip Saunders and Ernie Grunfeld staying where they are for at least another year.  

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As the Wizards continue to be non-competitive in many games, with many of their players not developing as quickly as we would like, the inevitable calls to fire coach Flip Saunders and Ernie Grunfeld will surely only grow stronger.  I'm sympathetic to both men for the tough jobs they have, and I acknowledge several successes they've had recently (Saunders with Nick Young's development, Grunfeld for his clever use of Kirk Hinrich as a trade asset) but I also acknowledge that a true rebuild may need new voices in the authority positions.  

But if we're going to call for those men to be fired (and I'm not really making a value judgement one way or the other here ... yet), we also need to consider who might replace them.  Below the jump, a comprehensive list of possible coaching replacements that we'll continue to populate as the season goes on.  I'll open up the GM thread tomorrow.

To be clear, I have no clue whether these men are actually available, but I do think they are people the Wizards should consider internally (some for longer than others, of course) if they do decide to make a change.

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The only thing that seems to get bemoaned more than Andray Blatche and his love of contested jumpshots is Flip and the choices he makes on the hardwood, and off.  There's been a lot of point and counterpoint on what merits his faults and successes.  I want to try and get the criteria we measure him by down in one place.  If you feel I've missed anything, I want to hear about it.  And from time to time, I'll publish an irregular feature on Flip and the progress he seems to be making with the team.

Gripes are presented in no particular order, as everyone has one near and dear to their hearts.  We'll kick things off with preferential treatment for 'veterans' at the expense of playing time for developing youth.  By and large, this means Andray Blatche, Yi Jianlian, and Hilton Armstrong logging perhaps more minutes than they should have at the expense of Javale McGee, Trevor Booker and Kevin Seraphin.  There are arguments aplenty on what's justified and what isn't, but we'll save that for the inaugural cut of The Flip Side.  Mike is partial, as am I, to five-man unit stats, and we'll label that a holistic approach to in-game lineups.  Who's working together, and who isn't.  Substitution patterns will find their home here as well.  The first category looks to deal with balancing playing time, with plenty of subcategories.  More below the jump, and again, any further categories/subcategories you want to see, list 'em.

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No hot links today.  Instead, I'll just give this one: Andray Blatche calling into 106.7 The Fan again to defend himself for his poor play against the Knicks.  Flip Saunders called his performance "terrible," which of course begs the question of why he was in for so long.  But that's neither here nor there.

A more complete transcript is here, but here's a quick summary:  

• Blatche said he's giving maximum effort, and is actually playing through a good deal of pain.
• That pain?  A shoulder injury suffered a week and a half ago that's bad enough to cause a lot of pain after 30 minutes of working out, according to Blatche.  He also still has knee stiffness that flares up from time to time.
• He's upset that so many Wizards fans have turned on him.  "If you're a Wizards fan, that means you cheer for everybody. That doesn't mean you'll come to a game and you shout 'Trade him!' If you're part of a Wizards organization fan group, that means you cheer for the team."    
• He actually talked to Gilbert Arenas before the big trade, during which Arenas said that he should be prepared for this.  "We had a discussion, and this is what he said to me. 'Just as fast as they turned on me, it's going to happen to you.'"  To be fair, Mike Wise prompted this one by mentioning Arenas' name first.
• The part that made me laugh the most was when Blatche explained what's wrong with the team.  He said too many players try to do it themselves rather than trusting anyone, but nobody seems to say anything when that happens because they're too friendly with each other and worried about "hurting feelings."  He said that's the big problem with the team now, but when asked whether he feels it's on him to be more vocal, he said that, in the heat of the moment, he "lets it go" so they can all move on to the next play and not dwell on failure.  Okay, fine, I suppose that's reasonable.
• So does that mean those issues get addressed by players after the game?  Blatche:  "Then, next practice, we may joke about it so they can try to get a hint about it."  Leadership!