The 2016-17 NBA Schedule

Early to mid-August. This is the time of year when I'm crawling up the walls of my condo trying to fight off the shakes of NBA withdrawal. It's almost mid-way between the end of Summer League and the beginning of training camp. I'm sure the NBA would love it if everyone out there got the cravings like I do. They'd mint money during the season. Oh, wait a minute, they already do that. 

So what am I to do to solve my need for hoops? I get this way every year and I really don't know the answer. Fortunately for me, the 2016-2017 NBA Season schedule dropped today and that will at least scratch my itch for a bit.

This is the best day of August every year NBA-wise. I love this day. Finally a chance to see what lies ahead and start thinking about a time when the Wizards are tied for first in the division, conference and league with, well, every other team at 0-0. Time to mark the calendar with opening day. Time to see who's playing on Christmas Day. Time to take it all in and digest the whole thing for like two hours before the nothingness that comes after for the next month plus.

I've now done all the taking in. Here is my annual lucky seven things I get out of today. Yes, there's a ton that's similar to the last three posts that I've written. What can I say, I look for the same sorts of things every year.

1. The First Dozen

Assuming everyone remains healthy through the summer, training camp and preseason and assuming John Wall heals sufficiently from offseason knee surgery to start opening day, the Wizards return all five starters from last year for the start of the season. That's great news. I'm not sure how many teams can say that this year in the NBA.

The flip side to that is pretty much everyone else on the team is brand new. Just Kelly Oubre, Jr. and Marcus Thornton remain on the bench from last season which means I expect a lot of growing pains at the beginning of the season. Growing pains here translate for me to turnovers, defensive lapses and losses. So it would really help if the league gave the Wizards a friendly opening, right? Maybe three or four games against Brooklyn and Philly in the first dozen or so?

Well not so much. But it's not brutal either. Yes, there are games against Toronto, Memphis, Boston and Cleveland but we also get Atlanta (twice), Orlando, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. Now I might be kidding myself about the Wizards being better than Atlanta but I have to think that team is going to be going through some growing pains just like the Wiz with a new starting point guard and arguably their best player in Al Horford bailing for Boston. I'm optimistic we can survive with a 6-6 record although there's a distinct possibility the Wizards will start out 0-3 with roadies against Atlanta and Memphis and the home opener against Toronto. I'm prepared for a rough first week and hoping it looks up from there.

2. Prepare To Booooooo!!!!!!

For the last decade or so, I've been booing LeBron James every time he touches the rock during a game at Verizon Center. It's a dying tradition that really needs reviving by much of the VC crowd. There have been a couple of others over the years: Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Andray Blatche and Kwame Brown come to mind for completely different reasons, although last year I had a hard time making myself heard over all the Kobe "fans".

Last year, at his own urging, we added Kevin Durant to the list and KD's staying on my list this year, not for leading Wizards fans on (he didn't), but for telling the world that the crowd at Wizards home games sucks. I'm also adding Al Horford, who before this year was pretty much the most innocuous All-Star player in the league. This year, for choosing the Celtics over the Wizards and throwing some indirect shade at me and my few fellow die-hard fans, Al's on my list. I have November 9, January 24 and February 28 circled on my calendar for Durant and Horford. I'm going to have a lot more to say about this subject later this year in this blog. We have GOT to get Verizon Center louder, Wizards fans!

3. Cheering The Opponent

On the flip side of booing Kevin Durant, Al Horford and a number of other folks this year, I will actually be applauding some of our opponents for their past service to the Wizards organization. This year, Jared Dudley will likely get some polite very muted applause from me; I thought Duds was great in the first half of last season and I respect the smarts he brought to the court but he was here just one year and he seemed lost in the second half coming off the bench.

Getting slightly more love from me will be Garrett Temple, a guy the Wizards plucked from the D-League during the 2012-2013 season and who ended up staying for three more seasons. If there's a poster child for professionalism, hard work and smart play paying off, for me it's Garrett Temple. He managed to get a four year, $32 million dollar deal from the Sacramento Kings this offseason and I couldn't be happier for him.  Well, except the fact that he's playing for the Kings.

But the guy I'm handing out a standing O to when he returns to Washington this year is Nenê. If this Washington Wizards team as it's composed right now ever becomes anything significant (like more than back to back second round playoff appearances), Nenê was the guy who started it all for me. He was the first real professional basketball player in the locker room to teach our young guys about what it means to play and compete respectably in this league. Nenê was acquired at the trade deadline in 2012 and instantly the culture of the team started to turn. Know who was in our starting lineup the game before the trade deadline? John Wall, Jordan Crawford (no longer in the NBA), Chris Singleton (no longer in the NBA), Trevor Booker and JaVale McGee (barely still in the NBA). On the bench? Nick Young, Andray Blatche and Jan Vesely. Nenê gave this franchise credibility. My applause might last a bit longer than the typical returning Wizard. November 7 by the way.

