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?

NBA Trade Deadline 2014

At 3 p.m. today, the annual NBA trade deadline came and went. Of course, instead of being hard at work making some bucks for my employer, I was sitting home watching Twitter for trade news. Yes you read that right, watching Twitter. I stayed at home today because I've learned from past experience that as this day gets closer to 3 p.m., I concentrate in my office less and less on work and more and more on internet trade rumors and gossip. So for the third year in a row, I elected to stay home and log eight hours of Paid Time Off rather than fight the battle to get some work done.

After last year's super slow trade deadline where the biggest deal was J.J. Redick to Milwaukee and the only Wizards action was sending Jordan Crawford to Boston for Jason Collins and Leandro Barbosa who was already done for the year with an injury, I was hoping for something more exciting this year. I mean how could it get any duller? I was not disappointed. There were a lot of Wizards and former Wizards on the move this year.

It all started last night when the Golden State Warriors, who earlier this season traded for former Wizards Jordan Crawford from the Boston Celtics, picked up former Wizard Steve Blake from the Lakers for essentially flotsam. Apparently Golden State is intent on picking up a collection of our former guards and it's working. Although I'm not sure it's helped their franchise yet.

It then continued this morning when the Miami Heat traded former Wizard Roger Mason, Jr. to the Sacramento Kings along with a bag of cash for a highly protected second round draft pick (or essentially absolutely nothing). Poor Roger. If there was one reason to be OK at all with Miami winning another NBA title this year, it was them having Roger Mason on their team. Now, I won't see any silver lining to a third Heat title. Let's go Pacers!!!

Then just before the 3 p.m. trade deadline (and it is possible for trades to be announced after the deadline), news came that the Los Angeles Clippers traded Antawn Jamison to the Atlanta Hawks for I'm still not sure what at the time of this writing. Just like with the Heat (although with less vitriol), there is now no reason for me to root for the Clippers to win it all this year.

But the biggest news Wizards-wise hit between noon and 1 p.m. this afternoon. I'd been reading rumors for a few weeks about the Wizards being interested in exiled Denver Nuggets' point guard Andre Miller but it didn't seem possible that we could grab Miller since he has a non-guaranteed contract next year and presumably the Wizards would want to send colossal disappointment off season signee Eric Maynor back in return. And honestly who the hell wants Maynor after his production this year?

But apparently lightning CAN strike twice. Two years ago, the Wizards sent away JaVale McGee to Denver in a trade deadline day deal for Nenê, a move that was decried as a huge mistake on Washington's part by a lot of people who watch the NBA but which anyone around the D.C. franchise saw as a first step in dramatically changing the culture here. This year, we did it again by taking Miller off the Nuggets' hands. Not only do we get a dependable backup point guard, but we traded him for two guys who rarely play (Maynor and Jan Vesely) while reducing our payroll this year, opening a roster spot and decreasing our guaranteed salary commitment next season (assuming Maynor would have picked up his option next year). How on Earth did we fleece the Nuggets twice in three years?

OK, so we gave up a New Orleans Pelicans' second round draft pick as part of the swap to the Philadelphia 76ers but who cares? Can anyone name a Wizards second round draft pick in the last 12 years that has had a positive impact on our franchise or the NBA in general? I realize that statement may be an indictment of our ability to draft and also may be a little unfair to Steve Blake who has had an astonishingly long career. And don't start with me on Andray Blatche. 

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Jan Vesely. I so badly wanted him to prove that Blake Griffin was in fact the American Jan Vesely. I'll be sorry to see him go, although I won't miss cringing any time he touches the ball on the offensive end or steps to the free throw line. I won't miss Maynor. I can't remember being more disappointed in an off season free agent signing. This trade should make the Wizards better this year without sacrificing any future flexibility whatsoever. I see it as completely positive. We'll see if Andre Miller can make any sort of difference.

More Bobbleheads!!!

With the Wizards winners of three straight, seven of the last nine and streaking towards NBA relevency, its time to turn the focus for a few minutes onto something more important than kicking ass and taking names on the court: bobbleheads, baby! Check out what I brought home last week.

For the last few years, the Washington Wizards have been providing season ticket holders with an exclusive gift as a thank you for being a season ticket holder. I guess it's sort of a compensatory gesture for sticking with the franchise that just hasn't produced what it's supposed to produce, namely a team that wins consistently. This year the team offered a choice for season ticket holders: a set of "starting five" bobbleheads or a team basketball signed by this year's first round draft pick, Bradley Beal.

