The Official Washington Wizards Thread

[stevemcqueen1]

Here's an interesting tidbit. When you take out Mustafa Shakur's number, McGee, Wall, and Young lead our team in PER according to ESPN. Blatche is fourth, but Trevor Booker is fifth. I think this actually validates the PER stat as a determinant of your teams best players because I think that it correctly placed our 4 best players in the top 5 (discounting Shakur).

---------- Post added February-26th-2011 at 12:13 AM ----------

Is it fair to say that John Wall is in the middle of the best statistical rookie season of any of the pure PGs currently in the league? Nearly the best in the history of the game?

His current statistical line (15.2 PTS, 9.0 AST, 4.3 RBD, 1.7 STL, .408% FG) is arguably better overall than the rookie seasons from:
- Chris Paul (His closest competitor--better shooting FG % but worse 3PT %, slightly more points and steals and rebounds, but nearly a whole two assists / game lower)
- Deron Williams
- Rajon Rondo
- Steve Nash
- Jason Kidd
- Russell Westbrook (probably his third closest competitor)
- Derrick Rose (probably his second closest competitor)

Paul and Oscar Robertson are pretty much the only pure PGs in NBA history who were this good this fast. Isiah Thomas comes close, but his total output doesn't put him in Wall's tier.

So basically, when all is said and done, we could be looking at second or third greatest rookie season from a pure PG in NBA history. If you remove remove Robertson from consideration because he played in such a different era, Wall's season so far has arguably been the greatest of the modern era.

****ing Blake Griffin. Any other year and Wall would be the unanimous choice.

[Warhead36]

It's all good, Wall will be a much better player over the long run. Griffin will be the more exciting, highlight reel player, but Wall will be the one playing in the postseason and winning MVPs.

Please get rid of Blatche. I'd trade him for a half eaten bag of doritos.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

What the hell are you talking about McQueen? Steve Czban told me last week that the Wizards shouldn't build around Wall, he isn't all that special.

I say Wiz fans boo the **** out of Blake Griffin on the 12th. It'll pain me cause I really truly love him as a player, but he a) ****ed McGee out of the dunk title and b) is ****ing Wall out of his RoY Award.

[Destino]

So is there any hope that Nick Young will ever give a consistent effort? The guy can score at will when he wants to... but he doesn't seem to want to often enough and then showers praise on himself when he does even if it happened in a losing effort. I like the potential but my instinct tells me he's Baron Davis type player. His man defense has improved which is good but the inconsistency kills me. This team is loaded with players that have so much potential and no mental toughness.

[stevemcqueen1]

This is a team full of 23 year olds though. Young is an elder statesman and he's still a couple years away from his prime. This team still has to grow quite a bit and we as fans have to actually be willing to wait for it to happen.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Honestly, I think Nick Young and Javale McGee still have some of that Agent Zero on them. Once they're able to completely free themselves from that influence they'll be fine.

And I know some people will disagree vehemently with me on this, but thank God we traded him before Wall fell under the spell.

[Mr. Sinister]

Funny how a team plays when they're actually motivated. The Wiz played hard tonight, but they played hard last time too. They only play when they feel it ( some of them ) . I knew this game would be pretty close before it started.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

Nobody asked you for your opinion Heat fan.

[stevemcqueen1]

This is the second time this season we've played the Heat tough. The first game we didn't have Wall, so that was kind of a forgettable one.

We haven't seemed to gain any ground on the Magic, but when you look at the landscape in the East, when Wall has been healthy, we've beaten the Celtics and played the Heat really hard twice. Wall hasn't really been healthy versus the Bulls yet, and clearly we don't have a chance when he's not in top form.

But you have to be encouraged by the early returns of this team against the conference's best teams. We seem to match up well against the Heat and Javale can dominate them in the paint. They have to commit LeBron and Wade to defending Young and Wall. If we actually get another big scoring forward, I don't know that they'd have the horses to shut everyone down. We could beat them. Likewise, the we can give the Celtics everything they can handle because they have a hard time matching our speed and athleticism. Rondo isn't enough of an offensive threat to truly tax Wall and it takes everything Rondo has to defend him. If Seraphin and Booker continue to develop, in a couple of years we'll be able to match them in saltiness. Those two power teams are going to have trouble with us in a couple of seasons.

The only problem is the damned Hawks, Magic, and Bulls. The Bulls can go stride for stride with us at just about every position since they're built almost identically (but with a lot more talent). Get us Sullinger though and we'll have our own Boozer (only much younger). The Magic are just too big and too athletic in the frontcourt for us to handle right now. Howard scores and rebounds at will and Javale will probably always struggle with him. Maybe one day Seraphin can develop into an effective defensive presence down low, I don't know what we're going to do to stop Howard. The Hawks pose all sorts of matchup problems for us too because we don't really have an answer to Josh Howard nor Al Horford. Our best hope is that they never find a PG and eventually decide to dismantle their core to shake things up.

