Summer League 2015

Today is the final day of the 2015 Las Vegas Summer League. The championship game, which is the only game played today, pits the Phoenix Suns against the San Antonio Spurs in a tournament that means little more than pride. Last year my beloved Washington Wizards bowed out in the semi-finals of the event, a fairly impressive outing that saw an overall 5-1 record plus two all tournament selections in Otto Porter and Glen Rice, Jr., who also managed to snag the most valuable player honor for the entire league. Last year's trip to Vegas was all about those two second year players and the Wizards made pretty much the most of their summer trip to the desert.

This year promised to be completely different. And it was. With no returning summer leaguers whatsoever, the Wizards experience this year was all about Kelly Oubre, our first round and number 14 overall pick out of the University of Kansas, and to a much much lesser extent Aaron White, who we grabbed with our second round pick out of the University of Iowa. White has pretty much zero chance to make the team with our roster already filled with the offseason signings and trades of Jared Dudley, Gary Neal, Alan Anderson and Drew Gooden III. As I've done the past two years under the tournament style format, I made it out to Sin City for two of our three non-tournament games before heading back east with little tolerance for more than three nights in Vegas.

By all accounts (considering the Wizards won three of their last four), I made it to the wrong two games. Not only did the Wizards lose their first two games to the Phoenix Suns and the D-League Select team, they lost pretty handily, getting pushed around by the Suns' second year center Alex Len in game one and then getting out-worked, out-desired and out-experienced by a group of perennial NBDL players dying to make it to or back to the NBA in game two. Not like winning really matters too much in Summer League, but winning's better than losing under almost any circumstance and it's just nice to have it happen once now and again.

The Wizards 2015 Draft class: Aaron White (left) and Kelly Oubre (right).

I think Wizards fans sort of got what we expected in the first two Summer League games out of our draft picks this year. In Oubre, we got raw talent and most likely a project who if he pans out at the projected level of ability, is THE steal of the draft. But we'll likely have to wait and see what he can do in not many minutes on the floor this year. He'll likely be parked on the bench behind Otto Porter and likely Jared Dudley for much of at least the first half of the season.

In his first two games in Summer League he looked more often lost than found. It's not entirely surprising considering he's playing on a team that had been together less than a week but from my perspective in the fifth row or so, Kelly got more than he bargained with when he was going up against older, stronger players, some of whom were almost fighting for their basketball lives. It might not have helped at the beginning of the league that he was being cheered on by a number of visitors from nearby Findlay Prep where he finished out high school. He was one of the only guys I saw there with local and personal support. Sometimes those things can cut both ways.

I thought on the offensive end he was far more effective letting the game come to him than when he created on his own. I suppose every player is but the difference early on was striking; he got rejected several times going to the hoop in what looked like far too ambitious circumstances. When you are 19 years old and going to the basket guarded by two or three older players, you might expect to get blocked or miss. He settled down after the first half of game one but never looked fully comfortable to me unless he was putting back off a rebound or receiving a pass close to the hoop. I would have loved to have been there for his final game when he dropped 30 on the Oleksiy Pecherov-led Denver Nuggets. Just to see Pech and KO going at it would have been amazing.

In other parts of the game, I thought Kelly looked much better. He made a couple of nice defensive plays in the Phoenix game, including blocking a shot on a fast break and taking a charge. He got beat on some one on one match ups but is clearly both gifted and talented. There were a couple of rebounds that he got in traffic that showed how big his wingspan is relative to his height. That's a tantalizing skill if he can harness that.

Final score: D-League Select 94, Wizards 74.

Then there's Aaron White, who showed enough in games one and two where you could understand why he got drafted but also showed enough to validate him being a second round pick. Since draft night, the Wizards have unfortunately (for Aaron) signed enough players to have zero roster flexibility barring an unbalanced trade or waiving a player via the stretch provision (I wouldn't be surprised if we let someone like DeJuan Blair go this route). That means he's stuck in a spot where the Wizards have control of his rights but have no home for him. Barring the Wizards letting him go, Aaron's options appear to be overseas for  decent money or staying at home in the NBDL for very little money.

If there's one thing that impressed me about Aaron it was his ability to run the floor. This is a really athletic guy out on the court, not some stiff who can just shoot. He also had some impressive hops, especially on one offensive rebound putback for a dunk. But he clearly has tons of room to grow. Lack of obvious success seemed to discourage him out on the floor and any hope we had for him being a homegrown stretch four this coming year evaporated with his game two shooting performance where he started 0-8, including a number of bricked wide open three point shots. I know it's difficult to draw any conclusions from two two-hour games but there's more development required here.

Jordan Crawford defending Seth Curry (right).

The Wizards played two games within a span of about 24 hours, playing their first game vs. the Suns on Saturday at 3 p.m. and their second, a 20 point loss to the D-League Select, at 1 p.m. the following day which finished a couple of hours later. Just like that, my two Wizards games were done. I'm not sure I've had a quicker Summer League. Maybe I should stay longer next time. Maybe.

But one other thing I wanted to do with my few hours over at the Thomas and Mack Center was to catch up on a couple of former and almost Wizards since the schedule worked out just perfectly that way. I was not able to see any play from "I got buckets, son" Oleksiy Pecherov but I did catch up on a couple of old friends.

The Wizards played in the third game on the Saturday we arrived in Vegas. The first game that day featured the Dallas Mavericks taking on the New Orleans Pelicans. The starting two guard for the Mavs that day? Jordan Crawford, a guy traded three times in his first four years in the league who once denied ever playing for the Wizards, the team who really gave him the best shot to show the league what he had.

When we first traded Kirk Hinrich to the Atlanta Hawks for Jordan, we acquired our fourth first round selection from the 2010 draft and got a guy who was apparently instant offense and had once dunked on LeBron James and LeBron's own camp. How could we not love this guy? But the organization soon had Jordan playing deep in the rotation behind rookie Bradley Beal, who was younger and more talented and definitely was more interested in playing some defense. Last year Jordan played in China and then spent the tail end of the year playing for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the NBDL, ultimately failing to get picked up for a playoff run by a contender.

