I think Young is the best 2 we have, given my presumptions: (1) he has improved his D, (2) Butler is not driving against opposing 2′s and opposing 2′s are able to get around him, and (3) Stevenson won’t improve on last year, and may not get back to that level. Those of you who have been watching all the games may disagree with these presumptions. I’d like to hear whether you do. I think Young is a real offensive talent. His FG, 3pt and FT percentages are 46, 34, & 86. He seems to be able to create his shot whenever he wants and it seemed to me, in the little I’ve seen of him this year, that he’s looking for his teammates a little more. However, if he hasn’t improved his D, and won’t, we have a real problem. Can any coach create an adequate defense when four of our starters (Young and the big 3) don’t work at it much? Opinions anyone?

Obviously, he can be great from time to time — but overall what is there about his play over this season that would lead you to predict that, again overall, he’d be a productive starter?

Nick has played in all 52 games so far this season. In how many of those games has he been productive? Off the top of my head, the number is 8 — maybe 9. One out of every 6 games. You are going to start him?

An average SF gets .8 steals in 27 minutes; Dominic got us 2 steals. Would you call that average, worse than average or better than average?

An average SF turns it over 1.5 times in 27 minutes. Dominic didn’t turn it over at all. Bad? Average? Better than average?

Last night, Dominic even shot a better adjusted FG % than an average SF!!

What this amounts to is that the only thing missing is scoring. Unless someone is scoring it doesn’t seem to matter to you whether he is rebounding, stealing, etc. I guess that is why Bill Russell was such a mediocre player — or would be looked at the way you are looking at Dominic.

But the other things a guy does *do* matter. They contribute to basketball success; they help teams amass the numbers that make the final number — holding the other team to fewer points than you score, getting a win.

I think the trade deadline is Monday. I presume EG is talking to several teams. We may be projecting next year differently come Tuesday.

Butler, however, gets more assists per 48 minutes than anyone except Dixon and James. In his case I think the problem is that the coaching staff has not gotten the individuals to play as a team – Butler or anyone else.

I imagine that next year Young will start and Butler will be back to playing SF and McGuire will be back to a backup roll.

“Last night he was 0-1 from the floor and had 2 rebounds in 24:38. ” – Getabig

Tom M, If they are squirrely stats, the Washington Post is wrong. I believe that the operative words in what I wrote was LAST night and I posted 10:15, February 11.

Furthermore, I don’t think that 7 points with 7 rebounds and 2 steals for a starting NBA forward from the February 12th game is anything to write home about either.

My point is NOT to be critical of Dominic. As I’ve said frequently, I like his energy, desire and potential. I just don’t like the way he is utilized. He is not starting forward caliber on an NBA team. When he is in the game, especially in the first quarter, the opposition forgets about him and double-teams our scorers. Could this be a reason why we start every game in the hole?

A team scores some percentage of the time it has the ball. If you only get the ball after the other team scores, obviously you lose every single game. Rebounds (and steals, which are the equivalent of rebounds in value) are enormously important (and turnovers, obviously, important in the negative sense). That’s where the “net possessions” stat comes from (rebounds plus steals minus turnovers).

Last night, the Wizards had 29 net possessions in their 240 minutes of play. In 26:53 of those minutes, Dominic had 9 of those net possessions.