Wizards Insider

Morning brew

Another day, another close loss for the Washington Wizards. Michael Lee was on hand to see Raymond Felton make a turnaround jumper with 1.9 seconds remaining to give the Wizards a 94-92 loss in Charlotte last night. Lee wonders if it would make much difference if the Wizards had won more of the close games they have lost this season.

Here is Bullets Forever's briefing on last night's game. And Truth About It's Kyle Weidie indulges in a little self-reflection.

Washington's all-star break has begun, and once again the team was unable to return to the D.C. area -- this time because of blizzard warnings.

On the rumor front, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports says: "The Houston Rockets are in the discussion stages of a complicated, three-team trade that would send Tracy McGrady to the New York Knicks. ... The centerpieces of the trade would include the Washington Wizards shipping forward Caron Butler and center Brendan Haywood to the Rockets."

Around the League ...

There were 11 games last night. Highlights are below, courtesy of NBA.com's Daily Zap:

Bobcats 94, Wizards 92

How would you view the Wizards if Antawn Jamison's last-second, underhand scoop shot had dropped in Charlotte on Tuesday night? If Caron Butler's hijacked final play against Dallas had ended with him making that shot over Shawn Marion? If Gilbert Arenas had made those two free throws in overtime against Indiana? Or he had been able to zip around Sacramento's Tyreke Evans instead of losing his dribble?

The Wizards are 6-13 in games decided by five points or fewer, but where would they be if those results were reversed? If the Wizards were 24-26 right now instead of 17-33 heading into the all-star break, would you consider them a resilient bunch that was able to withstand a season filled with tragedy and tumult?

Maybe. But it doesn't matter. The fact remains that as close as the Wizards have come to having a better record, they rarely have been able to produce in the clutch. That is a clear example of what has plagued this team through the first half of the season. They simply cannot close.

"A lot of times what happens, it hurts not having a go-to guy like Gilbert," Coach Flip Saunders said after the Wizards lost 94-92 to Charlotte after Raymond Felton made a fallawy jumper with 1.9 seconds remaining.

The Wizards had Arenas through the first 32 games, but they were just 3-10 in games decided by five or fewer points. Of course, Arenas wasn't fully healthy at the start of the season, which led to so many difficult losses. If you can point to the time of the year where the Wizards' season broke for the worse, it came in early December, when they lost, 109-107, in overtime to Toronto as Arenas missed a point-blank layup. Before that game, the Wizards had won four out of five and improved to 7-10. But that loss set of a string of six consecutive losses by a combined 14 points.

"It's disappointing because those are the games at the end of the season that haunt you," Brendan Haywood said. "We've had 13 close games that we've lost. If you even split those, you're in the playoffs. It's disappointing because these are the games that we need to win, but losing them is keeping us out of contention for the eighth seed in the East."

Add those tough losses to a season that has already seen Abe Pollin die and Arenas suspended for the final 50 games and you have a team that is sorely in need of a break. "It'll be good to get away and just do things with our family and children and come back with a clear head," DeShawn Stevenson said. "A lot people been through a lot of stuff this season. It's going to be a good chance to get away from it."

Since nothing ever goes smoothly for the Wizards, they weren't even able to make it out of Charlotte on Tuesday, with the team plane grounded because of bad weather in the D.C. area. Most of the players and coaches made do and bought tickets to their respective homes out of Charlotte. It was ideal, but it was what they had to do.

The Wizards will have a full week off and won't practice until next Tuesday, then play a game on Wednesday against Minnesota. With 32 games left in the season, Mike Miller said the Wizards can't be concerned about being competitive or close.

"I only care about results," he said. "We got to be ready to play when we come back. We've got a lot of ground to make up."

Wizards (17-32) at Bobcats (24-25)

Wizards starters: Randy Foye, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood

Bobcats: Raymond Felton, Stephen Jackson, Gerald Wallace, Boris Diaw, Nazr Mohammed

Line: Magic by 13

For the second time in as many games, the Wizards were forced to stay behind because of inclement weather in the D.C. area. With another round of the snowpocalypse slated for the mid-Atlantic, the Wizards were forced to spend the night in Charlotte. Although some were inconvenienced is wasn't the same as the situation in Orlando last weekend.

