I love this blog. Please keep up the good work.

I have a couple thoughts on Etan v. Brendan:

1. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and though neither are great their contrasting styles (Brendan's length vs. Etan's hustle and strength) seem to complement each other enough that they could result in a decent 2-headed center.

2. I'd rather see Etan get the bulk of the minutes because he works harder and brings more on offense, but..

3. It probably won't matter in the long run because Etan is not durable enough to handle heavy minutes. He plays hard so I'm not criticizing him, but his body just can't seem to take the pounding without breaking down. I just hope he's at full strength (or the Wiz find a better solution at C) come playoff time.

Hi Ivan,

Great blog, as always. Interesting thoughts on Songaila pulling some center minutes. That could provide some interesting matchup problems. Given the dearth of quality centers in the league, it could work from time to time. How good a passer is Darius? Eddie likes passing, even though this team doesn't do it much. Both Etan and Brendan avoid it whenever possible; probably because they get so few touches, that when they do have the ball, getting rid of it again is a horrifying thought. Who knows when they'll see it again?

I'm concerned less with the Center position and more with the total lack of back-up at the 4-spot.

Don't get me wrong. I love Anatwn's dedication effort and persona. His professionalism has gone a long way towards helping players like Gilbert mature. But on his best days Tawn's got little 'power' in his 'forward'.

In fact his entire game is predicated on avoiding contact. His running flip shots work because they are entirely unguarded, they's shot with odd timing before the defensive player can make an effort at it. Ditto ttimes three his 3-pointers. Hit 'em where they ain't is his motto.

Even his rebound totals are increased oddly by his lack of contact: he cheats away from bodying up on his man on defense in order to be in position to run for a loose ball.

But that's all well and good. I can't ride him for it. 'Near 20 and 10' is good enough for me, and this squad doesn't win many games without him. In fact check the top 7 most successful Wiz line-ups last year: Tawn is in all of 'em. (Hells, Gilbert is even missing from one of the set.)

Problem comes when the Wiz tried to sit him last year. We had JJ who may have been mostly useless on offense, but who could still keep his arms up and stay in front of a Big Man or a Wing Forward. His presense meant Caron could post up and pound on 2-guards down low.

But now, unless we get a real leap from our Pivot players, we have no offensive options in the paint other than perimeter slashers on kamikaze missions divebombing the rim.

Now, we do fine with that. Rack up the Number One Most converted free throws in the league. But sometimes you want the option to unleash a monster in the front court and say sicc'em.

Gawd forbid Antawn takes an injury more than his usual 9 stitches at halftime. Now we have Ruffin behind him and an untested redshirt rookie like Bulletproof32.

Here's a prayer of quick healing for Darius Songaila; a suddenly mature 3-point shot and post game for 'Proof; and guardian angels/the armor of good karma for Antawn Jamison.

An offseason goal was to get some back-up for AJ. We let JJ go on the concept that we got the help we needed. But Darius gave everything he had for the LTU, and O-Pec is staying overseas this year. What can ya do?

(Don't matter anyway on that last point. Pecherov, or 'Big Pecker' as we like to call him, is injured right now too).

-doc

www.realgm.com/boards Wizards site.

Top 5 man Wiz line-ups.

http://www.82games.com/0506/0506WAS2.HTM

Great jobs guys and thank you! I totally appreciate these blogs and the hard work you do for us. :)

"For whatever reason - I think it's his length - Brendan seems to bother Z and take him off his game."

Exactly!

He gives people problems because of his lankiness. Etan is NOT scary. This is why Brendan is servicable to me. If he would concentrate on defense more then it would be to his benefit but for whatever reason he doesn't.

It's funny, I brought up to friends that Georghe Muresan(sp?) used to give Shaq all kinds of problems simply because he could see eye to eye with him and he was big. People laugh when I say that but if you go back and look at the tapes it's true.

(Thanks for nothing Billy Crystal :P)

Brendan is that same type of player, if he would just show up every night AND play defense then it could be the difference in competing for a championship or just for a playoff spot.

I'd still rather have all new big men but you've got to go with what you have.