The few minutes Jordan played in the one Summer League game I saw were pretty unremarkable but he still gets lost on defense pretty easily, especially when circumstances require him to do something different than just cover his own man. I typically hold grudges against guys who badmouth our franchise after leaving but I don't with Jordan; I just think he's too much of a character. Maybe he can work on his defensive liabilities and be a bit of a spark plug for someone in the next couple of years. If not, I think he's got to be resigned to playing somewhere else other than the NBA.

Glen Rice, Jr., hands on knees, vs. the Phoenix Suns.

Speaking of offensive minded guards who play questionable defense and have perhaps a higher opinion of themselves than they should…

Last November I headed to Toronto to watch the Wizards take on the Toronto Raptors in an early season matchup that didn't go very well at all for my team. There was little positive for the Wizards to take away from that game but ultimately they managed to fix most things about their on court performance which ultimately culminated with a 4-0 sweep of Toronto in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

But one thing we didn't fix about that game was an on court encounter between head coach Randy Wittman and Glen Rice, Jr. which apparently led to another verbal altercation between the two the next day. I noted Glen had some words for Sam Cassell last year during Summer League so this had sort of become a pattern. A couple of weeks after Toronto, Rice was in the D-League. Two months later, he was no longer a Wizard.

I got to see maybe five minutes of Glen Rice on the court during last week's Summer League action. In those five minutes he scored ten points, including two three pointers, one of which beat the buzzer at the end of a quarter. As far as Summer League and scoring go, Rice has that down pat. He led the tournament last year with a  25.0 points per game average and he finished this year with a 19.0 points per game average.

But I have to say as soon as I sat down at the Suns-Rockets game on Sunday afternoon, I saw Rice yelling at the official for some perceived non-call while the play was going on and his man had the ball. While he was focused on the referee, the Suns scored. A minute later on the next Suns trip downcourt, Rice was still upset, lazily kicking his leg out while defending an inbound pass for what should have been a layup (the Suns just blew it) instead of getting his head back in the game and playing some D. Maybe this is super unfair to write this based on five minutes, but he's clearly got some issues to overcome here. No matter how good he is at putting the ball through the hoop, he's not good enough to overcome attitude like this. If he won't outgrow this, I don't see him back in the league anytime soon.

The packed packed packed Thomas and Mack Center.

Finally just a few words about Jordan Clarkson and the popularity of Summer League in general. Jordan Clarkson was the Wizards 2014 second round pick whom we parted with for cash from the Los Angeles Lakers which one could argue we spent on multiple attempts to find a quality bench point guard to back up John Wall. Clarkson's a point guard who made the All-Rookie first team last year. We had him and we let him go.

I've often opined about the Draft being a total crap shoot when you get outside of the top few picks and I get that nobody could have seen an All-Rookie selection out of the 46 pick in the draft but this kid is electric. You could see it in some games the Lakers played last year (especially January 27 when the Wizards visited Los Angeles) and you could see it in Summer League this year. Ernie Grunfled was on our flight out to Vegas this year and I thought about asking him about the draft but ultimately decided against it; every time I talk to Ernie I get very little information because he plays things so close to the vest.

I watched Clarkson last week in the game the Lakers played against the Philadelphia 76ers, a game which featured the Lakers' D'Angelo Russell (number two overall pick) and the Sixers' Jahlil Okafor (number three overall pick). After the Wizards succumbed to the D-League, we figured it would be a good game to watch in a relaxed atmosphere over in the main arena at the Thomas and Mack. Not so much.

I've been coming to Vegas for Summer League since 2008 and I have never ever ever seen the big arena filled the way it was for this game. I get that part of it was the Lakers contingent being so close to Los Angeles but the upper deck was open (never seen that before) and it was genuinely difficult to find a seat in the place. It was insane.

When I first started coming to this event, nobody knew about it. If you got in a cab on the strip and asked to be taken to the Thomas and Mack Center the cab driver usually asked what was going on over there. Getting a cab home was honestly touch and go; the only way you usually got one was if someone was getting dropped off. I have in past years walked to either the Hard Rock Hotel about a half a mile away or all the way to the Strip, which is about a mile and a half. There was never a line for tickets and seats were plentiful inside the arena, with the exception of John Wall's first game in 2010 when the Cox Pavilion was packed solid.

Two years ago, we had difficulty getting tickets and immediately entering the arena so the couple two years, I have bought the first day in advance, incurring hated Ticketmaster service fees. That same year, I finally saw some cabs waiting outside the arena. Vegas was clearly catching on.

This year when we arrived for the Wizards' game one, we saw guys directing traffic and cones set up to define lanes for the expected flood of cabs which were coming. We also stood in line to get into the building all the way down the main steps to the arena. Every year we see Summer League founder Warren LeGarie stalking the sidelines of both the Thomas and Mack Center and the Cox Pavilion and he has to be absolutely ecstatic with the way things are going. This thing is huge business now. I hate complaining about success but this event is no longer the intimate experience it was the first year I went in 2008. It's now Vegas sized and it's different. Might be time for a year off for me. Or I just need to go all in mid-week maybe. Anyway, that's all from Vegas this year. Next up: two months of thumb twiddling before training camp. Ugh!

Waiting in line to get in, Saturday afternoon. Are you kidding me?

At Sixers And Sevens

During each of the last two NBA seasons, I've managed to take a break when the Wizards were on a west coast road trip and get away to watch some games in the NBDL, the league which is quickly morphing towards becoming a sort of NBA farm system the likes of which is used by the National Hockey League or Major League Baseball. Two years ago, I took a week long trip to Texas to see games in Frisco, Hidalgo and Austin; last year, I got away for a long weekend in New England to see my first hoops in Springfield, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine.

I love attending D-League games. There's something about pro hoops below the NBA level that appeals to me, at least once a year, anyway. I love seeing how different the environment is, watching guys play for a spot in the show and very often seeing a small town side of America. Sure, some of these games aren't exactly played in small towns, but they are smaller than Washington, D.C. so they are small to me.

I still want to take a D-League trip to the midwest to catch games in Erie, Canton and Fort Wayne and a California trip to see games in Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Santa Cruz. But this year, my NBA travel budget and schedule appeared to be too overbooked for a trip to the minor leagues. I've already made a trip to Toronto to see the Wizards play in Canada in November and before Christmas I was down in Miami to see us take on the Heat in an all too close game. Those trips, combined with an All-Star Weekend in New York, seemed to preclude any NBDL games this season.