With the all-star break starting the moment their game against the Bobcats ends, several members of the team simply made plans to ditch the team plane and head to their respective destinations from Charlotte on Wednesday morning. The rest of the team hoped to return to Washington by Wednesday night.

"I ain't going back," Coach Flip Saunders said with a laugh before the final word came down about being grounded. "I'm going to Minnesota. I would go back, but I'm not taking a chance."

Saunders and assistants Don Zierden, Randy Wittman, and Ryan Saunders all reserved flights from Charlotte back to Minnesota. Mike James said he's going to see his family in Houston. Nick Young and Mike Miller are on the same flight headed home to Los Angeles. Dominic McGuire is going to San Diego. Andray Blatche planned on driving back with his mother, Andrea Oliver, who lives in nearby Greenville, S.C. DeShawn Stevenson is headed back to Orlando after benefiting from an unexpected mini-vacation to his offseason home because of the postponement of the Hawks game last Saturday.

"That was lovely," said Stevenson, who got to sleep in his own bed in Orlando from Wednesday to Sunday. "That was great."

Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood had no plans of going back to D.C. anyway. They both keep offseason homes in Charlotte. Haywood already considered it a blessing that the Wizards ended the first half of the season in his town.

"I'm home now. I had a nice bed last night," said Jamison, adding that his family flew down from Virginia on Tuesday. "I know some of these other guys are frustrated. It's crazy."

Fabricio Oberto probably came out the loser with the weather. He had promised to take his young daughter to Disney World this weekend. He almost bought a ticket out of Charlotte but he was unable to get his family to fly out of Washington to Orlando.

The Wizards didn't have many complaints about staying in Orlando over the weekend, but they will be forced to pay the price for having their Atlanta game postponed until March 11. The Wizards will have to play back-to-back-to-back games from March 11-13. They will host the Hawks, head to Detroit, then host Orlando, harking back to the lockout year of 1999, when the league crammed a 50-game schedule.

"Welcome to the NBA baby," said Jamison, the only Wizard to play during the lockout season, when he was a rookie. "It's been a while since I was playing like that. It is what it is. We know what he have to do. Mentally, we have to be prepared more than we ever have been. It was already a tough stretch anyway."

After playing three days in a row, the Wizards will have a day off, then play back-to-back games in Utah and Denver, which means they will have to play five games in six days.

"You got to play them. It doesn't matter," Saunders said. The lockout year, I didn't think it was that bad. I don't think there was ever a complaint that much. You have to realize, this is the age of AAU basketball. They play four games in a day, going to McDonalds in between. The difficult thing is going to five different cities, with the travel. Of course, I say that now, but when we have to play them, I'll probably complain about them."

The Wizards played three sets of back-to-back-to-back games in 1999. They went 2-1 in the first set and 1-2 in the next two sets.

No one is certain what the Wizards will do between now and the Feb. 18 trade deadline, but there is a growing sentiment among people around the league that the Wizards don't want to move Antawn Jamison. Caron Butler still seems to be the most likely piece to get traded, with Dallas reportedly ratcheting up its interest. The Mavericks could use a jolt after hitting a 2-4, pre-all-star break funk that included a home loss to Minnesota. Houston and Portland remain in the mix for Butler as well.

But getting back to Jamison. The Wizards have to think long and hard about how they would benefit from keeping Jamison, who will make $28 million over the next two seasons. He will be 35 at the end of his deal and this could be their best chance to move him.

I had a recent conversation with a rival league executive who told me that the Wizards' asking price for Jamison is unreasonable for a 33-year-old player "on a bad contract." The executive told me that whenever a team starts asking for too much, they are usually reluctant about making a deal happen. Barring some mindblowing deal, Jamison should stick around.

Antawn Jamison was fined an undisclosed sum of money for missing the Wizards' practice in Orlando on Monday. Jamison was granted permission to attend the Super Bowl in Miami on Sunday, but he said he was unable to make his commercial flight into Orlando.