Now, as you probably understand if you read my blog regularly, I absolutely love bobbleheads. Having said that, even if you are not me and don't share my oh so slight obsession with bobbleheads, I'm not sure how you choose the basketball. I can get basketballs autographed by Bradley Beal at any number of season ticket holder events. True, the basketball with the DC Unity Hand logo is not available for purchase so that makes it a little special. But a custom, limited edition set of bobbleheads? For free?? I'm taking the bobbleheads without a second thought.

This is the second year in a row the team has proposed a bobblehead set giveaway. Last year they abandoned the idea half way through the season, probably because the team rebuild was in full swing and our starting five included Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee and Nick Young, each of whom could have been shown the door at any point (all were, of course, evenually). I have to say I'm not upset about last year's cancellation; I'm happy I don't have to wrestle with keeping or throwing away a McGee bobblehead (throwing away bobbleheads goes against the very fabric of my being but so does pretty much everything JaVale McGee does).

Since we were a couple of months into the current season and I hadn't heard any news on my gift, I followed up with my account representative shortly after the new year to check on the status of the bobbleheads, fearing no news was bad news and steeling myself for the inevitable email response indicating the bobbleheads would once again be canceled. But this year I got some good news. It wasn't canceled at all and last week, I headed down to Verizon Center on trade deadline day (a day off work for me) to pick up the John Wall, Bradley Beal, Jordan Crawford, Trevor Ariza and Nenê bobblehead set. What a treat! I get giddy every time I get a new bobblehead, but five in one day? Imagine my euphoria.

First of all, while I love this set, let me say that this is no starting five. The combination of these five guys has NEVER EVER started a game for the Washington Wizards. And I'm OK with that entirely. I'm not complaining here. When I contemplated the possible starting five combinations for this group, I was worried that I would end up with an Emeka Okafor bobblehead, who by the way has been tearing it up since I put Emeka in my least favorite Wizard status in my mid-season post. Again, not like Emeka should care what I think but I didn't want an Okafor bobblehead this year. I'm a little distraught at what could have been (Martell Webster would have been awesome) but I can't get everything I want all the time. At least not yet.

For a minute I thought the real John Wall and Trevor Ariza were hanging out at my place.

This set is awesome. These are definitely not your ordinary standard everyday bobbleheads. There is nothing close to the "generic black man head" that you sometimes get and the paint work is more precise than probably any other bobbleheads I own. Trevor Ariza and John Wall actually look like their real life counterparts; Ariza's almost a dead ringer, although admittedly without the neck tattoos. Clearly whoever ordered these specified better molds and requested they be sent to the most experienced bobblehead painters in the Chinese factory where they are made.

By the way, China has to love bobbleheads. It's like free propaganda against the decadence of western society. I can't imagine what the elderly Chinese craftsman is thinking while slaving to perfect the intricate detailing on a plastic head on a spring so some spoiled bourgeois capitalist like me can have these things just sit on his shelf at home and do nothing. And the guy's probably struggling to make ends meet on top of all that. It can't be a difficult sell to the bobblehead factory workers that America is the devil.

But enough politics. Thanks to the Chinese workers, there are some great details on these things. I love the hair detail on Nenê's head and the birthmark, dimples and teenage chin stubble on Bradley Beal's. With his hair, Nenê has probably the largest head to body ratio of any of my bobbleheads. The bigger the head, the better; it just looks that much more ridiculous. Despite the attention to detail, the designers of the bobbleheads forgot the circumflex over the second e in Nenê's name on both the jersey and the base. Small complaint, but it's a complaint. Not as bad as the mini Verizon Center we got in 2007 where the court orientation is 90 degrees off from the actual court orientation, but it's a mistake nonetheless.

And then there's Jordan Crawford. Poor Jordan. Traded away the same week his one and only Wizards bobblehead arrives at Verizon Center. It's customary for me to turn the bobbleheads of guys who no longer play for us around after they leave but since there's a whole graphic montage thing behind these guys I'm not sure I'm doing that right away. Plus I think I owe it to Sizzle to leave him facing forward for a while. As non-existent as his defense was, I like Jordan as a sixth man instant offense type guy and he was nothing if not entertaining just about all the time. Jordan was a walking non sequitur. Read his tweets on Twitter or see his photos on Instagram and explain them to me if you can (you won't be able to). I'll probably turn him around in a couple of months when the season's over but until then, he gets to face forward (well almost forward) with the rest of the guys left behind.