BTW Ivan. Have you talked with Gil's latest revelation on his NBA Blog:

http://www.nba.com/blog/gilbert_arenas.html

About his dad teaching him to ball:

"Every Sunday, you know, we'd go to Balboa Park. He was teaching me before, you know, the actual guys came and started playing so we're playing 1-on-1. So, I was reaching, you know, reaching for the ball, and he was like, "If you keep reaching, I'm going to break your pinkie." You know, thinking, "Yeah, right," I reached in there, he grabbed it. CLICK. Wooo! My right hand. I kicked the ball. I quit. I wasn't really serious about basketball then, I was just doing it because he was playing. I was like 10 or 11, I didn't get serious till I was 12.

We just put a little cast on it, put it in a little sling. "

Uh. Pretty sick, dude. I kinda guess you'd end up a little 'quirky' with things like this rolling around in your braincase.

The above poster's comment about Muresan reminded me -- you know which great player Gheorghe frustrated the most? Olajuwon. Hakeem's game was built on all those spins and fakes one way and another to get his defender out of position, but Muresan was so slow that he would just stand there while Hakeem was faking every which way. Then after doing all his great fakes Hakeem would look back up and see Muresan still standing there and would just give up, jumping backwards five feet to take a fadeaway. High comedy. God, I miss Gheorghe.
Ivan's comments about how Jordan wants to use Songalia at center explains why Grunfeld picked Pecherov when there were probably better players on the board. They see him as their center of the future (or at least a PF/C).

Ray, your comments on Muresan/Shaq are accurate. Big Gheorge infuriated Big Aristotle, because he was the one guy who wouldn't be moved back when Shaq lowered his shoulder going to the rim. Same with Hakeem. I remember a game he had like 36 points, and the opposition center said "The guy (Muresan) is like 7'-7", and he's shooting turnaround jumpers!" Ah, those were the days.

Hi Andrew. Welcome to the blog. I have some thoughts on Brendan and Ethan as well: they both suck.

I love Ernie Grunfeld too but I'm going to take a second from our collective ball washing and say this: the Ethan Thomas contract is one of the worst contracts ever right there with the Jim MCClvaine Seattle signing. Putrid. Also, I am pissed at GMEG because of this Songaila nonsense. Dudes that have back problems have histories. He should have known this. Don't give us this shabingus that now that he could be out until December says a source (GMEG). We should have known better. Upsetting.

Again folks, I'll say it. I love the Wizards and my boy Bernard King watch about 78 of the 82 regular season games live with the tradition dictating that we order Chinese from Mei Wah...Mei Wah and the Wizards...it's like macaroni and cheese. There is no way we win the East. We will be the sixth seed and get bounced by the Cavs in round 1. Unless we trade for Shawn Marion. Done talking about it.

I'm really at a loss on this Etan/Brendan issue.

I thought this debate was solved a couple of years back?

For all of Etan's activity and attitude its been Brendan who's quietly been the more effective player year after year. The fans, coaching staff and yes even the media seem to confuse activity with results.

The truth is Brendan is the Wizards best defender and has been for the past couple of seasons (sorry JJ). As has been mentioned, his length causes all sorts of problems for opposing low post players. He's the only legit low post defender the Wizards have. When he leaves the game, teams start aggressively attacking the rim b/c Etan (outside of the occassional block) and Michael Ruffin offer little resistance. Brendan even at his worst (last season)is still more effective player than Etan.

Etan for all his flexing and piercing stares, is too undersized to really excel against starting NBA centers. The few times were he's done well has mostly come against NBA reserves.

And its not like Etan can stay healthy or provide consistent play. How long before his play tapers off and he gets hurt again? Other than his contract year, when has Etan come close to completing a full season?

I don't see how anyone can't say Eddie's past relationship (or current for that matter) with Brendan isn't playing a factor in this.

i doesn't matter who the starter is at center. They are both going to get playing time. Can Brendan Haywood really look at his stats and think he should be starting? When one of those two steps up and averages 10 pts and 10 rebounds and plays good defense we might have a good team.