He said that when he originally planned to go to Miami nearly two months ago, he had booked a private jet out of Washington, but with the blizzard keeping the team in Orlando over the weekend, he bought a commercial round trip-ticket. But he said he got caught up with the rest of the Super Bowl revelers at the airport Monday morning and couldn't catch his early morning flight.

"It was crazy," Jamison said after the Wizards' morning walkthrough at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte. "I thought everything was going to go smoothly. But it was a lot of people. It was hard getting out on time and on schedule. I wasn't fortunate to get back in time."

Jamison wouldn't say how much he was fined, but when I asked, he smiled and said, "They got me."

He joked that with the experience he had watching the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl, the fine may have been worth it. "It was great. I had a nice little suite. Enjoyed it. Saw a good game," he said.

Jamison is a native of Louisiana but said he had no rooting interest before he arrived in Miami. That quickly changed once the game began. "You kind of wanted them to win. The suite I was in, it was nothing but Saints fans. And they partied like crazy," Jamison said. "They was tore up before the game started. But it just brought me back to my roots and stuff like that. We had a good time. It was a great game, great atmosphere. Unfortunately, I missed the flight and missed practice, but glad I got the opportunity to go and mentally get away for about 24 hours."

Morning brew

The Wizards (17-32) play their last game before the all-star break tonight in Charlotte. In this morning's newspaper, Michael Lee writes about how this could also be the last game they play before a drastic makeover. Caron Butler, the subject of numerous trade rumors, says this disappointing season could have been viewed differently if the Wizards had more success in close games.

Here is Ken Berger's roundup of trade rumors on CBSSports.com.

Antawn Jamison did not make it back to Orlando for practice yesterday after spending Sunday in Miami for the Super Bowl. He was scheduled to join the team today in Charlotte.

The snowed-out Wizards-Hawks game from Saturday has been rescheduled for March 11. That means Washington will play games on three consecutive nights. The team visits the Detroit Pistons on March 12 and hosts the Orlando Magic on March 13. As Michael Lee tweeted yesterday:

Even worse, the Wizards start a 4-game West Coast trip 2 days later. So that's 7 games in 11 days. ... not to me[n]tion a day off on the 14th then back2back out in Utah and Denver on the 15th and 16th

Around the League ...

There were three games last night, highlighted by Vince Carter scoring 48 points in Orlando's 123-117 win over the Hornets.

Highlights of that and more are below, courtesy of NBA.com's Daily Zap:

Saturday's postponed game between the Washington Wizards and the Atlanta Hawks has been rescheduled for March 11. Here's the NBA's announcement:

NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2010 - The National Basketball Association announced today the rescheduling of the Atlanta Hawks at Washington Wizards game that was postponed on Saturday, Feb. 6. The Hawks and Wizards will make up that game on Thursday, March 11 at 7:00 p.m. ET at Verizon Center in Washington D.C.

That means the Wizards will play on three consecutive nights: March 11 vs. Atlanta, March 12 at Detroit and March 13 vs. Orlando.

Saturday's game was postponed due to the snowpocalypse. Read about the Wizards' ticket exchange policy here.

Antawn Jamison was unable to catch his early morning flight out of Miami and missed the Wizards' practice on Monday in Orlando. Jamison had a suite at Sun Life Stadium to watch the New Orleans Saints defeat the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, in the Super Bowl on Sunday night. He called the team to inform them of his problems getting out. He plans to join the team in Charlotte later in the afternoon. The Wizards will play the Bobcats on Tuesday.

The Wizards finished what Saunders called "a mini-all-star break before the all-star break," with the snow in the District keeping them stranded in Orlando over the weekend. "Overall, it's probably been good. We've had some spirited practices," Saunders said. "No doubt, winning that last game helps. Guys have a sense of feeling good about themselves and we can be more demanding of what we expect in practice from a perfection standpoint."

Caron Butler said he used the time to relax. He even went to the movie theater to watch, "Dear John."

"Good movie," he said.

The time in Florida worked out for Brendan Haywood. "I'm glad to be in Orlando rather than in a snowstorm. I didn't have any food in the house, so I would've starved. I was actually glad to be here," he said. "It really hasn't been that crazy for me; a lot of relaxing time in the hotel room. Seeing all the sights in Orlando. It really hasn't been that bad."