As a devoted Wizards bobblehead collector, I'd love to see them do this every year, although I'm not sure I need eight or nine John Wall or Bradley Beal bobbleheads. I'm already averaging one Wall and two Beal bobbleheads per year for their three and one years in the league respectively so far. Maybe they could do a set of bench player bobbleheads next year: I'd love to have Jan Vesely, Kevin Seraphin and Chris Singleton bobbleheads on my shelf, although admittedly the average fan would probably not be enticed to buy season tickets with that group as the season's bobblehead offering. I think the priority for the Wizards has to be to re-sign Martell Webster in the offseason and deliver a Martell bobblehead somehow next year. I'd be happy with that as the only addition to my collection next year. 

Next up: Detroit. Have to beat the Pistons tomorrow!

Sort of appropriate I guess that the team is looking forward except for Jordan Crawford. Foreshadowing?

The NBA Trade Deadline Should Be A Holiday

After spending all last week roaming around Texas in search of D-League basketball and barbeque, I'm off work again today because today is the NBA trade deadline day. I'm serious. Incredibly, I cannot take this day as one of the 96 calendar days my company offers as a floating holiday so I'm dipping into my Paid Time Off bank for a day of sitting at home in my Eames lounger with ESPN on the TV and Twitter up on my iPad Mini waiting for the latest NBA trade rumor that may or may not morph into an actual swap of players.

This is the second year in a row I have taken the trade deadline day off. A couple of years ago on this day at work, I closed my office door at about 1 p.m. and just surfed the internet endlessly in search of trade news. The actual trade deadline is 3 p.m., although trades just have to be submitted to the league for approval at that time so trades can be reported and confirmed after the actual deadline. It doesn't matter if the Wizards make a trade or not, I cannot work on this day from this point forward.

I do some silly things as a Wizards fan (insert any number of smart ass lines here...) but none is perhaps as silly as taking this day off. I mean, watching the NBA Draft either in person or on TV is as un-exciting as hearing a bunch of names read out loud sounds but at least there is a show or event to watch. On trade deadline day there's nothing to watch: no program, no in studio analysis, nothing. It's just waiting for something to happen and reacting to every speculation by every pundit connected in any way to the NBA out there. Nonetheless, I'll be attached to the TV/iPad the whole day today and each future trade deadline day.

Last year the Wizards pulled off a stunner of a trade which first came to light right at about 3 p.m., sending dead weight and perennial knucklehead JaVale McGee to Denver for Nenê, who went a long way to instantly changing the culture of the organization. Despite the team's recent surge, going 11-9 over their last 20 games, there's no doubt some more tweaking this year might seem in order. The big speculation for the Wizards this year was possibly moving Jordan Crawford, who started the season strong on a depleted roster but who recently has not seen a whole lot of time on the court.

The biggest deal of the day was the Orlando Magic sending J.J. Redick to the Milwaukee Bucks involving multiple players from both teams. Yep, that's it. The second biggest deal is debatable. Not a whole lot of action today. The highly anticipated deal (to anywhere) for the Atlanta Hawks' Josh Smith didn't go down. Nor did Dwight Howard get traded (no suprise there). Definitely a quiet day.

The Wizards did end up moving Jordan Crawford to Boston for Jason Collins, who is on a one year deal, and Leandro Barbosa, who is on a one year deal and is also, by the way, done for the year with a torn ACL. This deal doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, unless somehow Jordan was a problem in the locker room when not playing, which I have never heard (doesn't mean it isn't true). We do get a little more than $2 million of salary off the books next year for trading the last year of Jordan's rookie deal for nothing but since we are already over the salary cap for next year anyway that doesn't help the team a whole lot, unless we are willing to exceed the salary cap next year. I hope we are not just shedding salary in this move, although I'd applaud the move if it allows us to wrap up Martell Webster for the next few years, which it might.

It's too bad we had to part with Jordan from this fan's perspective. I thought Jordan carried our offense a lot in the first couple of months this season and never got the credit he deserved. On the other hand, he's clearly not Bradley Beal and suffers at the defensive end of the court so if we lose a guy who isn't playing right now who we wouldn't have re-signed anyway, I'm not sure I'm losing any sleep over this decision. This season's trade deadline is clearly different than last year's. Last year, I unfollowed Nick Young and JaVale McGee on Twitter as soon as the trade was confirmed. I won't be doing that with Jordan.

Looks like I need to take Jordan Crawford's picture off my Wizards wall.

Glass Half Empty Or Half Full?

