Back From Vacation
Hey everyone, it is great to be back from a nice long week out of the office. A pretty interesting week in the world of professional basketball. Here were the three things that caught my eye over the last week.
The biggest news came down in Texas with the Rockets acquisition of Ron Artest. It should be interesting to see what will happen to that teams’ chemistry, but their is no question when he wants to be, Ron Artest is one of the best defenders in the league and an All-Star.
The player exodus to Europe continues with Carlos Arroyo heading to Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Arroyo’s best performances have occurred in the international game with his biggest achievement coming when he led Puerto Rico to an upset win over the USA. So it comes with little surprise that he heads overseas to one of the power houses of the Euroleague.
Speaking of Team USA, the United States has rolled through its opponents thus far in dominating fashion. The wins have also come against a few top flight countries as both Lithuania and Russia are favorites to medal. However, with these big wins the USA is setting the expectation bar higher, and there is no question that a loss at any point in the tournament will most likely be considered a major disappointment to many fans.
Posted: August 4th, 2008 under Wizards.
Comments
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 4, 2008 at 10:36 AM
I hate labeling a team favorites when they haven’t gotten out of the first round in recent memory (in fact T-Mac has never gotten out of the first round) but that team should be VERY interesting with Ron Artest.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 4, 2008 at 2:02 PM
Okay, SportsWiz, I want you to remember please that this was my prediction: Ron Artest will not improve the Houston Rockets one bit. We’ll see whether I’m right or wrong in some months.
Arroyo is a pretty good player; it’s very interesting to watch what’s happening now that the dollar is worth so much less than it used to be, while at the same time a global basketball market develops.
This seems like sort of a weird off-season — there are a number of guys who are not getting anything like the offers they thought they’d get; does it seem that way to you? Do you have any thoughts about whether we might pick up a backup wing player? Or, whom you like out there — if anyone.
Welcome back!
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 4, 2008 at 2:16 PM
Thanks Tom. I will remember the comment (or should i make a spreadsheet starting today and continue it for the whole year 
).
Any time a foreign player leaves the NBA that is not a top tier player it doesn’t surprise me. The money is good and a player like Arroyo obviously takes advantage of the international rules especially the shortened three point line.
I think the off-season is semi-normal. most teams dont have a ton of money so there hasn’t been a lot of money to give to players which means most players dont have that many options (I still think thats the biggest reason why restricted free agents are looking overseas). If you look deng got the contract he wanted same with Okafor, biedrins and ellis got big deals.
Most of the big names in this years free agent class are restricted and therefore teams can wait a little while to make their best offer and other teams aren’t goin to make an offer that they know the original team will match.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 4, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Yeah, you are right.
Any thoughts on potential changes to our roster? I’m thinking there has to be *some* level of concern over Nick’s SL performance, although really nothing was much changed except that his shot wasn’t falling. That in itself is not much of a concern.
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 4, 2008 at 5:23 PM
I would say the entire front office likes Nick Young and his game a lot. While I’m sure they weren’t happy with his results in summer league i doubt there is much concern upstairs.
Comment from wizskinz00
Time August 4, 2008 at 5:36 PM
Does anybody know when NBA will release 2008 -2009 schedules? somehow I though it was today.
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 4, 2008 at 5:46 PM
wizskinz it should be sometime this week.
Comment from neal
Time August 4, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Welcome back SportzWiz. And I apologize for calling you a slacker.
Who do you think is a good possibility if the Wiz sign a veteran SG in case Young doesn’t pan out?
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 4, 2008 at 10:40 PM
Welcome back SportzWiz. I hope everything went well Mr. Homeowner
My question is very similar to Tom and Neal’s. We have a roster spot left. Any chance the front office is considering a fairly inexpensive FA 2/3 backup? Just in case.
If Houston has any team chemistry Artest can’t possibly do it any good. He is a great player (like you said SW .. when he wants to be). I just hope for Houston’s sake he isn’t thinking about producing his next cd when they need him to play defense.
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 5, 2008 at 9:56 AM
Before the off-season I said I would be surprised to have 15 players and for a while i thought they would have 15 after the Dee brown signing and now I’m back at my original belief that this team will head into the season with 14 guys.