Each of these three guys get one appearance in D.C. this year so I'll make sure I'm there for each one. There are a couple of other first time ex-Wizards out there. I would have considered adding Marcus Thornton to this list but in the most puzzling off-season move, the Wizards re-signed him. Interested to see how that's going to work out. I'm thinking mid-season release if his shot's not falling because he's for sure not playing any D.

4. Surprise MLK Day Game

I expected no home game for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday this season. After all, it's presidential inauguration year in D.C. in 2017 and that seems to always mean that the Wizards are visitors in some other city for this Monday matinee game. But not this year. I guess someone finally figured out it's logistically possible to host a basketball game at Verizon Center and swear in a new president on the same week. I mean, why not, right? It's not like they are going to inaugurate Hillary at Verizon Center. 

This game is special to me. It gets me out of work for a half day for a grilled cheese, some hoops and some pool before a little nosh at Rock Bottom Brewery and an early bed. It also makes me think about the fact that racial inequality still exists in this country in astonishing ways. Yes, I think of that and not that things are better than they were in the mid-twentieth century. We still have a ways to go here, people.

This year the Wizards are hosting the Portland Trail Blazer on January 16, the same team they got trounced by in the MLK Day game last year. I do not have a good feeling about this one, although the effort has to be better than it was earlier this year. The biggest decision for me will likely be what to do for dinner. There's no Rock Bottom this year since they are renovating the Ballston Mall and the whole place is shut down. And I didn't think that mall could get any more depressing. Shows you what I know...

5. Late Winter / Spring West Coast Swings

Every year it seems the Wizards end up starting on the road for a couple of games (that's true this year, it will again be game three before the Wiz play at Verizon Center) then build up a surplus of home slates before heading out on the road for a couple of brutal west coast swings. And frequently these road trips kill any sort of grand designs on playoff positioning (or even qualifying at all).

This season is no exception. There's a difficult four game, six night road trip in late March and early April to Los Angeles, Utah and Golden State. The only relief the Wizards get here is that they get to play the two L.A. teams back to back which is a change from prior years that had them heading to Los Angeles on two separate occasions.

But the road trip to watch starts March 7 in Phoenix. Four nights and three games later the Wizards will have stopped in Denver, Sacramento and Portland. And if all that wasn't enough, the NBA is making them spend an evening in Minnesota on the way back to D.C. for a fifth game. Seven days, five road games. Sure, four of these games are not against the best of the best in the NBA and I'm glad Portland is on the back end, but if there's a critical stretch in the season, this might be it.

6. Three, Not Four

Four games against each of the other teams in the Southeast Division? Check. Every year. Two games agains each team in the Western Conference? Check. Every year. That leaves 10 remaining teams and just 36 games, meaning four games against six of those teams and just three against the other four. And those extra games can make or break a season. Land a fourth game against the Knicks, 76ers, Nets and Bucks as opposed to the Cavaliers, Celtics, Raptors and Hawks and you could be looking at a two, three or four game swing in your win-loss record at the end of the season.

So what's in store this year? Well we got Cleveland (twice at home) and Toronto just three times but we also got Philly three times. Not too bad. We only have to play the far and away best two teams last year in the conference just three times. The fourth? Detroit, who showed they are up and coming. Look I'd rather have Boston three times but I'm OK with this draw. I feel there could be a game or two swing out of this. Thanks, NBA, for the schedule. 

7. Road Trip! Or Trips!!

The thing I love the most about the NBA Schedule release date is checking out which cities I can visit for road games to continue my quest to see the Wizards play in all the current NBA arenas. Last year it was Los Angeles and New Orleans; the year before it was Miami and Toronto. On the top of my wish list this year? Sacramento, followed by Memphis, Denver and Houston and probably Charlotte. I need some diversity out west and if I make it to a Hornets-Wizards roadie, I'll have seen the Wiz play in all five Southeast Division arenas.

So what does this year's schedule hold? Well maybe not everything I want, certainly not Houston on a Monday. Saturday is the ideal day to travel to road games because it's actually possible to make the trip without taking time off of work. The only Saturday games in cities I haven't watched the Wizards play during the coming season are in Detroit (OK, so not really; it's really Auburn Hills), Portland, Charlotte and Cleveland. Other intriguing possibilities are Friday night games in San Antonio, Sacramento and Utah. Maybe I'll wait until the D-League schedule gets released before settling on a game or two. Who's coming with? 

