Speeding Bullets

You should be proud of Antawn Jamison.

“I can’t tell you how much more competent we feel when he’s on the floor,” Tapscott said of Haywood.

Haywood said the Wizards should easily take any position from fifth and above next season. “For us, it comes down to health. It always has,” Haywood said. “It’s never been a question, ‘Can we play?’ It’s, ‘Can we play healthy?’ If Gilbert Arenas is healthy, I think we can go out there and compete with anyone in the league. He’s not even at full speed and he’s getting double-digit assists every night.

“When Gilbert Arenas is on, with myself, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison. I feel very confident about where we can be next year, especially if we get a guy like, say, Blake Griffin, and throw him into the mix,” Haywood said. “And if we have any other offseason moves, we’ll see what happens. I think the core is strong, when healthy, and I think some of our young guys have had a chance to play and grow up a little bit.”

One player who benefited from the absence of Haywood is Javale McGee, who has only played 14 minutes in the 3 games since Haywood’s return. That tells you something about how much McGee would have played had Haywood been healthy all season. [Ironically, Haywood was injured while blocking a McGee shot.] GM Ernie Grunfeld likes the kid.

“He’s shown some flashes of what kind of ability he has. Obviously there are lot of things he needs to work on,” Wizards General Manager Ernie Grunfeld said about the player he drafted 18th overall out of Nevada last summer. “He still has a long way to go, as with a lot of young players. But the potential is there for him to be a very solid NBA player.”

My view is that McGee hasn’t played nearly enough this season and I still don’t know why minutes at center were given to players who aren’t really centers when McGee was sitting on the bench. The kid has problems. He’s not experienced, he doesn’t know how to get thru screens and he’s still easily fooled on defense. However, he’s a great athlete, can run the floor, jump out of the gym and has shown real flashes of ability on offense, defense, rebounding and shot-blocking. He needs to add a lot of muscle, but that’s something he can do in the offseason. I’d also like to see more hard work from Javale, as I get the feeling he’s learning too many lessons from Andray Blatche.

2. Washington Wizards, $70.6 million payroll, $3.72 million per win … All went wrong here: The early firing of coach Eddie Jordan amid the essentially season-long injuries to center Brendan Haywood ($5.5 million) and All-NBA point guard Gilbert Arenas ($14.7 million), who had signed a six-year, $111 million contract last summer. The Wizards are optimistic of a resurgence based on a return to health, the investment in a new coach and a strong result in the draft lottery next month, which may well result in them trading their pick for immediate help. They may also need to leverage the draft in a trade to save $6 million or more in order to sneak under the luxury tax next season.

Yeah, next season. That’s what it is all about now. Has been for some time.

Tags: Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood, Cleveland Cavaliers, Javale McGee, Washington Wizards