The Knicks would be dangerous if they got Dwight Howard. They wouldn't scare me as much if they got Paul because a Wall-Paul matchup will favor us and Javale can actually out-rebound Stoudemire. But if the cap ends up being much higher than we expected and Howard leaves for New York, that would suck. The Nets wouldn't bother me as much. I think Wall can handle Deron Williams and Javale can defend Brook Lopez. If they added a third piece though, they might become problematic. Detroit, Toronto, Cleveland, and Charlotte all look like they're in worse shape than we are. Eventually, we'll be able to beat Milwaukee regularly. Indiana and Philly are tough draws though. We tend to match up poorly against them for some reason.

When you look around the conference, our future seems bright if we get another key piece from this year's lottery. The West will still be a bear and probably kick our butts most of the time, but we'll eventually be able to hold our own in this conference and make it to the playoffs. This year has been long and frustrating, but aside from a few brief and isolated moments of despair, I've felt optimistic the whole time. Things are going to get better and we'll start peaking at a point where the other power teams in the East are on the downslope of their window.

[Mr. Sinister]

Nobody asked you for your opinion Heat fan.

Well that's too bad, because I'm giving it anyway, and you will take it and like it.

[StillUnknown]

When you look around the conference, our future seems bright if we get another key piece from this year's lottery. The West will still be a bear and probably kick our butts most of the time, but we'll eventually be able to hold our own in this conference and make it to the playoffs. This year has been long and frustrating, but aside from a few brief and isolated moments of despair, I've felt optimistic the whole time. Things are going to get better and we'll start peaking at a point where the other power teams in the East are on the downslope of their window.

I wish I shared your optimism on McGee. I really want to see him reach close to his potential, but my gut is telling me he won't be that much better than he already is

on a sidenote, I think instrumental in the rebuild is selecting the right kind of coach to grow with this team.

two questions, who is most likely to replace Flip and who do you want to replace Flip?

[No Excuses]

Honestly, I think Nick Young and Javale McGee still have some of that Agent Zero on them. Once they're able to completely free themselves from that influence they'll be fine.

And I know some people will disagree vehemently with me on this, but thank God we traded him before Wall fell under the spell.

I don't think the Agent 0 spell would have effected Wall. Gil had mentally checked before the season even got here.

Young and McGee were around when Gilbertology was in full swing. Even though I think Young learned well from Gilbert. Gilbert was a workaholic and Young seems to have learned quite a bit on the offensive end from him. Gilbert gave him a lot of confidence as well. I think everyone but Gilbert had given up on Nick coming into this year.

I really hope we can retain Nick Young for $5M or close per year. His shot is just too deadly.

[stevemcqueen1]

I wish I shared your optimism on McGee. I really want to see him reach close to his potential, but my gut is telling me he won't be that much better than he already is

on a sidenote, I think instrumental in the rebuild is selecting the right kind of coach to grow with this team.

two questions, who is most likely to replace Flip and who do you want to replace Flip?

I don't really know enough about coaching candidates to have an opinion. I don't think Flip is the man for this job though. He needs a veteran team to work with, not a bunch of knuckleheaded 22 and 23 year olds. I just don't think he's got the patience to manage this group with an even hand like they need.

But I also don't think Flip is a disaster either. This season was ****ed from the beginning and we knew that going in. So the team losing shouldn't decide whether he stays or goes after this season. What will be my barometer of success is if he continues to effectively develop Wall/McGee/Seraphin/Booker/Young. That's really all that matters at this point.

Even if McGee never gets any better than he is right now, he's still a good starting center. He's efficient and has unique above the rim ability and has a PER in the 16s, which is better than what a lot of teams get at the position.

But McGee is also 23 and came into the game notoriously raw. He's already made big strides in his first season as a starter and will certainly continue to do so. Josh Smith was another super athletic but super raw big that didn't start to thrive until he had about 150-200 starts under his belt. The Hawks would be short a really good player if they had given up on him too early. Once McGee gets consistent enough to start commanding 30 minutes or more per game, his performances will shine. He'll put up bigger numbers and assert himself as one of the better centers in the East.

[No Excuses]

I agree that McGee is already pretty decent but big men are over valued in this league. Say it's time for free agency and McGee is about to hit the market. I guarantee some team will want to pay him a decent chunk of money for him.

The question we have to ask is do we want to invest on him, or let him walk and try to get someone better? If we want better production from the C spot, why not trade him while his value is at its peak?

[stevemcqueen1]

It'll be hard to find someone better though. It would also suck to have a minimal return on McGee after having spent all that time developing him. I'd rather stay the course with him than start over at the position and go from it being a position of minor strength to one of huge need.

That could damage our ability to keep Wall.

Plus I still think there is a lot of upside left to McGee's game.

---------- Post added February-26th-2011 at 02:20 PM ----------

When are we going to change the team name? Wizards just leaves me feeling unattached. It'd be like if the Redskins changed their name to the Accountants or something.

I want us to go back to the Bullets now so we can hear an endless stream of puns every time Wall runs coast to coast.