Now, all we have to do is wait. Like 11 weeks. Sounds reasonable, right? I mean that's only like 20% of a year. At least now I know. I've made my first pass through all this stuff tonight. now it's time for some real  studying. Can't wait for October 27! Let's go Wizards!!!

What?!?! You Missed The NBA Draft?!?!

Yes, I missed the NBA Draft. Despite the Wizards having the third overall pick and the Draft being at the brand new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, I skipped it. I also missed the start of free agency, perhaps critical to the Wizards this year because we actually have a free agent in Martell Webster that I desperately want our team to re-sign. I skipped both of these "events" (the start of free agency isn't really an event) because sometimes, other stuff gets in the way. I know, it's hard to believe, but it's true. And from June 27 to July 7 this year, I was off exploring Bavaria, and the history, geography, food and beer it has to offer and that kept me away from the draft and the subsequent start of free agency.

But being out of the country doesn't mean a complete break from being a Wizards fanatic. I took a few shirts with me on the off chance that anyone in Germany wanted to talk Wizards hoops with me. I also followed the Draft on Twitter on my phone from the runway during our flight delay and free agency every day on my laptop and (until I left it in a bathroom) my iPad.

So, a lot happened while I was gone. I managed to stay dialed in to the Draft to the seventh pick by the Kings, so I knew before I left the U.S. that the Wizards selected Otto Porter out of Georgetown University or exactly the player we wanted. I'm glad we resisted the temptation to take Nerlens Noel despite my opinion that our biggest need for a young player is at center. After five years missing the playoffs, it seems that we needed to be more realistic about taking a solid player and not shoot for the stars taking a flyer on a freshman center coming off an ACL injury. Good restraint there.

I had to wait until 8 a.m. Germany time and our connection in Frankfurt to find out that we  traded our two second round picks to the 76ers in exchange for the draft rights to Glen Rice, Jr. meaning the organization stayed true to its word about not wanting three rookies on the roster on opening day. I saw Rice down in Hidalgo playing for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers during my February Texas road trip. While his 18 points in the game I watched didn't stand out (the Vipers scored 139), his 33 and 25 points in two NBDL Finals games sure did.  Hopefully Glen can occupy a more deluxe sort of role that Cartier Martin had on last year's team.

Hanging out at Castle Neuschwanstein in the German Alps.

Then free agency hit July 1st and the Wizards made short work of that whole process. The organization wasted no time wrapping up Martell Webster for the full mid-level exception for three years with a partial guarantee on a fourth year (pretty much exactly what I asked for by the way). Good for Martell. He deserved it with his play last year and he really wants to be in Washington. It's so refreshing to get a team first guy who can contribute and wants to be here. I'm just remembering the whole Gilbert Arenas contract negotiation/blackmail ploy. Now I can finally order my Martell Webster jersey and relegate my Chris Singleton jersey to games I watch from my upper level seats at VC. Sorry, Chris.

In addition to re-signing Martell, the Wizards picked up point guard Eric Maynor to back up John Wall and re-upped Garrett Temple on a guaranteed one year deal. I think Maynor's a good move. I appreciate what A.J. Price brought to the team last year but the Wizards get a guy in Maynor with a little more experience in the NBA and probably a little more upside. I'd have preferred someone with a little more experience here to mentor Wall but it's too late for that now, I guess. I already put it out there that I think it's worth giving Garrett Temple another shot so I'm OK with that move.

If there's a concern here, it's that the Wizards are essentially sticking with a team that won just 29 games last year. I realize that's grossly unfair to characterize it that way considering the number of injuries to, well, pretty much everyone except Emeka Okafor last year but that's really what we are doing. The organization is clearly counting on the magic (not kidding here) that our starting five (Wall, Beal, Webster, Nenê and Okafor) brought last year while on the court together and hoping they can make it happen for close to the whole season this year instead of about 25% of the season. 

The strategy also counts on Wall, Beal and now Porter getting better month over month and contributing more. Don't get me wrong, I know this is how it's supposed to work with young players. I also agree with the overall strategy and wouldn't have asked for anything else. I think this team can be a playoff team and with the offseasons that the Celtics, Bucks and Hawks have had this year, there may be room for some different teams in the top eight come next April. I'm just hoping that pressing the repeat button and having everyone together more allows the turnovers to go down and the offensive rebounding to go up.

