Writing the Pine

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PROJECTED RECORD: 45-37
MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER: Gilbert Arenas
PLAYER TO WATCH: JaVale McGee
STRENGTHS: Scoring, Depth, Coaching
WEAKNESSES: Defense

This year’s Wizards look to be a totally different team from the one we’ve seen the last few years. Like the Wizards of 2006-2007 this team should be an effective offensive squad, thanks to the contributions of its Big Three – Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison. However, it looks like they may start the season without Antawn Jamison after he suffered a shoulder injury during the preseason. In any case, once their Big Three are back together and healthy, this team looks to do some damage in the East.

The news coming out of the Wizards camp is that Gilbert Arenas is unhappy with how the team handled his injury, but after a summer with Tim Grover, who was responsible for Dwyane Wade’s resurgence last season, he looks to be his old explosive self again (check out the videos). When healthy, Agent Zero was one of the toughest players in the league to guard. He dropped a franchise record 60 points on the Lakers with 16 of those points coming in OT with Kobe on him like white on rice. The only knocks on his game are that he doesn’t really create opportunities for his teammates and his sub par defense. When it comes to excitement and late game heroics, Gilbert Arenas is in the company of the NBA elite like Melo, Kobe, LeBron, and Wade. In any case, the Big Three’s return should be worth at least a 20-win improvement over last year, but if they have higher aspirations, the responsibility lies squarely on Agent Zero’s shoulders. He has shown that he can carry them through the regular season, but come playoff time the Wizards’ role players tend to suck it up so Arenas will have to be a dominant force for them to advance.

This year the Wizards have done a great job in adding talent and depth to their roster. The addition of Oberto is notable as he is essentially a less annoying Anderson Varejao. This gives the Wizards a decent interior defender and scorer off the bench, which Etan Thomas and Darius Songalia combined were only able to provide in small spurts. Their depth chart will probably look something like this:

Position       STARTER                                        BENCH
PG          Gilbert Arenas                  Randy Foye             Javaris Crittenton
SG          DeShawn Stevenson       Mike James              Nick Young
SF           Caron Butler                     Mike Miller                Dominic McGuire
PF           Antawn Jamison              JaVale McGee         Andray Blatche
C            Brendan Haywood            Fabricio Oberto       Paul Davis

Taking a look at the bench, they should be able to score pretty easily against most teams. The bevy of injuries that the Wizards have faced since Arenas went down has been a tremendous boon to the development of the Wizards as a team. Deshawn Stevenson became a more complete player while Nick Young made tremendous strides last season, filling in admirably and putting up some solid scoring performances. Andray Blatche needs to put on some weight but he has shown he has some of the skills to be a capable big man. Randy Foye had some stellar games last season, like his 28 point 16 rebound effort against the Spurs, but also showed a propensity for mediocrity between those flashes, so I am not completely sold on him.

SIDE NOTE: The Timberwolves traded Brandon Roy for Randy Foye on draft day. Kevin McHale deserves almost as much credit as Kevin Pritchard does for bringing Portland back to prominence. Imagine what the Blazers would be like if they had Foye instead of Roy right now. Imagine the Timberwolves with Roy – maybe KG doesn’t leave Minnesota and Boston doesn’t win a championship? I also read that Foye has a rare condition, situs inversus where his internal organs are flipped around like a mirror image of a normal person’s. It should have no bearing on his performance so maybe he’s just not very good. But who knows maybe he can turn it around this year.

As for Mike James… I don’t like him at all. Unless he is a featured star like he was in Toronto, he just floats around chucking shots up whenever he can. Flip Saunders will have to find playing time for all of these guys. If he’s smart, he’ll try to get Grunfeld to trade Mike James to free up time for some of the youngsters who will play hard. Arenas, Butler, and Jamison figure to play at least 35 minutes each game. Foye and Miller will most likely split time at the guard spot, but that leaves very few minutes for Nick Young, if any. In any case, their depth looks to be one of their greatest strengths as just last year, Mike Miller and Randy Foye were starters.

JaVale McGee is an important player to keep an eye on. In his rookie campaign he averaged 1.0 block and 3.9 rebounds in 15 minutes of action. Extrapolating stats from such a small sample is hardly predictive of actual output (otherwise Renaldo Balkman could be an All-Star), but when you watch JaVale play it doesn’t seem like a stretch for him to average 10 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks off the bench. During summer league games he impressed everyone with his defense, athleticism, ability to run the floor, and ability to finish around the hoop. He reminded me of a less athletic, less skilled version of Anthony Randolph. That’s a compliment by the way. Although the competition in the summer league is vastly inferior to what he’ll be facing in the regular season, I liked what I saw and I predict a solid year out of him. I can envision him having a similar impact to what Randolph does off the bench for the Warriors.

The Wizards have traditionally run the Princeton Offense like the Sacramento Kings did when they had Chris Webber in his prime. In the past few years without Arenas their passing game seemed to run more fluidly. I think Arenas took that to heart and if you saw his short-lived comeback last season, he played a very effective team game. Don’t be surprised if Arenas averages something like 24 points and 8 dimes. Flip Saunders is great at drawing up plays to get his guys shots where they want it so we should see actually see an improvement in their offensive efficiency. However, it seems like defense is and always will be an afterthought in D.C. They focus too much on scoring and Flip Saunders certainly won’t be the coach to instill defensive intensity in this team. Since the arrival of Jamison, with the exception of the 2006-2007 season, each season the Wizards have averaged fewer points than their opponents and their defensive rating as per basketball-reference.com is always ranked at least 9 spots lower than their offensive rating. Perhaps the most interesting offseason acquisition was the hiring of Sam Cassell as an assistant coach.

During his last year in Boston every announcer had to make some mention of how well “Sam I Am” knew the game and how he’d be a great coach. I’d like to see what he brings to the Wizards other than his beautiful face. As a player, he had a knack for hitting big shots, but seeing as how Arenas has already proven himself in that area, I’d like to see him impart some game management skills to Arenas. If Cassell can bring some of that motivation to play team defense over from Boston to the Wizards, they might be able compete with the big boys of the East, but that is a tall order. I expect the Wizards to return to their former status as a perennial playoff team, but seeing as how all the Eastern powerhouses improved and play excellent defense, it would be a shock if they get any farther than the Conference Semi-Finals.