But where there's a will, there's a way and a little more digging this season revealed an opening in the Wizards schedule this past weekend to allow me to squeeze a game in. With the Wizards having played Chicago this past Friday at Verizon Center (an awesome statement victory) and a matinee game in Atlanta on Sunday (a game which showed just how far we have to go), Saturday night was open and it just so happened the Delaware 87ers (or the Sevens as they are called) were at home in Newark, Delaware, for a game against the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, who just happen to be the Wizards D-League affiliate this season. It was just too close and too tempting to pass up.

Second quarter action from the Bob.

The Sevens have been playing ball in Newark for a little more than a season now. Their debut season was last year as the wholly owned affiliate of the nearby Philadelphia 76ers (insert joke here about the Sixers being about as good as a D-League team). The team struggled in their first year in Delaware posting a 12-38 record, good for last in the East Division. As of Saturday's game time this year, the team is doing a little better, sitting third in the brand new five team Atlantic Division with a 7-10 mark. When the Sixers bought the Sevens (don't think about that too hard), they were actually a dormant franchise. The 87ers began life as the Utah Flash in Orem, Utah who played in that city from 2007 to 2011 but folded after the 2010-2011 season. I have no idea how buying a dormant franchise differs from an actual expansion franchise, but that's how the team got to Newark.

The 87ers name is a reference to the year Delaware ratified the United States Constitution, the first state to do so. Since Delaware was one of the original 13 British colonies, it is pretty likely that the area in and around Newark has a pretty substantial history. And I guess that's true. Being around for a while builds history, I guess. The town was established in 1694 and officially recognized by the British government and King George II in 1758. Since 1833, the town has been home to the school that would ultimately become the University of Delaware in 1921, although it took about 11 years off for a stretch before re-opening. The enrollment at the University is about 20,000; the population of Newark stands at about 32,000. It's no surprise therefore that the town and the University are pretty much one and the same.

The 87ers play ball in the Bob Carpenter Center (or the Bob), which serves as the home for the University of Delaware's men's and women's basketball teams and the UD women's volleyball team. The arena sits approximately 5,000 people for a basketball game, although only about half those seats are available for a D-League game. With the reduced seating availability, it ends up being the smallest arena I've visited in my six NBDL games seen to date, coming in at even smaller than the tiny Portland Expo Center I visited last year, which seats a little more than 3,000 in bleachers. The Bob opened in 1992, which means by now it's starting to age a little.

Dahntay Jones and Will Frisby discussing strategy on the bench.

One of the main reasons I rushed to attend this particular game was that the Wizards' Glen Rice, Jr. had been assigned to the visiting Mad Ants in mid-November and I hadn't seen or heard much about his game since he was sent there. I figured this would be a great chance to not only check another site off my years long D-League tour, but also catch up with one of our own players. Unfortunately, as I figured out last weekend, Rice was waived by the Wizards this past week pretty much as a cost saving measure. Let's face it, Glen wasn't playing with the team anytime soon based on his pecking order in the lineup; his poor shooting percentage when he did play in the big leagues; and his on court verbal exchange with head coach Randy Wittman during the November 7 game in Toronto. Saving $400K plus by waiving him might come in handy later on this year.

Rice's D-League story is an interesting one, as I wrote last week. But if there's one thing about the D-League, it's that it's not short on interesting stories. A couple of years ago, the Wizards own Rasual Butler was playing in the NBDL at the age of 33, trying to convince clubs that he still had a part to play in this league. I actually caught Butler playing for the Tulsa 66ers on my Texas swing two years ago. Last year, it paid off for Rasual as he played 50 games for the Indiana Pacers, even though he only saw the court for a bit more than seven minutes per game. Whether his stint in the D-League allowed the Pacers to notice him or the Wizards to sign him this year, where he is averaging double digits in scoring and shooting in the top five in three point percentage, can be debated. But there's no doubt his story is a compelling one. Without the D-League he may not have had any place to play at all.

So sure enough, there's a guy playing for Fort Wayne this year with a story very similar to Rasual's a couple of years ago. Dahntay Jones was selected 20th overall by the Boston Celtics in the 2003 NBA Draft. He's played 589 regular season and 38 postseason games in the NBA over 10 seasons with six different teams, although the Celtics weren't one of those. He's 34 years old and most definitely the elder statesman on the Mad Ants team this year. The last time I ran into Dahntay in this noticeable a way was during the Barack Obama fundraiser I attended a couple of years ago. He's trying to do this year what Rasual was trying to do two years ago: prove he's still got something to offer an NBA squad.  He's only two years removed from action in the parent league, so maybe he's got a shot of getting picked up by a team who needs someone reliable on a 10 day contract between now and the end of the regular season. I'm hoping he does.

Dahntay poured in a team high 26 points (tied with Andre Emmett) in the Mad Ants 114-103 victory over the home Sevens Saturday night. He shot an impressive 10 of 14 from the field including hitting on half of his six three point attempts. Along with Emmett, he was clearly the best player on the court for the Mad Ants, who have now won five straight games after struggling with a .500 record earlier in the year. But more notable than his output on the court for me was the leadership he provided on the bench, talking to guys on the team during time outs and offering comments from the bench during the game when he was resting.

The best example of what a guy like Dahntay brings to a team like the Mad Ants was a first half exchange he had with starting center Will Frisby who picked up two quick fouls and was pulled from the game early. I have no idea how talented Frisby is but I know he's never seen a minute of NBA action so he's a long ways behind Jones in my book. At first didn't want any part of Jones talking to him before eventually settling down and appearing to listen for a few minutes. I suppose some guys wouldn't chew out their teammates in the name of making someone else better, preferring to focus on their game so they stand out to NBA scouts. Here's hoping Dahntay makes it back to the show this year.

The Kreston Wine and Spirits Beer Garden.

For me, the game on the court was well played. I happened to be rooting for the Mad Ants (although they really have no significant tie to the Wizards and I know it) so I was pleased when they overcame their early deficit to the Sevens and pulled away for the 11 point win. It was clear on this night that while Delaware's starters were more than capable of playing with Fort Wayne, their bench was no match for the visitors, getting outscored 34-16. So while the game started out in Delaware's favor, once the starters rested, the tide quickly turned and ultimately the Mad Ants left with the W despite the Sevens' Victor Rudd pouring in 29.