Summer League starts for the Wizards Saturday and I plan to be in Las Vegas for the first two games. That means this coming weekend I'll be eight time zones removed from where I was this past weekend. I hope the liter glasses of beer in the two pictures in this post suggest I had a great time while in Bavaria. It took me all the way to the last full day there to get a reaction to my Wizards attire. I ran in to a "John Wall fan" from Boston at the Hofbrauhaus gift store and got a "Wizards! Yeah!" from a passerby on the Marienplatz later that same night. I'm assuming there will be more Wizards fans in Vegas. Can't wait until Saturday.

Part way through a half liter of Spezial Hell at Andechs Abbey.

Off Season Priorities

It's conference finals time. My rooting against the teams and players I dislike the most has helped bump the Brookyn Nets, Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks from the postseason so far. I'm still delusionally hopeful that the NBA Finals this year will feature the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs despite the current deficit the Pacers face in their Eastern Conference Finals. I like the way Indiana's team is built around a defense first, no star system. In my wildest imaginings, I could see the Wizards resembling that team in the next few years. 

In the meantime, there's been some good news for the Wizards in the form of a top three Lottery pick when the team could have stood still at the eight spot or, God forbid, moved down as far as 11th. That win gives the team a whole lot more options when approaching the off season. It's a lot easier to make deals with a number three overall draft pick than it is with the eighth pick.

When I look over the Wizards roster at the moment, I see some glaring holes that need to be addressed. However, for the first time in years, I feel pretty good about our top five guys under contract, which coincidentally can be fashioned into a credible NBA starting lineup of John Wall and Bradley Beal in the backcourt, Trevor Ariza and Nenê at the forward spots and Emeka Okafor in the middle. I think management has done a good job cobbling together a unit that can score and defend at a playoff caliber level in the NBA.

Beyond the "starting five" listed above, the team is thin. We have some free agents whom we may or may not try to re-sign and a bench of four guys on their rookie contract deals. It's definitely easy to understand how this team finished tied for seventh worst in the NBA last season. Despite that assessment though, we may actually not need to tweak our roster that much to slide into the seventh or eighth spot in the Eastern Conference. Sounds crazy but it might be true. Here's how I view our offseason priorities.

1. Draft The Best Available Player

For the first time in several NBA Drafts, the Wizards are in a position where they don't need to draft someone who has to start next season or even contribute in a major way right away. I am sure between now and draft night both the front office of the Wizards and most folks in the press who cover the team will debate whether the team should draft for need or take the best player available. Here's my message to everyone: the Wizards have needs at every position; select the best available player, even if that player is a guard and has to come off the bench behind John Wall or Bradley Beal for the next four years.

Fortunately, the Wizards this year moved up in draft order by winning the Draft Lottery and hold the third overall selection, rather than the eighth spot based on order of finish. The third overall pick allows the Wizards far more flexibility in making a draft choice and should allow them to not only get a quality player whether or not that player can contribute right away. If I were drafting for need for the Wizards, I'd select a center. The Wizards have young potential at every position except center (I'm putting Seraphin at the four for the purpose of this discussion). But if the right player isn't there, I'm picking the best available. Based on early projections, it appears Nerlens Noel (center), Ben McLemore (guard) and Otto Porter, Jr. (forward) are the top three talents in this year's draft. If that proves to be true, I'd take whichever one of those three wasn't selected in the top two and hope I made the right choice. To me, the draft is a total crap shoot anyway.

2. Re-Sign Martell Webster

The Wizards signed Martell Webster right before the start of the 2012-2013 season as a presumed sixth man at a pretty much bargain price of $1,600,000. Martell turned that opportunity into a season with career highs in points, rebounds, assists and three point field goal percentage while managing to shoot almost 85% from the free throw line. He replaced Trevor Ariza in the starting lineup when Ariza went down with an injury in December and never gave it back. He embraces coach Wittman's game philosophy and also seems to play off other players on the team, and particularly John Wall, very well.

So it looks like Martell has set himself up in a "contract year" to be paid really well or even overpaid. It seems like the Wizards are in a position where they have to pony up some dough to keep him or risk losing him to free agency like we have lost other players in the recent past. If I had a vote, I'd pay Martell. In fact, I'd probably pay him (assuming he would accept it) the full mid-level exception for a period of three years. That would allow us to bring back our starting five from last year plus sixth man Ariza and then start to incorporate other players into the mix, including our first round draft pick and whatever other free agents we retain or sign. And with a three year deal, Martell would be coming off the books in time for the team to throw a boatload of cash at Bradley Beal after his rookie contract expires.

I wonder what the offseason holds for Chris Singleton and his over life size billboard at VC.