I do think that Haywood matches up well with the Big Z. He should match up with him when he is on the floor. for that reason alone he should start against Cleveland.

How is Haywood scary, though? Sure, Thomas doesn't impose fear in the hearts of his opponents, but when does Haywood. If you're playing Brendan, you know he's going to be lazy and take plays off. That wouldn't scare me.

Muresan gave Shaq problems because Muresan was tall and thick. Shaq couldn't overpower him. But, on the other hand, 'Zo would completely obliterate Muresan because big Gheorge had no quicks.

I miss Manute Bol.

along with the other comments, thanks much for the blog - great stuff. ivan - i was one of the posters critical of songalia - while i agree and understand why songalia would play for lithuania both in terms of playing for your country and b/c injury playing for lith doesn't cost him nba money, he apparently wasn't worried about getting better playing for lithuania (which makes sense given that the "season" was so short), but now that he is getting paid, he is sitting out to get better. obviously that is the smart thing to do in the long run (tho i have a bad feeling that surgery and out for the season is coming), and im all for playing for you country, but im guessing if he has a choice between resting his back and not playing for his country and getting paid $5M or playing for his country and not getting $5M, the choice might have been different.

end of the day, that's the way NBA contracts are structured, so i make the same call as he did if i am in his position, but it is unfortunate.

on the brendan/etan thing - may be a moot point - i suspect we are going to see a lot of etan at the 4 with no jeffries and no songalia.

Pete, it absolutely matters who starts at center for this team. The Wiz have plenty of offense, and will likely have more this year; what they lack is defense. If they gave up just a point less per game, they'd probably have 5-7 more wins.

As someone else wrote, look at the +/- figures; that tells you how effective a player is. http://www.82games.com/0506/0506WAS1.HTM
I'm not sure why Eddie doesn't recognize this, but he's hurting the team by keeping Haywood on the bench so much.

This isn't to say I'm love with Haywood as a player; but compared to Thomas, he's much more effective, no matter how much energy Etan has. Facts are facts.

Haywood isn't scary. The best way to describe him I think is that he's "servicable."

Against stronger big men he will gets beat up on, but against centers like Ilgauskas who aren't as physical he holds his own.

Etan doesn't the body to be a center, or the length.....or the heart in my mind.

Yikes, sorry about the typos!

concerning Songaila.. you think he lead the Wizards on.. fully knowing the extent of his injury BEFORE signing the deal? He might have masked the pain in his physical and workouts with the team before siging... and then complain after he inks his multi-year deal. I mean.. it seems a little suspect to me.

no i don't think he was injured when he inked the deal. i think he was injured during the world championship and played through it. now that that is done, he is trying to get better (and clearly isn't playing through it). it is just ironic that he plays through it when he isn't getting paid and doesn't when he is. given how the contracts are structured, can't blame him for that as i think most would make the same decision. it just would have been nice if he had started trying to heal as soon as he got hurt, rather than continuing to play and probably aggravating it, knowing that there would not be any fiscal penalty if that happened, as it did.

I do not blame Songaila. If he were playing for US national team, we probably would commend him for his patriotism. So I don't see any wrong in him trying to suck it up and play it through for his country.

As for Wizards' defense improvement, it still remains to be seen. I'll wait till regular season begin to comment.

Ivan, Michael, can you ask Eddie Jordan about Haywood's +/- stats, showing how much more effective the team is with him on the floor, and why he doesn't play Brendan more when the stats clearly favor giving him more PT?

I just read today's article about Gil. Is there any other athlete in the NBA that seems to take to his city as much as he does? Maybe behind Ovechkin, he's the best player in the DC area. MAYBE behind Ovy.

This guy is a boon to the area.

Regardless if the Wizards every "break through" to that next level or compete for a championship, Gilbert Arenas has saved this franchise. The Wizards were pretty much the Siberia of the NBA, but now Arenas has put this franchise back on the map. The fact that he is also charitable to the community, gives back and doesn't isolate himself, goes above and beyond what can be reasonably expected of any professional athlete.

LaVar = poser
Gilbert = the real deal