The story of D-League games for me though is not completely about what happens on the hardwood. I find differences between the NBA experience and the NBDL experience to be striking, strange or amusing. Whether it's the bouncy playthings and mechanical bull in Frisco, the fan in Austin with a giant Shelvin Mack head on a stick to taunt the opposition's best player, or the Kora Shriners presenting the colors in Portland, there's always something besides the game action which is notable. Sure enough, the same thing happened in Delaware.

Before heading to the arena Saturday night, I knocked back a couple of beers with dinner at the nearby T.G.I.Friday's. I'm sure I could have found somewhere better, but it was close to my hotel and it was really really cold in Newark Saturday night so I didn't bother searching. Now I like to have a beer at a game, even though I'd had a couple before we entered the building and so after getting my bearings, I checked out one of the concession stands and found no beer. Uh oh. Maybe because it's a college campus, they don't serve beer?

I kept going, hoping I was wrong, and sure enough when I got to the end zone, I noticed the Kreston Wine and Spirits Beer Garden signs on the concourse level opposite where our seats were located. The Beer Garden at the Bob is the strangest one I have ever been to. It's an area about 25 feet by 50 feet defined by TensaBarriers with a gap where you enter. At the entrance is a dude checking IDs, collecting the cover charge ($1) and handing out the wristbands which grant you exclusive access to the entire Beer Garden. Once you are in, you can come and go at will and choose from the three beers on offer there: 16 oz Coors Light ($5); 12 oz Keystone Light in the exclusive limited edition (I'm assuming here) Hunting Season Camo Can ($2!); and 16 oz Blue Moon (price unknown - I'm not drinking that stuff).

This is far and away the cheapest beer I've had at a ballgame in a long time, even ignoring the price of the Keystone Light which tasted, well, like nothing and had about zero alcohol in it. But despite it's obvious hokey appearance and the what had to been teenage bartenders in tuxedo bow ties, the Beer Garden was actually a great place to watch the game. The view was perfect and unobstructed and the guardrail side seats overlooking the court offered an ideal spot to take in all the action. We actually spent the second half watching from there. If I attended more Sevens games, I'd just sit here every game. Two thumbs way up!

Third quarter action viewed from the Beer Garden. We abandoned our fourth row seats for this.

Of course, no D-League trip is complete without seeing what the town or area has to offer. Last year it was the Basketball Hall of Fame (Springfield) and a series of breweries (Portland) that kept me occupied during the day. The year before that, it was a cattle drive sculpture series, a giant killer bee sculpture and some of the best blues in the country that satisfied my tourist yen. This year? Ummm…

So I really tried hard to find something interesting to do in Newark. Honestly. But there's just not much here. The best I could come up with was the Battle of Cooch's Bridge Battlefield. The Battlefield, which is just a collection of interpretive signage with an adjacent visitor's center which is open on the first and third Saturdays of the month (I was there on the second Saturday), kills about maybe fifteen minutes of time.

The Colonial position, Battle of Cooch's Bridge.

Cooch's Bridge today. This one was erected in 1922. I imagine the view is not much different than 1777.

The battle, between the British forces and the revolutionary Colonial militia, took place in 1777 and was more a skirmish than a battle, although the estimated 25 dead on each side probably would disagree with me. The conflict was an engagement started by the revolutionaries to bother the British forces who were trying to maintain control over the main road from Virginia to Philadelphia which ran just south of Cooch's Bridge. The conflict was short and ultimately the Colonials were forced to withdraw against superior British numbers. I guess the most notable distinction that the battle holds today is that it is the first time the Stars and Stripes were ever flown in combat, although the signage at the site casts some doubt on that fact, referring to the source of this information as "local tradition".

I'll have to be satisfied with my trip the past weekend as my only NBDL action this year. I want to see more, I just don't have the time or the time off. So I'll have to wait until next year. Maybe my midwest swing will work out perfectly when the schedule is released this fall. One final note: while I didn't see Glen Rice, Jr. play, the Mad Ants or Sevens or someone hasn't forgotten him. He's listed right between Marcus Simmons and Ramon Harris in the free program handed out at the door. These things are essential at this level, because rosters can change day to day, just like it did for Glen.

In memory of Glen Rice, Jr.

Where's Glen Rice, Jr.?

Hey, Wizards fans, remember Glen Rice? No, no, not three time All-Star, NCAA champion, 1997 All-Star game MVP, NBA champion Glen Rice. The other one. His kid. Glen Rice, Jr. 2013 Washington Wizards second round draft pick? 2014 NBA Summer League MVP? First guy ever drafted out of the D-League? Supposed to make a major leap this year off the bench for the Wizards? Yeah, THAT Glen Rice. Remember him? It's been a couple of months, right? I think it's time we caught up with him. Is that OK?

Before we catch up, let's go back a bit. Three years ago this month, Glen was enrolled at Georgia Tech playing for the Yellow Jackets' men's basketball team. About a month later he would be suspended indefinitely from the team for undisclosed reasons. That suspension was not his first from the team that year; he was held out of the first three games of the 2011-2012 season for an undisclosed violation of team rules (LOVE Georgia Tech and their "undisclosed" reasons and violations). A month after his indefinite suspension began, Rice was charged in an incident involving the discharge of a firearm outside an Atlanta nightclub and was cut from the basketball team entirely.  After being dismissed from the team, he would never play college ball again.

So at that point, Rice is pretty much a trouble maker, right? A kid who can't deal with society's rules or authority who was likely to just fade away. His next move was a bit surprising: playing for the NBDL's Rio Grande Valley Vipers way down in Hidalgo, Texas after being selected in the D-League's draft in November 2012. For a kid with an NBA focused, presumably comfy upbringing, playing in the no-frills, low low salary D-League with a team right on the Mexican border had to be humbling and tough. 

Keep in mind Rice knew he was stuck there for the year. Since he bypassed the 2012 NBA Draft, he couldn't be called up by a team to the NBA; he would have to wait for the subsequent draft before being eligible for a call up. If he could survive the D-League, he could probably convince most people that he outgrew his trouble at Georgia Tech and had matured and was worth a second chance.