Now dont get me wrong there could be a trade or the Wizards could sign a 15th player. However, from everything Ernie has said it sounds like he is pretty happy with what he has going into the season.
Now if the Wizards did sign a 15th guy here’s a couple people that could maybe fit that backup swing man position.
Michael Finley – it’s been brought up by a lot of people on this board that he’s still available. I personally don’t see it happening but if it did you would be getting a veteran that can come off and play 10-15 minutes per game and would be a good insurance policy in case of injury.
Quinton Ross – Here’s a name I brought up right when free agency began. Ross is an excellent swingman defender but doesn’t bring too much offensive game. The reason I dont see the Wizards signing Ross is they probably would rather give those minutes to Dom.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 12:57 PM
Agreed about Ross; Finley would be a great insurance policy, though. Might even be helpful to Nick, as he has a great catch-and-shoot game, something Nick could learn from. And it would just be fun to have a terrific player like that end his career with us.
I hope Dom earns *a lot* of minutes!
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 5, 2008 at 2:19 PM
I think he will. Dom is just such a hard worker and part of the problem as a rookie is not knowing when you are going ot get minutes. You can have several off days in a row and then boom your playing so its very tough to prepare for. At the same time I thought Dom didnt let that hamper his game too much. When he came in he got boards and played D. I still think his best game was against New Orleans when he got multiple deflections and gave Chris paul fits late in the game that DShawn hit the game winner.
I think the offense will come and I think he’ll definitely see more burn this season.
I also believe we will get a much better indication of what Nick can do when the season begins. I really dont put too much stock into a few summer league games and I’m really interested to see how he looks at training camp and in the preseason
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Agreed on all counts. Dom got much better as the season went along and he understood the schemes and where he was supposed to be on the court.
The problem w/ Nick is if management *really does* “like his game.” He needs to understand just how much work there is for him to do. You know, the higher your ceiling, the more work you have to do to get there. The staff should be *riding* him.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 2:33 PM
I already posted this in the “Kwame” item — but I don’t want folks to miss it!
Gilbert thinks this is Kwame’s year.
What do you guys think?
Comment from rgz
Time August 5, 2008 at 2:57 PM
Kwame certainly has the size and has defensive skills, so he has potential for a good long NBA career. As Gilbert pointed out, he’s just 26 years old.
In the past, his #1 pick probably didn’t help his attitude much. He certainly wasn’t taking any gruff or guidance from Gilbert who is the same age and was “just a second round draft pick” during their time together on the Wiz.
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 5, 2008 at 3:07 PM
expectations will be VERY low in Detroit for him and sometimes that turns into a good thing
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 5:23 PM
Could be — but they *are* paying the guy $4m/year and he has the 2d year option. It’s no veteran’s minimum deal.
Not that that’s a lot by NBA standards. What do you think Olympiakos would have paid him?
Comment from SportzWiz
Time August 5, 2008 at 5:41 PM
Well supposedly olympiakos is going to offer lebron a one-year 40 million dollar deal when he’s a free agent. So i would say they would’ve offered Kwame 6 million euros per year and that is a 100% guess .
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 6:07 PM
I keep asking — what about this blog? How much for us to do it in Greece. Pou einai to leoforio sto Athene? (that means ‘where do i catch the bus for athens’: it’s all the Greek I know).
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 5, 2008 at 8:36 PM
LOL… I hope at the time you “wanted” to go to Athens
Interesting. 40mil for one year. I wonder if he would consider it? He would almost be crazy not to unless he doesn’t like feta cheese or something.
Comment from Tom Mandel
Time August 5, 2008 at 9:06 PM
I can easily imagine him doing it for a year.
Comment from GrifonRacing
Time August 5, 2008 at 11:16 PM
WOW… would that screw up a lot of teams (NY lol) plans to get him. Very Interesting!
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Comment from jmpalomo
Time August 4, 2008 at 10:32 AM
To me, the rockets become the co-favorites with the Lakers (assuming Andrew Bynum comes back 100%).
I thought the rockets were going to come hard for Antawn Jamison when he was available.
A third great player is going to make the rockets an extremely tough team to beat.