But Haywood did have a rough night on Sunday. He is, after all, a Colts fan.

"I was hurting. The Colts didn't complete the mission," he said. "It probably means more to the city of New Orleans than it does to Indianapolis, but as a Colts fan, I'm disappointed. I still wanted to see them win because I love Peyton Manning. I think he's the greatest quarterback in the game, despite what happened. I wanted to see him get a win so that there would be no doubt that he goes down as the greatest quarterback of all time. The only true mistake he made was that [game-deciding interception to Tracy] Porter."

Morning brew

The Washington Wizards avoided snowmageddon by staying in Orlando after Friday's comeback win against the Magic. In case you missed it, here are Caron Butler's thoughts following his stellar 31-point performance on Friday.

The team isn't exactly complaining about spending a couple of extra days in sunny Florida. In fact, Antawn Jamison flew to Miami for the Super Bowl.

He'll join the team on Monday, when they head to Charlotte for Tuesday's game against the Bobcats.

Of course, Saturday night's game against the Hawks was postponed -- and it has not been rescheduled yet. But the team did announce ticket exchange procedures.

Around the league ...

Only two games were scheduled on Super Bowl Sunday: The Magic came back to beat the Celtics, 96-89; and the Raptors topped the Kings, 115-104.

Highlights below, courtesy of NBA.com:

But should Wizards follow Memphis' lead and move him to Cleveland?

Antawn Jamison wasn't necessarily upset that the Wizards were unable to get out of Orlando this weekend. Sure, he would've loved to make it back to Washington and play the Atlanta Hawks at Verizon Center last night. But since the game was postponed, Jamison had a much easier commute to Miami, where he plans on watching the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl.

Jamison caught a short flight to Miami after Sunday's practice in Orlando. He'll join the team on Monday.

This will be the first Super Bowl that Jamison has ever attended, but the Louisiana native said it has nothing to do with the Saints participating. He's not even a Saints fan. He said he's a fan of individual players and thinks Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the game.

Jamison has no rooting interest in the game, but he purchased a suite at Sun Life Stadium so that he could have a good time with several of his friends. He said his wife, Ione, granted him some time with his boys to help get away; with this difficult season with the Wizards providing few opportunities for fun. Jamison made a similar trip to watch North Carolina win the national championship in Detroit last season.

I know there has been a lot of talk lately about the Wizards being reluctant to move Jamison to Cleveland given the bad blood between the two franchises. The apprehension is believed to be rooted in three hotly contested playoff series, and Larry Hughes's departure in the summer of 2005. The prevailing sentiment from people around the league is that President Ernie Grunfeld has no desire to help Danny Ferry and the Cavaliers win a championship by giving them Jamison.

But I had a recent conversation with an Eastern Conference executive who made a very interesting point. The executive said the Wizards should only be concerned about interest of the organization - not what Jamison could do for the Cavaliers - and used Memphis as an example.

Around this time two years ago, the Grizzlies traded Pau Gasol to the Lakers for Kwame Brown, Marc Gasol, Javaris Crittenton and two first round picks. The move was roundly panned around the league, with Grizzlies General Manager Chris Wallace credited with "gift-wrapping" a title for the Lakers.

San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich was one of the more outspoken critics of the trade, calling it "beyond comprehension" and suggested that the NBA establish a trade committee to oversee all lopsided deals. But recently, even Popovich had to backtrack, with the Grizzlies emerging as one of the surprise teams in the Western Conference and Gasol developing into a quality NBA center.

Although Pau Gasol reached the NBA Finals and won a championship the next season with the Lakers, it wasn't going to happen for him in Memphis. Jamison's dreams of winning a championship are not going to be met in Washington. Holding on to him doesn't really help either side.

Of course, Cleveland also has to be wiling to give the Wizards a deal as sweet as the one Memphis received for Pau Gasol. Some reports have the Cavaliers offering Zydrunas Ilgauskas's expiring deal, J.J. HIckson and a first-round pick, but I heard from a league source that the Wizards have not been offered that much. The Wizards, according to the source, have made their demands known to Cleveland, which so far has been unwilling to budge.