The Wizards bought it. The team held two second round picks in the 2013 NBA Draft and decided to send them both to the Philadelphia 76ers for the rights to Rice, whom they then signed to a one year, non-guaranteed contract with a team option for a second year, also non-guaranteed. Rice's rookie year was nothing to write home about. Not that scoring is everything, but he averaged just 2.9 points per game on slightly less than 30 percent shooting from the field in 11 games, including one start. He spent most of the time riding the pine or being inactive entirely and spent a few games with the Iowa Energy, who at that time were the Wizards' NBDL affiliate.

After his rookie campaign, Rice seemed to be pretty serious about showing the Wizards that his lack of playing time in 2013-2014 was a mistake and it started in Summer League in Las Vegas. Despite not winning the Summer League title, the Wizards made a strong showing, bowing out in the semi-final game to the eventual champion Sacramento Kings. Rice ended up as the Summer League Most Valuable Player in a unanimous vote. He averaged 25 points and just less than eight rebounds per game while shooting almost 47 percent from the field. While Summer League MVPs don't alway translate to NBA success, it was an encouraging sign for Rice.

The Wizards 2014-2015 NBA campaign started on October 29 and with Bradley Beal out for a couple of weeks with injury, the stage seemed to be set for Rice. He didn't play in the team's opener at Miami but did get involved in the next five games, scoring a season high five points in the Wizards' first victory of the season at the Orlando Magic. It was an ideal opportunity for Rice to crack the rotation in something resembling a permanent way. And if the Wizards needed something with Martell Webster missing the first couple of months after back surgery, it was a reliable scorer off the bench.

In his fifth game, a blowout loss in Toronto, Rice had some words for Randy Wittman when he was pulled from the game in the first half in favor of Rasual Butler. The exchange was significant enough that I noticed it from my seat at Air Canada Centre even though I was supposed to be paying attention to the game. Rice wouldn't re-enter the game. Butler, who has since emerged as the Wizards' leading bench scorer despite being the last guy to make the team, tallied only five points that night but it was clearly the beginning of something that has been one of the brightest spots for the team this season.

The next night as I was watching the Wizards play the Indiana Pacers in a bar in downtown Toronto, I remember a note on the ticker at the bottom of the screen about Rice and Wittman again exchanging words. What was going on? I could understand Rice being frustrated about his limited playing time with the team, but his 20 percent shooting from the field wasn't exactly forcing coach to get him in the game at every opportunity. 

The Toronto game was not the first time I'd seen Rice talking back to our coaches. He blew off Sam Cassell in our second Summer League game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. He appeared to be either upset about not getting calls from the referees or maybe Alexy Schved lit him up a bit too much. Either way, he was clearly agitated. Al Harrington, who was serving as a volunteer assistant during Summer League, also got the brush off from Rice that game just before halftime. While Glen was clearly too important to bench for a Summer League game, he's certainly not good enough to talk back during the regular season.

About two weeks after the Toronto game, Rice was assigned to the D-League, this time to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, who had replaced the Iowa Energy as the Wizards NBDL affiliate when the Energy entered into an exclusive arrangement with the Memphis Grizzlies. With the return of Bradley Beal from injury, it looked like the perfect time to preserve Rice's playing time via a D-League assignment. He seemed to have been playing well for Fort Wayne, averaging 12.7 points in 14 games while hitting at over 49 percent from the field. In a loss at Sioux Falls on December 16, Rice went for 22 points on 9 of 11 shooting.

With the Mad Ants playing the Delaware 87ers next weekend on a Wizards off day in nearby Newark, Delaware, I thought it might be the ideal time to catch up with Glen's game. But in the last three games for the Mad Ants, Rice hasn't played a single minute. He's been a healthy scratch for all three games. The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported yesterday that while Rice is still technically on the roster, it seems unlikely he'll play for the team again.

What's the deal here? Are the Wizards trying to trade Rice or are they just willing to let him sit in Fort Wayne? If the Mad Ants aren't going to play him, does it make sense to recall him? Or has he burned his bridges with the team and coaching staff? Rice's contract for a little more than $800,000 becomes guaranteed a week from today. If they decide to terminate his contract before that date, they owe only $400,000. Seems like a decision is likely looming in the next couple of days. I'm still likely headed up to Delaware next Saturday, but I'm pretty sure I won't find Glen Rice there, although he apparently was in D.C. last night for his birthday party. I'm questioning the "superstar" label in the advertisement below; I elected to stay home rather than texting SWANK to 41411.

Alternate Unis

For the first time since the team's colors were re-branded in 2011, the Washington Wizards will finally have an alternate third uniform which will be introduced during the 2014-2015 NBA season. How and when these alternate uniforms will be worn is still to be revealed, but there's no doubt there will be a third uniform for this coming season. And you know what? I'm not really happy about the design at all.

When I first became a Wizards season ticket holder, our uniforms sucked. Like really badly. I've offered the opinion before that the Wizards and Golden State Warriors got a package deal on their uniform rebrands in the late 1990s and that the resultant almost identical terribly designed uniforms were way less valuable than the discounted two for one pricing that the teams got on their new duds. Whether or not the two teams colluded on their rebrands about 15 years ago, the fact of the matter is that both team emerged with awful uniforms. Since then, both franchises have seen the error of their ways and redesigned their uniforms to critical and fan acclaim.

For me, the Wizards' 2011 redesigned uniforms were a positive sign that the franchise was abandoning the poor decision to rebrand the Bullets name into something waaaaay different and go back to the color scheme from the team's glory years, namely red, white and blue.  Our new uniforms are gorgeous. They harken back to the past with horizontal stripes like the championship team wore during the 1977-1978 season which cannot be anything but positive. They also included a home "Wizards" jersey and an away "Washington" jersey which in the world of professional sports uniform design is absolutely the correct way to go. And they included a spiffy new "Washington" and "Wizards" wordmark with a Washington monument themed motif. Very successful; very nice redesign. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!!

Just one stripe…Please add it back in!

I think our home white uniforms are hands down the best uniforms in the NBA: the colors are reflective of our nation and our nation's capital, the design simultaneously reflects the franchise's past and looks to future glory; and the Wizards name is perfectly proportioned with the horizontal stripes and uniform number.  Our road uniforms are almost as impressive, although fitting "Washington" across the front of the chest becomes a little much and the predominant color is red, which I don't really like much at all. I know Ted Leonsis loves the color red and wants all of his teams to wear that color, but I don't like it much at all.