The Washington Wizards played their 41st game of the season last night, a 114-101 thrashing of the Minnesota Timberwolves. With the end of the last night's game, the 2012-2013 season is officially halfway over for the Wizards. Based on my expectations at the beginning of the season, I'd have to say that I'm not thrilled with our 10-31 record which is good for second to last place in the Southeast Division, Eastern Conference and, well, the entire  NBA. The 0-12 start to the season in all likelihood killed our season. Based on the winning percentage of the Boston Celtics, who currently sit in the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, we would need to go 29-12 in the second half of the season to qualify for the postseason. But there is hope: our record in the last nine games is 6-3, including two wins on the road and victories over three teams with winning records. It would still take a near miracle to make the playoffs though.

There have been positives in addition to the negatives. Here are ten things I get from the season so far.

1. Our Early Season Offense Was Offensive
The Wizards rank 29th (of 30) in the NBA in points scored per game at 91.5 per contest, down 2.1 points from our 93.6 point average last season. Our leading scorer is averaging only 14.9 points per game and we have had no player score 30 points in a single game. We also rank last in field goal percentage, 24th in three point percentage and 24th in free throw percentage. None of that is good. However, in the silver lining category, all those numbers are trending up and our defense is much improved. The Wizards currently rank 12th in points allowed per game at 96.8 points per game and while we may not be putting up 30 point individual games, neither are our opponents. Only three players (David West, James Harden and Kobe Bryant) have scored 30 in a single game on our team this year.

2. Thank God for Jordan Crawford
Seriously. And I never thought I'd ever write that. I always thought of JC as an undisciplined chucker who could pass but just chose not to. There's a guy behind us at VC who yells "Jack it up, Jordan!" every time he checks in. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking Nick Young territory here but Jordan has definitely never met a shot he didn't like. But this season, Jordan really carried the team in the first third of the year. When our offense was struggling (and in the first third of the year, when was our offense NOT struggling?), Jordan was the spark to at least keep us close. He's been our leading scorer most of the year, has the team high in points in a single game (27) two times, has the team's only triple double and have you seen some of the insane stuff he gets to go down? Check out the January 4 Nets game or the buzzer beater against the Trail Blazers this past Monday if you need proof. I'd put Jordan in my top three Wizards list this year so far.

3. The Okafor/Ariza for Lewis Trade May Be a Mistake

Empahsis on "may be." I realize we are only a half season with tons and tons of injuries into this trade but when it was made, it was made to go for it, to get us over the playoff hump NOW. Clearly, 41 games in, it doesn't look like we are making the playoffs this year. That means in the offseason instead of having $23 million or so come off the books for Rashard Lewis' contract, we have $22 million or so of salary cap space tied up in Emeka Okafor (the highest paid player on the team by the way) and Trevor Ariza. That's more than a third of the total cap spaced tied up in two guys who are not huge contributors (yet?). This trade still frees up money when we need it to re-sign some of our 2010 draft picks so ultimately it may make little difference in the long run and I actually think Ariza at $7.2 million is a decent contributor; he's without doubt our best one on one defender. Unfortunately, Okafor is stuck in my least favorite player status, which probably doesn't really make any difference to Emeka. I actually really like him as a person, just not as the highest paid player on the team.

4. We Can Beat Good Teams
True, we have lost to the Charlotte Bobcats twice. Considering the Bobcats' 7-5 start, that didn't look so bad. Considering the Bobcats' 3-27 record since then, it doesn't look so good. But we have wins over the top team in each conference (Miami and Oklahoma City) and we managed to beat the Denver Nuggets on the road, a place we haven't won a game in almost a decade. And the wins against those teams were not flukes, or the result of a letdown by the other team as LeBron James and Kevin Durant might have implied. They were good, team basketball wins which show we can play with anyone in the league. There were no end of game questionable calls or anything like that. There's something immensely satisfying about beating an elite team when your record suggests your team is not an elite team.

5. Rotating Point Guards Didn't Work

Training camp this year featured a point guard battle that to me originally looked like a fait accompli. Just before the start of training camp, it was announced that John Wall would miss about two months of action (it actually ended up being three months) due to a knee injury. So the team brought Jannero Pargo into training camp when we already had Wall, A.J. Price and Shelvin Mack at the point guard position. I figured we'd keep both Jannero and Shelvin (both on non-guaranteed or partially guaranteed deals) and then throw whichever one wasn't working out to the curb when Wall returned. Instead, we decided to keep Pargo and big man Earl Barron instead of Shelvin and then re-considered the Pargo choice after a particularly bad three point shot decision against the Dallas Mavericks in favor of Shaun Livingston, who had resurrected his career in DC but was released by the Houston Rockets just before opening day. But Shaun didn't work out this time and with the Wizards down to zero point guards after releasing Livingston and with A.J. Price injured, Mack was brought back (along with fellow D-League call up Garrett Temple) but was released shortly thereafter for a second time. Got all that? Temple stuck but while all this was going on, we clearly struggled at the one, and our record reflected that struggle.

