Washington Wizards team preview

the wiz are home to the third most LB player and two ultratalented forwards gifted both at scoring and rebounding the basketball. however, they have around three people on the entire roster able to play good defense. off the top of my head: deshawn stephenson, caron butler, and maybe maybe etan thomas or brendan haywood depending on whether or not they ate their wheaties.

that lack of defense is the number one thing holding them back from postseason glory, even though their effortless approach to that half of the game could be construed as part of their larger design. less energy spent on defense by gil & co. means more time for them to run the "princeton offense." for the record, i don't care if eddie jordan is supposedly the grand wizard of the princeton offense, but what the wiz do in game has almost no relation to the cavalcade of backdoor passes that is the *true* princeton offense.

despite their poor defense, the wizards can count on a solid 70 ppg from their core of zero, caron, and 'twan. that dependence on three main scorers cost them pretty dearly last season when both gil and caron butler went out with injuries that forced twan into becoming a one man team. despite the fact that he was literally their only threat on offense, he still managed to get buckets against a supposedly excellent defensive cavs team. just goes to show you. something, but i'm not entirely sure what. even with hibachi and caron butler sidelined for much of the second half of the season, the wiz still only finished three games behind miami. if the big three can stay healthy for the entire season, there's no doubt that they will seal the southeast division crown and end miami's streak for a good few years or so.

awesome player: besides gil is definitely andray blatche. he has had legal and personal troubles in the past but he could have a breakout campaign if he focuses on basketball. 6'11" small forwards don't come along every day, especially young ones with dripping potential. some say he's the SF version of andrew bynum. some being me. i say that. and it's true. he'll be good some day, perhaps in the mold of gerald wallace, when he gets a consistent dose of playing time from a team committed to seeing how he fares if he's tossed out into the big wide world.

key: working voodoo magic to keep caron, gilbert, and antwan healthy for the entire season.

realistically they are not title contenders, but with enough craziness out east who knows? they could represent their conference in the finals come june.

prediction: 45-37, first in southeast division

CRISTAL ANNIVERSARY

because traditional anniversary gifts only go up to 60 years, i had to create my own special gift to give all ten of you loyal readers. guess what? IT'S A BLOG POST!

you can drop the balloons now.

for the 100th post spectacular (yes there are 100 according to blogger, and no i have not done the research myself) i had it in my head to do a kind of greatest hits, in which i would pull top-flight and also really awful quotes and predictions from the previous 99 posts (which admittedly include one post that's entirely video and one post that's entirely pictures of chris bosh next to raptors--which also doubles as the only post made by the ethereal pmac.) HOWEVER, that would be a lot of work, and something that i want somebody else to do for me. so: anyone that wants to dig through the lamar blogom back catalogue and find some gems and disasters is welcome to do so. and i will post your findings giving you full or no credit.

also, as we reach the 100th post i'd like to place a call out for tee designs. if you have any skill at all with drawing things or know somebody that does, drop me a line of some kind and we'll talk.

and as a third item, tomorrow will begin the semi-official countdown to october 30th during which i will profile every single national basketball association team. even the celtics again! rejoice.

the most lamar blogom nba players, with accompanying paragraphs:

10. eddie griffin

now that he's gone he's cemented this spot possibly for posterity. his aura and ability will be missed sorely in the association. i wanted desperately to see him succeed at basketball. to see eddie griffin rollicking down the lane on a steve nash- or jason kidd- or even chris paul-led break would have been a joy to see, especially considering that in doing so he would have beaten a lifetime of serious psychological problems. yeah, i know he was on the nets. and i wish he was on my hometown lakers so i could have insane fights with the people bashing him which would result in me never talking to the troubled eddie griffin bashers.

9. leandro barbosa

he is a one-stop shop for all your scoring needs. blessed with a deadly outside shot and intense quickness, he is one of my favorite players to watch--provided he's not playing against the hometown lakers. whenever anything happens and he is on the court, he can affect the game just with his speed. if there is a defensive rebound, you can count on him being the first one down the floor with his vaguely hunched-over gait. the way he scores, in such a naturalistic way based ONLY on his speed and shooting ability as opposed to the virtuosity of kobe bean or melo anthony or agent zero is a pretty sight to behold. even though he can't make the suns run like his white running mate can, he can score in bunches. (except when kobe is locking him down.)

8. stephon marbury

WELL he didn't used to be one of the most lamar blogom players. but as has probably been said in countless teen movies: one summer can definitely change everything. let me take that bacl; i have written one fairly angry post defending him in the wake of some neophytes attending a summer camp at northwestern bashing him. but when he starts doing borderline crazy interviews during which he almost answers his cell phone, he has a spot on my list. combine that with $15 shoes THAT HE WEARS ON THE COURT and a newfound win-or-die attitude: "i shoot to win because i shoot to win," that should result in at least a 45-win team when combined with z-bo and some other offensive threats. i look forward to how his newfound freewheeling attitude will translate to the court. will he become the best pg in the nba, like he once claimed?