So for the past couple of years, I've been longing for an alternate uniform. For the past three years, I've been wearing road Chris Singleton and Martell Webster jerseys to home games and every time I pull on my red uniform with pride, I secretly wished the Wizards would decide to create an alternate uniform that flipped the red and blue colors, creating an amazing alternate road jersey to match their home whites. I hate to write this, but I was looking for something the Cleveland Cavaliers did during the LeBron James (part one) years, adding a blue jersey to complement their wine and gold primary uniform.

Today, I almost got my way. A couple of weeks ago, someone got a hold of the upcoming 2014-2015 Adidas catalog which showed, among the gimmicky Christmas Day uniforms and the new gold patch on the back of the collar to signify franchises that have won an NBA title, a blank TBD spot for the new Wizards alternate uniform. This afternoon, the Wizards finally released some images.

Sure enough, the new uniform is predominantly blue. But it's also missing one key element that makes the 2011 rebranded uniforms so amazing. It sounds so trivial, but the white stripe across the chest makes all the difference. Without the horizontal stripe, the uniform loses critical visual interest and makes the finished product look like some kind of practice jersey, a cheap knockoff from the original if you will.

Now don't get me wrong, I may actually purchase one of these on October 1, the first day they are available, and it's likely to be a Marcin Gortat jersey. But make no mistake, I think the Wizards made a critical mistake with this alternate jersey rollout. Maybe the team will add the stripe on the front back to the uniform, much like they deleted the stripe on the back two seasons ago so the numbers can be better read.  Regardless of what happens from here on out, I think the Wizards dumbed down our uniforms for the current season. Maybe it will get a few poor saps (like me) to pony up some dough for the new design but I'm still not happy. Brick back the stripe!!!!

Summer League 2014

As of this posting, the Washington Wizards are undefeated in the 2014 Las Vegas Summer League, a perfect 3-0 in their first three games. While winning at Summer League doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things (it's not like they are going to hang a banner in Verizon Center if we win the whole thing), it's nice to be winning instead of perpetually losing. As I have done every year since 2008, I made my way out to Vegas this past weekend to see the Wizards play in the middle of July. This was my sixth trip to Summer League; at this point I have been going to Vegas for basketball longer than some NBA teams have been. Sort of crazy.

For the second year in a row, the Las Vegas Summer League is a tournament style format. I guess this sort of event appeals to the public in that one team actually wins it all, but for me it limits my ability to see the maximum amount of Wizards basketball. The tournament format actually spreads the games out. Back in the day (two years ago), a typical schedule for a team would be to play three days in a row, followed by two days off and then games on two consecutive days before heading back out of town. Any sort of supremacy bragging rights a few years ago consisted of finishing first with a perfect 5-0 record, likely the same record as four or so other teams. There was no definitive winner, which I guess in the United States just won't fly.

While I'm all for winning it all (even though my teams don't), the old format was nice because I could find the three days in a row that the Wizards were playing and just go out  to the desert for those days. I've spent more than a month and a half of my life in Las Vegas but I've only ever stayed in town for more than three nights once and I can't see myself doing it again. It's just too much for that long. With the tournament format, no team will ever play three consecutive days unless it's in the elimination portion of the tournament and let's face it, there's way too much risk of me not seeing my team at all when the words "elimination" is in play.

So instead of seeing three games in Vegas this year, I only got to see two. I hopped on a plane first thing Saturday morning at National Airport to arrive in time for game one's 1:30 pm tipoff and took in game two the next day. The third and final game of the preliminary stage of the tournament was going on while I flew home, a way too long one stop journey that the weather in the D.C. area turned into a two stopper with a semi-emergency landing in Pittsburgh. Nothing like sitting in coach for a couple of hours on a runway in western Pennsylvania.

Summer League this year is all about Rice and Porter.

With the Wizards having no first round draft pick this year and having sold its second round pick to the Lakers for a couple of million bucks or so, this year's Summer League was all about our two draft picks from the 2013 draft, Otto Porter and Glen Rice, Jr. Both of these guys had disappointing to so-so Summer League debuts last year followed up by a rookie year that saw neither on the court in much meaningful game time so this year's Summer League was a chance for redemption and to show the NBA that they had actually progressed in their first year in the league.

If Vegas was a coming out party for Otto and Glen, I'll be very pleased with their contributions this year. In both game one against the Atlanta Hawks and game two against the Minnesota Timberwolves, these two for me were clearly the best two players on the court. The Wizards offense and defense excelled while the two were in the game and it definitely suffered when they were on the bench. It started right off the opening tip of game one against the Hawks, with Otto scoring the first basket and assisting on the next two. The Wizards rolled to a 16 point victory behind a game high 25 from Otto. He shot at a high percentage, hit one from beyond the arc and recorded seven rebounds and three assists. 

Overall in both games Otto's game looked under control. His jump shot fell nicely in both games I saw, including off glass, although his field goal percentage dipped in game two when he scored just 13. He ran the offense when he had to, played good defense and only turned the ball over once in each contest. For a guy who was advertised as the complete package who might take a while to develop, this might be an important step forward. Franchises don't draft players with the number three overall selection to sit on the bench; Otto needs way more time on the floor and needs to contribute to the cause when he's in the game. He's still thin, but has obviously benefited from some time in the weight room with Marcin Gortat.

Otto Porter: Year Two.

Glen Rice was similarly impressive. He scored 22 points in both games behind a mostly effective jump shot and a ton of time at the line. He managed to drive into the lane repeatedly and get fouled in both games, shooting an astonishing 16 free throws in the game against the Timberwolves. He showed a lot of aggressiveness and a pretty good stroke from the three point line just above the left elbow. His aggressiveness was almost out of control in both games; he hit some lucky off balance buckets in game one and took some bad leaning forward shots in game two where he wasn't so lucky. I'm not sure what was going on in game two but Glen was clearly upset in the second quarter which affected his game. I'm not sure if Alexey Shved hit one too many threes on him or if his teammates weren't getting the ball to him when he wanted but Al Harrington was clearly trying to calm him down at the end of the first half. I know Summer League can be a far cry from the NBA season but I couldn't really be any more encouraged by the first two games.