3. Figure Out The Seraphin / Booker / Vesely / Singleton Thing

Over the past three seasons, the Wizards have drafted four small or power forwards in Kevin Seraphin, Trevor Booker, Jan Vesely and Chris Singleton. Other than the "starting five" mentioned earlier in this post, these four are the only players currently under contract for the 2013-2014 season. I believe the Wizards drafted so many players to fill potentially one position because they hoped one of the four would naturally rise to the top of the pile and become a regular rotation player (or even a starter) on their rookie deal. That hasn't exactly happened. If you could take Seraphin's offense with Booker's rebounding and defense and Vesely's passing, I think we'd get what I think we intended to get.

So it's probably time to part ways with one or more of this group but which and how? Over the past season and a half, Seraphin has clearly established himself as the most reliable of these four. Towards the end of last season, once he shook off injuries from the first half of the season, Booker emerged as the better of the other three primarily due to his ability to rebound consistently. Trading Vesely and Singleton for someone or some thing of value would be the best thing for the Wizards but to make a trade they need to find a partner willing to take a gamble on one of those two. It may be that we have to trade Booker to get a team to accept one of the other two and hope that whatever we get back is of greater value and that whomever we don't trade can contribute something of real value going forward.

4. Find Some Backcourt Help

During the 2012-2013 season, A.J. Price started 22 games for the Wizards and Garrett Temple started 36. Both guys were thrust into a starting role by injuries to either John Wall or Bradley Beal. I like both A.J. and Garrett as pieces on this team and as players. I love A.J.'s high assist-to-turnover ratio and his ability to play defense. I love Garrett's size and ability to defend both guard spots and toward the end of last season, I actually liked his ability to score in bursts. But if this team is going to succeed beyond maybe squeaking in to the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, I'm confident when I say that these two guys cannot be our third and fourth guards next year.

If I were running the Wizards, I'd try to re-sign both A.J. and Garrett at the right (i.e minimum) price. I think they both did enough to earn a spot on the team next year. But I'd also go out and find some help to be a first backup at both guard spots. At the point guard, I'd love to find a former starter that had a good contract who is now willing to accept a role for less money backing up John Wall. A guy like Devin Harris would seem to be a good fit. He's coming off a 5 year, $43 million deal and last year was supplanted in the Atlanta Hawks' starting lineup by Jeff Teague. He's still a good point guard and he can defend. If we could wrap up someone like that for a couple of years, I think that would help tremendously.

At the shooting guard first and foremost, we need someone who can score in bunches and I'd even overpay a little or find someone traditionally not thought of as a defender to get that instant offense off the bench. I'm thinking someone like Nate Robinson here. Nate made the veteran minimum with the Chicago Bulls last season but clearly saved some games singlehandedly for that team in the Bulls' playoff run this past spring. If we could wrap up a guy like that for a year or two at a reasonable (less than $2 million per) price, I'd do it. 

5. Fill The Roster With Professional Veterans

During the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons, after it was clear the team wasn't competing for a playoff spot, the Wizards starting auditioning players from the D-League for a spot on the team. Larry Owens, Shaun Livingston, Cartier Martin, Othyus Jeffers, Mike Harris, Cedric Jackson, Mustafa Shakur and Alonzo Gee all made stops in D.C. during those two seasons. I believe the organization's hope was that one of these players would prove to be a diamond in the rough, and we'd be able to pick up a quality rotation player for very little investment. It didn't work. The Wizards couldn't or wouldn't afford to sign Shaun Livingston, who proved to be the most effective in his time in Washington, and they missed out on Alonzo Gee, who last season started all 82 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

During the off season last year, the Wizards traded Rashard Lewis and his $22 million plus salary to the New Orleans Hornets for Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza. While it first looked like the trade may have been a mistake because we took back another season's worth of salary when Lewis' expiring deal would have given us cap flexibility this summer, the veteran presence of Okafor and Ariza helped the team immeasurably. Both Emeka and Trevor are smart professionals and both understood and supported the plan to make this team into a playoff contender. Sure they cost more than someone on a rookie contract or a D-League call up, but their maturity and  experience was essential in allowing other players on the team to weather tougher times last season. When it comes to filling the rest of our 2013-2014 roster, I'd love to see the Wizards invest in high character, veteran players who provide leadership on the practice court, from the bench and in game situations in spot duty.

So that's how I see the Wizards' priorities for the 2013 off season. I'm looking forward to the NBA Draft on June 27 and the start of free agency three days later. Hopefully we can pull together something between now and the start of next season that will allow a playoff appearance in 2014.

Will the future ever get here for Dippin' Dots??