6. Martell Webster is a Find

Martell joined the Wizards pretty much as late as you could a team before training camp at a time when the Wizards appeared to be taking applications for good players at the veteran minimum only. Somehow, Martell managed to wrangle a one year deal at more than the veteran minimum and he's proved he's worth it. Martell came with perceived baggage: back injuries and surgeries over the past few years had limited his effectiveness. Not so this year as he's settled in at the starting three spot after Trevor Ariza missed time with injuries. He's averaging 10.1 points per game, shooting 42% from three point land and 86.2% from the charity stripe. His three point and free throw shooting percentages are both career highs and he's the best on our team from the line. Martell, like Jordan Crawford, is a top three Wizard for me this year. We should have wrapped him up for a couple of seasons.

7. The 2011 Draft May Not Be So Good
Our 2011 Draft class featured two first round picks in Jan Vesely (6th overall) and Chris Singleton (18th overall) and one high second rounder in Shelvin Mack (34th overall). Due to a slew of injuries to just about everyone except those three last season, all three received heavy minutes as rookies, even without the luxury of a true training camp due to the lockout and delayed season start. Mack is no longer with the team after two stints this season. Vesely and Singleton are but they are not high production guys.

Last year, Vesely averaged 18.9 minutes per game with 4.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. He also shot 53.7% (good) from the field and 53% (bad) from the free throw line. This year he is averaging 13.1 minutes per game with 2.7 points and 2.5 rebounds per game, so his numbers have dropped more than proportionally to his minutes. His shooting has declined too: this year he's shooting 49.4% (not good for his position) from the field and 22.2% (not good under any measurement system) from the line. Now that most all our guys are healthy, I wonder how much time Ves is going to see on the floor.

Chris Singleton, on the other hand, has gone from a guy who started 77% of our contests last year to a forgotten man, logging only 6.7 seconds of meaningful game time over the last nine games. His point production per minute and rebound production per minute are actually up over last season but the play of Martell Webster and Trevor Ariza are keeping Chris on the bench for now. Maybe a D-League assignment would do some good for Chris at this point?

8. Wall and Nenê are Difference Makers

When healthy. John Wall has played in only eight of our first 41 games and Nenê has played in just 28. The two are clearly the best two players on our team yet have only 18 starts between them (all but one are Nenê's). They are both averaging around 25 minutes per contest in the games they have played. During the eight games John has played, our scoring has jumped to 100.8 points per game; before John re-joined the team, we were averaging about 92 points per game. That's a huge jump. He's clearly speeding up the pace, making our team more effective (witness the 5-3 record when he plays) and is far better at breaking down opposing defenses than anyone else on our team. Nenê just makes the whole game easier. He can score, rebound, pass, run the offense and defend. He's the complete package. He's one of only three Wizards with a positive plus/minus this season and he's more than tripling John Wall's numbers who is in second place. During our December 26 game against Cleveland, we outscored the Cavs by 25 with Nenê on the court but managed to lose the game by three. Read this article if you want to understand more about just how good he is.

9. Bradley Beal is the Real Deal

After looking a little overwhelmed in his first month or so, Bradley is really coming on strong. What a difference a couple of months in the NBA makes when you are 19! In October/November, Bradley averaged 10.9 points per game. In December and January, he has averaged 13.4 and 16.6 points per game respectively. He's also shooting an astonishing 53.4% from beyond the three point arc in January which has raised his season average in that category to 36.1%. The Wall/Beal backcourt looks great and despite a couple of trade rumors regarding Bradley, it appears the team loves him and he's here to stay. And his game is not all about scoring. He appears to be the complete package. Any doubt? Just watch this block on Luke Ridnour from last night's game.

10. Losing the MLK Day Matinee Sucks!

On this point, I don't mean losing to another team, I mean losing the game to an entire other city due to the presidential inauguration. I know the point of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is not to hold matinee basketball games. Still, the MLK Day game is one of the highlights of the season for me. It's about friendship and basketball in addition to never forgetting that at one time not so long ago this country was inexplicably a segregated society and I miss all three of those things on that day every four years when the presidential inauguration takes place. Already looking forward to 2014.

During the 2008-2009 season, the Oklahoma City Thunder started the season 5-32 before going on a season ending 18-27 tear to finish at 23-59. The following year they went 50-32. That's my hope. On to the second half. Chicago up tonight at home.