Other than Porter and Rice, there were a couple of other guys on our team that I thought would be worth writing a word or two about. The first is Daniel Orton, who spent the 2009-2010 collegiate basketball season as a teammate of John Wall at the University of Kentucky. I saw Orton play for the Maine Red Claws in Portland, Maine on my D-League trip this past spring. When I saw Orton in Maine he looked massive, clearly one of the largest players on the court. He seemed to be a skilled big man but he wore down that day playing on a team with only eight players; he just didn't seem to be in good shape. Four months later, I left the first game in Vegas thinking the same thing, although he looked a lot smaller next to players from the big leagues. Orton made some gorgeous passes in traffic and his bulk allowed him to rebound well. But he is clearly not in good shape; guys with guts don't last in the NBA. He's going to have to lose that if he wants to make it.

The second guy was Khem Birch, an undrafted UNLV prospect who showed some good defensive skills, especially in the shot blocking department. Sam Cassell indicated he wouldn't mind taking a change on Birch in training camp if he was still available. Birch to me seems like at worst a D-League call up this year and I expect that's where he'll land if he doesn't stick in the NBA.

Summer League is one of my favorite times of year. I can get way closer to the pulse of the NBA when I'm in Vegas for a couple of days than I can during an entire year at home during the regular season. The establishment surrounds you completely. I can't say hi to coach Randy Wittman during the regular season or listen in on conversations with former players or talk to broadcasters about the latest gossip flying around on Twitter. I can do all of that at Summer League. I managed to congratulate Ernie Grunfeld on the Paul Pierce signing and was rewarded with a pat on the shoulder. I also managed to offer my thoughts on video about the the Summer League experience. I love this stuff.

Getting big time! The Panini autograph pavilion with fans waiting for Julius Randle.

A lot happened off the court this year while I was at Summer League. Trevor Ariza bailed on the Wizards during Saturday's thrashing of the Hawks to sign (again) with the Houston Rockets. Ariza's a loss for us, especially on the defensive end, but I think Trevor is not going to be the same on offense without John Wall; I'm not sure the league appreciates how good John makes other people quite yet. The Ariza defection was followed by surprising news about the Wizards signing Paul Pierce and news of a potential sign and trade with Dallas for DeJuan Blair (who the Wizards famously passed on in the 2009 NBA Draft) the next night. By the time I got home on Tuesday night, the Wizards had added former Kardashian Kris Humphries and re-upped with Drew Gooden. The roster definitely filled out while I was gone.

Because it's Summer League, I got a chance to chat with CSN Washington's beat reporter J. Michael before the Timberwolves game just outside the arena. He claimed to have been all over the Paul Pierce news (not sure I'm believing that because it came out of nowhere); offered the opinion that Trevor Booker would not be back with the Wizards (he signed with the Utah Jazz yesterday); and let us know that the Wizards were capped out on Trevor Ariza at $8 million per year for four years or $9 million for three (Ariza took $8 million for four years with Houston). But the biggest surprise is that he seemed absolutely convinced of the possibility that the Wizards could land Kevin Durant in 2016 and that the organization was gearing everything financially towards that possibility. If LeBron James can go home, why not KD? I'll believe it when I see it.

While it's great to rub elbows with general managers and coaches and reporters that I follow on Twitter, I really look forward to talking with some of our current players in Las Vegas. Last year John Wall, Bradley Beal and Martell Webster sat courtside right in front of us. The year before I managed to talk with Chris Singleton for five minutes and shake hands with newly acquired Emeka Okafor. This year…nothing! That's right, for the two days I spent at UNLV watching basketball, the only Wizard I saw other than Porter and Rice was Al Harrington, and that was because he was working as a coach. Former Wizards Tracy Murray, Antawn Jamison, Roger Mason, Jr. and Michael Ruffin were there but none of our current guys were out there. Admittedly John Wall, Bradley Beal, Trevor Booker (not a Wizard any more, I realize) and Kris Humphries have been spotted since I left but not while I was there. I should have gone and sat next to Michael Ruffin and reminisced about the good days. Well, except for that one game against Toronto.

Two final thoughts about Summer League this year. First, Summer League games are played at two sides of the same arena: the Thomas and Mack Center (where the UNLV men's basketball team plays) and the Cox Pavilion (where the UNLV women's volleyball team play). Of the two, the Cox Pavilion is by far the smaller venue. The place is barely longer than a 94' long basketball court and the crowd sits right on top of the court, benches and announcers' table. You can walk within three feet of our current players or players-turned-announcer like Chris Webber or Walt Frazier. That closeness builds an intimacy you can't find in an NBA arena and makes Summer League that much more special. You can see everything on and off the court from no matter where you are sitting. 

The Thomas and Mack side of the arena is still smaller than an NBA arena by far, but the way you can experience a basketball game is just way different. Unfortunately, all the Wizards' games this year were over at the Thomas and Mack so I felt a little cheated out of an experience I have come to love so much. I still loved Summer League, but it's just not the same on the other side of the building as it is in the Cox Pavilion. I had some crazy notion about them putting the Wizards in the larger side of the building based on a growing fan base but the Wizards faithful seemed less visible this year than I have seen in years. I'm hoping we'll be back at Cox next time I come out.

The beloved Cox Pavilion.

The Thomas and Mack Center. NOT the Cox Pavilion.

Lastly, Summer League is now HUGE! As recently as two years ago, you would have to educate cab drivers that the event was even taking place. Now they have a corporate sponsor (it's now the Samsung Summer League), an autograph pavilion sponsored by Panini (rather than a cheap folding table), advertising on twenty foot high billboards on the strip and there are no shortage of cabs clustered outside the arena. Admittedly, I went on the first Saturday and Sunday; I'm assuming weekday attendance might be a bit lower. But the event has exploded and that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Gone are the days when the place is half empty and you can sit where you want but I want this thing to stick around and succeed and the folks that have put a ton of work into this event deserve it. I'm thinking it won't be long until we see all 30 NBA teams out here and I'll have to buy tickets in advance. I'm hoping for weekday games next year, I guess.

Oh…the odds of the Wizards winning the NBA title next year is 33-1. If it had been the Eastern Conference, I'd have laid some money down. Our first elimination game is tomorrow against the Clippers/Heat winner today. I'll try to watch on NBA TV. Until then, I'm looking forward to next year.

Manual Labor

Every year the Washington Wizards send me a minimum of one survey to gauge how I view the fan experience and how engaged I am as a season ticket holder. A long long time ago (maybe five or six years?), one of the questions was about volunteering and whether I would be willing to participate in charitable events featuring Wizards players or staff if the opportunity was afforded. In a moment of unbridled enthusiasm and with visions of me and Gilbert Arenas serving food at a community kitchen or something like that, I responded "yes". Then I pretty much forgot all about it.