7. josh smith

j-smoove is seriously awesome. he has bounce for literally days. athleticism for weeks. and also he's really cool to play with in nba 2k7. if you think that doesn't translate into somebody being more lamar blogom, you just don't know lamar blogom. he's really really really hard to see play because let's face it: the hawks just are not on national tv. and also he plays the lakers maybe twice per year so it's not like he's even on local tv. so my pretty much only exposure to j-smoove is through the xbox 360. but he's so awesome to play with in video form that i have a perhaps unhealthily high idea of his abilities. also: he was the starting pf on the first lamar blogom team. well, the only lamar blogom team. so there's that.

6. dwight howard

now if you thought j-smoove had bounce, you have not seen this manchild in action. he can jump more than any 7-footer that i have seen play live basketball, with the possibly exception of ryan hollins who can apparently dunk off of two feet from the damn free throw line. there's sometime rawly appealing about his game. he does not have a wee bit of polish. literally if he was any skinnier he would be a total bust along the lines of stromile swift. shit, he might be the utopian vision of what stro swift could have been with like 100 extra pounds of pure horse muscle. i think that i'm actually going to hate him once he acquires some subtlety to the way he plays basketball. or maybe it could be a kind of fatherly affection; i've seen my little baby all growed up and now he's dominating fools both with his power and with his technique.

5. baron davis

there is literally nothing on the basketball court that he cannot do. he can score it inside and out, dunk on andrei kirilenko with a vengeance that leaves beatrix kiddo looking like a limp-wristed teenybopper fawning over john mayer. his bullet-fedora'd championing of the high octane warriors through the playoff made him a personal hero of mine and a large percentage of nba fans. i also love him for his limitations. his physical health is in constant doubt every time he puts sneaker to hardwood. shit, he couldn't even practice during the playoff run. but when he's on the court and not crippling himself with a propensity for 3 chucking he can ball, straight up and down. even if he's not really a pure point, he can score among the best of them and also handle a team fairly competently. nellieball freaks unite.

4. steve nash

goddamn. even though i resent him every time he plays against the lakers, which is quite a lot, he is a maestro on the basketball court. to this day, one of my favorite performances of all time is his absolute dismantling of the cavs on national television. literally every time he ran down the court--no longer brushing his traditional bangs out of his eyes--something fairly magical was about to happen. whether he would shake amare free for a sickening, back breaking dunk or finding matrix in the corner for a wide-open 3, he did so with an artistic flair. he has a freewheeling style with no fear of turning over the rock and so makes passes that don't even seem remotely logical when they are first generated. however, upon their completion, they are some of the most beautiful things you will see on the basketball court.

3. gilbert AgentZero arenas

agent zero is stephon marbury and baron davis combined and taken to dizzying heights. everything that i've said about them applies doubly to the erstwhile hibachi. he makes outlandish predictions, storms away from game winning shots midflight scowling at the opposing bench, and takes money from his teammates in perhaps unreasonable shooting contests. even during a "serious" event like the 3-point shootout, he's still playing the clown and shooting threes with one damn hand. he's a gifted scorer that can even kind of distribute the rock on occasion if he wants to as evidenced by his teammates' scoring averages. he's probably the second best scorer in the league behind the second player on the list:

2. kobe bean bryant

what can i say about kobe that hasn't already been said about zeus? he's a god among men, can throw lightning bolts, and has a history of troubling sexual behavior. zeus turned himself into a goose, kobe banged a white girl in a colorado hotel. he was the subject of the first ever lamar blogom post, which actually came before the official inception of lamar blogom. in essence, he could be described as responsible for the creation of this blog. i long for the day when he can be paired with a player that will accentuate his talents and bring him once again to the glory that is the larry o'brien trophy. he might never reach those hallowed halls again, but lord willin by the time he retires he will have at least 2 mvps, a few more finals appearances, and the recognition of everyone as one of the top 3 most gifted scorers ever to play basketball.

