Free Ballin’

Really, I can’t watch them unless they’re playing against the teams I most enjoy seeing.  And though I want to see if Gilbert Arenas is back to form, the Wizards are so hard on the eyes that I haven’t seen enough of him to have an opinion.  It’s just ugly.  Their core guys don’t pass much—they never have—or play much defense—they never have—and their “stars” Arenas, Jamison, and Caron Butler clash terribly—they always have.  I don’t mind guys who take a million shots and don’t pass much, as long as they don’t monopolize the ball.  And the Wizards’ offense is stagnant with those three ball-hogs on the court.  (Jamison not so much in the post, just on the perimeter.)

You could say the Wizards symbolically chose this style of play some years back, when they acquired Jerry Stackhouse for the young Richard Hamilton.  While Stackhouse pretty much stopped the offense every time he touched the ball, Richard Hamilton barely ever has the ball in his hands; he gets it and it’s gone, either a shot or a pass, but he makes a decision and the offense keeps going.  In fact, though Hamilton has a fairly ugly contract—about $12.5M through ’12–’13—I would move him for Jamison in a second.  And since they’re going to re-sign Butler anyway, I’d take Hamilton over him, too.  Just something to get the ball moving.

Whatever they do, they’re going to build around Arenas; they have to.  They’re blessed/stuck with that contract for years.  And he’s only slightly more willing to move the ball than Allen Iverson is—and that may no longer be the case.  I think you have to approach a team with Arenas the same you would those prime AI 76ers teams: stack the team with guys who don’t need the ball in their hands to be effective.  Whatever the case, as long as they’re spending $50+ million a year on Arenas, Jamison, and Butler, they’re going nowhere.  I’ll tune it to watch a lousy team with a future, like the Nets, over the Wizards any day.  At least one you can project, wonder how it’s going to turn out.  You already know how things are going to turn out for the Wizards—nothing to see there.