Then about a month ago, there was a call for volunteers in the Wizards' weekly season ticket holder e-mail to assist in building a playground at a school in southeast Washington D.C. I remembered my reaction to the opportunity for this sort of event during the Arenas years, thought about it for a few days and then finally decided to take the plunge and sign up. I said I would do it five or six years ago; I better live up to my word now. 

Now, this is a bit of an unusual gesture for me. I generally think of myself as a fairly selfish person. When I engage in charitable activities (which I do pretty regularly), it is usually by donating money or other things I have purchased with money. I have a standard list of organizations I donate to each year and I love going toy shopping every holiday season before dumping my entire haul into a Toys For Tots bin at Toys 'R Us.

But volunteering is a different story. I gave my time for a day once to renovate a house in D.C. when the company where I worked was celebrating its 60th anniversary and I've donated other time professionally but this represents a step forward toward selflessness for me. I feel awkward just admitting my lack of sweat equity in my community. I swear I'm not a bad person. I just need some coaching is all. 

So today instead of getting up and walking a mile or so to my office for another dose of the same daily grind, I hopped on the Orange line to L'Enfant Plaza then transferred to the Green line for a quick ride over to Congress Heights Metro station on the other side of the Anacostia River. I don't usually come this way. This was definitely a different day for me.

9 a.m. No playground.

My destination this morning was the Eagle Academy Public Charter School, a charter school in the District of Columbia Public Schools system located on Wheeler Avenue SE about a quarter mile south of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The school was founded about ten years ago with an initial enrollment around 110 students; today the school has 762 students covering pre-Kindergarten through third grade. The school seemed to have a pretty good sized campus from our initial walk around the site and there is an addition (including an indoor swimming pool) under construction adjacent to the school's main building. The one thing the Academy didn't have prior to today was a playground for the children. The nearest playground for the students was down a hill and across busy Mississippi Avenue to the south. We fixed all that today.

Before I arrived at Eagle Academy today, I imagined the construction of a playground to be a fairly simple task involving a few dedicated teams of volunteers. The initial correspondence we received after we signed up seemed contrary to my intuition. The directions we were sent earlier this week suggested there was little parking for volunteers while also pointing out about 60 available parking spaces. How many people were going to be involved in this thing? There can't possibly be more than 60 people involved, can there??? I now know that I didn't have any idea what I was in for.

Me and G Wiz on a break. Actually I was on a break. G Wiz wasn't really doing any work.

After signing in at the registration table, I received a blank name tag with a pictogram (skull and crossbones; how cool is that?) which I promptly wrote my name on and then stood around looking at all the other people on the site. And there were a lot of people. And they were all standing around doing pretty much nothing. I started to have no confidence in the ability of the organizers to utilize this many people and expected a lot of standing around for the rest of the day. The build effort actually turned out to be the exact opposite. The company organizing the build, a national non-profit organization named Kaboom!, really knew what they were doing and split all the volunteers into highly effective teams doing very specific tasks. Apparently, this was their 2,355th playground build nation-wide.

Little did we know, but the name tags we picked up at registration determined what we would do for the rest of our day on site. I soon found out the incredibly cool skull and crossbones name tags (way better than fruit or Hello Kitty or words of encouragement or horses or anything else) destined me for about six hours of shoveling and moving mulch (allegedly 160 cubic yards although I had a lot of help) from an enormous pile to the playground surface. As a volunteer assignment, I'm actually OK with this job. The last thing I want on a construction site is to be assigned a task that requires construction skills. I have difficulty knocking a nail in straight but I know for sure that I can move stuff from one location to another. I can lift and carry no problem.

Having said all that, this was a tough day. I'm not as young as I once was and I have very little experience with manual labor in my last 20 years. Call me a baby but it's really difficult to move mulch for hours on end. And I'm talking about moving it by hand. Like a shovelful at a time from the seemingly endless enormous pile on to tarps and carrying it alone or in pairs over to a very large unbuilt playground. We had a few wheelbarrows but the majority of the mulch without doubt got moved with brute manual labor. Shovel. Lift. Carry. Dump. Repeat. That was my day today.

12:30 p.m. Looking good. Finishing is going to be no problem, right?

The entire exercise was supposed to take from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. At first it seemed like we would finish a few hours ahead of time. The mulch crew (which I would estimate occupied about a third of the volunteers) was actually told to stand down for a bit to let the playground equipment folks catch up. There were only a few areas we could move our enormous pile a tarp-ful at a time to without other equipment being in place.

But later on in the day, it seemed like there was no way we would finish. Concrete finally got poured around some of the in-ground posts for the swings and slides around noon, which allowed the mulch move to proceed. But some concrete pours lagged to within a half hour of the finish time, meaning there were entire ground areas still not covered with mulch 30 minutes before the ribbon cutting. Incredibly, I guess doing this sort of thing 2,354 times before breeds some sort of success because we managed to finish everything on time. Barely, but on time.

Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr. hard at work.

Of course, this recollection of my day wouldn't belong in this blog without some sort of tangible Wizards connection. Late in the day, we did get some help from Wizards players Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr. After breaking a serious sweat twice and feeling like my knees wouldn't stand moving mulch much longer, those two finally showed up at about 2:30 p.m. They were enlisted to put together something resembling some basketball hoops and put in place the Wizards logo on the playground but other than that didn't engage in much heavy lifting. And I'm totally cool with all that. It was a boost for me that they showed up and the last thing I need is Bradley Beal hurting himself moving a part of our enormous pile of mulch two days before training camp begins.

As I write this post, I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow. I know the sleep that I am craving right now is going to cause me some sort of pain in the morning. And I'm OK with that. The stories that the school's principal told us just before the ribbon cutting about some of the kids crying because they couldn't use the playground right away and the fact that these students no longer have to cross a busy road to play makes me feel like my day was spent well. Better in fact than sitting at my desk at work making sure everyone did what they were supposed to do. I guess being a little bit selfless once in a while isn't that bad for me. I'm not saying I'm running out next week and doing this again, but I think today was worth it.

3:45 p.m. Playground installed. Time to go home.