Yourrrrrrrr Washington Wizards - January 6, 2012

Happy New Year! When I last wrote, our favorite band of misfits had yet to win a game in the NBA season. Where are we a week later????? Oh.

We did get a couple of games where there was effort.  Still, two complete no-shows, two competitive losses, and one players-only meeting later, the Wizards stand at 0-7.  But like JaVale said earlier this week, "U lookin at the glass 99% empty! What about it being 1% full!" My observations to this point:

Seven feet of excuses. I didn't really get out my frustrations with Andray Blatche and his Twitter rant last week. He complained that he's not getting the ball in the post enough. That irked me for a number of reasons, but the biggest is that the tweet seems to continue a trend of cop outs and excuses. Why can't he adjust positioning so that he is in the post more when he's ready to receive the ball?  If he gets the ball out of the paint, why can't he just back his way down there?  Isn't he pretty much a face-up player?  What about rebounding?  What about defense? What about conditioning? What frustrates everyone so much about Blatche is that you can see that he has talent, but you can't help but think that he'll never mentally be there.  Maybe that's just in this organization, where losing and dysfunction happens. 

Rashard Lewis. If this wasn't clear last week, I don't understand why Rashard Lewis is getting minutes. He's done, man. I mean done. I'm running out of ways to play devil's advocate in rationalizing why he starts. I'm not going to even dignify the contract rationale, although that could very well be the reason.  Veteran leadership. C'mon. If he was displaying so much leadership, why did Mo Evans have to call the players-only meeting?  Frontcourt perimeter scoring. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: this ain't Rashard Lewis from the 2009 Playoffs. This is the post-suspension Rashard Lewis. I'm not accusing him of taking something.  That's not my place, and I'm in no position to speak on it. What I can say is that ever since that suspension to start the 2009-10 season, the guy has been a shell of what he was.  Is that a coincidence? I no longer see evidence of a consistent jumper. He's not a great defender. He's tall, but I don't see a lot of rebounding. I just see a guy keeping a younger, more energetic player(s) on the bench. We've come out lethargic in almost every game so far. and while I'm not blaming that on him, if things need to be shaken up, he needs to be the first guy that needs to be removed from the starting lineup.

Chris Singleton. CHRIS SINGLETON SHOULD BE STARTING! He just provides a spark out there. He has a lot of confidence and obviously has the confidence of the coaching staff, as he's been left on an island against Paul Pierce and Carmelo Anthony in the last week.  Yeah he's been torched a bit, but he's learning.  I don't know that he's the long-term answer at SF, but I like him. He brings energy.  And, in a stat that stunned me, he's brought much better long-range shooting than Lewis.  I know that seven games is a very small sample size, but Singleton is 7-13 from beyond the arc, while Lewis is 4-18.  Again, why are we starting Rashard?  The bigger question is why are we NOT starting Chris?

The Franchise. I had some extreme thoughts about our franchise player the other day, but I'm going to hang on to these thoughts for a while.  I don't know if I'm being irrational or not yet.

The Javalevator. Hey!  I see improvement!  He doesn't seem like a chicken with his head cut off out there.  All we can ask for is that he is trying to get better. I haven't seen any coast-to-coast dribbling exhibitions, and while it's still tough to watch, he has developed a couple of post moves. He's coming on and really starting to show some signs that he can be a part of the NBA's 'Really light-skinned, skinny, athletic, and very active centers" club (See Joakim Noah, Tyson Chandler, Marcus Camby. They're like a really tall Debarge).

The Brass. Same as last week. I think Flip needs to go. And even though I don't think he's been the worst GM ever, really starting to feel like Ernie should go too. My feeling on this isn't as strong as it is for Flip, but there are just too many 'projects' on this team. Stay tuned on this.

The Rest. Nick started hot, but has been chilly lately.  Seems like a funk, though.  I'm not going to kill him for it. Jordan Crawford is already elite at something: shooting too much. Oh, and taking minutes from Shelvin Mack. Booker T doesn't strike me as ever being a long-term starter, but there should at least be a threat to Blatche there. You see signs on occasion, but I don't think Seraphin is or ever will be very good.  Ready to see what Jan Vesely can do!