1. lamar odom

well, he's the namesake. so maybe he should be disqualified. but that's not how i roll. he literally embodies everything about this blog. he is multitalented: he can score it, pass it, rebound it, and--judging by his earlier career--smoke it too. i love him because he has never been on a true winner. i love him because he might never have that opportunity. and i love him because he has the potential to be a truly good player. he was on pace to become an all-star in the incredibly crowded western conference forward rotation. then he messed up his shoulder and the lakers season went into the toilet. people forget this, but he could have made the lakers into a semi-special team could he and every other injured player stayed healthy. there's always next season.

bonus feature: chocolate thunder

lamar blogom wonders...

why is it that none of the teams i like can defend a goddamn pick and roll?

even as team usa rolls over mexico in a beating about 1/2 as dominant as expected, they display a frustrating--and continuing--weakness for one of the simplest and yet almost (apparently) impossible plays to guard: the pick and the roll. one would think that with a team full of hyperathletic strong men capable of killing with a stare alone that preventing a team composed of exactly 0 nba players (the notorious eduardo najera sat this one out) from running basically wild with a simple play would be easy.

not so apparently. it's fine that they coasted after a fairly obscene first quarter (92% on 2-pointers) but come ON. no way in any form of afterlife should mexico be able to drop 3 digits on the best american team in recent memory. it's imperative (and when i say this i mean that i would like it to happen since--come on--team usa is going to continue to strangle the competition up to and including the final game and earn a trip to beijing in 2008 which will hopefully result in a gold medal because mike k is not afraid of playing his young, athletic players like larry brown apparently was wayyy back in 2004) that they learn to keep their damn foot on the gas, at least for the first half. the second quarter should have been a time when the bigger, stronger, faster americans stepped on the neck of their mexican adversaries, not allowed themselves to be outscored by the mexicans.

it's a minor complaint. but minor complaints like leaving shooters open, inability to defend the pick and roll, and the continuing absence of any type of decent post-up game could come back to haunt america in the future.

p.s. i know that right now team usa doesn't really need a great post game from any of its players. but right now they're playing against street trash compared to the top-flight competition they'll get at the olympic level. no way will spain or france or greece be beaten without a reliable inside american scoring threat. yes, i realize that kobe is never cold in the sense that other players are cold. yes, i realize that they have carmelo and lebron should kobe break himself. and yes, i realize that there are more shooters on this team than there are coaches (almost.) but none of that will matter when they face a solid defensive team willing to chase them off the 3-point line and into some more difficult shots. either horseboy or STAT will have to step up and provide an inside game that isn't just fast-break bangtime if the americans want to win gold in beijing.

p.p.s. this is what eduardo najera would have looked like had he played against the americans. slightly different, but with the same idea.

eddie griffin rest in peace

the man who was once caught watching porno whilst driving has now endured a second, much more serious incident involving a car. griffin, 25, was killed last week when his car and a train collided.
griffin was one of the great enigmas of the league. extremely athletic, with a good deal of length (not in a gay way, not that there's anything wrong with that,) and a liquid outside jumper. he never put his great physical gifts, which include a perternatural ability to block shots and rebound like the lanky nubian that he could very well be. he's one of the select few nba players that look just like egyptian princes because of their facial hair. gerald wallace is another person to share this distinction.
however, we will never get to see his potential fulfilled. with the right coach he could have become a pretty special talent. big guys with an outside shot and the ability and commitment to do the dirty work down low do not come around that often. my only wish is that he had found himself in a position to succeed, with a top-flight nba coach and a lot of playing time to call his own.

we got keys coming from minnesota (?!)

well it finally happened. the big ticket winds up in the home of the big dig, the hick from french lick, and the sports guy. he perhaps joins the situation of his destiny.
unlike in minny, he doesn't have to score every possession, isn't expected to have the offense run through him, and isn't the ONLY crunch time option. that's why this *could* (and those are some HUGE asterisks on that word) be the best situation for him to be in. i think he would have been better served going to the lakers, but you could then accuse me of homerism so...
the case for the lakers goes: kg is the best beta dog in the history of the lig. he's a phenomenal rebounder, low post defender, etc etc. kobe meanwhile is the definition of an alpha dog. like kg, kobe wants and needs and lives to stomp on the neck of his opponents. however, unlike kg he has the capacity to do so solely with his scoring prowess. if you doubt that shit for a second, watch some tape of his 65-point performance against the blazers trail. both kobe and garnett bring serious intensity to the table, but kobe is garnett's polar opposite on the basketball court. he doesn't even have to smell the key to score, while garnett despite his midrange prowess is most effective when tied to it.
ray ray and prince paul could provide a similar counterpoint to kg's effectiveness. COULD being the operative word, just as i indicated before. but unlike kobe they are no longer unstoppable scorers that strike fear into the opposing team's heart by merely slipping on a uniform. ray still has a sweet outside jumper that even double ankle surgery shouldn't be able to tarnish. pierce also has a semi-nice jumper AND has shown flashes of being able to get into the lane at will. all three would climb through pig innards covered in feces for a shot at a title, and they just might have to unless the celts can grab up a quality pg on the cheap. rajon rondo is meh just due to lack of shooting and passing and general experience but if they got their hands on even a brevin knight type they could be guaranteed a spot in the finals. whether or not they get bent over the scorers table is another matter entirely.

final prediction: 55-37