"A Truly Mindless Game"

Sam Smith of Bulls.com was a recent witness to a Chicago style beat-down of the Wizards. His review of the Wiz, not too favorable, even with golden-boy rookie John Wall.

Thibodeau after the game was explaining how basically all teams would win the championship if not for injuries. So he began to mention the Wizards players, the guys, of course, who have a 1-28 road record. Hinrich was traded to the Hawks five days ago and already has more road wins there than he had with the Wizards had all season. 

“Wall is terrific,” Thibodeau waxed enthusiastically. “(Nick) Young is terrific, “(Andray) Blatche is, er, certainly an established player.” 

That’s right. Even Thibodeau couldn’t get himself to sell Blatche. 

The Wizards play a truly mindless game. Wall runs down like a sprinter shot out of the blocks and tries to throw lob passes when he could get an easy layup. Blatche is a seven footer with athletic advantages who spends most of his time taking difficult, baseline fallaways. The Bulls had a 48-22 edge in points in the paint, which told you where the teams were scoring from. Young never met a shot he wouldn’t take.

JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet. 

The Wizards play a truly mindless game. Wall runs down like a sprinter shot out of the blocks and tries to throw lob passes when he could get an easy layup. Blatche is a seven footer with athletic advantages who spends most of his time taking difficult, baseline fallaways. The Bulls had a 48-22 edge in points in the paint, which told you where the teams were scoring from. Young never met a shot he wouldn’t take.

JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet.
JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet.

REACT: It's my feeling too, that Wall is not as good as the marketing hype wants to make him out to be. I also wonder if he "gets it." This doesn't mean I'm not happy to have him. It just means let's not make him the "face" of the franchise, just because there's nothing else right now. And let's not assume that he's somebody you can "build around" just because he was #1/#1. 


As for the rest of this roster, Smith is right. It's a mindless mess. A truly awful collection of rusted, spare parts,  that gives a half-assed effort about 80% of the time.

At Least The Band Will Be Playing As The League Sinks

Please note this photo. It is of a generic meeting room, at a non-descript hotel in not-so-glamourous Chantilly, VA.

Yes, the NFL saw fit to make sure somebody was in charge of shipping, mounting, and installing the giant, 8-foot illuminated NFL Shield - just so they can sit around and run this $9 billion tanker into the rocks while looking super official.

This picture says it all.

The ship is going down. But the band will play, and the emperor's official logo shall be given prime placement for this disaster.

Why You Need An iPad. Period.

Well, okay. You don't NEED anything, short of food, water, and shelter. But you need an iPad. Trust me on this one.

Steve Jobs came out of medical leave today - like Punxatawny Phil seeing his shadow - to introduce/hype the iPad 2. If you listen to him, it will "change everything" all over again.

Not really, but the new rig looks awfully sweet.

Well, let it be known that I am not some irrational Apple fan-boy who just buys anything the company pumps out. I still think their OS is needlessly mickey-mouse, and Microsoft's Windows 7 has been nothing short of a rock of Gibraltar on my everyday laptop.

And yeah, as somebody who has TWO Gen-1 iPads - a non-3G iPad (wife and kids) and my own 3G enabled version - I do get rather cheezed that obvious features like a camera were (intentionally) excluded out of the gate just to help squeeze an extra cycle of sales out of us hopeless early adopters.

That said, you do need an iPad. You just don't know the how and why, until you have one.

The kids use it all the time for games. I use it all the time at lunch to read while eating (is there anything better?) It's a killer movie player for plane flights (your battery won't run out, like your laptop) and yes, you can plow through email and other more boring work related tasks.

For me, the best thing about it are the newspaper apps which keep getting better and better. The NY Post app is my favorite, thanks to the Post's tabloid sensibility, and obvious conservative tilt. The sports stories are heavily NY-centric, which I kinda enjoy in a voyeuristic sense.

But here's the most unexpected joy of my iPad, and the newspaper apps I use now every day - the photo clarity is simply stunning! Usually, the NY Post runs at least 2-3 "slideshows" embedded in the digital paper.

One is a "celebrity" slideshow, which has a nice 8-9 servings of Hollywood/music/models doing various things. Always nice to keep tabs on who is looking good, and who is losing some steam on their fastballs.

Another slideshow is a "today in photos" version that spans the globe. I love this slideshow, because it always involves photos of poor bastards in some far flung hellhole on the globe, dragging a pile of sticks on the back of their donkey back to their thatch hut of a home. It helps remind you, just how f'ing lucky you are to be living in such opulence as a middle class American, indulging yourself in expensive tech toys like, well, an iPad!

And then you have a few sports slideshows, which deliver such gorgeous, high resolution photos, you sit there and just marvel at the details.

Of course, not everybody is in love with the iPad. I get it. Maybe I am a sucker. But in a capitalist free market society, if Steve Jobs and his tech geniuses keep cranking out these innovative products that tickle my techie sweet spot, then I'll probably keep plunking down for them.